Author Archives: Alan

The BBC are pretty keen to dissect anything to do with Christianity, not so keen with Islam, they are quick to disembowel the Tea Party….Paul Ryan suddenly comes on the radar and Ayn Rand is ‘rubbished’…but ‘Occupy’ is glorified and given a halo of respectability and moral authority.

Is it really leaderless, does it have a nice, heart warming for the good of mankind ethos as its basis, is it really all about equality and responsible capitalism?

No, not at all…..the vast majority…say 99%, are ‘useful idiots’ being manipulated to provide cover for the usual ragtag  bunch of anarchists and Marxist revolutionaries:

‘Neo-anarchists and other far leftists provided part of the core leadership of Occupy in a number of cities. They deserve credit for helping spur the movement—even if flash movements don’t require extensive organization or recognized leaders to make a bright and dramatic entrance and to have real effects.

There were leaders—yet OWS tended to deny they existed. Without any formal means of selection, they were there. They talked more, stayed around longer, filled the most important committees, and shaped decisions. To sustain and expand the flash movement these leaders believed that it was important to assert the primacy of its “mass” forms and to make a virtue of an alleged lack of leaders.

Many of these leaders, as well as a number of those who helped to get Occupy off the ground, were evasive about their views. What made the movement dynamic (and interesting!) was its link to the dismay and anger of many Americans about unfair inequality, bad economic conditions, and political inability to fix either. Yet anger at economic trouble, unfair inequality, and weak political leadership doesn’t lead toward approving the full agenda of the neo-anarchists and neo-communists. This agenda calls for undermining present forms of political authority, replacing market society (capitalism) with anarchist and/or communist economic schemes, and unmasking liberal institutions as coercive frauds. Asserting this agenda loudly and clearly would have distanced its advocates from the strong currents in public opinion that sympathized with OWS.

Within the left 5 to 10 percent of the American electorate, parts of the neo-anarchist agenda can get a serious hearing, without producing much support. More broadly these views have no real standing. People who believe them can help organize movements and be active in them, but this requires modulating or concealing their own commitments.

Affirming the virtues of a leaderless and unprogrammatic movement afforded room for maneuver for actual leaders, without requiring them to articulate and defend their political and ideological positions.

The Tea Party and of course Obama’s 2008 campaign overshadow OWS in political significance, but for the moment they stand together as three instances of a volatile and exciting politics that we are deep into without understanding very well.

If Occupy was mainly a vivid and significant flash movement that had a real effect on public debate, that’s important now and later. This experience signals new forms of political and social expression. Initiatives from outside the centers of political power can rapidly shift the terms of political debate and act.’

Justin Webb and Co always have a pop at the American ‘Right’, or what they categorise as ‘Right’…..those who like to hunt, fish, like pickup trucks and hamburgers…and are Christian.  If they come from the South, and are white, or from the ‘Bible Belt’,  all the more fun for the city slickers on the Today programme.

I know who I would rather chew the cud with given the choice:

The Cowgirl from Oklahoma  ‘Born and raised in the country, I Love wide open spaces. Enjoy camping, fishing, hunting, and any form of outdoor cooking, hot, warm and cold smoking. Preserving what I hunt, catch, raise or forage. I enjoy being able to provide food for my table. I’m thankful for each day and will never take anything for granted.’

And she is a great cook. (Scroll right down).

Blond, white and coming from Oklahoma, the ‘Beltbuckle’ of the Bible Belt, having dubious hobbies and interests she is clearly someone to be denied a vote and a voice.  Can’t really see her being invited onto the Today programme for her views on politics unlike the string of left wing actors, writers, artists and singers who are brought in to provide a human face and ‘street cred’ to the BBC’s anti-Bush/Romney or pro-Obama machinations as nobody really trusts dodgy journalists however famous they are.

Bizarre but true.

It seems the BBC will go to any lengths to nick you for non-payment of the license fee….even to go so far as to ‘create’ the evidence against you:

This is what the BBC will not tell you about the beliefs and actions of the Muslim Brotherhood….and remember the Muslim Brotherhood is well established in the UK.

