Over at Tart Cider, Chris Selley (tipping hat to none other than that well-regarded intellectual paperweight, Antonia Zerbisias) fairly reeks of dismissiveness towards this post focusing on the inability of the CBC to comprehend that a state-funded media ought not declare itself neutral towards an enemy bent on its destruction.
Though I knew it was a waste of electrons, I left a comment and moved on.
Then, as it so happened, I surfed over to Norm Geras’ site to read this by Alan Johnston;
I’ve had enough. I awoke today at 7am. By 7.23am I’d heard two apologias for suicide bombing. I wake to the BBC’s Today programme, you see. A nice woman presenter politely thanked both apologists very much for their time.
I turned off and turned on my PC. At the BBC website I find the Tory Party Vice- Chair Sayeeda Warsi saying, ‘Mr Blair should negotiate with the terrorists. We need to bring these groups into the fold of the democratic process. As long as we exclude them and don’t hear them out, we will allow them to continue their hate.’
I reflect that I last heard this from Tony Benn � the hero of my youth whom I now think a dangerous political idiot – speaking on BBC’s Newsnight on the evening of 7/7 (and before that from Mo Mowlam about Bin Laden). I then notice the BBC has a story about ‘Muslim reactions to 7/7’. First voice up, top of the screen, is Dr Imran Waheed, the media representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Britain), who says, ‘What is required is for the whole society to accept responsibility for 7/7’. Hizb ut-Tahrir is a racist anti-Semitic organisation that supports suicide bombings.
So to Chris Selley, whose defense of the CBC’s aversion to the use of the word “terrorist” seems to boil down to “everyone else is doing it”, all I can offer is tosecond Mr. Johnston’s advice – that you might try reading a little less Amazing Wonderdog and a little more Tony Blair.
Or Norm Geras, for that matter.
The French discover a snag!!!!!!
Read it all:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> LGF
wednesday, july 20, 2005
The New French Resistance?
From the Metula News Agency: France 2�s special correspondents stumble onto a snag in the US. (Hat tip: LGF readers.)
That snag had a name, and that name is Little Green Footballs.
Once again I’m left feeling “out of it”. Colby Cosh seems convinced that Chris Selley is the second coming of Orwell or some such, but I don’t see it at all. Chris has emailed me twice now, offering unsolicited “suggestions” about how to “improve” my blog. Who IS this young whippersnapper, exactly?
My idea of ‘negotiating’ with terrorists boils down to offering them a choice between hanging and the firing squad. There’s no question in my mind that we need to kill the buggers quickly, and as often as we can.
The sad truth is the anti-Bush/Blair/Howard lefties welcome as many dead Iraqis as possible, in order to blame the West. They did it during sanctions and they’re doing it now. They lust, literally, for more corpses. Why do they not rail against those who are now actually killing the most civilians (certainly not the coalition) as much as they do against the US/UK/Australia?
A thought experiment. Suppose the coalition withdrew tomorrow and the “insurgents” in Iraq continued killing as they do now. Would the lefties protest mightily? Would they care?
Why do they not protest Indian rule in Kashmir, which has (for one reason or another) resulted in tens of thousands of dead? Hint: if you’re not killed in a way that can be blamed on the US/UK/Australia, the lefties are indifferent to your death.
Mark
Ottawa
Well, put it this way. I think the CBC should use the word “terrorism” and “terrorist” whenever it sees fit. It’s a descriptive word � there’s no logical reason to avoid using it.
Where we disagree is in how big a deal it is that they have this policy. I think it makes the CBC look timorous and nauseatingly PC-obsessed; you think it makes them treasonous. But the idea that the CBC would rather see Al Qaeda “win” than the other side, and that neglecting to use the t-word somehow makes that more likely to happen, defies common sense.
Breaking…London has been attacked again. Looks like no casualties.
At first i believed that it would take a terrorist attack in Toronto for these people to wake up. Now, i just realise that it would only encourage their sheep like bleatings.
like the communist symapthizers, like nazi apologists they are blind to reality.
Decades of Ireland and the IRA and the British held firm. A few puny bombs like this are not going to sway the resolution of Blair.
Their PC obsessiveness is interfering with reporting of facts – in some cases, I contend it’s intentional.
There is no question that there are elements at the CBC – like so many of their cohorts on the left – who are so rabidly anti-American, that they would be not so quietly gloating should the day come that the US withdraws from Iraq without the main goals realized. If that isn’t cheering for Al Qaeda, I don’t know what is.
They are so blinded by this ideology, that they don’t realize how much more vulnerable they make us by accomodating and apologizing for an enemy that recognizes none of the same values that make their very existance possible.
Fully half of this country is sleepwalking through this war, believing it began with 9/11, is limited to Iraq, and that “bombings” would all go away if the Americans and Israelis just “took ownership” of their own agressive tendencies.
