Author Archives: David Preiser (USA)

Viewpoint: You Are A Potential Far-Right Extremist

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Here’s another “Viewpoint” from the Left. And it’s a real insight into the beliefs of the Left and the BBC on this particular issue. When I directly associate this viewpoint with the BBC, I do it because this essay didn’t happen randomly or spontaneously: it was predetermined by a BBC editor, as are all these “Viewpoint” pieces. They want something on a given topic, and they go out and find someone to do it. So I believe it’s quite fair to tie the BBC to Goodwin’s mast (or is the other way around?) In any case, here it is:

What are BNP supporters really like?

The opening section is a classic example of using an outlier to make a point about the main group. You’ll never guess who academic Matthew Goodwin chose to use as his example of a BNP member. But first, as this is a classically structured piece from an academic-type, Goodwin has to do the exposition, in which he sets the scene for his protagonist.

Sharon was born and raised in the local village. She knew everyone, and devoted much of her spare time to helping the Residents Association. She was never really that interested in politics. Her husband was a Conservative, but she only went along to the meetings because she liked the sandwiches.

So we the “A” theme: an ordinary citizen, a good neighbor, etc., someone who was never politically active before. Now for the “B” theme.

But then, over the years, things began to change. For Sharon, it seemed as though the way of life she had become accustomed to was under threat.

She talked about feeling a sense of injustice about what had been perpetrated on her fellow citizens – our increasing involvement with Europe, the loss of our manufacturing base, a dwindling sense of respect among young people and the creeping advance of political correctness.

You can all guess what’s coming next, right?

But more than anything, she was concerned about a new phase of immigration into the country. She was profoundly anxious, especially about the impact of this rapid and unsettling change on her friends and loved ones.

Her concern wasn’t simply about the economy. It stemmed from her feeling that British culture, values and the national community were under threat.

This is not meant to be a strawman (woman), because Goodwin’s agenda is not merely to strike it down. He’s got a much bigger point to make. So on to the development section. So far, this is someone whom we could easily dismiss as being the usual xenophobic Little Englander, who hangs the St. George Cross out her window even when there’s no sports tournament going on. But then we get the shocking revelation about our Sharon, meant to focus your concern:

Sharon was Jewish, and the party that she decided to join was the British National Party.

Shock

This is very clever. By using this outlier, whom Goodwin believes should cause some cognitive dissonance in his readers, he can instantly claim that the awful beliefs of the BNP are spreading far beyond the usual white suspects.

Though aware of its history of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, for her the far right was the only movement that was serious about tackling the threat from Islam.

As if it’s only the far right who are concerned about it. Right there we have the Narrative. Any concern about the specific type of Islamic immigration is “far right”. The development of her tale continues, in which Goodwin tells us of the approbation Sharon faced from her friends, neighbors, and even her boss, as well as abuse from the local anti-fascist kiddies.

Sharon told me she could handle all of that, but what really hurt, she explained, was that she was reviled by the very people that she was fighting to protect.

Now the big picture, Goodwin’s main goal here, is starting to come together.

When I asked Sharon why, despite all of these consequences, she carries on there was little hesitation: “Because doing nothing is not an option. I am fighting for the survival of my people.”

“My people”, as in the British people. I must say it’s very refreshing to see something allowed through the BBC in which a Jew is presented identifying herself as British without hints of dual loyalty. Better still, Goodwin doesn’t present this is as Jew vs. Muslim, either. He uses her as an example of how the “far right” concern about how extreme immigration policies are harming British culture is spreading. That, to Goodwin and the BBC, is a very, very serious problem.

So he starts with the scaremongering.

I spent the next four years travelling up and down the country to interview some of the most committed followers of the far right. Conventional wisdom tells us there is something “wrong” with people like Sharon. Implicit in the stereotypes is that they are driven by crude racism, irrational impulses, and psychological problems.

The inadequacy of these stereotypes became quickly apparent during the interviews. On the whole, most of the activists appeared as relatively normal people.

What a shock, eh? Who could have imagined? Although notice how anyone concerned is still labeled “activist”. Goodwin realizes that it’s ordinary, apolitical, non-activist people feeling this way (hence his use of our Sharon to set the scene), but can’t process it. They’re still all activists to him. In other words, this is not an ordinary concern, held by ordinary people who don’t have a specific agenda of any kind. The next bit is very revealing of his and the BBC’s mindset, though. Check out the attitudes laid out, as if this is what everyone ought to think about the BNP or anyone concerned about extreme immigration:

Rather than isolated, they seemed well connected to their local communities. Rather than irrational, they had a clearly defined and coherent set of goals. Rather than psychologically damaged, they seemed balanced, reasonable and articulate.

How many people outside the far Left and the BBC and Leftoid media believe that anyone concerned about extreme immigration must be psychologically damaged? As I said, very revealing of the mindset. Goodwin spends another paragraph on his realization that not everyone he spoke to was a Nazi. Then he again uses Sharon as a launching point to show how these concerns are spreading. And he continues to use the “extremist” label.

Driving back from that first interview with Sharon, my mind wandered to my own grandparents who had expressed similar though not as extreme views about the scale and pace of immigration. I used to ask them why they never supported parties like the BNP, or the old National Front and they would look at me as though I were mad: “The Blackshirts?’, they would say, “oh no, we’d never vote for that lot.”

Implicit in their reaction is a sentiment firmly entrenched in the collective British mindset – that no matter how bad things get, Britain is immune to the appeals of extremists. It is difficult to quantify, but centres on the notion there is just something fundamentally “unBritish” about supporting extremists.

