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Guardian censors facts BTL

The recent Frankie Boyle article in the Guardian contained his usual mix of dark humour and on-point political satire. However, most people who follow the Syrian situation closely know his summary of the “civil war”, and assertion that “nobody likes Assad”, to be inaccurate.

Unfortunately efforts to point this out in the comments were met with the Guardian’s usual response to fact-based constructive criticism:

boylecomment2

As you can see, Mr Purkayastha’s comment is civil, constructive, on topic and backed up with sources. And yet…

boyle-comment2

Seems like questioning the MSM agenda doesn’t abide by their “community standards”. Thanks to Bill Purkayastha for bring this to our attention. If you have had similar experiences at the Guardian, or any MSM web-site, please let us know.


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Chris the Greatly Dismayed
Chris the Greatly Dismayed
Nov 11, 2015 5:41 PM

I got put on pre-moderation (again- I was never even sure what the first time was for….) for posting a legitimate Winston Churchill quote “The British government have promised that what is called the Zionist movement shall have a fair chance in this country, and the British Government will do what is necessary to secure that fair chance…We cannot tolerate the expropriation of one set of people by another or the violent trampling down of one set of national ideals for the sake of erecting another…”from a site called ‘Churchill’s Karma’ (which can be quite excellent).
This was the day before Netanyahu came out with his looney statement about the Mufti of Palestine designing the Holocaust.
I guess I should have known the capital ‘Z’ word was banned in the Guardian.

Paul Rigby
Paul Rigby
Oct 24, 2015 8:27 PM

The Guardian has long been the Washington establishment’s pipeline to the British centre-left, with much of the work subsidizing and steering it entrusted to the CIA. There is only certainty in the life of a CIA asset, and that is that you will, sooner or later, be “cashed.”

guest
guest
Oct 23, 2015 11:32 AM

I don’t get it, it appears that the comment was deleted 4m after it was posted while the screenshot was taken 11m after it was posted. What am I missing?

OffG
OffG
Oct 23, 2015 12:23 PM
Reply to  guest

Hard to say. The Guardian time stamps are very buggy and unreliable. But we’ve checked the comment in question and it has been deleted.

Popinjay
Popinjay
Oct 23, 2015 2:17 PM
Reply to  OffG

I assume that the 4m refers to the time elapsed since the censor blue pencilled the post.

Chris the Greatly Dismayed
Chris the Greatly Dismayed
Nov 11, 2015 5:44 PM
Reply to  guest

The timestamp on the users end is the time that the post or reply was begun not when the user hits ‘post comment’. I’m fairly sure that is what is going on…..

Doctor Hyde
Doctor Hyde
Nov 12, 2015 8:24 PM

I had wondered if that might be the case, but I have just posted another comment on CiF (I haven’t been bothering much with it in recent weeks, having become rather obsessed with Media Lens instead), and I’m pretty sure the timestamp “33m ago” is far too long, even allowing for the time it took me to compose the comment.

Mihangel apYrs
Mihangel apYrs
Oct 22, 2015 8:15 PM

The Graun had yet another article by a rad-fem concerning Amnesty International trying to decriminlise prostitution. As usual I mentioned the lack of protection for men and boys dying doing dangerous jobs, and the lack of interest in it.

I was censored. As usual.

Mao Cheng Ji
Mao Cheng Ji
Oct 22, 2015 4:25 PM

Here’s another one, nltimes.nl:
http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/10/15/ukraine-no-reason-to-close-airspace-before-mh17/

“According to Olexander Horin, the Ukrainian ambassador in the Netherlands, his country had no reason to close the airspace above the conflict area before the disaster with flight MH17.

“We did not know that the separatists had weapons with a range of ten kilometers altitude”, he said in an interview…”

I saw this article and commented on it, quoting WSJ:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-knew-of-separatists-air-defense-capabilities-say-officials-1405781508

“KIEV—Ukraine intelligence officials said they knew three days before the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 that rebels in the east of the country possessed sophisticated air-defense systems capable of felling a jetliner at altitudes in excess of where the Boeing BA 777 was flying. ”

Next time I checked, the comments under this article all disappeared. You can’t comment on it anymore.
Now Mr. Horin, the Ukrainian ambassador in the Netherlands, can lie all he wants, and no one is allowed to confront his lies…

Tim O
Tim O
Oct 22, 2015 2:47 PM

Life was better before the war? Well Duh… How many support the Assad government?

