BBC on RT, or How the Shepherd loses the Flock

The success of the propaganda campaign against the BBC is a lesson in how wolves teach sheep to fear the shepherd.

It's an amazing trick: on the left, the BBC is "Tory propaganda". On the right, it's "Lefty mush," Yet, somehow, both say "I prefer RT"!!!!!

That is how a dictator gains power - to capture all points of the spectrum, not through policy, not through convincing arguments, not through simply being good, but by presenting a clear, uncomplicated vision of the world that absolves the target of any responsibility. A demagogue tells the people: "Everything that can change your mind is a plot to deceive you, everything you disagree with is a conspiracy against you, and all your leaders are corrupt".

Once one believes that, the game is on - RT is not run by those corrupt leaders, and shows you an alternative vision of the world, where Putin manfully struggles against Western Imperialism, but is attacked out of 'russophobia' (not a real thing) and because he is all that's stopping a global Western takeover, where everyone would be under the yoke of shady actors conspiring to own everything (who are mostly Jewish).

It is a similar dynamic on PressTV - that our leaders are corrupt is an all-pervading assumption - of course we are being lied to at every level. The global conspiracy of mostly Jewish people is ever present, corrupting everything.

Anti-Semitism doesn't die - it just gets repackaged and re-sold. 

As distasteful as I find it to call people "sheep", it is a metaphor that works all too well: yes, the shepherd sometimes leads the sheep astray, yes the shepherd does have power over them, and sometimes the shepherd is unfair, lazy, stupid, paranoid and wrong. But the shepherd only wants their wool, and the shepherd's dog obeys the rules; the wolf wants them for dinner and has no rules.

REDACTED 1 Please tell me this is a satire site!

https://skwawkbox.org/2018/08/19/desperate-woman-sets-fire-to-herself-in-tory-run-barnet-council-office-msm-ignore/Manage

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REDACTED We’re living in a totalitarian state

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REDACTED 2 It’s fucking insane.

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Lot Grundy Well, either that or she has a serious mental condition, or was a spurned lover, or both, or other reasons. There's no pictures, no video running, and no clear reason why she did it - no note, no online post, no clear declaration to onlookers. So the story is "A woman set herself on fire in a council office - investigation ongoing". It might have been to protest austerity; she might have been protesting the immigrants still living next door, even after we voted for Brexit; she might have been told to do it by the watermelon aliens that live in her bathtub; she might have been idly playing with matches or a magnifying glass - jumping to the conclusion that it was a protest for a particular worldview isn't justified by the facts. 

I wouldn't want to be a news editor, either - every other twitter commentator seems to think they can do the job better. A news editor saying "oh, well, we don't know why she's done this, so we should wait until we have some facts" translates into "TORY BBC BIAS!!!" - it's insane.

If we were living in a totalitarian state, you totally wouldn't be able to state we were living in a totalitarian state, in a totally totalitarian state stating you live in a totally totalitarian state would land you in a state where the state would state you totally can't state the state is totally totalitarian, and that's a state I wouldn't want to be in.

Like in North Korea, where such a statement might prove deadly. Not as deadly as my wordplay, amiright??

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Lot Grundy Also, the suggestion that this country pays any attention to anyone setting themselves on fire in other countries is laughable. Vatan Karabash set himself on fire in protest against the Russian annexation of Crimea two weeks ago. Oh, you didn't know? Neither did I, until I looked it up. 

"Karabash set himself on fire in public, declaring Russia policies to be lawless; he had previously expressed anger at plans for demolition of Crimean Tatar houses in Russian-occupied Crimea, which had been deemed "illegal" since they were built before Crimean Tatars had been given the right of return. Bystanders put out the flames and the injuries were reported to be non-fatal."

An self-immolation with a clear public declaration in support of the (supposedly) Tory BBC's (purported) campaign to (haha) start a war with Russia? You'd think that the state-Israeli-corporate-lizard run BBC would jump all over this!