The thought occurs at this point that at no time does Goodwin discuss any of the other platforms of the BNP, e.g. Socialism, anit-war isolationism, or deporting Jamaicans as well as all Muslims. If one supports even a single one of their notions, one is then labeled an extremist. It’s the intellectual fascism of the Left which causes this kind of thinking. One must not hold a single unapproved thought, and any thought which isn’t approved by the bien pensants is “extreme”. There is no reasoned argument, no middle ground permitted.

And so the point of this Viewpoint is that this “extremism” is spreading much farther than we might think.

But is Britain really immune to a successful far right party? I think it would be mistaken to assume that this tradition has deprived extremists of fertile soil.

When we look at the evidence there is a large reservoir of potential support for a far right party. Large numbers of us have become concerned about the issue of immigration – at one point, it was more important to us than education, crime and the NHS.

In fact, one out of every five of us thought it was the most important issue facing the country. And the concern was not simply about competition over jobs or council housing. Surveys told us that two-thirds of the population thought Britain was “losing its culture” because of immigration.

Note the clever academic use of the first-person plural. In this way, Goodwin cements the notion that more and more ordinary people – possibly some of your neighbors, friends, or even relations – might be susceptible to this extremist thought. Fortunately, he’s much sharper and more honest than your average BBC journo regarding the actual concern about extreme immigration:

Also, those who are concerned about immigration are not concerned simply about traditional immigration. Significant numbers of us are also anxious over the presence and perceived compatibility of settled Muslim communities.

“Settled”. I like that. Presumably that includes “no-go areas”. Are those merely “perceived”? The mindset is revealed again.

At the time that two BNP members were elected to the European Parliament in 2009, over two-fifths of the population expressed agreement with the suggestion that even in its milder forms Islam poses a danger to Western civilisation.

Now we get the conflation of concern over extreme immigration and the refusal of some to join society with religious bigotry. It’s a slippery slope from here, really. Goodwin begins to attack the credibility of those who express concern about extreme immigration.

Muslims now find themselves at the core of a new and potent far right narrative, which vilifies Muslim communities while claiming to defend traditions of tolerance, gender equality and the rights of homosexuals. It downplays socially unacceptable arguments about race in favour of more acceptable arguments about the compatibility of values and cultures.

In other words, any of you here who complain that the BBC tends to play down or ignore how the more conservative, fundamentalist Muslims treat women and homosexuals are really just bigots using a smokescreen. You don’t really care about women getting acid thrown on their faces or young girls sent off to Pakistan to be forced into copulation with a middle-aged man, or killed by their fathers and brothers for being seen with a non-Muslim, or about regular executions of homosexuals. That’s all a facade used to slip your bigoted beliefs in under the door.

It is quite easy to see how this argument could be implanted in Britain. Imagine a far right populist who was free of extremist baggage and who talked about the need to oppose Islam in order to protect British traditions of parliamentary democracy, or who rallied against Muslims while proclaiming to defend the rights of women, homosexuals or civil liberties.

“Far right”. If you have any concern about extreme immigration, or that honor killings, abuse of women, no-go areas, the transformation of your neighborhood into something in which you are made to feel alien, or even just your local shop no longer carrying your favorites in favor of comestibles from another country, you are “far right”, and extremist. Again, no reasoned argument is allowed, no middle ground permitted. You’re either with Goodwin, or against common decency.

The rest of the piece is more of the same, but the last line is very amusingly blinkered, in which Goodwin drives home his theme about the BNP message spreading far and wide:

My view is that if they were free of baggage and political amateurism they would be met with significant support.

He’s taking the position that this is only about how the modern BNP is attempting to re-create its image, and distance itself from the fascists of distant memory. But it’s clearly much, much more than that. The concern about extreme immigration goes far beyond people how identify as “far right”, and that scares him. Goodwin seems not to understand that people can draw the conclusion that unfettered swarms of fundamentalists from medieval or even more primitive societies will have difficulty integrating and will do what most every other immigrant group has done historically: live amongst their own kind and attempt to recreate a bit of the old country in their new home. This is normal behavior for all immigrant groups, but becomes a real problem when the incentive to join the society of their new home – even only peripherally, in the manner of many ultra-orthodox Jews, for example – is not only removed but anyone who asks about it is scolded and ostracized. Yet Goodwin and the BBC believe that this is only a “far right” viewpoint, and one that can really only be spread by “far right” extremist activists.

The other problem is that he insists on associating concern about a single issue with all the rest of the “baggage”. Goodwin will not address the issue of extreme immigration except to tar anyone concerned about it as being “far right”. Debate is stifled yet again. And this, sadly, is exactly the BBC Narrative on the issue.

PS: Goodwin is described as an academic who is “an expert in electoral behaviour and extremism at the University of Nottingham”. Curious how his books only on the BNP are enough to secure his bona fides as an expert on extremism. Is there no extremism from the other side? Or his he an expert only on one side of the spectrum? I think we know the answer to that, and I won’t hold my breath waiting for a “Viewpoint” piece coming from the other side.

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Rod Liddle Explains BBC Pro-Euro Bias

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The former editor of Today, Rod Liddle, has a brief blog post for the Spectator defending his former colleagues at the BBC against charges of a pro-Euro conspiracy. That sentence doesn’t contradict my headline. As most people here know by now, Peter Oborne wrote recently about how Liddle complained to upper mandarins about the complaints he was hearing about the obvious pro-Euro bias among the talent on his programme. He was told in no uncertain terms by a senior BBC figure that Euro-skeptics are “mad”, so those complaints should be ignored.

How many different topics now have we seen to receive the same treatment, I wonder? Warmism, the EU, open borders, the evil of the Tea Party movement, “Green” Energy, the list goes on. Sometimes it does seem that there is a coordinated effort to get a certain Narrative out there. On quite a few stories, as has been shown on this blog time and time again, the exact same position is taken by the presenter on several different programmes, radio and television, not to mention BBC News Online, essentially across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting. Then there are those quotes on the sidebar of this blog, particularly the one from Jeff Randall, in which he says that the bias is visceral, they don’t even realize they’re doing it. To put it another way, it’s in their DNA (you knew I couldn’t resist that one).