A Guardian columnist,Jonathan Steele, asserted that western media tend to suppress or not report on ‘inconvenient’ facts, such as a respectable opinion poll held in Syria late 2011, finding out that 55% of Syrians inside Syria wanted Assad to stay in office, which disharmonized with the then dominant view in western countries that Assad had to go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Censorship_of_events

Two years ago a poll commissioned by NATO revealed that 70% of the population supports the government: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/21/faulty-analysis-and-conclusions-on-syria/

Joe Staten
Joe Staten
Oct 22, 2015 1:35 PM

It’s got to the point where I immediately question any line being sold by the mainstream, and especially the Guardian since it has become the mouthpiece of choice for swaying would-be liberals and left-leaning people. Basically if the Guardian is pushing it then the PTB have a motive for getting the population on board.

So, why currently is a sugar tax something they want to get us on board with? And what about global warming? Real or not (I don’t know enough to comment on that), I am worried when mainstream media are selling this as a social conscience and environment issue and it is back by people like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Goldman Sachs and the US Department of Defense!

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/22/fight-climate-change-for-global-stability-says-us-defence-and-diplomacy-leaders

Eric_B
Eric_B
Oct 22, 2015 6:14 PM
Reply to  Joe Staten

I know nothing about the sugar tax, but it sounds like the cigarette taxes.

don’t stop anyone selling the unhealthy products, but make money off the people who are hooked on them.

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Oct 22, 2015 2:42 AM
zvezdicaslo
zvezdicaslo
Oct 22, 2015 12:34 AM

I was banned by the Guardian on 13 October 2015. To put the record straight, I have been under ‘pre-moderation’ several times before, but then ‘released’ back into commenting. I also wrote some emails to the Guardian moderators, but never got a proper reply as to WHY I was under pre-moderation or WHY I was now banned (they only regurgitate some general mantras along the lines ‘you breched the rules’, but never explained to me for a particular case which rules exactly I breached. I also got a very ‘general’ reply when I asked about why I was banned – and only after I inquired three times.

I should say that once I got my deleted Guardian comment back (hooray) – but only several days after the article was passé.

My Guardian username was Abiesalba, and here is my posting history: https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/10511313 (still there now – I just checked, although I would not be too surprised if it were eventually entirely deleted.

As far as I can reconstruct events, I was banned on 13 October for daring to mention BTL of this article

MH17 crash report: Dutch investigators confirm Buk missile hit plane – live updates
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/oct/13/mh17-crash-report-ukraine-live-updates

the sacred historical fact that the US Navy shot down the commerical / civilian Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 and then claimed that this was perfectly justifiable, refused to even properly apologise to Iran and even gave a medal of honour to the captain of the murderous ship.

I noticed that the Guardian moderators were rather systematically deleting (eh, censoring) comments from other posters mentioning the Iran Air Flight 655 ‘incident’ even in much more vague and very non-offensive ways than me.

Moreover, when I was banned, the Guardian mods deleted ALL my comments BTL of this article, although some addressed other issues.

I suspect that on the same day 13 October 2015, the Guardian moderators also banned another poster Jams O’Donnell https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/14748589 for daring to mention the Iran ‘incident’ BTL of another article:

Whoever shot down flight MH17, Russia’s reputation is in tatters
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/13/shot-down-flight-mh17-russia-malaysia-airlines-ukraine-rebels

I have no way of knowing whether Jams O’Donnell has been actually banned. However, I read some of this poster’s comments before (!) they were deleted, and the Iran ‘incident’ was mentioned, and then, like in my case, ALL comments of Jams O’Donnell BTL were suddenly deleted, and this poster has not posted since.

I got rather many of my posts on the Guardian deleted (even if some extremely offensive posts remain published) over different issues. I am from Slovenia (and can speak some foreign languages), so I am not confined to the space of the British-American propaganda. I am also old enough to have seen myself very many good and bad changes in our part of the world, and like other Slovenes I simply had to learn rather many things (which I also experienced in practice) to adapt the survival strategies (making the ends meet) under these bewilderingly changing circumstances.

I have posted on the Guardian from the perspective of what I can contribute to the debate as someone NOT British (and I also lived in the UK for about two years, so I learned some things from this experience). I have been ‘moderated’ many times as well as collectively repeatedly attacked by the supposedly ‘liberal’ Guardian CiF community (eh, one ‘hates the UK’ if one dares to mention that the UK with its best friend the US attacked Iraq and that this has far-reaching consequences, or that the historical dirty imperial policies of the UK affect the people – also in my nation – TODAY).

The UK never ever faced any responsibilities for its absolutely horrible history (including very recent history). Instead, they LIE about the British history to their school children even now and glorify the UK’s role in WWII. Where every sane solidly-educated continental European knows that the Soviet Union was primarily the one who defeated Germany in WWII at absolutely immense human sacrifice, and not really single-handedly the heroic US/UK duo. Of course every contribution to WWII victory in Europe should be respected, also from small nations and individuals. But the Brits overdo their role absolutely big time and well beyond any historical respectability to cover up for their immense past and very recent atrocities.

