Sunday, September 18, 2016

Corbyn: if that's fair coverage, I'm one of these


Phrase here, images adapted from here and here

I don't support Mr Corbyn. I don't even vote Labour, yet, though I may if this sort of thing carries on. It's all a bit like Trump: the Establishment is in hysteria at the appearance of a not-business-as-usual candidate.

Judge the OTT language in this tidbit from the Mail on Sunday (pp 12-13):

"Secret... wipe out... plot... savage new purge... stranglehold..."

Oddly, the side article by Simon Walters about Mark Sandell's "Hard-Left plot" to unseat MP Peter Kyle is not available online, as far as I can see.

Now if the Middle East millions killed and made homeless with the help of Mr Blair and Mr Cameron are a success story for centrists, it is difficult to imagine what extremism must be like. Elsewhere (page 27) is a whinge by John Woodcock MP, who complains of being on a "hit list" but who voted for airstrikes in Syria - perhaps he should moderate his language so that real "hitting" can be seen in a true light.

And Dan Hodges! The picture editor had the nerve to repeat the photo online, but here's the truly awful eye-catcher in the print edition (p. 39):



Mr Hodges has his own wordmark; "Incendiary. Incisive. In the corridors of power". Some modern journalists are so far up themselves that they can see through their own back teeth. Incendiary, yes. Insane, perhaps, if he cannot tell the difference between a wet Labour MP and Ivan Denisovich; or between Stalin, as is implied here, and Hitler, as below.

Let's now turn to a nasty, desperate, unjustifiable piece of innuendo, a touchstone for MSM discussion of radical Labour. On the same double page as the first article there is a smear: A heard B say something nasty about Holocaust ovens to C, and although it has nothing to do with Jeremy Corbyn, it is made to sort of appear that it does:

Hard copy - Mail On Sunday 18.09.2016, pp 12-13
Note:
  1. The remark was made not at a Labour meeting, but at the Proms!
  2. The alleged offender was not a Labour politician or wonk, but Dr Leslie Jones, the deputy editor of a right-wing magazine called The Quarterly Review
  3. The alleged victim was Henrietta Foster, a BBC journalist, who is not Jewish, not related to Michael Foster (of whom more below) and not involved in the Foster-related Twitterspit/spat with Mr Bright. However she had appeared in a film, questioning the son of a Nazi, and is writing a book about Hungarian Jews. At a previous reception, she had previously told Dr Jones to "**** off" - because the latter had voted to leave the EU!
  4. The alleged witness was Martin Bright, a former Observer journalist and former worker for Tony Blair's Faith Foundation, therefore dubbed in the headline as "Blair aide", i.e. not.
  5. Michael Foster - not involved in the incident - is or was a donor to the Labour Party, is Jewish, and compared Jeremy Corbyn's leadership group to the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA), because (so I understand) Mr Foster supports the State of Israel and wishes it to continue in the Middle East; I also understand that Jewishness and "Zionism" are not the same thing and that there are Jews who are also not "Zionists" [for example, please see the True Torah Jews website, run by Orthodox Jews]
  6. On an unrelated matter, Mr Bright criticised the suspension of Mr Foster from the Labour Party some days ago and some people said supposedly nasty things to the former on Twitter, such as (a) Mr Foster encourages anti-Semitic sentiment by his actions [? support for Israel and/or intemperate language classing non-Zionists as Nazis] and (b) the suspension was a good decision and Mr Corbyn should also remove other activists for Mr Foster's chosen cause. Looking closely at the "tweets", I cannot see anything actionable in terms of anti-Semitism, but perhaps I do not see things as a lawyer can. Also, though the tweeters are described as "Corbynista", the article does not show that they are members of the Labour Party, Labour voters or indeed that they are Corbyn supporters rather than false-flag trolls. Not, of course that the twittling has anything to do with this particular bit of nonsense, anyway.
So, a person who is politically on the opposite side from Labour is abominably rude to another person who was previously abominably rude to himself because of a completely unrelated issue, and is overheard by a third person who was not, pace the headline, politically a "Blair aide" but an ex-worker for one the ex-PM's private organisations. The offensive exchange was not to do with a suspended Labour Party donor or political differences over the State of Israel. Mr Corbyn and his Parliamentary colleagues and co-workers were not involved in any way.

