What “community standards” did this comment breach? #23
Frank Speaker
Our western world today took another step towards an Orwellian, dystopian future. Like most of us here at Off-Guardian, I’ve previously been moderated, pre-moderated, and once banned from ‘The Guardian Of The Establishment’ (TGOTE) newspaper.
I came back a couple of years ago with a new alias, mainly to read and comment upon football and technology, but that changed today.
Today TGOTE was peddling an opinion piece entitled: “Facts are under siege. Now, more than ever, we need to invest in journalism” by Robert Reich, “a former US secretary of labor…and the author of ‘Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few’ and ‘The Common Good’. He is also a columnist for Guardian US.”
Intrigued, I forced myself to read the piece. I already expected a misrepresentation of the truth, but even given such cynism, my mouth dropped upon reading this line:
…there is also a need for at least some truly independent newspapers and media outlets, like the Guardian, financed not by commercial sponsors or any party with a financial or other interest, but which exist solely to serve the public.”
No need to dissect this nonsense any further, however, I was pleasantly surprised to notice that the BLT comments were open. I scanned through a few and was further surprised to see that some people were as sceptical as I was, and incredibly, their comments were allowed to stand…
In the spirit of “free speech” in our beloved “free press” TGOTE, I thought I’d better take the opportunity to contribute to the debate before it got closed down (FranklySwiss is my replacement alias in TGOTE…
Oh dear. It became immediately apparent that commenting about Julian Assange in the “free press” is strictly forbidden!
Interestingly, comments were allowed about the OPCW scam. All my remaining comments on Assange were very also quickly deleted…
That was the last of it though, my run of luck ended as I was swiftly put on pre-moderation…
I’ll leave you with Robert Reich’s final comments, they inspired me with immense confidence, and relief, that we will finally get the free press that we have been waiting for:
“…outlets, like the Guardian…which exist solely to serve the public…These steps are necessary not only to rebuild public trust but also to restore the media to its rightful place in our democracy and protect the truth as a common good.”
Pass me the sick bucket please…
Frank Speaker is a truth-seeker, a despiser of hypocrisy, a peace-maker, a democratic socialist, a philosopher, a polyglot, a tree hugger, a voracious Swiss-cheese eater. He’s travelled extensively and experienced many cultures. He tries to keep a very open mind, and generally knows when to close the lid to stop PSYOPs, disinfo campaigns and other sewerage pouring in and polluting it.
See our archive of censored comments. And if you see any egregious examples of the Guardian censoring its “free” comment sections – email us at [email protected], and send us screen caps if possible
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Anything bouts Julian Assange is most strictly VERBOTEN when it comes to comments at the Zio-Fraudian. Also anythings bouts IsraHell as well.
But don’t let that stop you from giving them Censor Cowards an earful. Use that handy ‘Report’ function and let go at the traitors over and over till they disable it. Just switch the ol’ server, come back and give ’em some more if your feeling especially naughty!!!
HA!!!!
Great idea Freddy!
Lol that was my comment on the OPCW and it got deleted too
I thought it was too good to be true, for your OPCW to stand.
The Guardian is now beyond any shadow of doubt an utterly corrupt Establishment rag, no ifs, no buts.
Those OPCW lies almost led to a hot war between NATO and Russia. Thank God for Putin and, I feel weird saying this, but Trump too. That hot war could extremely easily have escalated to a nuclear war and WW3.
These two Presidents fully understand the evils of the MIC and the agenda of Fundamentalist-Judeo-Christians, their ilLiberal apparatchiks. That’s why they these two wise Presidents are being targeted for removal.
Seismic events!
Not talking about the possibility of Rees Mogg having a meltdown in Somerset but the Groaniads mega mega comment destructing slas and burn fire fight on queenbee Marina Hydes article yesterday.
I didn’t read it till very late night and nearly woke the whole street by the roflmao reaction it inspired.
Obviously she set out knowing what reaction it would elicit but not necessarily how seismic (i’m going to use that word all through the day i suspect).
Only a few hundred before comments closed.
I’ve never seen so many deletions – it looked like a bloody battlefield massacre more dead than standing!
Oh and these who survived garnering hundreds of votes.
Maybe thousands by today.
La Hyde, the epitome 0f the degraded spirit of TGOTE- which allows no mention of JA(ssange) or Integrity Initiative and spewet of AS bile agains JC and no doubt closet hard brexiter – perhaps hoping to change a few minds in a last ditch smear and claim of unreasonabilitzy of Labour voters by the reaction she knew she would inspire.
She certainly achieved one part of that plan.
Of course on the othet hand john Crace’s mood seems to have soared as he celebrated the crash and burn of The Fartage.
His comments too were curtailed but what a difference between the two writers!
As the Beeb and Groan begin their swivel to retain some respectibilty at the coming earth shattering poll perhaps the nay sayers around here will too – it may well be seismic.
Maybe we could even have a decent election article to see us through to polling day?
There’ll also be a whole pile of deletions that are not even visible. I only noticed that the other day when I was posting in relation to my article. My deletions were not even visible to other readers, invisible.
I don’t yet understand how they do this, but I guess that the moderators are given normal delete access, with the deletion being visible, but then a super-mod or even direct access perhaps to GCHQ to completely remove “problematic” comments and any traces of them altogether…
…I just hope they don’t follow through and completely remove “problematic” commenters altogether! ;o)
They have pretty much disappeared that article – for posterity sake i’ll link it here.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/05/scrub-antisemitism-out-of-labour-corbyn-wont-even-clean-his-own-house
Hopefully she may finally have jumped the shark and the readers can get past her cutsie jokey urbane personae while constantly dripping subtle poison into our eyeballs.
One day the Guardian archives will be purged, probably “by accident”, deleting a disc or tape. My bet is that the following one will be one of the first to disappear, it’s from 2011 when the Guardian still had real journos working for the. It reveals a great deal about how manipulated social media has now become, all these years later…
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
….and I forgot to add, that’s why we should save these web pages as html, mht, or PDF for future reference and to allow us to shared once they are memory-holed.
Sorry I wasn’t fully paying attention and felt puzzled by the TGOTE acronym. On googling I discovered “The Gospel of the Egyptians”- which seems ironically fitting. Didn’t Pharaoh shaft the Jews?
Nope. The Hebrew tribe was never in Egypt.
Biblically:
Historically (and note last line):
Both quotes are from the all-knowing Wiki. Well what do you know? Is the Bible kind of …made up?
They missed out the bits about the talking snakes in a nice garden.
I don’t suppose this has any relevance to anything but when, as a child, I first heard the one about Satan originally being an angel who rebelled, I was fascinated. So with excitement I turned to the book of Genesis …and all I got was this bloody talking snake!
The PANIC is delicious.
LBC not only has Tory Zahawi, founder of YouGove on election call with Mair – NOT in the studio! But it also has Farage on later for an hour!
No problem with political partiality for LBC and that fine piece of work Eddie
I’ll say it one more time the precious HARD brexit is dead dead dead.
”I’ll say it one more time the precious HARD brexit is dead dead dead.”
And you seem quite pleased about this particular outcome. Never mind the fact that the whole Remainer case is based upon the annulment of over 17 million votes which amounts to a coup. Corbyn has spoken against your lovely EU for all of this political career but has been manoeuvred into a Remainer position by the likes of Thornberry, MacDonnell, Abbot et.al. This is probably the single the most important strategic error which will cause Labour to lose the election given the defection of the mass of leave voters up and down the country. Nice going.