(Excuse my facetiousness, I'm having fun)

Yeah: No. Because the news is what people will read, not necessarily what is important.

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REDACTED How is it though that every main newspaper has chosen to ignore that a woman has set fire to herself. I think this is media control. I agree about not making connections immediately, but it’s a bit difficult to ascertain the truth, when the media are guarddogs to the Tories. I was probably overboard saying Totalitarian state I admit. I’m sure Karabash got the media attention, I just don’t understand why this is different. I do actually, it’s all about pushing the bad shit under the carpet, like the way charities are not allowed to criticise the Tory agenda.

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REDACTED Sorry missed your last point. It’s true that the media is designed to grab attention and it’s usually not the important stuff.

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Lot Grundy Karabash got no media attention. 

There is no confirmation from anyone that this lady said anything about why she set herself on fire - all that we know is that she did. And she might easily have done it for a plethora of reasons. The only person saying it was because of Tory policies is the father of an eyewitness who only saw the aftermath - and that is what gets reported at Vox and Skwawkbox and Nyebeven and all the rest of these screamingly biased outlets - as if it were a fact that her motivation was known. It's not. 

The only mainstream media control in evidence is the media controlling itself by not reporting the-opinion-of-a-relative-of-someone-who-was-in-the-next-room as fact. 

If my friend's dad said that I was only writing this because I'm being paid by the government, that would hold exactly the same weight as this report. Of course, my motivation for writing this is that I'm sick and don't want to stand up right now because the room goes alittle swimmy. that and the Test Match is going badly so I've stopped listening to it and maybe I should continue to binge Archer on Netflix???

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REDACTED Haha fair play. Hope more information comes to light. Still tragic whatever it was that spurned someone to do this. I’ll go with that that there is not enoUgh (factless) information to work on.

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 · Reply · 4h · Edited

Lot Grundy Or not. The Tory policies are crushing the working class and further enriching the rich; the husband of the PM has a controlling stake in G4S that is embroiled in yet another scandal - it's a company that should have been savaged years ago by crowds with pitchforks and torches; Brexit is generally acknowledged to be a complete disaster and we are going to suffer for it, not the rich, and there is no party to vote for who will give us a people's vote because T.May is strapped in to that particular rocket by Bojo and Gove, and JC has always been a brexiteer, and this morning his shadow cabinet lady for the brexit ruled out a people's vote because, get this newspeak, it would be 'undemocratic' and would 'embolden the far right'.

So, yes: Democracy is, of course, bad for democracy, and we should definitely base our actions on what a bunch of skinheads might do as a result. So drop trow, bend over, and think of 2008 all over again, yeah? Good stuff.

Sorry, I'm clearly a little not ok.

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Lot Grundy Danger Zone

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Lot Grundy And of course the lefty rags are up in arms about a thing that has absolutely no proof, no reporting, no sense - and not angry at what the actual Tories are actually doing! MADNESS! Oh, they're not reporting on the blithering nonsense that Corbyn's Brexit minister was blathering this morning, they're not questioning why one of JC's best mates, MP Chris Williamson, endorses a pro-Assad conspiracy theorist Vanessa Beeley, who called the late Jo Cox a "Warmongering Blairite" and al-Queda advocate - after she was murdered! - who claims the Charlie Hebdo killings were 'staged' in a France that is 'Run by Zionists' and is a 9/11 truther (which seems somehow quaint, doesn't it?). 

Of course, Chris Williamson himself has previously compared the Lib Dems to the Nazis and said Labour MPs who supported Theresa May’s position blaming the Salisbury poisoning on Russia were as much “political enemies” as the Tories.

Of course, you won't find any of that on the BBC. You actually won't. Because they don't necessarily reflect every interest and opinion I have (my opinion being that such a person has no place in Parliament).

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Lot Grundy Test Match is going better, though, so. Good.