First:

‘Last week in Egypt, when Muslim Brotherhood supporters terrorized the secular media, several Arabic websites—including Arab News, Al Khabar News, Dostor Watany, and Egypt Now—reported that people were being “crucified.” The relevant excerpt follows in translation:

A Sky News Arabic correspondent in Cairo confirmed that protestors belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood crucified those opposing Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi naked on trees in front of the presidential palace while abusing others. Likewise, Muslim Brotherhood supporters locked the doors of the media production facilities of 6-October [a major media region in Cairo], where they proceeded to attack several popular journalists.

El Balad adds that the supporters of Tawfik Okasha, another vocal critic of President Morsi—the one who widely disseminated the graphic video of a Muslim apostate being slaughtered to cries of “Allahu Akbar”—gathered around the presidential palace, only to be surrounded by Brotherhood supporters, who “attacked them with sticks, knives, and Molotov cocktails, crucifying some of them on trees, leading to the deaths of two and the wounding of dozens.”

Second:

WARNING….EXTREMELY GRAPHIC KILLING OF A MUSLIM WHO CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY.

‘For those who prefer not to view it, a summary follows:

A young man appears held down by masked men. His head is pulled back, with a knife to his throat. He does not struggle and appears resigned to his fate. Speaking in Arabic, the background speaker, or “narrator,” chants a number of Muslim prayers and supplications, mostly condemning Christianity, which, because of the Trinity, is referred to as a polytheistic faith: “Let Allah be avenged on the polytheist apostate”; “Allah empower your religion, make it victorious against the polytheists”; “Allah, defeat the infidels at the hands of the Muslims”; “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.”

Then, to cries of “Allahu Akbar!”—or, “God is great!”—the man holding the knife to the apostate’s throat begins to slice away, even as the victim appears calmly mouthing a prayer. It takes nearly two minutes of graphic knife-carving to sever the Christian’s head, which is then held aloft to more Islamic cries and slogans of victory.’

(The video link is in the article itself if you really want to watch it….trust me it is very gruesome and unpleasant)

Last week as the BBC were praising Mohammed Morsi for having removed the Army from powerful government positions the Muslim Brotherhood supporters were on the rampage against Christians and those who dared to leave Islam.

‘In fact, only the other day a top Egyptian Salafi leader openly stated that no Muslim has the right to apostatize, or leave Islam, based on the canonical hadiths, including Muhammad’s command, “Whoever leaves his religion, kill him.” Islam’s most authoritative legal manuals make crystal clear that apostasy is a capital crime, punishable by death.’

Biased BBC by its very nature doesn’t often praise the BBC, or rather, doesn’t praise some of its professional, reliable and scrupulous journalists.

One such journalist could be Ross Hawkins  (7 mins) who delivered an excellent overview of the latest controversy over the sale of school playing fields…or rather the new rules for regulating such sales.

He explains the complexities and various scenarios simply, with clear insight into motives and likely outcomes…it is all intelligent and without drama or any perceivable political side to it.

In other words exactly what you would hope to receive from a highly professional BBC intent on keeping the public up to date on the latest news and all viewed from a completely neutral standpoint.

Why do I mention this? Because so many of his colleagues fail utterly to work to these standards…and it seems the more senior they are the less inclined they are to toe the line. The longer they have been in the job the more complacent, arrogant and ‘untouchable’ they become, seemingly left to their own devices as long as they don’t do anything too outrageous and obvious.

This attitude is not only prevalent in the Today programme but is endemic across the BBC from its other key news programmes to its environmental reporters and the darkest corners such as ‘Wake Up to Money’.

Perhaps Ross Hawkins is the result of a new ethos and training at the BBC’s journalism college…if so, good. However that still leaves a lot of ‘old timers’ in place who will be around for years to come not living up to the ideals and standards that should be demanded of them.

If you can’t teach old dogs new tricks and get them to mend their ways, move them to another job where they can’t stagnate and become bored and disinterested…..or sack them.

The excitable Evan Davis could learn a lot from the calm and concise Hawkins.