Yawn. As they say Francis.
Corbyn campaigned for REMAIN.
And 17 million probably didn’t vote for a brexit (with the postal ballot fiddlery) and these who did vote for it, certainly didn’t do so for a HARD brexit.
Time to get through the stages of grief – being stuck at non acceptance is not a good look – a bit Miss Havisham!
They were probably all Russian bots.
Unless they were all old ignorant uneducated bigoted racists.
Well said DG
…and it’s good to keep groaning, keeps us mentally alert, no need to apologise nor make excuses for your groaning.
Francis, I genuinely respect your worldview, but I genuinely struggle to understand your promotion of a Hard Brexit which would in my view deliver a hardcore neoliberal Britain, signing up to a US trade deal, compared to which the proposed US-EU TTIP deal would be a philanthropic gesture by the US!
Moreover, if we acted upon your dissing of Corbyn, and voted against him or abstained, then Britain will have lost the remostest possibility for real change for at least the next generation, probably much longer.
I understand your idealism, but in the real world, the likes of Corbyn have to deal and manouvre amongst the lies of the Corporatist and Statist media. They need to have a far-reaching vision without revealing to all and sundry that they have a far-reaching vision, otherwise the likes of MI5, Murdoch, Barclays and other traitors will make sure Corbyn is literally “dead on arrival”.
Your opinion is well meaning, and in the ideal world, to be full supported. In the real world, you are sadly contributing to those who hate Johnson, but cannot bring themselves to vote for Corbyn due to the opinions of yours, and I hate to place you in the same group, but effectively (even if not politically) the end-result as opinion writers and stenographers of TGOFTE (The Guardian Of The Establishment) are aiming to achieve.
Think about it Francis. Different politics, but same end-result of perpetuating a neoliberal post-Brexit future.
..and I truly hope that you can sleep well at night.
The big difference between the Labour and Tory election campaigns:
Labour campaign for the UK in 2019.
The Tories campaign for Germany in 1937.
The Guardian? Have you tried to comment recently at The Telegraph? While there are far more articles with open comments than is the case with TGOTE, they’ve obviously been recruiting ‘moderators’ from the latter. It wasn’t that long ago that virtually nothing was moderated into oblivion, but now a significant number of comments are disposed of without a second thought. A particularly annoying tactic is to allow comments for a certain period and then delete all of them and close commenting. Of course this has the effect that anyone participating in the debate has wasted his time. I was contemplating subscribing The Telegraph, but I don’t think I will.
One of the reasons i believe i was barred on TGOTE was that I was dissecting their polls as soon as they were published by analysing their raw data and debunking their ‘headline’ results.
They have changed the way of reporting their data to make it even more obscure.
Hey Off-G that may be a good article on the election now?
Even the TGOTE has managed to sneak one in
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/05/pollsters-results-secrecy-statisticians-surveys
You’d provide a very valuable service to this community if you were willing to share with us your next dissection, hopefully you might agree?
Thanks for asking Frank.
But I won’t be doing any more balls polls busting this election.
I shared it here when i did it a couple of weeks ago, It was also picked up and the quoted by indy sites.
I also shared why such balls polls were being used as propaganda. I wrote about how the tory strategy was wrong- we already had the brexit election, 2017 and in effect also 2015 sandwiching the brexit referendum.
I have also shared my conjecture of why the tories haven’t bothered to campaign – because the election was going to be rigged using postal votes.
And the controlled msm and alt-media narrative, the mud slinging and other excuses to explain why Labour would have lost.
I explained why the Labour strategy of dealing with that assault was correct.
Finally I pointed out why the narrative manufacturing becomes almost impossible to get away with when 4 million registered to vote ; when Labour were only 800k behind 2 years ago ( when just 2 million were able to register).
And all along I identified the reason why it is all being done.
To grab the illegally won HARD brexit from the jaws of defeat. It has ZERO to do with Corbyn.
The British people once stung will be twice shy. Along with the truism that you can’t fool all of the people all the time are the reasons for the failure to destroy Labour this time.
This election is the end of Austerity election – it is about the reaffirmation of the 1945 social democratic covenant with the people – expressed as a shortcut, ‘the NHS stupid!’
It is about restoring the basic rights won for the majority and upgraded for the 21st Century and our kids, young families, grandkids our seniors and us.
No more poll balls busting this time – it’s over, bar the stich up.
That’s why the sudden change in media tactics (suddenly ignoring the issues) in the dirtiest election ever in the last hundred years.
Looking forward to many a Portillo/ Balls moments on Friday the 13th.
Get out and VOTE and change the World.
I hope you are right DG.
One of the challenges of being a lone voice is that it’s not easy to amplify and spread. I urge you not to give up. If you feel that the bastards have knocked you back, or your peers have not listened sufficiently, take it as a signal to “keep on trucking” and making a “nuisance” of yourself.
Sincerely,
Frank
In 2016, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katharine Viner blamed social media for:
Well, she has been reliably walking the talk for a while now. She also presciently wrote:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth
Talking about hypocrisy, this post is quite relevant.
The linked to Katherine Viner’s article has a very interesting picture of the Vote Leave campaign bus, advocating in a huge text:
Interesting how ‘Funding the NHS’ turned out to be planning to sell it to the LOWEST bidder!
That’s still not an argument for sending Brussels £50 million every 24 hours.
So anyone else notice this piece in the Groan from their consent manu-factory overlords?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/04/guardians-rebecca-hendin-wins-award-for-boris-johnson-cartoon
Rebbecca who????? That was her ONLY cartoon in the Groan.
Who made the award?
https://www.ellwoodatfield.com/cartoons/
They are ‘head hunters’ doesn’t say who set up, owns or runs them – all a bit spooky if you ask me.
Oh by the way
‘we would like to thank Ken Clarke and Kate Hoey (who) presented the awards at our gallery in Westminster.’
Golly a one cartoon cartoonist – Rowson and Bell must be over the moon to not have been invited to join THAT club.
Strange to say that the Labour MPs who are members of the ‘Labour Friends of Israel’ have remained silent during this whole sordid episode. Their silence has been deafening. No need to ask whose side they are on. How can the Labour party do anything whilst this Trojan Horse remains in the party. Kinnock was quick enough to expel the Militant Tendency from Labour way back. But it seems that the Labour Friends of Israel – who are simply a zionist front – enjoy a privileged status. Yes, the Labour party is a broad church but there are limits to internal party democracy.
They are silent because they hope to remain as the last hope 5th columnists if there is a small Labour majority.
They can then do the walk across to the opposition benches and try and stop a Labour government.
They are not running on the manifesto, my Blairite paratrooper incumbent hasn’t mentioned it ONCE! Hasn’t got a photo of Jezza and hasn’t supported the Labour candidate threatening to unseat a tory in a ADJOINING constituency.
They will no doubt refuse to resign and hold a by- election when they make their treacherous move so soon after a GE they won as Labour MP’s.
CraigMurray’s website is censoring too: two of my comments vanished yesterday and today.
Unwritten rules: 1) don’t critisize XR 2) don’t criticize Islam
A little Guardian in the making??
Interesting assertions not only evidence free (though admittedly it would be hard to see how you could prove them) but also free of details. What were your censored comments Ant?
And as far as I know, Off-G doesn’t censor. So why don’t you make your splendidly cogent arguments here?
You seem triggered George? Murray and his goons do censor comments if you get on the wrong side of him, though they do so in quite a random way.