So following up on Robin Horbury’s post about yesterday’s biased performance by James Naughtie, now Rod Liddle confirms it. Liddle heard the show, and has a few words to say on the matter.

The BBC was too wet to have concocted a Euro plot

I heard my name mentioned on the Today programme yesterday, which is always nice, to be remembered by your old manor. The journalist Peter Oborne was castigating the propagandist forces, as he saw them, which back in 2000 attempted to convince of the need for greater European integration and joining the Euro. These were, he said, the Financial Times, the CBI and the BBC, pre-eminent amongst which latter was the Today programme. Jim Naughtie picked him up on this and pointed out that at the time the programme was edited by me, and I could hardly be described as a Europhile (Jim said this with a soft veneer of loathing). He was right; I was editor back then and was mildly Eurosceptic. Oborne responded by saying that I had also complained about pro-Euro bias in the BBC but that my complaints were ignored.

So it wasn’t just Robin and John Anderson who inferred a negative attitude from Naughtie, eh? Liddle continues:

This isn’t quite right; Oborne seems to imply that there was a covert plot within the top echelons of the BBC in favour of the European project, and that’s not true either. It is rather more the case that the civilised, decent middle class liberals who ran the corporation genuinely believed that the Eurorealists were a bunch of deranged xenophobes, one step up from the BNP, and therefore their arguments should be discounted. I realise that covert plot or otherwise the result was the same – a heavy pro-Euro bias, and so you might argue my quibble does not matter. But the BBC’s bias was arrived at through a sort of inherent wet liberalism, rather than an actual plot as such.

And there you have it. This is exactly what this blog has been saying – not just about the Euro, but about a variety of topics – since its inception. There is a self-affirming, ideological groupthink on these issues at the BBC because of the personnel. BBC hiring practices ensure it, BBC editorial policies enshrine it, and the style guide reinforces it. It’s not just us saying this anymore. This will not change until there is a wholesale purge in certain departments, and complete rethink on journalistic practices.

I can’t leave without including one more bit from Liddle:

One part of the Beeb back then which was, however, entirely on board with the Euro project was the Brussels office. We presented the programme from their studio on one occasion and kicked the EU from pillar to post, to the clear discomfort of the resident correspondents. Our team, in the manner of football hooligans, then plastered their office with Just Say No and Referendum Now posters and stickers. I suppose you could argue that this showed clear anti-Euro bias on our part, but it was really just a spirit of mischief and an attempt to remind our Brussels colleagues that the country was not entirely behind the project, as they might have thought.

That last line could have been said about a dozen issues. Come see the bias inherent in the system.

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The BBC Continues To Lie About History And Censor Calls For Ethnic Cleansing

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Apologies for the lengthy title, but there are two issues here which need to be covered, and I’m combining them into one post. First, the BBC’s continued attempts to lie and rewrite history.

Q&A: Palestinian statehood bid at the UN

Most people here will know exactly what’s coming, and I know this has been covered here many times before, but it’s even more important to call the BBC out on it now because of the looming UN fight over creating a State of Palestine. For the benefit of those who don’t know the BBC’s bias about the “West Bank”, here’s the map they use to explain history to the public:


Notice on the left, the BBC is claiming that there was such a thing as the West Bank (i.e. Palestinian) Territory before the 1967 war. They’ve just erased a chunk of Jordan from history. As we all know, that was part of Jordan at the time, a country at war with Israel. Why else would Israel have invaded? This map indoctrinates the public with PLO propaganda, that Israel invaded sovereign Palestinian territory. Your license fee is being used to promote false history and anti-Israel propaganda.

Reality, on the other hand, is not Israeli propaganda. This map of Jordan – from a non-partisan source – and environs showing the borders during part of the 1967 war in question is fact, not fiction:


Notice the clear border lines of Jordan encompass the area about which the BBC is lying. Yes, I am accusing BBC News Online of telling a lie. I don’t care what some Beeboids personally believe about nasty old Israel’s land grab or the plight of the poor Palestinians or anything else. This is historical fact, and the BBC is lying about it. How can there be an honest Q&A about the topic when one of the answers is a lie? Until they remove that first map and replace it with an honest one, my accusation will stand.

Needless to say, this propaganda demonizes Israel in the minds of the public. Most people are seriously uninformed about the facts of Israel and 1967 and the “Palestinian Territories”. When one tries to explain the facts to get past the emotions, one is then accused of spouting Israeli propaganda. This is how the BBC’s editorial policy and style guide is blatantly biased, causing them to demonize Israel at every opportunity, although the BBC disputes this.

It’s impossible to have a civil discussion, national or otherwise, about the situation when the national broadcaster promotes propaganda for one side and demonizes the other. This then promotes anti-Jewish sentiment, but that’s a topic for another time.

Now for the BBC Censorship angle. Last week, Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian ambassador to the US, said that there should be no Jews in a State of Palestine:

“Well, I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future,” he said when asked by The Daily Caller if he could imagine a Jew being elected mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah in a future independent Palestinian state. “But after the experience of 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interests of the two peoples to be separated first.”

Actually, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about their desire for a Judenfrei Palestine. He said the same thing a year ago. Not only that, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said the same thing last year, and went further:

Almost no notice was taken of another pre talks decision that the PA chairman revealed, as he announced clearly that if a Palestinian Authority state is created in Judea and Samaria, no Israeli citizen will be allowed to set foot inside.The PA chairman also stated that he would block any Jewish soldiers from serving with an international force stationed on PA-controlled land.