From Guido Fawkes

‘The days of Big Media’s gatekeepers deciding what is news and what is not news, are long gone. We decide tomorrow’s news…

And so it turned out, as the “Guardian of Beeb“ story not only made the Sun but was also the subject of blogs by Dan Hannan at the Telegraph and Roy Greenslade over at the Guardian themselves. Greenslade asked “Why is that so surprising?” It wasn’t to Guido.

Greenslade was on the money when he wrote

“There are so many similarities between the BBC and the Guardian aside from assumptions about politics. Both organisations are free of commercial ownership, with the corporation funded by licence and the paper owned by a trust.”

Which isn’t an unbridled good. It imbues both with an anti-profit ethos bordering on anti-business as well as anti-capitalist.  The shared mindset of the two organisations is most clearly visible in their coverage of America and Israel. The Republican party is extremist because they don’t subscribe to left-wing nostrums and Israel is the primary cause of trouble in the Middle-East. These are axiomatic truths for the Guardian-BBC axis of “progressiveness”…’

The BBC has survived for a long time shrugging off numerous attacks and complaints, relying on its historic reputation for fairness, balance, truth and accuracy to maintain its position and the support of politicans and others well placed, and inclined, to shield it from destruction.

That reputation is jealously guarded, the BBC willing to fight through every court in the land and at huge cost to hide wrong doing by its journalists.  It has become a massive operation, one of the most powerful and influential media machines in the world.  It has given itself a wide remit and there is not an area of the media in which it does not have a major presence. Despite being a publicly funded and supposedly independent organisation it also has the enormously successful BBC Worldwide which generates a revenue of over £1.5 billion…..

‘BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, a fast-growing media and entertainment company designed to maximize BBC profits by creating, acquiring and developing media content and media brands around the world. It has annual revenue of approximately $1.5 billion.’

It is a monolithic and overpowering presence in the media world, able to crush competitors at will…not only able to but willing to use that power….in conjunction with the Labour Party and the Guardian it of course launched an assault on Rupert Murdoch’s own media empire, News International…the BBC’s commercial and ideological rival or opponent.

Its web presence essentially puts out of business many other news providers who rely on advertising for their revenues, its local radio and popular culture stations such as Radio 1 and 2 all compete against commercial stations who of course are at an enormous disadvantage in not having the ability to force people to pay for their services whether they use them or not.

It publishes a large number of magazines, again massively distorting the market, it provides educational services to schools and the Open University, it of course provides services to climate change propagandists and works in conjunction with them…as at the CMEB….and the  University of East Anglia.

The BBC is an ever growing monstrous presence that has far outgrown its basic remit to entertain, educate and inform.   It uses its size and power to influence Party politics, it manipulates the news and what appears as ‘stories’ so that the Public are given versions of those stories that are designed to influence their thinking and change their perceptions rather than allowing them to make up their own minds.

The BBC has become something that is at complete odds with everything it was set up to defend…democracy, liberty, freedom of thought and speech, an exposition of truth, accuracy and honest reporting.

It is too big, too corrupt politically, too arrogant and too unaccountable.

It is no longer fit for purpose.

It is time for a change.  A renewed ethos, a renewed thirst for truth, integrity and genuine journalism, a renewed urge  not to be the biggest and best but just to be the best.

If a man named George Entwistle can’t get back to basics who can?

Unemployment is down…but Stephanie Flanders is on the case…..she says it should be good news……but to her mind it is a sign of a sickness at the heart of the British economy…and it’s probably all George Osborne’s fault.

‘To get rid of that longer term mystery, the ONS would have to decide that everything it had said about GDP in the past two years was wildly wrong…..implausible, even to those – like the Bank of England – who believe the ONS does tend to understate growth.

Of course, there is the other possible explanation, that the jobs figures are actually worse than they look.’

Unemployment going down plays against Balls’ assertion that the government is borrowing because unemployment is pushing up welfare costs….that can’t be if unemployment is going down…funny Flanders not raise that little issue.

If only  we had a Plan B.

It’s been a recurring theme all day on the BBC (and over recent months)….questioning the validity of the unemployment figures…when they’re going in a downward direction  that is.