It is not possible to provide evidence as sometimes his goons pre-moderate and your comments don’t even appear. At other times a comment is posted and then disappears. I have received this treatment and no longer contribute to his blog.
I wrote a number of e-mails to Murray and his moderators on this subject to complain and also wrote to Murray personally. He has ignored my letters.
Ooh I like a good triggering!
I am aware of some dodgy goings on at CM’s site. I have seen some of my own comments mysteriously vanish – although it is often because they were part of a whole section that has been removed for reasons that are not explained. One commenter on Off-G spoke of CM’s “house trolls” and there is one I recall in particular who was an extremely aggressive individual – also very clever. He (I presume it was a “he”) could side with you and, as it were, lure you into the proverbial false sense of security before, if you’ll pardon the expression, mind-fucking you. No device was too low for this one – including emotional blackmail. I will not mention names since I have a superstition that doing so might bring him back as in the Beetlejuice scenario!
I’m not sure how to take your message? Murray does have his moderators censor and remove comments. Here is a recent discussion:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/moderator/
Murray has moderators: ergo he censors his commenters.
It should be recognised that Murray is a private individual and does not operate his site in the same way as Off-G. He seems not only to have become very successful in recent years, but also has a hardcore of “groupies” who hang onto his every word. if you criticise him too much you can end up stand accused of being some sort of establisshment troll.
FYI I am a Russophile. I hate the way Russia is treated by our media and politicians and those in the United States.
I was recently due to attend the Assange meeting in London at which he appeared. I decided to back out in the end as I was afraid I could get in to an argument with St Craig and end up thumping him! (lol)
I don’t like Murray. I think he is a politically motivated hypocrite with an obsessive hate of everything “British”. Murray was born in England to an English mother. I expect he cries himself to sleep over that every night. And I sometimes wonder if he is really on the side of Julian Assange. Only insofar as it benefits his political aims IMO.
He married a foreign Muslim woman and might therefore be over careful regarding Islam as his in laws might get in trouble by “the peace fulls”.
He was a link between Assange and Wikileaks I believe, so that on the plus side.
My triggering remark was facetious. Other than that the comments I made seem straightforward to me. The Off-G commenter I referred to is one “Tony M” whose comment appears first here:
https://off-guardian.org/2018/05/03/how-social-media-platforms-suppress-key-truths/
There’s a whole discussion that comes from this comment. Some accuse CM of anti-Russian bias. I can’t say I’ve noticed. He seemed to be extremely skeptical of the UK line on the Skripal matter. I saw some of my own comments disappear along time ago but I continue to post there and I haven’t had any issues recently.
Oh diddums, here get your dentures round this instead – up the 5+1 eyed gollum!
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-12-04-how-the-uk-military-and-intelligence-establishment-is-working-to-stop-jeremy-corbyn-from-becoming-prime-minister
I’ll have a test with mentioning Assange, see if G is part of the War on Truth.
I have been reading up a fair bit on national security lately. It is so sad that Russia and China want to take Australia away from US control. Will these big three bash each other’s heads in in my street? Maybe they can come into my place and we’ll play some music and sing together? I need only 2 hours notice to dress up.
These campaigners have to be somewhere, why not there/here?
“We shape and deliver winning campaigns to influence opinions, policies and decision-makers at global and local level.”
From Rasmussen Global website, how they advertise their services.
Sadly, Herr Reich has slithered over to the dark side. For luscious lucre? For mendacity practice? For convivial infamy at the country club? Or have “they” advised him against truth telling, so he settled for truthiness. The Groin is a rich man’s scribe begging for pennies at the manor gates. I’ll donate a new, sharp pencil, right where it needs one…
He’s 74… Perhaps he’s losing it…
Some do.
I used to hear good things about him, but what he’s writing now is hilarious.
Well, I’m 73. Does that mean I’ve only one year of lucidity left? Will 2563 BE (here in Bangkok) be my Year of the Drooling Donkey?
It is not age in itself, it is the constant upholding of a false narrative that becomes tiring, even for the greatest among the celebrity left. Seems to have happened to Reich (who praises the journalistic integrity of the Guardian) and happened for sure with Chomsky. You know, year in year out cheerleading for the Democrats, and denouncing war AFTER the battle is fought, while every now and then joining the cabale of brandishing the ‘enemy’ country into non-humans so that they can easily be exterminated by our troops (Serbs, ISIS), that must be tiring.
Keeping up appearances, may be important when you join the celebrity left. But after a time you get used to saying whatever you like, since they like what you say. And then you become more ‘relaxed’ and say stupid things like ‘there is also a need for…. the Guardian’.
I actually think that this ‘being exposed’ of the celebrity left frees the mind of the reader. It for sure helped me to get rid of all these biased opinions from the celebrity left (which is usually salted with some good advice) and I am glad it did.
Pity though that I spent so much time of trying to understand the (often convuluted) opinions of Reich, Chomsky, Hedges, Klein, Greenwald, Scahill, et al. But then, as Mick Jagger sang, ‘tiiiiiiiiime is on my side (yes it is)’. For all of us, who (dare to) spend a little time thinking for themselves…
Relax, J.
I’m 73 too!
I said, “Some do”, but of course there are millions of us who have decades of clear thinking ahead of us.
Reich is obviously not one of us.
By the way, what do you expect from a newspaper employing terrorist mouthpiece, imperialist shill, and Extinction Rebellion agent provocateur GorgeRise Mindbot?
If you hung around comment fora like that on Arcamax, you would know how to bypass this kind of censorship based on keywords. Instead of writing “Assange” try A ssange, or Asaangge, or Ass@nge, or perhaps Âssängé. Try it and see.
Defeats the purpose. You are now playing their game, sniggering behind your hand instead laughing in their face. Why squeeze through a crack when you can kick down the door? Your censored comments, even unseen, carry more weight than the obsequious tosh they print. Their pathetic “Donate for independent journalism” is a joke to us readers, but surely a piercing insult to the few journalists hiding among the Groin’s herd of stenographers.
Note also how this enlightened newspaper is contantly peddling Tory attack lines, usually based on ‘the polls’, whether attacking Corbyn, claiming Northern Labour voters are flocking to the Tories, Lib Dem vote collapsing etc.
It is not just readers’ comments disappearing either, but coordinated trolling, either in-house or affiliated, deriding or arguing against comments that go against the Guardian’s unspoken line. I first noticed this on Andrew Rawnsley’s Observer articles where supportive comments about Corbyn would be disputed or mocked. The Mail use the same tactic of belittling dissenting commentators. It’s all starting to seem rather like a dictatorship.
Yes, I have experienced “coordinated trolling” in the Guardian, I was accused of being ‘antishemetic’ for using the term “cultural Marxist” in a comment. My original comment then disappeared.
The Trolls and moderators are probably one in the same.
The Mail is full of shills in the comment sections, the voting up and down of comments seems highly manipulated.
Anyone who mentions “cultural marxism” unless to satirise it, deserves to be treated with contempt.So I hope and trust that was what you were doing jay.
You can be pretty certain that anyone who uses the term ‘cultural marxist’ hasn’t a clue what they are talking about. Presumably they are referring to the ‘Frankfurt School’ of social theory which was outlawed by the Nazi party in the early thirties and most fled to the United States. My own view is that The Dialectic of the Enlightenment by Horkheimer and Adorno, is pretty much unreadable, additionally are the writings of Marcuse, Benjamin, whose philosophical mish-mash was characterised by the French intellectual Raymond Aron when he stated that inside every neo-Marxist there is a neo-Weberian trying to get out.