“I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land,” Abbas declared.

Judenfrei, Judenrein. And the BBC has steadfastly censored all of this. Justin Webb didn’t bring it up to the feckless Lord Levy on Today, it doesn’t feature in any BBC News Online report about Israel or the Palestinians, and it hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else on the BBC. If someone can show me one single example of it, I’ll post it here, shocked but grateful.

Without the truth and all the facts, it’s impossible to have a rational debate and reasonable understanding of the situation. Yet the BBC actively prevents that, promoting propaganda for one side, rewrites history, and censors the Palestinians’ desire for ethnic cleansing.

ADDENDUM: Here’s Katty Kay interviewing US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, in which Katty states uncategorically that only Bibi Netanyahu is the problem, and Amb. Rice corrects here. No surprise that this is Katty’s belief as she recently tweeted to her followers that this New York Magazine article – which blames Netanyahu and uncritical, “steadfast” support for Israel in the US Congress as the only obstacles to peace – is “All you need to know about the frosty relationship between Barack and Bibi.”

Why, it’s almost as if there’s a groupthink on this issue extending across the spectrum of the BBC.

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BBC Censorship: "Spot The Missing Book Report" Editon

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A few days ago, the media got wind of a new unauthorized biography to come out about someone who holds no public office, is not running for one, and had virtually no public profile until 2008. There were a couple of personal scandalous allegations, and the media turned into the usual shark feeding frenzy, including the BBC. That private citizen is, as we all know, Sarah Palin. The BBC reported that her husband wasn’t pleased with the allegations.

Sarah Palin’s husband Todd attacks biography for ‘lies’

It’s a small mention, but they reported it nevertheless. Notice also that the BBC also rushed to inform you back when this writer had moved in next door to Palin, and then added a follow-up story when she built a fence to maintain her privacy.

Now the media has got wind of a book about someone who does hold a public office and is currently running for re-election, but similarly had virtually no public profile before 2008. This book describes infighting and incompetence in that public official’s administration. The media is about to leap into a frenzy, and it’s troubling that public official enough to launch a strong response, and some of the administration officials quoted in the book are, like Todd Palin, not pleased with the allegations. The BBC has not reported this. Of course, that’s because this book is about the President.

Apparently, He has the one minor quibble with His performance:

“I think one of the criticisms that is absolutely legitimate about my first two years was that I was very comfortable with a technocratic approach to government … a series of problems to be solved.

And He also compared Himself to Jimmy Carter:

“Carter, Clinton and I all have sort of the disease of being policy wonks. … I think that if you get too consumed with that you lose sight of the larger issue.”

Oh, and apparently the White House was a sexist old boys’ club where women felt excluded and ignored. How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya, BBC?

More media coverage here and here, so you know the Beeboids know about it, and that it’s a story they would cover if it didn’t make Him look bad.

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Editorial Independence, Or Unaccountability?

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Can somebody please read this update of the BBC Agreement (as in “Charter & Agreement”) and tell me if “Editorial Independence” actually translates into “Unaccountability”?

Continuing Agreement

Concerns have been expressed that the NAO reviews could lead to individual star’s salaries becoming public, or the details of managerial decisions on finance, because the NAO can ask for any information it needs for its audit. The wording of the agreement makes no specific reference to those concerns and no such information has been revealed in previous NAO reports on the BBC.

A Trust spokesperson said: ‘The NAO already have full access to the information they need to carry out reviews of the BBC; today’s announcement confirms and continues that arrangement. In addition it will now enable the NAO to decide which areas to look at, but in an arrangement where it will continue to submit reports to the Trust. We believe that the terms agreed build on the BBC’s existing relationship with the NAO to the benefit of licence fee payers, while preserving the BBC’s independence.’

Editorial Independence

The agreement makes clear that whilst the NAO is ‘entitled to review any BBC decision’ it is not entitled to ‘question the merits of any editorial or creative judgment or policy decision about the way BBC services are made or distributed.’

The Trust will still do its own value for money reviews, in fact the agreement requires it to lay out its own programme of such work each year. The NAO can’t examine the same area as the Trust in the same year.

The NAO will submit its reports to the Trust, which will prepare a response before sending both to the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament.

There’s more at the link. The NAO (or anyone else, presumably, like OfCom) can say what they like, but the Trust will decide what to present to Jeremy Hunt, decide what is value for money, and decide if the BBC can syphon off extra Government/taxpayer cash to spend on the World Service. (Hopefully not for hiring yet another field correspondent to cover the US.)

This sounds like unaccountability by any other name.

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A Beeboid Wakes Up In Egypt

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I lost count of how many times during the Egyptian revolution against the Mubarak regime people here pointed out how anti-Israel sentiment was a key issue in the country, and how this was constantly played down by the BBC. I’m sure any worrying here was summarily dismissed by defenders of the indefensible as being typical nonsense from “Israel Firsters” or the inane mewlings of people who see anti-Semitism everywhere à la Jerry Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo.

I’ve also lost count of how many times the BBC has tolerated the notion that Jews anywhere in the world must suffer for their support – or even assumed association – with Israel. We often try to point out the difference between criticism of Israel and demonizing it, and the latter is a problem with BBC reporting. The BBC even censored news of what’s happened to the Jews in Malmö, Sweden, where even the mayor says that whatever happens to them is deserved if they support Israel. The BBC has still never reported any of that. They’ve censored lots of news of violence against Jews in Europe, another example being the story of how the Dutch police had to start a sting operation where cops posed undercover as orthodox Jews as a way to catch the increasing number of people attacking them.

So imagine my surprise when I saw this “From Our Own Correspondent” piece about anti-Jewish sentiment in Egypt. In fact, I was almost as surprised as the BBC’s Thomas Dinham was to see evidence of the rampant anti-Semitism there.