Eh, the Brits even brush under the carpet such ‘minor’ sacred historical facts that the UK protecting Italian fascist war criminals after WWII. After WWII the UK (!!!) prevented (!!!) extradition of Italian war criminals (about 1,200 Italian fascists accused of war crimes – on the basis of evidence) – to Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Ethiopia and Libya. So these monsters were never put to trial and they are dying of old age one by one. And with the UK’s blessing, Italians are even erecting monuments in their honour and the Italian government is giving fascists medals of honour – and I am talking NOW, in recent years and months! My own family suffered greatly under Italian fascists supported by the UK (eh, would you believe it, the Guardian even recommended my post describing this http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/01/sunderlands-own-goal-paolo-di-canio#comment-22411895), and my nation has to live NOW with the many consequences of dirty UK politics (and this includes rather great current financial costs to my nation, for the ones who only understand money talk).

In my opinion, the Guardian has recently sank well below of what is regarded as a horrible tabloid in continental Europe. Well, may the British nation prosper long under Orwell’s 1984 banner: ‘Ignorance is strength.’

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 22, 2015 12:49 PM
Reply to  zvezdicaslo

Zvezdicaslo. I have an Irish name and probably got away with a lot more than you did, but on one occasion I emailed the Guardian political editors asking them to moderate their Russophobic editorials and promoting Kiev’s propaganda and I supplied links to reports by Int’l Journalists reporting on Poroshenko’s admission to the Ukraine Supreme Courts that Yanukovich was ousted illegally. They did not reply to me directly but 2 days later they cobbled together an article demonising Russia with two well-known Russophobes who predictably misrepresented the facts of the Ukraine US disaster and one Russian Editor who refused to sling mud at anyone and tried instead to represent the issues in a reasonable manner. The majority of people reading that particular argument would have been impressed with the lies of the Russophobes and would have failed to recognise the obvious sincerity of the Moscow editor, such is the cognitive dissonance of the general media readers. At the end of the day, we love to hate. We choose what we want to believe and won’t allow detractors to sway our pre-conceived dogma, no matter what truths are offered as an alternative narrative. It is for that reason I no longer read mainstream trash and seek out those who have a broader scope of ethics and beliefs, more easily found among the social networks, you just have to weed out the obvious trolls. Many thanks for your observations and links which I will follow.

zvezdicaslo
zvezdicaslo
Oct 22, 2015 2:14 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

“It is for that reason I no longer read mainstream trash”

My mother tongue is Slovene, so I suppose my primary source of information are Slovene media (where I am quite familiar with the political agendas of various media and journalists). When it comes to world news, Slovenia is hardly ever of world importance (apart from rare occasions like the present refugee crisis). So our world news tend to be much less tainted with propaganda than the British-American media possibly also because there is hardly ever our domestic bickering among the parties at play when it comes to world news. We are observers rather than major world players. Although the aggressive western propaganda does get through in particular in some media, and people here complain about it.

Slovenia is very small (2 million people with our own language), so if one drives for about one hour in any direction from our capital Ljubljana located at the centre of Slovenia, one gets to to border, and there are nations rather quite different to us living on the other side: Italians, Austrians, Hungarians, Croats.

We are also historically used to living in a multi-national/ethnic/religious/language environment. Slovenia has been under the Austrian/German rule for a thousand years (apart from a short period when we were under Napoleon’s France), then after WWI in what eventually became the multinational Kingdom of Yugoslavia (with western Slovenia, thanks to the UK, handed over to Italy and the Slovenes there exposed to extreme oppression from Italian fascists), then during WWII Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and fascist Hungary occupied the rest of Slovenia and annexed it to their states (and all three also committed ethnocide against Slovenes), and then after WWII we were back to the restored multi-national but now socialist Yugoslavia, then in 1991 we used independence as a measure of last resort to escape Milošević’s increasing (after we repeatedly tried to save the Yugoslav union), and in 2004 we joined the multi-national EU. There are an Italian and a Hungarian minorities living in Slovenia, and Slovene minorities living in Italy and Austria.

So it is quite normal here for the people to speak foreign languages, and also watch national TV channels of other nations, and many people follow also other media of other nations. The basic (cheapest) packages of internet/TV providers typically include (apart from Slovene TV channels) also national TV of Croatia and other Yugoslav republics (and very many Slovenes watch Croatia quite often), Austria, Germany, Italy, CNN, BBC World, Sky News, Euro News etc.

I suppose that with all this input from different sides, the overall summary of news that people here get (and in particular those who are a little interested in politics) is quite ‘balanced’.

Perhaps I should add that the first spontaneous mass demonstrations in Slovenia (which eventually led to Slovenia’s independence) happened in 1988 in relation to attempts to crush freedom of speech (!) by the Yugoslav army (under strong Serbian influence; see JBTZ trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBTZ_trial). Slovenia was the most liberal of all Yugoslav republics.