Re: the Frankfurt school, one of the most delicious put-downs I ever heard came from the composer György Ligeti who described Adorno as “the smartest stupid person I ever met.”
is definitely priceless.
Has been all along a dictatorship – undetected by the
sharp masses.
All this is true, but realistically I think we’re looking at a Tory victory and maybe a majority.
The Brexit Party challenge to the Tories has collapsed. Farage has either been bought off (a peerage?) or has been conned by Bojo. His new party is visibly falling apart. This threat to the Tories has been neutralised.
At the same time, Farage will attack Labour in all the heartland seats that went 60-70% Leave. A lot of people in the north and midlands are not that fond of Jezza anyway because of his metropolitan roots.
The Liberals will be squeezed and people can’t stand Swinson.
Our kosher friends are going into overdrive about the New Hitler Jezza. This is all transparent Zionist garbage, but like Russiagate/ Skripal/ Syrian Gas Hoaxes, and similar lies, it has been peddled by the Zionist MSM for so relentlessly for so long that a lot of gullible people will be taken in.
This probably won’t be a good result for Labour.
But does that really matter?
If there’s no room in it for Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker, or Marc Wadsworth, does it deserve anybody’s vote?
It certainly won’t get mine (neither will anybody else.)
Lol. Super gaslighting.
Still a FAIL.
Apologies if anyone has raised this issue before – but why is the election being held at this curious time i.e. just before Christmas? Do the MPs who voted for it feel that the UK public will be at a “low ebb”, especially vulnerable to propaganda, distracted by the Christmas season? I can’t think of a more sadistic time to choose for what will surely be the most viciously divisive election in decades. Season of peace and goodwill?
These are called ‘Baby-Jesus-Elections’.
Since Bolivia has proven to be a smashing
success for the Baby-Jesus fanbase, the
UK regime handlers decided to move the
elections closer to the Baby-Jesus-Day.
It could also be called ‘bridging the divide
between church and state’. The question is:
Will there be advertising that states ‘Good
Christians vote for Christianism’?
Interesting theory. I have previously voiced doubts about religion – not that I’m against it in principal but because I have noted that following religious links always seems to strand you in the most reactionary backwaters. I think Trotsky had it right:
Ran out of time to get a hard brexit by 31st jan.
Like the Groaniad with Wintour and Harding weighing in with fake news.
LBC the broadcaster – full on anti – Labour.
A radio station with barely concealed biased jocks.
There is a full spectrum control of the narrative.
No doubt the interweb is busy consuming the Tory millions in targeted noxious adverts too.
But i’ll tell you, the level of anti Labour invective is now counter productive – a bit like the referendum – when the fair minded British voters see the state telling them to vote one way with ‘project fear’ they inevitably flick a set of V’s and do the opposite!
They will know this as the first load of postal votes are already being returned (and illegally ‘opened’). Only a miracle delivered by Idox can save the State from the biggest shock since 1945 when Winnie got booted out and Atlee got the largest majority! And this was within months of winning the war!
You’ve mentioned Harding…I need to throw up once again…
Yes I feel that this grinding Corbyn-is-Hitler circus act must surely be attaining counterproductive proportions by now. And even now I can scarcely believe they tried this on in the first place. The only thing more embarrassingly stupid would be to try and convince the electorate that “The Lord of The Rings” is actual history and Corbyn is Sauron. (Frankly I think there are sectors of the public that would swallow that too!)
Perhaps I shouldn’t talk too soon. God knows how it will go. But this pathetic pantomime has certainly showed up the sheer desperation of some politicians along with the criminal gullibility of most of the media – and, perhaps most revealingly, the depressing eagerness with which some of our “national treasures” in the entertainment world jump on the moral outrage bandwagon. (Miss Lumley and Messrs Iannucci and Baddiel)
Baddiel has been shilling for more Gives and Goodies for his tribe for decades now.
I’m thinking of creating a new website by the name of ”F**k off, Guardian.”
Honestly, I don’t know WHERE I get these stunningly original ideas from…
No need to Gwyn, I think Off-G are fulfilling that need very well.
True, Frank. We’re lucky to have them.
(And I’m glad to say that I recently started working again after being on the dole for a long time. It’s nice to be able to contribute a bit of cash to the Off-G cause).
Well done! As the Swiss-French around here, where I currently live, positively declare in such circumstances…“Bon Courage“ !!!
Diolch yn fawr, Frank!
(I know that a polyglot such as your good self will appreciate a response in Welsh…).
Yes indeed Gwyn!
A pleasure exchanging messages with you today, Frank. Thanks very much for the article, too. I look forward to reading more of them.
I gave up reading the Guardian a while back…
I do not care what they write, I do not care what their opinions are: either the ‘journalists’ or for that matter the people who seem to be allowed to make the right sort of comment which isn’t moderated.
I’m a leave voter, but leave or remain, I was flabbergasted when commenters who previously identified as “left wing” were wishing Donald Tusk was our PM. It made me realise we can never rely on the middle-class.
Lundiel, you’ve reminded me of a piece that’ve been itching to write, but struggling to do so for various reasons, about the whole Brexit / leave / remain saga. Your comment has triggered me to finally put pen to paper…for better or for worse…probably the latter.
Go for it. I know we’re on different sides of the argument but for me, getting the Tories out trump’s everything.
There isn’t much point replacing them with the Tory Party Mk. II, aka the Blair Fan Club. Do you really want people like Benn, Phillips, Bradshaw, Bryant, Thornberry forming a government? Neoliberal pro austerity warmonger Friends of Israel one and all. Even more obnoxious than Bojo and the Tory Party Mk. I, if that’s possible.
Forget Jezza. Whatever the election result, he will soon be unceremoniously dumped on his allotment as soon as it’s over. There’s nothing more sad than people who carry on playing the Lesser Evils game time after time, with the same result on each occasion. The triumph of hope over experience, like a battered woman going back to the same abusive partner, because this time he really, really, really is giving up the booze and it really, really, really will be different. Sad.
I disagree. If the Labour government introduces a quarter of manifesto pledges, it’ll signal the end of austerity. The people you mention, Phillips etc, will be back benchers apart from Thornberry and it’ll be easy to sideline her.
We have to start somewhere or it’s more of the same. I speak to many millennials who accept neoliberalism as the only workable option, they’re hard-wired and need to see a different economic system actually working or they’ll programme their children and like America, even the mildest form of social democracy will be banned outright.
It’s sobering – indeed terrifying – to think of how generations can be “programmed” and I’m sure the neoliberals (or to be more precise capitalists) are constantly grinding away their hypnotic media chants knowing that the long term is where all that bullshit will pay off. And so over a few decades the entire edifice of social democracy can be shelved to make way for a resurgence of that old Oliver Twist chimney sweep world..
Bend over and drop your trousers one more time if it makes you feel better.
Boris probably IS more of Europhile than Donald Tusk.
Yep, the shitty, base, disoriented and now childish Guardian that has become a haven of right wing, imperialist and frankly vomit inducing non journalism which I hope to live to see torn asunder with its beneath contempt Viner, it’s beneath contempt fluffy well healed Cohen et fucking al.
Problem is too many fools believe their DM garbage.
Some day.
The self serving hypocrisy and lack of self awareness of these people is off the scale.
I read like a dozen or so articles from Robert Reich a few years ago when I was reading and commenting at AlterNet. He’s a Hillary supporter with Trump derangement syndrome who saw Russians everywhere:D He’s an idiot.