-The fault for that lies directly at the feet of the major broadcasters and pundits who are more intent on shaping current events through the lens of political ideology than they are in presenting news with accuracy, factual integrity and historical context.
The real enemy are the neo-liberals and anyone left of them. Until their political seats are removed and their media outlets shut down, the west will never win against terrorism.
This TB quote sums up the Lib/left so well…
“It exploits the tendency to guilt of the developed world, as if it is our behaviour that should change, that if we only tried to work out and act on their grievances, we could lift this evil, that if we changed our behaviour, they would change theirs. This is a misunderstanding of a catastrophic order.”
Thank god for men like Tony Blair and George Bush. I’m so tired of being told my way is wrong – it’s not. My way doesn’t force young women from schools then sexually mutilate then all in the name of Allah! Terrorism is terrorism and like pornography, we know it when we see it and thankfully, we don’t actually need the CBC to use the word for us. The truth is I haven’t actually watched anything on CBC for years. (except HNIC) For those who do (screaming at their TV’s all the while) you may soon be spared some the those bleatings; the union has a strike mandate.
There is no accounting for who will be a vessel for plain bad ideas. All we can do is arm ourselves with the realization what these bad ideas are and disreguard their messengers as being victim to the rational fallibility we though they were immune from…..and one of the fundamental, most universally bad ideas is to placate an aggressive and violent enemy….just ask Neville Chamberlain.
Why do they not protest Indian rule in Kashmir, which has (for one reason or another) resulted in tens of thousands of dead? Hint: if you’re not killed in a way that can be blamed on the US/UK/Australia, the lefties are indifferent to your death.
Sometimes in my more cynical moments I think it’s even simpler than that – ie, that leftists cannot figure out who to support if the participants are not colour-coded and no blame can be assigned to whites. Hence the general indifference to political repression in Africa since apartheid ended in South Africa.
The terrorists don’t want a place at the negotiating table they want destroy the negotiating table.
Just sitting here at my office watching Sky News.
Wondering when to head home on the Tube…
Never a dull moment!
Look, it’s a ridiculous policy that’s out of step even with the anti-American rabble. It’s a perfectly good reason to get annoyed at the CBC. But as far as the war on terror goes it’s meaningless, and I think far too much ink has been spilled on the topic. Everyone knows the London bombers were terrorists. I’m pretty sure the terrorists knew they were terrorists. So who cares if Peter Mansbridge won’t call them terrorists?
CBC used to have a fairly good website bulletin board for public comments on various issues of the day. They shut it down ‘temporarily’ over a year ago, citing the need for maintenance and improvements, saying that the boards would return in the near future. That was about the time the Liberal Party/Government of Canada was recieving a lot of negative comments over their scandals.
To date, as far as I can determine, the bulletin boards have not been reactivated.
It should come as no surprise then that this political media arm of the Liberal party/government will continue to bury it’s head in the sand when it comes to dealing with people who question or criticize the actions, policies, or views of said party/government.
BREAKING NEWS
LONDON ATTACKED AGAIN
FOUR BLASTS COMFIRMED
SEE NEWS FOR COVERAGE
Responses to terrorism seem to follow 3 stages
1. Denial – “Islam is a religion of peace” “It was the CIA” etc.
2. Moral Equivalence – Blaming the US, UK and Israel of also engaging in terrorism
3. Endorsement and approval – Comments by those who defend suicide bombers. And the incredible statements by Mohammad Elmasry.
It has taken less than 2 week for the BBC to follow this cycle – and now they strike again.
BTW: I found delightful irony in the two Trudeaupian burnouts quoted in their screed as labling the Post a “right wing” paper….I think it’s centrist at best and more often than not politically correct itself putting far to the left of my libertarian sensitivities…I stopped my subscription when the Aspers forced the better conservative commentators off the editorial masthead and the reporting became too idiosyncratic wile missing larger issues at play in the political dynamic.
At any rate, it is quite laughable that demented Trudeaupians like Antonia Z and her lapdog would see the Star as a centrist paper and their own dangerous apologist orthoxies as “reasonable”….the real danger in these days of confrontational politics is not as much the proliferation of bad ideas and self defeating orthodoxies as it is radical, egocentric intolerant partisans viewing themselves as “centrist”.
“We need to bring these groups into the fold of the democratic process”
That is exactly why they are at war with us – democracy – which they find reprehensible and evil. For someone to make that statement they are only proving how completely out of touch they are with reality and,to be quite frank, stupid. Is it that difficult to see? All one needs to do is look around the world and see where terrorism flourishes and is engrained in government and the answer to what they want will be clear.
The Corner at NRO:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://corner.nationalreview.com/
Thursday, July 21, 2005
JOHN HOWARD RULES [Warren Bell]
Re: Australia, US, and UK involvement in Iraq. “Once a country allows its foreign policy to be dictated by terrorism, it’s given the game away.”