How I was the subject of anti-Semitic abuse in Cairo

Relations between Israel and Egypt have become increasingly strained in recent weeks, and in the Egyptian capital there is a mounting sense of tension, including incidents of anti-Semitism.

Okay, let’s ignore the nonsense about how it’s only a recent thing. Give the poor Beeboid a chance.

Suspicion is a feature of everyday life in Egypt, and a fondness for conspiracy theories is as much a part of the landscape here as the constant traffic jams and their accompanying symphony of blaring car horns.

With the democratic certainties that greeted the immediate aftermath of January’s revolution having faded, however, the climate of mistrust and unease about the hard-won gains of the revolution is becoming increasingly palpable.

As disquiet sets in, so does the fear of foul play, backroom deals and, increasingly, malign foreign influences.

Back on solid ground here. This is the normal way of things in any Arab/Muslim country, as anyone who has spent more than five minutes anywhere in the region would know. To be fair, this kind of magical thinking – believing the most outrageous, quasi-supernatural causes for anything and everything – exists in many parts of the less developed world, from Africa to Asia. So good for Dinham for using those keen journalistic instincts to notice.

Dinham begins to relate his experience of sitting at a restaurant in Cairo, and beginning to notice the suspicious stares of the Egyptian men around him. A conversation soon starts, and he discovers they think he’s an Israeli. He doesn’t take it very well.

I was shocked. In nearly six months of living in Syria, where orchestrated hysteria about Israel is integral to the very identity of the state, I had never heard the accusation surreptitiously levelled against me.

Neither am I from Israel, nor am I Jewish, but as someone of unmistakably European appearance, I have found myself constantly associated with Israel in Egyptian eyes.

Dinham seems to miss the point here. Anti-Israel sentiment is spread in many ways in Egypt, not just by the government. And here it’s time to clearly separate the notion of legitimate criticsm of Israel from demonization. Most of this is demonization, not criticism. There’s the Muslim Brotherhood for a start. In fact, half the anti-Mubarak noise we heard during the protests was about how wrong he was for making peace with Israel. Assad and the Syrian government have never had to worry about that accusation, so there’s much less reason for people in Syria to be fretting over Israel the way Egyptians do, especially now. If he thinks it’s just the government who spread this stuff, he’s seriously out of touch.

So his story continues. A few days after this, a nearby bridge collapses, making a loud noise, and immediately the locals suspect foul play. Like I said, this is to be expected from people with this magical mindset. Dinham now expects it, too. But then he tries to play it down.

Israel is just one of a panoply of worries that exercise the conspiracy theorists that frequent Egypt’s cafes.

The standard fare of political gossip tends to revolve around the trial of [former President Hosni] Mubarak, internal corruption, and the causes behind the dire economic woes Egypt is currently experiencing.

A prosecuting lawyer at Mr Mubarak’s trial even introduced the novel idea that the ex-president had died years ago, and that the man on trial was none other than an impostor.

Again, this is typical of that mindset. The more wild and supernatural the idea, the more it spreads, and the easier it is to use as an explanation for just about anything. So Dinham doesn’t quite get this, and plays down the Israel angle.

I would hazard a guess that Israel struggles to make it into the top-five political issues discussed in Egypt.

“Political issues”. The problem is that the anger towards Israel is anything but simply political. Does he not realize this?

Israel has probably been less of a concern than the rising power of Shia Iran in the region, which apparently worries many in this overwhelmingly Sunni country, partly thanks to a constant stream of stridently sectarian rhetoric broadcast from Saudi Arabia.

Sounds like somebody has spent too much time speaking with the educated elite, and not so much with regular people.

In the Byzantine politics of the region, hearing strident opposition to Israel and its greatest regional foe, from the same person, almost in the same breath, is commonplace.

Again, magical thinking, not rational. This the result not of legitimate criticism of Israel, but of a relentless campaign of demonization, where Israel is the sole instigator, genocidal, always to blame, the root cause of all ills in the region. No surprise to us, but obviously very confusing to Dinham. So he’s been shrugging it off the whole time, staying inside the elite thought bubble. Until now.

Nevertheless, a strong and sometimes violent dislike of Israel is a fact of Egyptian life, something I was unfortunate enough to discover after a cross-border raid by Israel killed several Egyptian security personnel.

The Israelis had been chasing a group of gunmen who had attacked an Israeli bus close to the border between the two countries.

He’s not blaming Israel for starting it, for a change. He’s just saying the event was a catalyst for what was to come, which is probably correct.

While walking in the street someone pushed me from behind with such force that I nearly fell over.

Turning around, I found myself surrounded by five men, one of whom tried to punch me in the face.

Fortunately, Dinham had an intelligent response:

I stopped the attack by pointing out how shameful it was for a Muslim to assault a guest in his country, especially during Ramadan.

I applaud this. It makes a wonderful counterpoint to what I heard on the BBC News Channel back when Muslims in Paksitan Afghanistan started killing people out of anger against the idea that Pastor Jones in Florida was thinking about burning a Koran. At the time, Huw Edwards was speaking with some MCB mouthpiece about the incident, and expressed his concern that the response from the Muslims was less “nuanced” than some would like. The MCB guy said the violence was perfectly understandable because it was the end of Ramadan, and as people had spent the last month deep in prayer and spiritual contemplation that it was only natural that they’d want to kill. I’m not making that up, and we’ve heard that excuse a lot. So it’s nice to see a BBC journalist stating that violence in Ramadan is not acceptable. In any case, Dinham’s enlightenment continues:

Relieved that a seemingly random assault was over, I was appalled by the apology offered by one of my assailants. “Sorry,” he said contritely, offering his hand, “we thought you were a Jew.”