Thak for that background Sharon, I’ve not got around to looking him up yet…in fact I don’t think he’s worth the effort, thanks to your post.
Thank you for this article, Frank Speaker:)
Worked for big dog Chilton white house and stood behind him as he signed nafta, banking laws, and a few others that destroyed us on Main Street. RR is a ten year teacher at UCB
The Grauniad died with the resignation of its last independent editor, Alan Rusbridger.
Crap. Rusbridger was as much an establishment toady and liar as Viner.
He seems to have been a positive force in the Snowden affair?
To the average gullible idiot, no doubt.
Rusbridger was no doubt turned, but he was nevertheless an “old school” and relatively, still-honourable journalist. Perhaps GCHQ recorded his “private preferences” and “persuaded” him to succumb to their project, at least in part? Whatever, he was markedly more impartial and incisive than Viner, full stop.
“Private preferances”…..I seem to recall he intended to take piano lessons in retirement.
Whoa there Frank. Did he turn him in?
Very murky waters….who knows?
It died with their treachery of Julian Assange.
It was well on its way with supporting Blair in the treachery of the never ending war on terror.
I’ve posted this on these threads before, and I’m posting it again. Darren Allen’s excellent takedown of the Guardian:
https://expressiveegg.org/2017/02/07/guardian-bothering/
Thanks for sharing that link Gwyn, I’ve not seen it before. I’ve saved it as a PDF and filed it as a worthwhile reference.
You’re welcome, Frank. I keep it somewhere handy, too. I know I’ll be reading it again.
Thanks for the article.
It is a proprietary gated ‘community’ whose rules are determined without transparency or accountability. Once you know that why give it validity by acting as if it is what they say it is – when you know they operate a narrative dictate that guard its ‘comment is free’.
In these times you can recognise the lie by its reversal.
– – –
I will confess that on seeing an aggregate headline for ‘lets talk about death’ as a Guardian article – I broke my own rule and commented. I don’t normally give time to see if my comments are published, but in desire to add a link to another comment that included the theme of death, I went back to get the link and found not only wasn’t it there but no comment options (or comments) remained on the page.
In the opportunity to publish a denied comment to the Guardian (of a top down narrative dictate) I post it here: (IF OG prefer it NOT be in this thread I give full permission to edit back to the first two paragraphs – but consider whether this post merits a ‘what standards did this breach?’
I also write in the heart and into the mind of all. Or rather I give witness and welcome to a movement within us all rather than seek to impose or impact upon as a narrative dictate.
The Article link is :
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/30/talk-about-death-openly-dying-bereaved/
My comment:
I don’t feel that the words we use IN THEMSELVES are the matter.
What matters is that our word is one with our thought and deed.
Anything and everything can be said ABOUT death without being able to speak what it Is – perhaps because in our current framing death of an OTHER is experienced as IS NOT.
The breaking of the ‘continuity’ of a world in which that one was integrally participant is a sudden transition to a world in which they are NOT – excepting the trace of their lives in our own. For until it is our own release of such a continuity of self and world – we live on.
If you are embarrassed in the presence of love you will hide your fear, shame or unworthiness in terms that gloss over or actively deny true felt relation – not merely with the one who dies to our world, but to our own intimate resonances – which may well be an alloy of love and hate because such is the nature of the personality level. The death of another may open a greater gift than likes and dislikes or patterns of affection or grievance. For the love that they are – regardless of the life that they lived – is revealed as a Silence that we cannot speak or define – but from which we emerge with the gift of them in our heart – insofar as we are accepting and abiding of a love that cannot be grasped, held onto, controlled or possessed.
There is much in our current framing of life that has it backwards – no wonder then an insane world. The word you give in your heart is who you are accepting your life, self and world to be. If we make a ‘dead world’ of evasions and deceits how can we then recognise it in love?
Life in the body is an idea of becoming possessed by the attempt to possess and control. Life is through the body, even as Meaning is through the word-form and not IN the image or idol of any expression of an Unspeakable Infinity that is truly an Intimacy.
If Consciousness is shifting perspectives of experience – then we do not really GO anywhere – excepting within a given or accepted framing of perspective. Note that I do not GO to this website – no one ever does. Virtual frameworks of reflected meaning serve the purpose we give them. Giving a true word is restoring the capacity to receive it.
Robert Reich: Spokesperson for Theworstscum™
I’d say that humanity got itself into a huge mess that will require
a good spring cleaning.
Let’s get a law that requires the publication to print on the sleeve
by whom it is financed into the third degree, where its orders are
coming from and the relationsships of their writers into the third
degree.
There can only be ‘Direct Journalism’ that is distributed in a co-op
that is owned and operated by the authors and content contributors.
Open Source Journalism.
During my time as photo journalist, I worked closely with the people
that actually print the newspaper. So, I know how it works and can
replicate the experience.
This is how it must be done:
Everybody in the smallest village has a right to be truthfully informed.
But in conjunction with the implementation of the internet as a means
to subdue, surveil, control and exploit the population, the print media
was removed by the same forces. Villagers no longer have the
opportunity to receive the latest reports on the state of affairs of their
own communities, their countries and of the world. The Co-op can be
at any place – where there is at least also coverage by USPS (without
being depending on them, or working with them).
The collective publishes the “Whatever Express” that is printed out in
the morning and made available at the local newspaper stand by Co-op
associates. I could write a long list about what true journalistic freedom
and the protection thereof look like.
The Guardian is the opposite of journalism. Because it would be already
shameful if it would have nothing to do with journalism, but moreso
by being the opposite of journalism, The Guardian et al become dangerous
instruments of manipulation. That is visible in the comment sections.
And as long as anybody doesn’t have to bio-metrically back up their
identity, commenting online will no longer be possible. “But for the spooks”
you would rightfully add.
Just had this incoming message:
Communism works best in Journalism, or
Journalism has to be Communistic.
In today’s edition of ‘I’ formerly known as The Independent there was a small piece on page 6 ‘Corbyn says ‘sorry’ over Labour and ‘anti-semitism’. During the interview with Phillip Schofield Corbyn was quoted as saying ”Our party and me do not accept anti-semitism in any form … Obviously I am very sorry for everything that has happened, but I want to make it crystal clear : I am dealing with it, other parties are also affected by anti-semitism.” This wasn’t an outright grovel to the zionist lobby, that came later in the shape of Marie Van der Zyl, president of the Board of deputies of British Jews. The Lady argued that ”Mr Corbyn has not dealt with it in the last few years; whether he will deal with ‘it’ now remains to be seen. Whilst he can do and criticize cases of anti-semitism from other parties when these arise we would resist any attempt from Labour’s anti-semitism ‘problem’ by claiming that any serious rival party has the same issue with Jew Hate.”
Here’s the killer:
”When it comes to anti-semitism, no other mainstream party in British society has anything close to Labour’s current problem”’
That of course is an outright lie and slander. But there was no attempt by this publication to question the language and assertion made by the honourable lady.
So it appears to be open season on both Corbyn and the Labour party. Propitiating the zionist propaganda machine only encourages them to make more ludicrous assertions which they know that the can get away with. Simply because they are the Z and the Anglo-Zionist Empire.
Jesus Mary and Joseph…. on and on and on this crap goes. Its like the plague of the Zionist zombies.
Now, whose willing to bet that after the election, just suppose that Labour loses, and suppose Corbyn resigns as leader, what are the odds that all the hysterics about anti semitism in the Labour Party will suddenly, almost by magic, dissappear.
Odds on this happening?