But by golly the link had to be made, even if it didn't exist. The fake tear-out visual says "Corbyn purges top Jewish donor over MoS article... and reignites race row". It is a moot question whether Jews are a race or a religion; also, exactly what either has to do with a political/nationalist issue called "Zionism"; but this tangential scrap is used to complete a papier-mâché parody of Mr Corbyn and his leadership of the Labour Party.

I assume drink had been taken on all sides, but I begin to wonder about the reporter and editor also!

The article is piffle, and so utterly misleading as to remind one of the term "doublethink". Not surprising, when you consider that the MoS' editor is Geordie Greig, a Scot who campaigned in the MoS for the independence of Scotland and against independence for the UK, and continues to do so now. A bovinely stubborn and logically incoherent Mr Greig; an oxymoron, perhaps.

In the oo-er-perhaps-we-need-to-amend-it-a-bit online avatar of the same article, the body text and tear-out are the same, but the headline is changed, and bullet points added. In an egregious (e-Greig-ious?) piece of weaselspeak, the word "separate" is newly introduced in order to admit in passing that two connected things are not connected:

Holocaust film-maker is told to 'get back in the oven' by literary magazine editor as witness reveals separate anti-Semitic abuse by Corbynistas 

  • Dr Leslie Jones, editor of the Quarterly Review Magazine, launched rant
  • She told BBC's Henrietta Foster to 'get back in oven' at Proms reception
  • Witness Martin Bright said he has been targeted with anti-Semitic abuse
  • He criticised Labour Party for suspending Jewish donor Michael Foster 

Online, there is also a lovely photograph of the fashionably tieless and unshaven Mr Bright, adding nothing to the core matter but contributing to that all-important visual miasma of victimhood and social justice, for those who find words difficult to read and interpret.

And, presumably realizing that they may be open to a counterattack because of their possibly libellous implications of anti-semitism (a hate crime) against Mr Corbyn, the editors have now included a video clip of Mr Corbyn condemning it. This is the Youtube link, though it seems it's the same as the one accessed through the Mail:




The MoS: for the deranged, by the deranged. I wouldn't get it at all, except for the column by Peter Hitchens who, by the way, though he supports Israel and does not support Mr Corbyn, respects him. I think the MoS would sometimes like to get rid of Mr Hitchens, too - it did for a while, last year:

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/spoiled-papers-strange-disappearance-of.html

Milo's sweetly preening video here rejoices in Trump's humiliation of the biased and manipulative mainstream media. As he says (2:19), "Here's what no journalist in America seems to understand: everyone hates you!"



Not just in the USA, dear Milo.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am intrigued by the presence of Ms. Foster at press events involving music and opera. To my knowledge, while she is a regular attender of such press events she does not actually report on them, so what is she doing there? Is she a pseud or just a ligger along for the free booze which she partakes of freely?
It is also interesting to note that while she is billed as a BBC “journalist” her Linkedin page has her billed as a freelance producer since about 1982. Again is she an opportunistic ligger, or a pseud? Does the BBC know that she is taking a place that could be used by a real BBC employee covering music and opera? And do organisations such as the Royal Opera House, the English National Opera, etc. know?

Anonymous said...

I am intrigued by the presence of Ms. Foster at press events involving music and opera. To my knowledge, while she is a regular attender of such press events she does not actually report on them, so what is she doing there? Is she a pseud or just a ligger along for the free booze which she partakes of freely?
It is also interesting to note that while she is billed as a BBC “journalist” her Linkedin page has her billed as a freelance producer since about 1982. Again is she an opportunistic ligger, or a pseud? Does the BBC know that she is taking a place that could be used by a real BBC employee covering music and opera? And do organisations such as the Royal Opera House, the English National Opera, etc. know?

Sackerson said...

It's Martin Bright who seems to be the informant here, though.

CherryPie said...

Democracy... There are so many spins & lies that true democracy cannot unfold to make the world a better place.

There are too many people feathering their own nests...