Too bad his colleagues aren’t equally appalled when this happens all over Europe.

Shaking his head in disbelief on hearing the news, an Egyptian friend sympathised: “That’s stupid, you are obviously not a Jew.”

The chilling implication I was left with was that, had I been Jewish, the assault would have apparently been justified.

Congratulations, Thomas Dinham. Welcome to the real world. We’ve only been saying this for years, while the BBC has tolerated it, played it down, and swept it under the rug. Let this be a lesson to all Beeboids. Jews everywhere are expected to suffer because of Israel, and the demonization of Israel is a direct cause of anti-Semitism and violence against Jews worldwide. Not criticism of Israel, mind, but demonization. There’s a difference.

It’s time the BBC was honest about it.

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How Insane Is Mark Mardell?

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This insane:

The president had waved a copy of his hefty American Jobs Act and told them the USA had to catch up with the likes of China and North Korea in spending on high-speed rail and education.

The President of the most successful, most prosperous country in the history of the world says we need to catch up with North Korea, and the BBC US President editor is fine with it. Doesn’t bat an eyelash.

Okay, I admit I’m being mean. Actually, this is a mad typo. There will probably be a stealth edit tomorrow once somebody points it out to him, so I’ve taken a screenshot. If/when this gets fixed, I’ll post it. Be honest: you thought for a moment that the President actually did say that, right?

The President actually said we should emulate South Korea by adding more teachers. Yay, more government spending. I guess it’s difficult to churn this stuff out, especially when one has to go out amongst the great unwashed in flyover country in search of the elusive Obamessiah supporters, so I’ll be charitable here and shrug off this nutty typo.

Anyways, there’s something about China’s high-speed rail that he doesn’t want you to know about. China’s high-speed rail project has so far killed 11 people, and injured a further 89 people. And it’s losing money hand over fist. And Mardell thinks it’s a good idea to emulate? What is it with Beeboids covering the US and China’s autocratic ways?

Mardell sees nothing fishy – or curiously neglects to point it out – in the President’s seeking out the most sympathetic white audience He ever had, back before the 2008 election, when He was still the world’s sweetheart: students.

The president was talking at Fort Hayes art and design college and one pupil, 18-year-old Mel Dodge, told reporters he was an aspiring lyricist and admires Mr Obama’s skills.

“He chooses his words so beautifully,” said the teenager. “That’s why I came out here today, just to hear that in person.”

That’s just the kind of spiritual boost Mardell needed. Actually, it’s a high school in US parlance. Which means some of them will be voting next year – like Mel Dodge – and the rest are potential noisemakers on His behalf. I know this is just a language barrier thing and not an attempt to mislead. But there’s something else fishy here.

As a high school it’s part of the state/city-funded school system in Ohio. His Jobs Plan For Us has a couple lines sending over $350 million specifically to Ohio’s largest school districts (not colleges). Including the Columbus area, which covers this school. Totally targeted pandering. Oops, Mardell forgot to mention that bit. There’s something else about Ohio he doesn’t want you to know:

Ohio is just about the most key swing state there is when it comes to national elections. The President has spent half of His domestic traveling while in office to swing states. He’s visited Ohio fourteen times. Mardell didn’t want to inform you of that lest you start thinking too much about how this was an election campaign stop, geared in part towards unions. But now there must be a semblance of non-partisanship:

He wasn’t so certain about the politics, unsure that the president’s jobs plan would work. He wanted to look at the Republican field as well before he decides how to cast his first vote.

Yeah, sure. Mardell also has a bridge downtown to sell you. His blogpost is just past its midway point, so it’s time for a party political advertisement.

If Mr Dodge is not convinced, it won’t be through lack of White House effort. Senior advisor David Plouffe is just the latest to offer to answer questions by tweet.

This advertisement was brought to you by the Campaign to Re-Elect the President. And your license fee.

I’ve just got a detailed White House email on the beneficial impact of the act on Montana. Why Montana, I know not, but I am sure 49 similar missives will soon be in my inbox.

Yes, Mark, we know you’re well-connected and on the Democrat mailing list. You don’t need to remind us. Oh, my apologies, I’m being rude. The campaign ad is still going.

The president will, I guess, be on the road until this is done or dead.

“I guess.” That’s very silly, and pretty disingenuous. We all know that’s what’s going to happen, because Jay Carney already told everyone last week that the President will “travel all over the country; we’ll be to a lot of different places.” As if he doesn’t know. Hell, the President’s travel schedule is given out to the press, and it shows that He’s going all over the damn place now, mostly to those magical swing states. Just how stupid does Mardell think his audience is? And it’s not partisan at all, no sir. No way you’re going to hear from the US President editor that the only job the President is concerned about creating is His own second term. That’d be a bit too much analysis. Instead, Mardell gives us one of the more obvious signs of his personal political bias:

He is portraying what is a series of pretty partisan, controversial proposals as plain common sense, that no-one of goodwill could resist.

No one of good will, eh? That’s a purely emotional phrase. Mardell is clearly giving an ideological position, supporting the President’s message. Anyone who doesn’t agree with throwing another half trillion dollars down the rabbit hole would resist, based on an entirely different definition of goodwill, but he doesn’t see it that way, and tells you so. So now it’s time to provide “balance”.

In fact, there is intense debate about his ideas.

There you go. One sentence, with a once-in-a-blue-moon link to a known right-wing pundit, Cal Thomas. If this was from elsewhere, I’d say that might remotely be enough to balance out Mardell’s preceding statement that this “debate” obviously means that there are some who are resisting, and therefore have no good will. But as this is a Mardell post, there’s more coming to support the President.

He got backing on Tuesday for more spending from the Congressional Budget Office’s director, who warned cuts could damage recovery.