I said this ages ago, as many here have, but Corbyn should have come out kicking and screaming right at the very start, pacifist vegetarian or not.
Trouble is, if he had not played along with them to the minimum then he would likely have died of a heart attack while out on a walk or working on his allotment.Seriously, do you realise who he is dealing with.
Yes, I do H. I’ve watched The Lobby, and the word Zealots barely does justice to their activities… But, you do not whimper and cower in a corner.
End of the day, they are bullies. You don’t run from bullies because it just encourages the bastards to intensify their efforts.
The following quote is from the article linked at the end of this post discussing the baseless attacks on Corbyn and Labor through accusations of antisemitism. It appears to be a level of complete lunacy only matched by our recent “Russiagate” insanity here in the U.S.
(“The level of madness is breathtaking, even by ‘mainstream’ standards. In July, the Sunday Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer claimed on LBC radio that Corbyn ‘wants to reopen Auschwitz’. When the interviewer responded that it was completely unacceptable to suggest that Corbyn was capable of such a thing, Heffer replied:
‘I’m sure, in 1933, they had similar conversations in Germany: “the Fuehrer’s never going to do that”.’
Jeremy Hunt, then Foreign Secretary, commented in July:
‘When I went to Auschwitz I rather complacently said to myself, “thank goodness we don’t have to worry about that kind of thing happening in the UK” and now I find myself faced with the leader of the Labour Party who has opened the door to antisemitism in a way that is truly frightening.’)
https://www.medialens.org/2019/reopening-auschwitz-the-conspiracy-to-stop-corbyn/
But the hyperbole works both ways. I keep hearing both Johnson and Farage described as Fascists. Trump too. I dislike both Johnson and Trump, and have reservations about Farage, but I think calling any of them Fascists is ridiculous. For one thing, it devalues language, but that is a common occurrence nowadays.
I should just add that I find Heffer’s comment quoted above to be quite disgraceful.
Couldn’t agree more Mike. The real fascists are in Ukraine, Bolivia etc. Farage is a nationalist, Johnson is a lazy opportunist and Trump is a property developer.
Gary, this is yet another example of the level of dystopia we’ve already reached. It’s shockingly, demonstrably a lie, yet the MSM don’t even try and challenge it.
If memory serves, on the Sunday after the last UK election, Heffer and former Tory MP Matthew Parris “debated” the result on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s national radio channel. Imagine that – two conservative types ‘debating’ with each other on a major political event! ABC ‘evenhandedness’ at its finest! Needless to say, Corbyn’s 10 per cent swing went almost unmentioned and uncredited.
You have to bear in mind that this is all just brute cause and effect stuff. Of course the “anti-Semitism” is pathetic, embarrassing, puke inducing, moronic to a level barely credible – but none of that matters. It’s the noise that’s needed to defeat Corbyn. And it will go onandonandonandon. I daresay someone will claim that should Corbyn win he will start building gas chambers down the M1. Yes expect that. Expect the word “Auschwitz” to be belched out over and over along with “Belsen” and so on until all the manic belchers start to dribble their intestines onto their crotches. By the last day you will turn on your TV and see the Tories and the Blairites and their cronies i.e. 99% of the media gyrating all across the screen screaming “Holocaust” till their heads explode. And the real cause of all – the vampiric corporatocracy – will be silently crossing their fingers in the background.
It’s shocking how they get away with it Francis. Not a single MSM outlet challenges this narrative…because they know they’ll get hit with the same scurrilous accusations.
When you give blackmailers what they want, they don’t go away, they just come back demanding more.
The Duke of Wellington understood that when he told a would-be blackmailer to “publish and be damned!”.
Jezza didn’t understand that (but perhaps does now).
Btw, the army of smearers in the MSM (and probably Zyl, too) never explain what they mean by ‘anti-Semitism’. If they did, they would be forced to admit that what they are talking about is support for Palestinian rights, and/or criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. But to admit that would be to give the game away…
I haven’t bothered trying to rejoin under another identity – but can still vote for others comments and that suffices – though their begging riff at the bottom of every article now informs me of how many articles i’ve visited in the last month and implores that I contribute towards their propaganda whilst NOT being allowed to comment on it. If they want us back they should reinstate ALL commentators.
The GOTE post publication comments management has evolved :-
1. Guardian Picks – which means that the most recommended comments don’t get the max attention ;
2. The random nesting of comment threads which hide the counter propaganda arguing posters.
– the Editor must be busier to achieve that level of post publication micro management!
Thanks Off-G, for fulfilling what could be your primary eponymous function, however occasionally.
There is a daily potty load of Obssesive Groanialism which should be sizzled by us here as it HAPPENS – but you refuse to have a pinned article at the top. Why?
Why not let us have that platform?
I have just joined the Mail on Line for a week of ducks in a barrel shooting barrage – they seem quite relaxed about having unmoderated comments, prob for commercial purposes, but hey I don’t mind that – it is free fun.
(There are plenty of us types there ).
Btw – can we have a new General Election article – the last one is over a week old.
I know the msm is trying to pretend there is no enthusiasm around in a bid to increase apathy in a last ditch attempt to stop the biggest upset since … well 2017 actually, but why play their game?
I’m joining Dungroanin is requesting we have some more analysis of the General Election, given it appears Labour are closing the the gap, but most likely outcome is another Tory/DUP alliance and five more years of the crap we’ve suffered for four years, oh, and a Blairite Labour Party again after JC is disposed of having embraced by force the Remainiac’s view of democracy.
I comment on the Mail on line and can assure you that most ‘radical’ comments simply disappear- and they don’t tell you you’re censored. It happened to me 3 times this week.
This is the policy of the neocon sites too. They must collude on this.
Guardian picks are in many cases the most up-voted comments. Look out for fishgirl23, he posts rants, essentially lists of Tory failures and factoids about austerity/welfare aimed at gaining upvotes, but will never enter debate. The readership and whoever chooses picks seem to like him as he gets comments like “I love you fishgirl23”. 🤮
Here is a current example
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/04/american-nhs-vote-boris-johnson-tories#comments
Also another way of silencing is not opening comments at all!
“community guidlines”
What community would that be?
From observing the developments at The Guardian, you would conclude this community is:
That’ll be the Intelligence Community, for sure.
“Restore the media to its rightful place in our democracy”…. Ha ha ha heh heh…
Planet bloody Lah Lah.
Frank, I appreciate your sharing with about your latest experience with… That rag, but surely by now you must realise what The Guardian is, and who they really serve.
The word ‘presstitutes’ is not bandied about for nothing.
A couple months ago here at Offguardian a brilliant video clip was posted of Udo Ulfkotte spilling the beans on the Real state of Western media. Perhaps go back and rewatch it.
There is also a good reason why This very site was set up. You found that out today with your own experience of…. That rag.
Personally I wouldn’t wrap week old potato peelings in it.
To the filth who have repeatedly smeared and lied about Julian Assange, and who continue sticking the boot in, we need to boycott the bastards. They deserve our contempt.
I also note the various ‘socialist groups’ in Australia have still said Nothing about Julian Assange on their Facebook pages. Zero. He dosn’t exist to them, although they are now finding ample room to cover the ‘democracy protests’ in Hong Kong.
Just like the mainstream media has been. Interesting that.
Its completely shameful that so many have abandoned Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. Especially those claiming to be ‘Left’.
The only thing that’s left is to play with them. To deny them their status as journalists. And in a comical way, different feces attract different flies. That is the only difference between The Guardian an the brood. Each of the regime publications attract their own flies.