Do you only follow news in English or also in some other languages?


“emailed the Guardian political editors asking them to moderate their Russophobic editorials and promoting Kiev’s propaganda”

In my opinion, the Guardian is very biased on many issues which I am interested in: the EU as such (intense anti-EU propaganda) and the UK’s status in it, the Greek financial crisis (intense anti-German propaganda), the refugee crisis (very dodgy reporting, and again intense anti-German propaganda; zero reflection about the fact that the UK itself largely caused the refugee crisis) etc.

In relation to the first wave of refugees which reached Slovenia about a month ago, the Guardian repeatedly re-published LIES about events at Slovenia’s border (also for days after our government published an official clarification of the events in response to false reports).

In general, it seems to me that the Brits like to blame ‘others’ for everything and point fingers at these ‘others’ = the scapegoats: the EU, Germany, Russia, Eastern European immigrants etc. etc. No accepting of any responsibility for own actions, and quite extreme denial, fabrication and glorification of own history coupled with delusions of grandeur and blissful ignorance.

Such attitudes of the majority of the Brits, supported by relentless brainwashing propaganda in the media, keep the archaic UNdemocratic theo-aristocratic non-transparent political system in the UK in power. Such attitudes are also very dangerous at the international level (as the UK’s appalling track-record demonstrates).

Brad Benson
Brad Benson
Oct 22, 2015 3:37 PM
Reply to  zvezdicaslo

I’m an American. Britain follows our lead, whether it be Blair as Bush’s Poodle and fellow war criminal in regard to the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the overthrow of the legitimate government in the Ukraine; or the slimy regime changes throughout the Middle East, the British Government continues to act as a US Vassal. It is sad that this is so, but there’s a gentleman named Corbyn who may soon have a say in this regard and I suspect that it may change.

By the way, I once passed through your country on my way to Croatia and spent a very lovely three hours talking to some Slovenians that spoke a little broken English and German. I have never been back, but I was very interested to read your comments.

In November, we will be traveling to Budapest for dental work. After that, we may be traveling South and might very well pass through again. Can you recommend a place to visit that has a wonderful Christmas Market?

Finally, I also was banned from the Guardian for criticizing Shaun Walker and his bullshit propaganda about the Ukraine. The people that have been banned are slowly finding their way here.

zvezdicaslo
zvezdicaslo
Oct 22, 2015 5:13 PM
Reply to  Brad Benson

“I’m an American. Britain follows our lead”

Yes, indeed. The UK is also an American Trojan horse in the EU.

However, it is the UK’s choice (!) to be a US poodle, so the UK is a co-perpetrator.

Similar to people with a phantom limb (after amputation), the UK has a phantom British Empire.

The UK is only used to bossing other nations around and imposing its will and rules on others. It is not capable of forging long-term partnerships with other nations, which requires solidarity, patience, readiness to compromise etc. So the Brits will vote themselves out of the EU.

It seems to me that in the role of the US poodle, the UK tries to pretend that it is still very important and very powerful and capable of ‘ruling the world’.

Back in the real world, the UK was not even invited to the Minsk II negotiations (Ukraine, Russia, Germany, France). Due to its destructive behaviour (ranging from decades of destroying the EU from within to serial attacks on other countries), the UK has largely lost its influence even in Europe, leave alone the whole world.

Serf
Serf
Oct 23, 2015 12:43 AM
Reply to  zvezdicaslo

The British Empire still exists it has simply been rebranded the Commonwealth. Very few countries in the Commonwealth have ever left, regardless the plan is for this commonwealth and the UN to be part of the New World Order.

The power of British Commonwealth over the world
http://www.rense.com/general62/britt.htm

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 23, 2015 3:47 AM
Reply to  Serf

Thanks for the link. Excellent concise(for the purpose of demonstration)article.

zvezdicaslo
zvezdicaslo
Oct 22, 2015 5:58 PM
Reply to  Brad Benson

“Can you recommend a place to visit that has a wonderful Christmas Market?”

The capital of Slovenia – Ljubljana, definitely. Ljubljana is very charming and lively in December, with all the lights and the Christmas Market along the river and in the old city, open-air ice skating in front of the parliament and all sorts of events, with the smell of roasted chestnuts, cooked warm wine and warm honey spirit, and the castle sitting above it all on its hill…

Usually the Christmas lights are turned on around 4 December (because we traditionally celebrated 6 December = St Nicolas). The stalls also open then.