He got backing, sort of. But the CBO’s “backing” isn’t quite how Mardell presents it. In fact, the CBO boss says that “changes in taxes and spending that would widen the deficit now but narrow it later in the decade.” Which is pretty much exactly what the SuperCommittee is going to do. Just like in Britain (not including union bosses and UK-Uncut and their fellow travelers at the BBC), nobody really thinks severe cuts are happening this instant or tomorrow. For the US, it’s all about 2013 and beyond, and remember, only in a best-case scenario will there be barely $1.5 trillion cut over the next few years, which is a fraction of the actual deficit we need to cut. That’s why nobody on the fiscally responsible side was really happy about the debt agreement. Hello?!!? Short-term memory, anyone?

The CBO isn’t backing the President in the way that Mardell insinuates, nor are they really repudiating the Tea Party idea and instead siding with Ed Balls and Stephanie Flanders. In fact, what the CBO really says is this (does Mardell think nobody clicks through his links, or does he actually not understand what the following bit means?):

“Attaining a sustainable budget for the federal government will require the United States to deviate from the policies of the past 40 years in at least one of the following ways,” he said. “Raise federal revenues significantly above their average share of GDP; make major changes to the sorts of benefits provided for Americans when they become older; or substantially reduce the role of the rest of the federal government relative to the size of the economy.”

Raising revenues doesn’t necessarily mean draconian taxes only. Growth in industry and consumption raises revenues as well, since that’s all taxed to the eyeballs. So “raising revenues” means a lot more than just taxing the rich even more. And what’s that about changing benefits for seniors? Oh dear, oh, dear. Sounds like austerity and cuts affecting the most vulnerable to me, and as Social Security and Medicaid are going to be just about the biggest government expense in the near and long-term future (aging Baby Boomers joining the rolls, longer-lived population in general), it’s pretty major. Again, this is way more in line with Tea Party ideals than with Krugman/Balls/Flanders. And that last sentence about reducing the role of the federal government speaks for itself, you betcha.

Remember: the CBO boss said “at least” one of these three methods. It’s pretty dishonest to put it as just cuts are bad, m’kay, full stop.

So is that what Mardell thinks supports the President? One could just as easily say that the CBO statement is more about what the SuperCommittee is going to do than about whether or not we should add another half-trillion to the deficit. Oh, hang on: the CBO boss actually was saying this to their faces. The link Mardell provides is about the CBO boss’s first appearance in front of their first official hearing. Nothing to do with supporting yet another Stimulus package at all! Wow. Let’s just shake our heads and move on.

But the president’s plan is ideologically objectionable to most Republicans, even more so now that he has revealed how it would be paid for: by taxing what they would describe as “wealth creators” and what Obama would call the rich, oil companies and corporate-jet owners.

It’s ideologically objectionable to Republicans, but not to anyone of “good will”. How biased can you get? Actually, the President has already caved on the corporate jet issue (perhaps Oprah had a word in his saucer-like?), but never mind. Mardell must have missed that memo. I think a less ideologically blinkered person would mention small businesses as well, as they provide the vast majority of jobs in the country.

This is bound to get messy. The White House has confirmed that they will accept parts of the bill being passed.

What’s that last bit supposed to mean? I thought compromise and bi-partisanship were supposed to be the new American dream? Why is he warning about compromise and bi-partisanship? Weird. Unless one would be unhappy with the President giving in one iota to the nasty Republicans.

The danger for Obama is a loss of his simple message.

What simple message? Where did we see a simple message? Mardell sounds like he drank the Kool-Aid here.

He could get drawn into the wrangling and the less attractive aspects of compromise. He needs all the clarity his lyricism and beautiful words can conjure.

So compromise is bad now. Curiously, only a few weeks ago it was the one thing that would have saved us from a credit downgrade. And just the other day Mardell was telling us about how ashamed someone was of Congress for their failure to work together. Now he thinks its best for the President if He convinces everyone to do things His way, without stooping to compromise. You know, that’s just what the other of his concerned voter in that post said. Funny, that. It’s almost as if there’s an agenda here.

By the way, that post of his saw Mardell visiting Democrats in Indiana, and he kind of forgot to mention that it’s another important election swing state.

In the end – wacky typos aside – this is all typical biased reporting. And sloppy and dishonest at that, one of Mardell’s worst. What’s the emoticon for putting one’s head in one’s hands and weeping quietly?

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BBC Edits The President’s Speech To Mislead The Public. Again.

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They simply can’t help themselves. I couldn’t stomach listening to the Stimulus Jr. speech to the bitter end, so bailed out and missed a major gaffe. What’s that, you ask? The Smartest Man In the Room made a gaffe? Never. Well, He did, and it’s a good one. This has been making the rounds of actual honest journalists who are not propagandists or die-hard Obamessiah fans, but I waited a full day because I knew the BBC wouldn’t have corrected it by now.

At 19:36 on the BBC’s liveblog of the speech, Beeboid Adam Blenford posted this at that point in the speech:

Switching back into a plea for unity, and invoking the memory of Abraham Lincoln: “A Republican president who mobilised government”.

He’s referring to this bit of the speech:

“We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. Founder of the Republican Party”.

Bzzzt! Wrong. Blenford, of course, had no idea. Sure, Lincoln was the first Republican to be elected President, but the Party itself was founded in 1854 by a Alvan Bovary, at an abolitionist meeting at a church in Wisconsin. Yes, that’s right: the Republican Party was basically founded to fight against slavery, in response to the looming Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would let new states decide if they were going to have slaves or not. Lincoln was a Whig at the time, and didn’t join until 1856, when he co-founded the Illinois branch. Sure, he did a great deal to help establish the Party, but did not found it.

