Saturday, August 12, 2006


Some good reading for you here (why say too much when others are saying it very well?)

Sometimes an outsider can say the things we can only feel:

James Lewis has a terrific piece for the American Thinker on the role the BBC has played in creating the society which is producing suicide bombers for Allah. It has been a vital piece of the establishment jigsaw which has made it so hard for Britons to think clearly about themselves and their place in the world; to have respect for themselves and to take responsibility appropriately. Now we rely on the technocrats to save us, and are grateful to them, but the source of trouble comes from deeper down in society, and does threaten to overwhelm it.

The case of Don Stewart-Whyte struck me as particularly indicative. Former grammar school boy (like me!), halfbrother to a model (not like me; I just date them) who apparently had never met his sister, he seems the very model of a muddled modern jihader.

But the media rarely reflect on themselves and the accuracy or worthwhileness of the messages they give out. The endless barrage of sensationalism obscures the fact that serious things are happening (and they don't just obscure them, they help create them). Reading this LGF special I reflected that to have a role in the MSM requires an instantaneous ability to fit the current news into the template of modern, liberal pietistic prejudices- hence the competition to make Israel's military action seem as 'disproportionate' as possible.

Live from an Israeli bunker looks brilliantly at the psychology at work. I have to say I see only bullying brusqueness in the muslim reaction to the attempted bombing, and the same kind of aggressiveness in the media concoction concerning the Lebanese situation. It's interesting the way the British dimension in the fostering of terrorism is beginning to impact people's thinking. One commenter criticises the blogger for getting his stats wrong concerning British support for Sharia- but the mistake is an understandable one.

ps. I meant to quote the Israelly bunker on the media, Olmert and Lebanon:

"France and the US drafted a UN resolution that both Israel and Lebanon seem to accept, it will be voted on in Israel on Sunday. Olmert whom I (now very regretfully) praised when I started this blog finds it agreeable and will recommend the government to vote for passing it. If it is passed the outcome of this war has been determined not by Katyusha rockets falling on Haifa and the north of Israel, not over a hundred Israeli casualties, not the 2 million Israeli citizens living in bunkers suffering sometimes up to 10 sirens a day (and a rather new occurrences of night-time sirens and rockets), but by propaganda."

Thursday, August 10, 2006


Bush's master message

While on the one hand terror is biting, and on the other the latter day Leni Reifenstahls of the Islamic world are having their techniques analysed and sponsors challenged, Bush says something far and away different in character from his recent nuanced terms.

Reuters' report is brief but effective, as he talks of being "at war with Islamic fascists."

This as Joe Lieberman, the only pro-war Democrat of note aside from the veteran Zell Miller, is sent packing by his local Democrat voters.

I am convinced Bush knows what he's doing with the language he uses; he uses the opportunity of an invasion of reality to tell it like it is. He immediately shows up the Democrat left for the vacuous space it is; he sends out the message that he's got the Islamopaths' numbers. Just the one line at the right moment is all it takes.

... and as I posted this, Natalie at Biased BBC posted this

If all it takes is one line at the right time, all it takes is one overwhelmingly (self)important media organisation with an inbuilt bias to squelch it (but of course they will fail).

Don't be dummies

As someone brought up on fond tales of humanitarian derring do- at my Co E Primary school at least- I viewed international organisations like the Red Cross as wearing a kind of halo (as well as a cross). It's slipping. Badly.

I'm just flagging up this post from Richard North. Partly because it proves my point, partly because it deserves attention (a lot more than my link will give it), and partly because I'm working on a bit of a takedown (got to be modest here) of HRW's latest ant-Israel report. Generally speaking, the rot in one apple affects others.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

"No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition."


Gotta love Auden. He's so quotable on isshoos, and in this case I want to refer to Human Rights Watch, big isshoo maestros of our day.

I was inspired though by this posting on TigerHawk, which recommends that we arm ourselves (figuratively) against the siren song of equivalence sung by the BBC's favourite pressure group. (via the Instapundit)

As we do so, as in all cases, it is worth keeping in mind the advice given by Auden in the poem quoted above. That's why the reactivity of blogs is their strength. Of their very essence is the acceptance of the 'concerned condition'.

Anyway, I intend to read this guff from HRW. Feel free to follow suit if it suits you.

(sorry for my lack of posts over the weekend and monday- I wasn't, unfortunately, at some glamorous location, but I was in fact buying a new lap top following my old one's disastrous lapses. Maybe now... at last... I can get blogging proper-like. Of course my lap top's not the only sometimes-faulty equipment- there's also me)


I recommend this article in The Business by ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie. It's heartening to find people getting closer to my views on BBC bias.

Whilst I do consider there is an anti-Conservative bias at the BBC, it certainly isn't consistent and is not usually blatant. Tim doesn't get stuck on that one, skirting neatly round it in the opening paragraphs concerning Fox News.

Tim gets full marks from me for identifying the BBC's core biases as lying in the foreign affairs realm, specifically concerning coverage of Israel and the US. He might have done more than mention Iraq, but gets marks for political awareness for this low-key approach. I would personally have been more direct, but Montgomerie says only that British servicemen are 'disappointed' by the lack of coverage of their positive work. Aah, very good- the patriotic approach to a serious BBC bias.

Coming to BBC anti-Conservative bias, he does so by a gate left open at the back, so to speak:

'Soon after David Cameron had abandoned traditional Tory support for lower taxation and public service reform he was subjected to a very tough interview on the Today programme. Can voters be sure you have changed? Isn’t this new policy inconsistent with what you were proposing at the last election? Those questions were the questions of the establishment. Missing was an attack from the right. “Doesn’t Britain need lower taxes to compete with the world’s tiger economies?” “Isn’t school and hospital choice an essential way of forcing public service workers to improve their performance?”'

That's a great point. We attack dogs of the right feel muzzled by such circumvention of the political spectrum.

From there argument devolves into laundry list... but at the end the Beeb's dirty washing must produce just such, mustn't it. And he's held a few garments up to the light beforehand. So, high marks, Monty.

 
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