Posted at 11:07 AM
“THIS IS ABOUT HATRED OF A WAY OF LIFE.” [K. J. Lopez]
John Howard, still at this press conference with Blair, is rocking and rolling answering those who would blame Blair, Bush, and himself for the terrorist incidents–that we became targets because of Iraq. No, we went into Iraq because of bad guys who want us–and other freedom lovers dead. And guess what, they do really want us dead!
Posted at 11:06 AM
IN THE THICK OF IT [Iain Murray]
A good friend who notes that he’s beginning to take this personally because “the centre of a circle drawn between Tavistock Sq, Russell Sq and Warren St is my back garden” emails:
It does sound like they didn’t quite pull it off this time, though, doesn’t it. That figure of 10,000 going through those training camps could translate into quite an irritating summer.
Oh well, we beat one lot of fascist scum through sheer bloody-mindedness and vast quantities of strong tea. I guess we’ll just have to do it again.
Meanwhile, John Howard, who by chance (well, that and the fact that the Ashes cricket series between England and Australia starts today) happens to be with Tony Blair today, uses the word “evil” repeatedly in his remarks about terrorism. Good on yer, mate.
>>>>>>>>>>>Go, John Howard.
The Anglosphere and the Blogosphere: Go, go, go.
For those like Chris Selley who believe that the CBC and Peter Mansbridge should be using the word terrorist but will defend their right not to do so, I was reminded of a great bit of dialogue from the movie “The Last Emperor”.
Reginald Fleming ‘R.J.’ Johnston: Words are important.
Pu Yi, at 15: Why are words important?
Reginald Fleming ‘R.J.’ Johnston: If you cannot say what you mean, your majesty, you will never mean what you say and a gentleman should always mean what he says.
Well, guess I’m no smarter than I was 3 hours ago.
Selley’s arguments are always just way too finely sliced for poor old me to make sense of ’em. Like the highly touted cake in Betsy’s Wedding:
“So subtle you can’t even taste it!”
I think what he’s saying, Kathy, is that “as far as the war on terror goes, it’s meaningless” that a dominant, state-sponsored socialist political viewpoint that refuses to call the targeted mass-murder of civilians “terrorism” has taken over our taxpayer funded coast-to-coast network.
That’s right, it’s meaningless — just take his word for it.
Kate, I finally got around to your writing above regarding the dangerous obsession with PCness exhibited by the MSM.
I couldn’t have expressed it better. You understand the reality exactly as well as I do. This is by far some of the best writing I have seen from you. I tip my hat to you, madam!
I used to, unfortunately, believe what the MSM was saying. I was younger and had no choice. What happened was I saw time and time again that what I had been told by the MSM had, in the real world, been proven wrong. This kept on happening for years. I slowly but very steadily began to develop this “sovereignty of mind” of which I have previously spoken.
This leads me to quote WLMR:
“…victim to the rational fallibility we though they were immune from…”
That’s exactly the problem I used to have, as described by Willie above. Naturally, there was always pressure to believe the MSM was above illogic, irrationality and certainly above lying and manipulating the people’s thinking and understanding. Whenever I said to someone that I suspected the media was wrong about something, I was accused of stupidity or insanity for even daring to think and suggest such a blasphemous thing. Hey, wow! I just did it again! Really! You just witnessed another event in my journey to true sovereignty of mind. Blasphemous, I wrote. That’s it! We have been conditioned by society to believe that what the MSM or the government or Oprah or other falsely elevated phony idols say is as absolutely true as the word of God! We are conditioned (or used to be) to obey the gospel of PCness and never dare entertain an independent thought. Naturally the Liberals understand this and have been using this “conditioning” to hypnotize the people to elect them over and over again. Isn’t this evil, or at least disingenuously, despicably dishonest?
I am infinitely thankful for your having created SDA. Here, you do not impose the dangerous, oppressive imperative of PCness. This is why I am here. I am not afraid of saying what truly needs to be said. Slowly I am feeling greater liberty in being able to express myself wrt what I observe, experience and understand about the world. I am feeling ever more empowered, more confident. And it’s transferring to non-online life as well. I’m less and less terrified of PC sensitivities than I used to be, and, believe me, it was paralyzing for someone who often believed he was the only one in the world who had the ability to see the truth in things. This is a true story. It was SDA that brought people like us together, no longer having to feel isolated and alienated by a society that simply cannot operate as it should according to the reality of the world.
Well, in closing, Kate, I think you’re great! 😉
Don’t be embarrassed!
That being said, I am hoping to engage “Don” the Librano in intellectual debate.
The tone is up to him. I will, regardless, place him into the blender of truth and all that is good in humanity and make puree of the fine gentleman.