Some photos for the general impression:

the old city and the castle http://www.delo.si/assets/media/picture/20141203/670x420_Delo_Foto-20141203191635-05159900.jpeg?rev=0
the river http://www.delo.si/assets/media/picture/20111216/lu%C4%8Dke.jpg?rev=2
Christmas market on the river bank http://citymagazine.si/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/visitljubljana-1000×500.jpeg

And while you are in Ljubljana, you may also want to see some other Christmas things out of the city:

the live ice nativity (if the weather is cold enough) in Mojstrana (70 km from Ljubljana) from 25 December to 3 January – I am a radical atheist, but I do recommend this show

About the event: http://www.slovenian-alps.com/en/info/event-calendar?id=2282&y=2016&m=1

Video of ice nativity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rCO9e3SZn4

live nativity in the Postojna Cave (50 km from Ljubljana) – the Postojna Cave itself is well worth seeing anyway!

video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvpbwkqf4pU

description of the event for 2014 http://www.postojnska-jama.eu/en/visitor-information/events/an-unforgetable-christmas-time-/view/2014-12-20

Alan
Alan
Oct 24, 2015 2:09 PM
Reply to  zvezdicaslo

Hey ‘Slovenac’!

Same here, I don’t comment on the Guardian website for awhile now…must be a year (or more) since I was branded a “Pro-Russian/Pro-Putin Troll” and was pre-moderated because my comments didn’t fit the narrative that The Guardian is pushing… Finally – I just gave up commenting or even reading The Guardian.

(I’m Macedonian BTW)

zvezdicaslo
zvezdicaslo
Oct 24, 2015 9:03 PM
Reply to  Alan

— Hey ‘Slovenac’!

Slovenka. 🙂 Greetings to Macedonia.

The Guardian has a very poor understanding of the ‘Balkans’.

— I was branded a “Pro-Russian/Pro-Putin Troll”

I was branded a Putinbot. Apparently according to the Brits 90% Slovenes are Putinbots. Namely, it seems to me (judging from my conversations with others and comments on Slovene websites) that Slovenes overwhelmingly support Russia in relation to the Syria crisis.

I should say that in this case, even if tiny Slovenia is not a world player, we have quite direct interests in resolving the Syria crisis and stabilising Syria and the whole region, because the whole Balkan flow of refugees in now directed via tiny Slovenia (2 million people). Well, the migrants are also marching through tiny Macedonia with about the same population size as Slovenia, so I am sure you understand what I mean.

We have about 10,000 migrants per day entering Slovenia, which we register and fingerprint and take care of. If we extrapolate this burden relatively to the population size of other countries, this is equivalent to:

Germany (80 million inhabitants = 40-times larger than Slovenia) getting 400,000 migrants PER DAY
the UK (64 million inhabitants = 32-times larger than Slovenia) getting 320,000 migrants PER DAY

Note also that Slovenia with 0.5% of the population of the Schengen zone is now ‘defending’ the outer Schengen border and trying to keep order and prevent illegal entry of the migrants into the Schengen area.

Our land border with Croatia (the outer Schengen border) is 670 km long, and Slovenia only has about 8K police and 8K soldiers. Estimates is that even if we erected a border fence (which would be very difficult due to the terrain, and anyway we do not want it and it would not solve anything), we would need some 24K policemen/soldiers to guard the fenced border. Actually, according to our legislation the police rather than the army guards the border, so we would need 24K policemen. Mission impossible.

— (I’m Macedonian BTW)

When Yugoslavia still existed, I spent about two weeks in a summer research camp in the region of the Dojran Lake. What a wonderful place. And we, the Slovenes, also had a great relationship with the locals.

After Milošević rose to power in Yugoslavia, he repeatedly (at least four times) tried to remove Slovenia’s government/parliament via a military coup. But according to the Yugoslav constitution, to deploy the Yugoslav army on Slovenia’s territory, at least 5 out of 8 part of Yugoslavia had to agree with declaring a state of emergency in Slovenia (in which the situation was actually very peaceful). Milošević never got the needed 5 votes, also because Macedonia always stood its ground even under severe pressure and personal threats to your representatives. The voting always went 4 vs 4. The 4 parts in which always sided with Milošević’s plans for a coup in Slovenia were Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro (Milošević had previously illegally replaced the leaderships of the three non-Serbia parts with his own supporters, so he controlled these 4 votes). The 4 votes against Milošević’s plans were: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia. I am thankful to Macedonia for never giving in to Milošević’s extremely aggressive pressures. I am old enough to have lived through these events. I do not know whether you are old enough too, but anyway I just wanted to let you know in case you forgot about Macednia’s position in those times or never knew about it.

Oh, I should also say that I am grateful for having grown up in this wonderfully diverse Yugoslavia. What a melting pot of cultures.

In relation to Macedonia, I love the 7/8 folk rhytm (1-2-3-1-2-1-2) which is so very different to Slovene traditional music. So here are my timeless favourites with this rhytm:

The WWII partisan song Sivi sokole https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLlzP5K3AVU about the heroic battle on the Sutjeska river (Case Black). The video is from a wonderful concert of partisan songs in Ljubljana on 27 April 2013 (we celebrate the uprising of Slovene nation against the WWII occupiers on 27 April 1941). In this particular concert, the top Slovene politicians were sitting in the front row (the president, the president of the parliament, the PM etc.)