Either they are wrong or the jobs are the wrong sort of job…apparently.  I don’t remember any such qualms about employment figures under Labour…or crime figures…if Labour said crime was going down Mark Easton would be on the case defending the validity of those figures everytime a Tory minister suggested that they may be wrong.

Flanders admits in the end that she can find no real answer (er…perhaps jobs are being created to do work that is being created?…simple)……but she isn’t going to let you carry on thinking that there is any good news to be had under a Tory Chancellor.

Keep sowing those seeds of doubt and perhaps Ed and Ed will get elected…and she can get some great scoops with her close personal contacts.

Surely any half awake, half decent journalist would go to a company that is employing more workers and just ask them ‘Why are you employing more people?’

Is it really a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes?  Shame we have Clouseau on the case.

Mark Thompson has got a new job…as Chief Executive Officer, and President, of the New York Times…the US version of the ‘Guardian’…and equally loss making.

How much might the man who presided over the anti-capitalist BBC be paid?

Well look at what his predecessor got paid and her ‘retirement’ fund:

Robinson’s compensation in 2010 totalled $4.48 million, an 8 percent drop from $4.86 million in the prior year, based on The Associated Press’ analysis of data filed with regulators on Friday

Janet Robinson, the New York Times Co. chief executive officer who was pushed out in December, received an exit package, including stock options and retirement benefits, of $23.7 million.

Robinson gets pension and supplemental retirement income valued at $11.4 million, performance awards of $5.39 million, restricted stock units worth $1.07 million and stock options worth $694,164, according to the company’s proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. She will also earn $4.5 million in consulting fees for this year.

Robinson’s exit, which costs Times Co. more than the company earned in the past four years, marks an end to a period during which the publisher’s sales and earnings slumped amid intensifying online competition. Times Co. (NYT) stock plunged more than 80 percent during Robinson’s tenure as CEO, which began in December 2004.

Wonder just how much investigation and angst there will be amongst the good people at the BBC when they realise how much Robinson was paid for failure…and about how much the new boy must be getting as he has jumped ship from the poor relation that is the BBC.

Let’s hope all those bankers don’t do the same and scarper abroad when their pay is docked because of pressure from the moralising BBC!

THE NEIL REPORT

STATEMENT BY THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

For the BBC impartiality is a legal requirement.
BBC journalists will report the facts first, understand and explain their context, provide professional judgements where appropriate, but never promote their own personal opinions.
We will make our journalistic judgments for sound editorial reasons, not as the result of improper political or commercial pressure, or personal prejudice.

“At the moment every newspaper is desperately seeking an Islam expert, who then becomes the mouthpiece for the entire set of issues and is always asked to proclaim the ‘official’ opinions from the lectern.”  Hilal Sezgin.

The BBC itself seeks out those Muslims it thinks will be best suited to provide an image of Islam that non-Muslims will charmed by and gulled into a complacent acceptance of an ever increasing Muslim influence upon their lives….and see it as beneficial or at least not harmful to them.

I have already mentioned the first episode of the BBC’s ‘One to One’ programme in which the BBC gives us an entirely one sided view of Islam…presented by a Muslim and only talking to Muslims.

It is outright propaganda designed to assuage your doubts and fears about Islam….to persuade you that it is essentially harmless. However a close look at the programmes and the Muslims who are interviewed and their beliefs should raise more questions about Islam and its increasing influence than it answers. The presenter, Razia Iqbal, as seen before, doesn’t seem too friendly towards Western culture.

In the second programme  she talks to Hilal Sezgin, whom Iqbal calls ‘Turkish’ rather than German in the interview……

Razia Iqbal talks to Hilal Sezgin

Razia Iqbal explores what it means to be a Muslim in modern Europe. Here she talks to the German writer and journalist, Hilal Sezgin, at her small farm just outside Hamburg.

It’s a fascinating interview….enlightening but paradoxically sabotages the BBC narrative about Islam…because, despite Sezgin calling herself a Muslim, and Iqbal obviously going along with that, Sezgin is not Muslim.

That’s a bit of a bombshell (a surprise to her too no doubt) of which more later.

First let’s hear what she has to say about Islamophobia….