True Journalism is a Meadow full with Flowers and Trees with Bees. The Journalism that will be created will be worthy to be called the Geleé Royal of Journalism.
That’s exactly what I do N. These craven creatures are no longer ‘journalists’ for me. I refuse to dignify their lies and bullshit by calling them that. They are presstitutes and stenographers. My closest friends and quite a few of my mag customers read The Guardian.
Have given them the names of independent news sites like here, Moon Of Alabama, The Grayzone, Strategic Culture Foundation, etc etc in the past.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, aye.
They have to open their eyes for themselves.
Like your last paragraph! Have a good day N.
Yep, thanks for the reminder Gezzah. I read about his revelations at the time, and then his convenient death, but I’ll go and check out the video this week.
I’m under no false illusions about the GOTE and the rest of our MSM, my article was intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
No worries Frank, it was another reminder for me how low the MSM has sunk into the sewer. Enjoy the rest of your week…
Julian Assanges imprisonment without trial and treatment is reminiscent of the murder of Steve Biko.
Bloody hell, you’re spot on, I didn’t think that far back.
As a Leeds Poly student back in those days, I boycotted Barclays, the default bank account they were all promoting.
It’s not a far stretch to posit that another Apartheid regime is now behind the slurring of Corbyn and the locking up of Assange.
Speaking of Mr. Ulfkotte, his book is now, finally, years later, available in English from an outfit called Progressive Press. A bit spendy, but I can confirm it actually exists.
Er, his book about CIA infiltration of major German news media, that is (he wrote several other books as well). “Bought Journalists” is his original title, dubbed “Presstitutes” by the new publisher.
Thanks for letting me know Ash. I hadn’t checked for a while.
Yep, refuse to use the J word when referring to those who ‘write’ for the MSM or appear on a news channel spouting total bullshit.
The only names I refer to them is either presstitutes or stenographers.
The spineless and pathetic Guardian, propaganda mouthpiece of the ruling classes disingenuously masquerading as a progressive newspaper, needs taking down a peg or two. I long for the day when that happens.
I’ll leave this comment here, before it turns into an expletive-laden rant (that rag tends to have that effect on me…).
I’ve just listened to a bit of a Barry Gardiner interview on radio 4. The official narrative is that Corbyn “won’t say if he believes in NATO”. Gardiner then said “Labour has committed in their manifesto to remain in NATO” blah, blah blah. The interviewer then said, “but what does he (Corbyn) think?”….Oh hang on, I’ll just connect to his brain and find out! The interviewer then said, “Russia is at war with Europe, they took part of a European country, they invaded another, they shot down a European aircraft”.
The narrative is the same all across the media so don’t expect that by baiting part of the media establishment you will get a fair hearing, or even have your comments left up for discussion. The Guardian is a long lost cause, stop reading it.
Lundiel, indeed, I’m aware of what that rag has now become, hence calling it TGOTE.
Their football journalism is good though, and “Ask Jack”.
Otherwise, the rest of it is avoided…but that opinion piece title was so prominently outlandish that I had to read it all the way through and could not resist commenting 😉
Hey Frank
Love your bio btw. And write a few more of these. You’re a natural.
Even Doonesbury isn’t funny any more. Of course, that is a syndicated strip and nothing to do with the Guardian really. But it did use to be one reason for getting the paper.
As for their in-house Steve Bell…well, he can sometimes be funny, but is too steeped in the Grauniad ethos to have any meaning as a satirist. He just exists to confirm the readership in its prejudices.
Steve is one of the only authentic voices still hanging on in there.
His work has regularly been editorially censored in the online edition.
A BBC interviewer said ‘Russia is at war with Europe’? What show was this?
BBC Radio 4 at about 7:45 this morning. I couldn’t swear that the interviewer said “Russia is at war with Europe” but that is what he intimated. I’m not given to over interpretation.
I would also say, Gardiner didn’t challenge any of his claims, he just said that Corbyn “was on the right side of history over Iraq and Libya.
Admin, you can here it from 1 hour and 37 minutes into this recording:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000bxh8
As Lundiel says below, war was intimated rather than outright saying “Russia at war with Europe”.
The interview is Justin Webb, ex BBC US correspondent for about 2 decades, then selected for a more senior BBC postion…similar trajectory to Viner.
Under the context of the GE where Labour politicians have to be quite constrained for obvious reasons of their comments being used against them, Barry Gardiner once again showed that he is not afraid, unlike Jeremy Corbyn, to speak his mind and stand up to the warmongering neoliberals.
“hear” not “here”!
Gardiner is just a spook mouthpiece, like Urban and Harding. He’s also on the Saudi payroll.
That was good for a laugh. I used to read the independent Middle East section. Robert Fisk wrote good stuff – the rest trash by a load of younger journalists. But the comments sections were brilliant for learning about what’s really going on in the world. Sadly I think the moderator started over there. I looked at a few Guardian articles and couldn’t read them for their hypocrisy. The worst one I read recently was Leadbetter (Telegraph) advising people not to visit Syria because it’s tantamount to supporting the ‘evil government’ there. Some real shockers out there at the moment. My advice for readers – for your sanity don’t bother with mainstream articles, just read the comments. Fisk and Hitchens are exceptions – by the way read Hitchens Twitter account – he’s brilliant at swiping away the ignorant.
I found out that my comments on the Independent simply do not get published any more.
I log in with Gmail; as soon as I post a comment, I get a little wheel rotating (Independent verifying whether my gmail account is in some US/UK database of “Russian trolls”?), then it vanishes but my comment does not appear in the comments section.
Tried with a different gmail account, managed to post two comments, and then again got blocked.
Ivan
I recall there were some highly scathing comments about their journalists – one I think was Beth Mckernan. The absurdity was in the same publication you’d be reading the great Robert Fisk setting out the truth in Syria and then Beth and the others just repeating the toxic propaganda.
Another example is Peter Hitchens and Sunday Mail. I wonder if these MSM are hedging their bets for the day MSM is fully exposed. The editors can say, oh well we exposed OPCW etc through Peter Hitchens but meanwhile they push the propaganda through the trash journalists writing.
Peter Hitchens must carry some clout in his relationship with the Mail on Sunday… the mere fact that they allow him to say what he does in print reveals that. As you say, with the exception of his column the paper is just like all the others.
For the benefit of those who may not have seen his article last week about personally meeting with one of the OPCW whistleblowers the link is below. I was pleased to see that one of the BTL contributors, whilst giving Hitchens credit for his stance, makes the point that many people knew that the narrative was being distorted right from the outset so in that sense the revelations are not exceptionally revelatory to those of an objective and analytical mind set.
Hitchens closing words to the column are understandably chilling:
https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2019/12/this-is-peter-hitchens-mail-on-sunday-column-i-stood-outside-the-safe-house-in-a-road-i-cannot-name-in-a-major-europ.html
Yep, I went from the Guardian to the Indy and didn’t actually get banned, like Ivan, I was unable to post comments after about two days of commenting on Syria. 😤
Same happened to me with the “Independent”, they no longer accept my login for one of my two accounts, as if the account does not exist.
I find that I have to log in 2 or 3 times before being “allowed in”.Strangely, for the last couple of weeks,I have sometimes been signed in without taking action.I never sign out.
Frank, you mad fool: do you really think there is a snowballs chance in hell of a mea culpa from an outlet that played such a prominent role in ensuring the worst possible outcome for Julian Assange?
Look at their abysmal record, for gods sake.
