I keep meaning to write some more about the ongoing News of the World/News International implosion (Update Here’s my previous comment on it- Private grief is not public interest.). But every time I think I’m ready to start some more news breaks and I decide to leave it for a while longer to see what happens next. Thus have I tricked myself into waiting for this whole affair to be over before I say anything.
Going off at a tangent to the potential demise of Rupert Murdoch’s empire I did notice something interesting earlier this week. I follow the RSS of blogs by a couple of self righteous fundamentalists. It’s my way of keeping track of what I call the “reactionary bigotsphere”. One of these fundies is, conveniently, a believer of just about every conspiracy theory going, which helps me keep up to date with another set of fringe beliefs.
Now the whole Murdoch affair should appeal to a xenophobic conspiracy fan. It’s got an unsavoury foreigner acting against British interests and values, corrupting the Police and those in power, working to keep the public misinformed and stoke up fear and hatred, behaving in ways which are morally repugnant and illegal and co-opting his powerful friends to cover it all up. All with the aim of garnering more power and money for himself and his planned dynasty, no matter how far it drags the rest of us down.
A conspiracy theorist should be all over this, jumping up and down with glee and shouting “See! I told you so! The foreigners are out to get us!”. But my favourite conspiracy bigot has said nothing at all about the News of the World, he’s more interested in imagined crimes committed by, or on behalf of, the European Union.
Okay, maybe my mate Stewart’s a bit busy, maybe he hasn’t got round to covering Murdoch-gate yet. Maybe he hasn’t realised just how deep and how high the corruption that could come to light goes. He should check it out, then maybe he could stop relying on made up “facts” and actually get angry about stuff that really happened. But maybe some of his “they’re all out to get us” friends are ahead of him.
Stewie seems to have a high opinion of someone who blogs under the name of Leg Iron. Perhaps he has something pertinent to say about News International.
Cards on the table.
I don’t care.
Or perhaps not. After this busted flush Leggy then goes on to say nothing in particular about Rupert’s motivations in about half a dozen different ways.
To be fair, some of the people in Leg Iron’s blogroll do have things to say about News International. For instance- The Mirror uses private investigators more often than the NotW, therefore it’s all a Left wing plot (carefully forgetting that it was The Guardian that broke the story, and the Right wing press has piled on the story just as much as anyone else). Or “let’s face it, no one at the NotW actually murdered Milly Dowler” (has someone accused the NotW staff of committing murder? Is someone deliberately missing the point and making themselves sound like a tosser?). And similar stuff on and on and on…..
It seems that, when confronted with evidence that they’ve been lied to and manipulated, the sort of person who likes shouting loudly about how everyone else is being lied to and manipulated shuts up. I can’t help thinking that the reason this particular bunch aren’t interested in the crimes of News International (and the rest of the right wing press) is that those papers are the source of the lies and misinformation they use to fuel and justify their bigotry. Or perhaps they’re too scared to complain about genuine bad behaviour, because the next step is to take action against it, and they would rather carry on fighting non-existent enemies.
I’ll get back to the bad behaviour of Britain’s press eventually, and I’ll try to do something to make a difference. Which is for the best, because the conspiracy theorists are all looking the wrong way when it comes to what’s wrong with the world.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about your latest attempt at psychoanalysing me is that *I* should be covering the NOTW story, while you are allowed to prevaricate, despite wanting to “make a difference”.
Perhaps the clue is here, Ian, when you wrote:
“Now the whole Murdoch affair should appeal to a xenophobic conspiracy fan.”
Well, you see, I am not xenophobic. Mystery solved! You have been conditioned via the media to equate patriotism with fear and hatred of others. Like being fooled, do you?
A big problem people like you have, Ian, is that even when evidence is presented, and the conspiracy *admitted* you still try to shoot the messenger. “Oh, he’s just a conspiracy loon for reiterating the facts and quoting the admissions of guilt.”
Really?!
I have not written about the NOTW because, as you may have noticed, my blogging has been extremely light of late and I consider the MSM generally to be the lowest of the low.
So yes, I do think that the bizarre treason of UK politicians to divide the country up for cynical political purposes is worse than the latest shenanigans of the gutter press.
Terribly sorry Stewart. You’re not a xenophobe.
You just don’t like foreigners. Or people who don’t practise your version of your religion. Or don’t automatically think that people who are different are wrong. Or….
The irony meter always rings out when you try to assign motives to other people. Faced with evidence that a powerful and malign individual exerted influence on this country’s leaders and law men, to the detriment of the rest of us, you’d much rather cling to a piece of tabloid nonsense based upon a biased interpretation of one person’s comments. The rest of us have evidence, we’re actually doing what you claim to do whilst you look for stuff you can misinterpret. I’ve said it before, but you don’t want to do anything that might make a difference, you’re too busy making up boogeymen and feeling brave because you’re shouting at them.
I should have linked to it in the post, but I have already written about the News of the World. I’ve just been waiting for things to calm down to write some more. This post started out as musings on how conspiracy theorists can’t handle facts and would rather dream up ever more convoluted versions of their fantasies, it just struck me that NotW was a good example of that.
Brief list:
a) I *do* like foreigners. I don’t like them been imported for social engineering purposes. Maybe you can see the difference?
b) “A powerful and malign individual”??
c) Do you really think Andrew Neather’s comments were necessary? The agenda was obvious.
d) “you don’t want to do anything that might make a difference” Getting out of the EU will make a difference you obviously cannot envisage.
a) You like foreigners, so long as they styay Over There. Still sounds a bit xenophobic to me.
b) Rupert Murdoch- powerful because he’s scared, bribed or seduced politicians into letting him and his companies get away with all sorts of stuff from the immoral to the illegal. Malign because he’s spread lies through his papers and TV stations and used his influence to further his aims no matter what harm may come to others.
c) Considering how Andrew Neather’s comments are the only “proof” you keep trotting out for this “obvious” agenda I think the fact that he didn’t really say what you want him to have said is important. Face it, your strongest evidence that there’s a grand scheme of social engineering going on is a misunderstanding of one person’s interpretation of what he thought his former employers may have been hoping would be the- ill defined, unmeasurable and generations away- long term secondary effect of a piece of legislation that was only ever going to last as long as the country’s economy was doing so well we needed to recruit more skilled workers than were locally available. Yes that sentence is convoluted, but less so than your logic.
d) Saying you don’t like the EU isn’t doing something about it. And even if you’re lobbying your MP, refusing to buy anything that comes from a European country and boycotting any schemes, facilities or buildings which received even the slightest bit of European Union money you’re still not doing anything constructive. You make up conspiracies, imagine enemies that aren’t there and then you shout about them because that’s easier than doing something that might actually help other people.