For those not familiar with Yugoslav languages and WWII history, see the English translation of the lyrics and the historical background of the Sutjeska battele here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Black#In_song

The ‘unofficial anthem’ of Yugoslavia in the 1980s Jugoslavijo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxdLbSqxkrc (a sort of folk pop)

English translation of the lyrics: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/od-vardara-pa-do-triglava-vardar-triglav.html

Yugoslav rock hit Lipe cvatu by Bjelo Dugme live 1987 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVC2gXTRPOY, which is actually an old Macedonian song. “Grom ga ubio” & “krvi mojom plavom seljačkom”. Ha ha ha. Just so wonderfully powerful.

English translation of the lyrics: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/lipe-cvatu-linden-trees-are-bloom.html

Eric_B
Eric_B
Oct 21, 2015 11:22 PM

Off guardian might want to investigate a new propaganda source the Guardian is using to repost negative stories about Iran, the mysterious ‘Tehran Bureau’.

Sample story:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/oct/21/iran-emad-tayefeh-public-enemies-documentary-dissidents

The Tehran Bureau is an independent media organisation, hosted by the Guardian. Contact us @tehranbureau

Eric_B
Eric_B
Oct 21, 2015 11:31 PM
Reply to  Eric_B

Oh hang on, wiki has the answer.

Starting out as an independent news organization, Tehran Bureau had no affiliation with and received no funding or support from any government, religious, or interest group.[3] However in September 2009 it began a collaboration with the Public Broadcasting Service television series “Frontline” which will provide it with financing, host its Web site and provide editorial support. In return Tehran Bureau will help shape a coming “Frontline” program about Iran.[4]

The British news website The Guardian has been hosting Tehran Bureau since January 2014, and still does today. In an article revealing the new arrangement, The Guardian assured that the magazine would “retain its independence under Niknejad” [5]

Jen
Jen
Oct 22, 2015 6:35 AM
Reply to  Eric_B

The real answer comes from Tehran Bureau itself:

“Major funding for Tehran Bureau is provided by The William H. Donner Foundation and the Flora Family Foundation.”

This means that one of the sources of funding for Tehran Bureau is an organisation with a link to Hewlett Packard.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Flora_Family_Foundation

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 22, 2015 12:54 PM
Reply to  Jen

Jen. Hewlett Packard are the company making lots of money supplying Israel with their passport identification system at checkpoints throughout the occupied territories and is one of many being targeted for BDS. You are probably aware of this (hence the reason you mentioned them) but others may not. Thanks for the link.

Brad Benson
Brad Benson
Oct 22, 2015 3:40 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

I wasn’t aware of that. Thank you. I was about to buy another computer and have always purchased HP’s in the past. I’ll be looking at other brands and will not purchase another HP Product.

Thanks again for the information.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 22, 2015 3:50 PM
Reply to  Brad Benson

I have comments every day about people taking the BDS seriously in the hopes of alleviating the suffering of the Palestinians, it really is good to know that so many care enough to make a difference if they are able. I haven’t bought a Jaffa orange in 8 years and apparently other people have made the connection too. My HP al in one printer is still working but would certainly not replace it with HP and I don’t buy their cartridges. Glad you’re on board!

tommytcgt
tommytcgt
Oct 23, 2015 5:00 AM
Reply to  mohandeer

And HP put a secret clock in their Inkjet Cartridges that time expired even if still full!!

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 24, 2015 1:47 AM
Reply to  tommytcgt

I think it’s located within the gold sensor which indicates ink levels and it can be removed with a box cutter. A company called Unielectronics on eBay supplied my last cartridges for a fraction of the price and they lasted just as long as HP’s.

trackback
Guardian ‘Standard’: Censoring Facts | TheFlippinTruth
Oct 21, 2015 9:36 PM

[…] OffGuardian | October 21, 2015 […]

Popinjay
Popinjay
Oct 21, 2015 9:02 PM

A couple of weeks after being banned by Medialens on a flimsy pretext, I posted a comment on CiF from their message board about the Graun with a link. Now I’m banned by the Graun as well.

rusty
rusty
Oct 21, 2015 9:21 PM
Reply to  Popinjay

I’d happily give a like to all these comments, but to do it iv’e got to go through wordpress and having recovered my computer from a number of trojans picked up on the Disqus commentating circuit, i now stick to only a few and stay low key . iv’e put your link up a few times as there’s quite a few graun banees out there. This is an excellent site I wonder what would happen if you put the link off this sit onto the graun