Firstly she claims integration is not a one way street, the majority culture has to compromise as well….really? Isn’t it more often that Muslims come here and demand we change our lives to suit them…but refuse to compromise theirs at all?

She claims that no one cares about non-Muslims being homophobic or people not being  feminists or being creationists, but are solely critical of  Muslims who are homophobic, or anti-feminist or who believe in Creationism.

So the Church of England isn’t under enormous pressure about gay marriage, or everyone loves Germaine Greer , or Richard Dawkins doesn’t constantly assault belief in creationism from all walks of life?

She claims the ‘infamous’ Thilo Sarrazin and the majority in Europe who support his views are Islamophobic and therefore prejudiced and racist….Islamophobia is everywhere, spreading throughout Europe as shown in every day violence, racism and now in politics.

Though in the village she lives in she has never faced any prejudice.

Ironically perhaps, it turns out that ‘Muslim’ Sezgin is the only ‘islamophobe’ in the village.

But still she insists that anyone who criticises Islam is prejudiced and racist.

OK, say we go along with that premise…what does that make Hilal Sezgin?

As I stated earlier, Sezgin cannot be considered a Muslim, why? Listen to what she said…but first know that the Koran is the inviolate word of God, unchangeable and final. The Koran cannot be changed or ‘re-interpreted’…therefore Islam cannot be reformed….there is only one Islam….no polytheistic worship and no sects.

In the interview Sezgin tells us that she has her ‘own version of Islam’….Liberal, unorthodox and progressive.

So she has invented her own ‘Islam’ then…..so breaking two cardinal rules of Islam…do not change the Koran and do not form a sect…she’s a ‘Splitter’.

Who am I to judge though….what do her fellow ‘orthodox’ Muslims think? Not much apparently….‘Suddenly‘ she tells us, ‘she didn’t want to be part of the German Muslim community because they rejected her and pushed her out for her views on Islam.’

The very fact that she has felt the need to produce her own version of Islam tells you immediately that she believes that something is wrong with Islam….she has become a critic of Islam…so is she herself now one of the Islamophobes, a prejudiced racist?

Just how critical is she? Quite it seems…not only has she got her own version of Islam but she has rewritten the Koran, that Unchangeable Word of God……

‘Together with the Egyptian reform theologian Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, she recently presented in the book “Mohammed und die Zeichen Gottes” (“Mohammed and the Signs of God”) a modern interpretation of the Koran.’

That is not all…she is a member of ‘The Liberal Islamic Federation’ …The movements include among other things a new interpretation of the Koran and the exegesis of the Qur’an, criticism of traditional beliefs and partly a rejection of Hadith .

The ‘Hadith’? What might that be? Only the Prophet Muhammad’s own interpretation of the Koran….and therefore taken as the one true interpretation…as he would know if anyone did, wouldn’t he? As he made it all up.

So she rejects Muhammad’s Islam. But she’s not Islamophobic?

Ironically she supports, entirely unintentionally, the ‘Islamophobes’ arguments….that Islam needs to be changed…..it can’t be of course…which creates a problem…one which the BBC absolutely refuses to discuss or allow onto the air.

Even Sezgin agrees that a deeper knowledge of Islam is needed……

‘Sezgin laments the lack of alternate viewpoints in this media discourse, which sometimes fails to demonstrate the most basic background knowledge or any inkling of farsightedness.

Whether due to ignorance, blanket judgments or the wrong choice of imagery – a one-sided picture of Islam has dominated the media ever since 9/11. And journalist Hilal Sezgin thinks that competent colleagues and commentators are in short supply in this field.

“The 11th of September inevitably prompted people to ask themselves: for god’s sake, what kind of religion is this that I belong to? Is there something about Islam I’ve totally misunderstood?”, Sezgin wondered after the horrific terrorist attack.’

Of course she thinks she is saying Islam has been misreported and it is lack of education that makes people ‘Islamophobic’……I would suggest the opposite…it is the lack of insight into the true nature of Islam that allows the Great and the Good of the Establishment to continue to bury their heads in the sand about the dangers of Islam to Western, secular, democracies and chatter on about it being the ‘religion of peace’.