Character assassination, mis-truths, half truths, lies, more lies and the sacrfice of fair play, justice and balance on the alter of identity politics.
Article after simpering article all impying Assange deserves persecution for what is alleged to have happened in Sweden even though the prosecutor (and a highly tainted prosecutor at that, according to some sources) had 10 years to prepare a case yet never actually charged him for anything.
The Guardian’s role in a long running saga of human rights abuses tells you that their outrage is highly selective: not only that but woe betide any commentator BTL who should point this out with a large dollop of reality.
In short many of their star columnists are not only grade-A hypocrites, but cowardly, and infantile as well.
So if anyone is in doubt about what the Guardian actually stands for, or where their loyalties lie, then take a look at their record on Julian Assange – its a perfect example of why the liberal chatterati are loathed by those see them as unscrupulous apologists for the rotten status quo.
You are completely correct Harry.
I’m fully aware of what that rag has now become, hence calling it TGOTE.
However, on this occasion I was quite astounded to see that not only were comments allowed on such a piece, but that several critical comments were allowed.
I do wonder whether this was a “honeypot” article with the comments opened to identify dissenters; just a passing thought.
They need the “looks” of allowing free speech, while in perfect control of the proportions and the content of dissent.
The same which happens in Russia and China (actually I have the impression that at least in Russia the discussion is more free as the state does not manage to control the “mainstream” internet space so well as the west does).
Thank you for all your jottings, Frank, they are imbued with honesty integrity and courage in striking contrast to those you accurately describe as a liberal chatterati who function as unscrupulous apologists for the rotten status quo – all I would add is to say how important it is that Jeremy Corbyn is able to find himself in a position where he can have Julian released from prison and furthermore, be allowed the means to prosecute those who have persecuted him for no good reason – that is providing he is still alive. And I am thinking also of Julian’s father as I write this. There is no one lower than the person who preaches freedom justice and democracy while denying these rights to others. You are correct, these people and those who support them are liars, cowards and hypocrites. We must always push back against this tide of deceit, and importantly, instruct the coming generations to do the same, because in the final analysis it is their future that is at stake here.
Trust the Guardian to publish such breath-taking, self-serving rubbish. Their refusal to accept any statement of support for Assange proves the point that it IS rubbish.
Reminds one of the Australian state broadcaster’s self-description as ‘the most trusted news outlet in the country’. Not to readers who venture beyond the bounds of the MSM, it isn’t!
Great article Frank, thank you. Like you I have been emailing all and sundry to support Julian as per example below:
From: Peter Underwood [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 11 November 2019 13:31
To: David Warburton MP
Subject: Julian Assange – Treatment by HMG
Dear David,
This is an important article and raises serious questions about the motivation of HMG. Do you really expect me to endorse this treatment and vote for you in the coming election?
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/a_new_kind_of_tyranny_the_global_states_war_on_those_who_speak_truth_to_power
What happens to Julian Assange and to Chelsea Manning is meant to intimidate us, to frighten us into silence. By defending Julian Assange, we defend our most sacred rights. Speak up now or wake up one morning to the silence of a new kind of tyranny. The choice is ours.”- John Pilger, investigative journalist
As George Orwell recognized, “In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
I would love to have your views on this please – if you have time that is…..
Best regards,
Peter J Underwood
BA10 0EU
01749 812150
Needless to say I haven’t had a reply so far!
Well done and keep up the good work!
Well done Peter, you are a brave and honourable man, a freedom fighter.
I’ve also had Guardian comments nixed … a number of which were so understated and nuanced it was impossible to figure out what the editorial constabulary found unacceptable. But perhaps the Russkie-sounding nik I was using at the time was enough to provoke them. Most of their comment threads on anything remotely controversial show a pattern of censorship, much of it rather petty. I read one perfectly rational and reasonable – albeit conservative comment – only to discover moments later that it had also been “disappeared.” It’s becoming an echo chamber for the like-minded… an ethos not unlike CNN where panels of “experts” all sit around agreeing with each other.
Russian sounding niks certainly don’t get far Aidan. When I tried to register and comment on TGOTE with my then new, dedicated nik of Portonchok, reserved solely for use when commenting upon the Skripal saga, I got as far as one comment and then the account was deleted!
I’ll agree with you that ever since Snowden and the ritual of The Smashing of the Hard Drives the Guardian seems to have been on some kind of probation. They’re allowed to carry on as before provided they cleaned up their act, that sort of thing. The paper is now useless as both a news source and a forum, its very disappointing since I’ve been reading the rag since the 1950s. I still very occasionally add a comment but I must admit that the Daily Telegraph has proven to be not only a better source for news but they don’t seem to read, let alone moderate, their comments. (Its actually fun to troll them a bit — not ‘troll’ in the sense of writing meaningless, confusing and abusive posts but to provide a gently contradicting point of view based on reality, a mere pin prick to their reality bubble.)
Indeed Martin, The Smashing of the Hard Drives was a key moment for The Guardian Of The Establishment. The watershed moment for me was the promotion of Viner, their US Editor at the time, to the role of “Chief Controller”, in preference to other stronger candidates. That was clear evidence of whom is ultimately in control of this rag and their purpose.
I too find myself occasionally reading the DT online and even “debating” with some of the rabid loons for a bit of “sport”. Many DT articles are breathtaking examples of propaganda, Goebels would have been proud, but there again, appallingly, he seems to be the role model for most of our western MSM.
I am guilty of the same thing, reading the comments on the DT, and a few of the mad dog stark raving lunatic neocon sites. Why? Because they are the voices of the greatest threats to the world now.
Debating people who scream that all China is about is world domination, that Russia is itching to nuke Europe, and that Weinstein is being made a scapegoat is unproductive.
However, reminding people who think that Corbyn is Stalin reincarnate (when he’s not channeling Hitler) that the UK has had Labour governments in the past and by and large (Blair excepted) they were actually quite good for the country. The essence of propaganda is to invoke visceral feelings about a person or policy so the focus of propaganda in the UK over many years is to make Corbyn unpalatable using all sorts of messages, some subtle, some intellectual but all quite obvious when you look at them.
I was first aware of this with the notion of the “Winter of Discontent” — I remember a winter, I remember labor unrest but it was nothing like it was made out to be. Some years later I moved to the US and there I had a bit of a revelation — I kept on coming across Americans who didn’t like – even hated – President Carter but couldn’t tell me why. This was important because the Reagan landslides were an important watershed in history, the point where the government turned its back on climate change and went back to business as usual, spreading ‘freedom and democracy’ around the world, exhausting resources and generally carrying on as if it was “Morning in America”. (Afterwards all the foreign adventurism, financial shenanigans (“Keating Five”) and so on of the Reagan years was forgotten because Reagan ‘won’ the Cold War.)
You may remember (or maybe not, if you were in the USA at the time) how badly Neil Kinnock was vilified, in his day. He’d had the reputation of being a bit of a “firebrand” when younger, but I’m not sure he was ever all that left-wing, and in any case, seemed to drift rightwards, once leader. Some have spoken about him almost as if he prepared the way of the Saviour, John-the-Baptist-like, the Saviour being, of course, The Vicar of Albion himself, Tony Blair.
Teflon Tony achieved what had apparently been impossible: A Labour Leader to whom mud appeared never to stick. At least until the Iraq war. Unfortunately, there was a price to pay for this.
All I can think of after reading your prescient comment, and which I eternally regret, is that John Smith passed away, way too prematurely. Bliar and Cameron and the current incompetents would never have occurred had he lived to a grand old age.