Brad Benson
Brad Benson
Oct 22, 2015 3:43 PM
Reply to  rusty

The Guardian deletes references to this site and others like it as soon as they are found. It’s almost automatic now.

rusty
rusty
Oct 22, 2015 4:31 PM
Reply to  Brad Benson

I have for my sins been banned from the Grauns commenting community 4 x under various different usernames,
I won’t be going back, there’s no point, it gets to the stage where you get bogged down by the censorship and you’re trying to hold up a 1 sided argument with a Graun troll who can say virtually anything,and you know a meaningful reply will see that comment removed, it’s as if they hate their commenting community. The contempt in which they hold them is breathtaking

in other news 1 of your articles has been featured on Syrian Perspective It’s rough and ready but has a truly international flavor

http://syrianperspective.com/2015/10/hama-33-nusra-terrorists-killed-in-failed-attempt-to-storm-syrian-army-position.html

An interesting article v David Cameron

http://syrianperspective.com/2015/09/mad-rats-and-englishmen-cameron-is-a-bloodthirsty-sociopath-heading-into-the-maws-of-the-bear.html

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 23, 2015 3:49 AM
Reply to  rusty

Done

Joe Staten
Joe Staten
Oct 22, 2015 1:36 PM
Reply to  Popinjay

Why were you banned by Media Lens may I ask?

Popinjay
Popinjay
Oct 22, 2015 1:52 PM
Reply to  Joe Staten

They banned me temporarily, after assuming that some general comments I made about censorship and identity politics, illustrated with the film clip above, were aimed at another poster. I sent the link to the Daves by e-mail to give them the pretext they wanted and got a life ban for it. They deleted most of the threads about it and banned someone else yesterday. A caucus of pseudo-feminists have now got a de facto censorship over the message board.

Not that I’m bitter about it….;O))

Mihangel apYrs
Mihangel apYrs
Oct 21, 2015 6:45 PM

The Graun also censors any questioning of the motives if certain correspondents, including Bates, Valennta, and now Proudman – three feminists. All three make money out of writing men-hating columns, pointing this out – that they’ve generated their own income from effectively nothing – is banned

Eric_B
Eric_B
Oct 21, 2015 10:38 PM
Reply to  Mihangel apYrs

The fact is The Guardian supports a great deal of extreme violence against women.

The ones we bomb in the numerous wars cheerled by The Guardian.

The Laura Bates type articles are just noise compared to this undeniable reality.

None of the MIddle East countries we have bombed had a record of treating women badly.

Shatnersrug
Shatnersrug
Oct 22, 2015 9:53 PM
Reply to  Eric_B

God that Bastard Nick Cohen and his warmongering make me so angry. He called Ed Milband and coward and practically a “bad Jew” for not letting Cameron bomb Syria in 2013. It’s just craven.

What happened? When did everything become so morally bankrupt? I feel like I’ve split off into an alternate reality.

Doctor Hyde
Doctor Hyde
Oct 21, 2015 6:34 PM

(This is Twirlip again, even if the comment appears under another name. I haven’t posted at OffGuardian before, and I’m not yet familiar with how the system works.)

My theory is still that the CiF “moderators” automatically censor any comment that refers to the CiF censorship process itself.

I would be interested to see an example of a political comment which is censored in spite of not having drawn attention, in advance, to the likelihood of its being censored.

Eric_B
Eric_B
Oct 21, 2015 10:24 PM
Reply to  Doctor Hyde

They do, discussion of moderation activities is forbidden.

Often people will be banned or premoderated and have their comment deleted for pointing out that another comment which has been deleted broke no rules.

O Lucky Man!
O Lucky Man!
Oct 21, 2015 10:35 PM
Reply to  Doctor Hyde

Agree to some extent – it is possible to be quite critical of the approved narrative on the Gandrian (a proper news site…) as long as you play the game of not questioning their journalistic integrity. Any direct criticism of their often lopsided and agenda driven pieces in terms of how they are worded, phrased, conflated and made misdirectional through the way the English is written (ie a journalist is manufacturing propaganda again), will most of the time get the comment scrubbed.

The line seems to be drawn at any intelligible deconstruction of their method. Simply shout “propaganda!” and you will likely be left alone. Show that you can accurately deconstruct and lay bare the way they are skewing their storytelling and you will inevitably get the delete buttons clicking.

Mary Evans
Mary Evans
Oct 22, 2015 2:27 AM
Reply to  Doctor Hyde

The Guardian routinely censor comments purely for their political content. The idea they only do so when the commenter predicts the comment will be taken down is absurd.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 22, 2015 1:21 PM
Reply to  Mary Evans

Mary Evans. Not absurd. The Guardian is it’s worst enemy. People are now posting comments which are not particularly politic but suggest censorship may be applied obviously copy and paste their own comments then copy and paste the message from the moderators using the Guardians own site buttons and up it pops on face book. Try it yourself. I have wondered why some comments have been deleted and low and behold come across a F/B posting by accident, followed it back and they have indeed copied and pasted their censored remarks prior to censorship. As it happens, I often post on F/B and copy and paste in the comments section. I will do that on this post because I know I will get comments from some who agree about the Guardian censorship.