Remember how often the BBC regales us with tales of the glories of the Islamic Golden Age of Science…what does Sezgin and crew think?:

‘Liberal Muslims tend to skepticism about the possibilities of the Islamisation of modern knowledge (for example, with regard to Islamic finance , Islamic philosophy and Islamic science in general).

Liberal Muslims consider attempts to establish Islamic forms of science as a political move often conservative Muslims.’

So the BBC’s position is essentially a political one to raise the profile of Islam.

Sezgin is by any definition not a Muslim…it is disingenuous of the BBC to present her as a stereotypical Muslim, one whom we should all look to as an example of the true character of the Muslim community growing around us.

That’s not to knock her views…in fact they are exactly what is required…however as said….her views mean she is not a Muslim….and so cannot be at all representative of Islam or Muslims.

You may also want to look at Hanif Qadir from the first programme in more detail…here is a previous post on him.

Now you can believe or not what he has to say about his decision not to fight in Afghanistan…however…2002, when he was there…the fighting was basically over, the Taliban were on the retreat to Pakistan…relatively few Americans were in Afghanistan….mostly Special Forces…the fighting was done by Northern Alliance Afghans….also note how Qadir continually attacks the West and America…claiming the US was just bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age….and seeing US troops standing over the bodies of women and children in an arrogant manner.

He suggests that it is right that Muslims feel anger, frustration and marginalization….but wrong that they become radicalised…..he admits Muslims say one thing to the media… ‘Islam is the religion of peace’…but say completely different things at home.

Personally I never trust these ‘reformed’ jihadists…..they may have decided not to use an AK47 or RPG but still ‘evangelise’ for the religion and seek to increase its influence and growth.

As an FBI agent said in “Muslim Mafia” …. ‘CAIR and the other Muslim Brotherhood front groups differ from al-Qaida in that, while all share the same goals, they use different methods to achieve them.

“The only difference between the guys in the suits and the guys with the AK-47s is timing and tactics,” the official explained.’

Gerry Adams gave up the bullet for the ballot….but note that he said The Struggle will continue…he remained committed to the same cause that he spent years terrorizing NI for but now seeks to accomplish it by democratic means.

In many ways that is the more dangerous and successful method…because most people do not see the danger creeping up on them until it is too late.

Hitler of course was also elected…and supported by the Great and the Good.

Out of 40 tweets from Mardell 28 are about Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney.

For ‘two boring white men’ Mardell certainly finds a lot to talk about on them….not so much on Obama…..how’s his campaign going then?

Just as well we have a Guardian hit on Obama to even things up in one fell swoop (The BBC haven’t let it bother them):

‘This swiftboating of Mitt Romney disgraces Barack Obama

When John Kerry was defamed in 2004, Democrats cried foul. Now, they’re soiled by their own lies over Obama’s Super Pac ad

For the past 10 days, the president’s Super Pac – Priorities USA Action – has been running a Swiftboat attack on Republican Mitt Romney so grotesque, so dishonest, so debased, as to force you to wonder who this Obama guy is, and whether he has been that guy all along. The ad features a former steel worker named Joe Soptic, recounting the death of his wife from cancer, after Soptic lost his health insurance when Romney’s Bain Capital shut down the steel mill in 2001.

“I don’t think Mitt Romney understands what he’s done to peoples’ lives,” Soptic says.

What Soptic doesn’t say, and what the ad leaves out, is that: a) Romney had left Bain Capital for the Salt Lake City Olympics when the plant was shut down; b) Soptic lost his health insurance, but his wife remained covered at her own job; c) she was not diagnosed with cancer till five years later; d) during which interim she held subsequent jobs and other insurance coverage.

Yet, the message is unmistakable: Mitt Romney has blood on his hands.

Such tactics are beyond obscene. They are depraved.

And so is obliterating inconvenient facts to accuse the presumptive Republican nominee of homicidal neglect.

Meanwhile, the patron saint of hope and change has said not a word. It would have been so easy:

“I am Barack Obama and I emphatically disapprove this message.”

But, nope, mum’s the word. And the silence speaks volumes.‘

That’s one Guardian piece they won’t be reading out when they review ‘what the papers say’.