This is the President of the US, folks. Now, it’s impossible to know if the Teleprompter of the United States had it wrong (which means the President is also ignorant and just read it out), or if the Community Organizer in Chief just winged it and told a lie so he could use Lincoln as a cudgel with which to beat intransigent Republicans in the House. But the President either got it wrong, or simply lied in front of Congress and the whole country, just to score a political point.

Blenford didn’t catch it, and Mark Mardell didn’t catch it, nor did Katty Kay. I don’t expect them to actually know anything about US history, as Mardell and the rest of the Beeboids covering the US display their ignorance time and time again. But the BBC then censored this mistake/lie in the transcript:

We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union. But in the middle of a civil war he was also a leader who looked to the future – a Republican president who mobilized government to build the transcontinental railroad; launch the National Academy of Sciences; and set up the first land grant colleges.

Sadly, this isn’t the first time the BBC has…um…touched up one of the President’s speeches in order to give the audience the desired impression. In fact, they did it with His very first speech as President. They edited the footage to make Him appear to have said stronger words about environmental issues.

The problem here is twofold. First of all, there’s the fact that the dozen or so BBC employees you’re supposed to trust about how to understand US issues are woefully ignorant of their patch. Worse, their colleagues in the editing suite and in the BBC News Online offices are dishonest, and edit and censor news to fit the impression they want you to have. This time they’re just censoring a transcript to protect the leader of a foreign country. How pathetic is that?

Even if the very young person being paid very low wages to put up the transcript can’t be expected to know the place he copied and pasted it from had it wrong, this has been all over the web for more than 24 hours, and surely somebody with integrity at the BBC would have caught it by now. If there was anyone with integrity at the BBC when it comes to the President.

BBC, you are liars and propagandists. There really needs to be a complete purge of personnel before this can be fixed.

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Compare And Contrast: BBC vs. Muslim Brotherhood Edition

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It’s pretty sad when the Muslim Brotherhood’s Ikhwanweb is more informative and balanced than the BBC. Compare and contrast:

Fire and graffiti attack on Palestinian mosque in Kasra

with

Settlers torch mosque in Al-Mughayyir village near Ramallah

Both pieces talk about how this was a (misguided and wrong, in my view) retaliation for the Israeli Government’s razing of some illegal Jewish settlements in the area.

The BBC reports that the Hebrew graffiti threatens further attacks, while Ikhwanweb just says the settlers left racist graffiti. It looks like it’s supposed to say something like “Mohammed go away”, but my Hebrew’s a bit rusty and this may be vernacular. There’s apparently other graffiti not shown in either report, so there isn’t enough information to draw a proper conclusion about who is more accurate.

I should mention here that the Jerusalem Post reports something not mentioned by either the BBC or Ikhwanweb: the mosque was not in use, and there were no holy books inside. Unhelpful context, that.

Ikhwanweb, whose sympathies are not in question and who do not claim impartiality, report Palestinian eyewitness accounts that IDF forces abetted the arson crime, while the BBC instead reports rumors of the IDF training settlers to fight Palestinians. The openly anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood reports eyewitness accounts (whether one beileves them or not, at least they’re trying), while the allegedly impartial BBC instead makes an inflammatory statement. There is some training going on, in fact, and the BBC uses this to plant the idea in the reader’s mind that the Israeli Government is actually responsible for this and future violence. Even though the training is for defensive purposes.

The BBC report closes with the required (yes, BBC, it’s required, and I challenge anyone to prove that it isn’t, and no whining about proving a negative: this is included nearly verbatim in every report about settlements) boilerplate copied and pasted from the style guide:

There are some 500,000 Jewish Settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Settlements are regarded as illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Meanwhile, the more informative and balanced Ikhwanweb closes with this:

Since the incident, more and more Palestinians have criticized the Palestinian Authority which rules the West Bank, accusing security services of not fulfilling the ”duty of protecting the mosques”.

One Palestinian man Mohammed Abdurrahman condemned the West Bank security services for the inability to protect the mosques at a time when the services have effectively persecuted Palestinian resistance fighters in the West Bank.

No mention of this at all by the BBC. They’re too busy stoking up anger against Israel. And there’s no obligatory moaning about the number of Jewish settlements or legal judgments about them from Ikhwanweb.

One is tempted to say that the Muslim Brotherhood is more interested in accuracy and balance about the Israel/Palestinian conflict than the BBC is. Once again it seems that the Corporation’s editorial policy and innate bias cause them to demonize Israel at every opportunity, although the BBC disputes this.

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Mark Mardell Sneers At The US Again

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As`part of the BBC’s sensational run-up to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Mark Mardell speaks to a CIA officer about the use of torture, and whether or not it can ever be justified.

The ideas discussed in the full piece may or may not be of interest to you. I don’t know, and frankly don’t care. What I want to draw your attention to is this statement by Mardell, with which he ends the piece:

Such discussions are the meat and drink of adolescent debating societies, rather than mature democracies – where it is more normal to assume it is very wrong, while very occasionally turning a blind eye if it happens.

It has always intrigued me that when Britain really stood in peril of foreign conquest, when the blitz was killing more people than died on 9/11 night after night, it seems torture was not used.

Perhaps they simply never captured a Nazi senior enough to be worth putting to the question. What is the tipping point?

This is the BBC North America editor giving you his personal opinion that, not only is the US inferior to Britain, but we’re no better than adolescents. This is opinion, not journalsim, and sure as hell not impartiality.

Will any of you trust someone about US issues who so candidly sneers at us?

UPDATE: My thanks to all who have pointed out that Mardell is not only biased and arrogant, but ignorant of his own country’s history as well. His statement, on which his entire case for US inferiority seems to rest, is patently false. A full complaint to the BBC is on the way.

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