Doctor Hyde
Doctor Hyde
Oct 22, 2015 8:48 PM
Reply to  Mary Evans

That’s really not fair. What I wrote is not absurd. (What about it is illogical or inconceivable?) And it is based on observation of the way in which my own comments and comments made by other people have been deleted.

Also, I said quite clearly that it is only a “theory”. And I said very clearly that I would be interested to see some examples that do not fit my theory. (Perhaps you read this comment as ironic or “rhetorical”, but I meant it straight, and I do not see why anyone would assume otherwise.)

Finally, I have now read (or at least skimmed through) all the articles listed here under the tag “Censored on CiF”, I think some of them do convincingly disprove my theory, and I have even just gone to the trouble of posting on Media Lens (in the thread “Guardian Comment is Free censorship”) to say so.

So, I am somewhat offended by being accused of being “absurd”,when I am surely being quite rational.

rusty
rusty
Oct 21, 2015 6:26 PM

The strange thing about the CIF is if you merely hint at censorship let alone mention the dreaded word that comment will be removed
A while back they featured an article by Anna Neistat then of HRW about Assads rape rooms The article in question was riddled with inconsistencies and terribly written, a few of us blew it wide apart, I got banned for the reply i gave with an accompanying link
I went back through their history a few weeks later and passed the link on to a young Syrian partisangirl on another forum. Even she was shocked by it ,that article was removed from the Guardians history within a week of passing the link That woman Neistat is now a big shot with Amnesty . Another Soros run NGO

Eric_B
Eric_B
Oct 21, 2015 10:26 PM
Reply to  rusty

Partisangirl is cool. I posted one of her vidoes here a couple of weeks back.

rusty
rusty
Oct 22, 2015 8:44 AM
Reply to  Eric_B

I used to chat to her on various Disqus commenting forums ,now i hardly see her other than twitter. She can hold her own but the abuse she was taking was an absolute disgrace

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 22, 2015 1:41 PM
Reply to  rusty

Nick. If I post something on a site, it will be available for me on MY laptop for a long time afterwards. If I go back to the site and the original article which I have deleted from my inbox, the post has been removed possibly only a few minutes later, it’s still showing on my screen as awaiting moderation but not on the site.

Nick
Nick
Oct 21, 2015 3:59 PM

I’m puzzled that the screenshot of Bill’s message says “11m ago”, i.e. the screenshot was taken 11m after the message was posted. But the screenshot of the removal/censorship says “4m ago”. How can the actual message have been screensaved (and thus visible) at least 7 minutes after it was removed? Unless the ‘4m’ means since removal rather than since posting; but that’s not what it says. Are we sure the two screenshots refer to the same message?

Janet B
Janet B
Oct 21, 2015 5:25 PM
Reply to  Nick

Yes I thought the same!

Mary Evans
Mary Evans
Oct 21, 2015 6:13 PM
Reply to  Nick

Bill P seems to have made only one comment on that thread, or indeed on any thread in the Guardian, so it must be the same one. In any event the comment quoted above is definitely now deleted.

http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/61823991

Twirlip
Twirlip
Oct 21, 2015 6:28 PM
Reply to  Nick

This is a technical defect of their software. I think every comment I have ever posted there (and there have been lots) as initially been shown as having been posted “15m ago”, or something of that order. (Perhaps it always starts at 10m, or 11m, as in the screenshot – I’ve never bothered to check.)

ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
Oct 22, 2015 2:25 AM
Reply to  Nick

That’s why I didn’t crop the URL from the message. In real terms it was only about four or five minutes.

ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
Oct 21, 2015 3:40 PM

I am totally grateful to the Off Guardian for existing 🙂

ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
ragheadthefiendlyterrorist
Oct 21, 2015 3:40 PM

Oh, by the way, I’m Bill Purkayastha.

tommytcg
tommytcg
Oct 21, 2015 1:20 PM

Like the West’s IS-embedded specialists who are also getting busted in Syria by Bad Vlad, who also ‘nobody likes’

unheilig
unheilig
Oct 21, 2015 1:30 PM
Reply to  tommytcg

Tut tut, Vladbad = Hitler, do try to stay on message.

pwest9
pwest9
Oct 21, 2015 1:07 PM

Busted……….Again

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Oct 21, 2015 3:02 PM
Reply to  pwest9

NEW SONG IDEA:

When the article’s bad
And your comment’s banned
Who ya gonna call?
Graun-busters!

I ain’t afraid of no moderator!

Bustin’ makes me feel good!