Even Tony Blair’s biggest enemies have got to admire his willingness to sit in a studio full of publicity-hungry voters and patiently engage with their rants. My head would explode with frustration after five minutes of listening to inarticulate, ignorant, and illogical challenges, but he keeps on doing it. The bigger a fight he has on his hands the more willing he is to stand on a stage and invite passers-by to take a swing at his jaw. Yesterday on BBC Radio 1, with the courage of the King of Pop on his way to give a concert, he even exposed himself to Britain’s young people.
The questions from the punters were not quite as stupid as I had expected, but one of the young female presenter’s squeaky interjections was crass beyond belief. Addressing a girl whose accent sounded to my ears more Asian than Arab (not that that matters much), she said:
“You’re Muslim. How did the Iraq war make you feel?”
Cambridgeshire radio stations have recently been running an advertising campaign to get listeners interested in the County Council elections (which will take place on the same day as the General Election this year). The slogan at the end of each ad slot says “It’s not about politics; it’s about you“. The question I quote above was the ideal way to introduce the issue of Iraq because, after all, most of the debate about it hasn’t been about the lives of Iraqis, the morality of military intervention, and the future of the Middle East and the wider world; it’s been about how people living in the rich, secure West feel.
I have the distinct feeling that the media industry has long had an undeclared plan to shift the demographic average of personalities toward the more maleable end of the four Myers-Briggs dualities (an ESFP type I would guess), through a campaign of intentional dumbing-down and brain-washing. Fortunately, it’s a plan that can’t ever work, since the only people who get attracted to the media industry these days (or are ideologically allowed to prosper) have become so dumbed-down themselves that they become incapable of effectively implementing such a plan. The attempts at demogoguery have become so transparent, it’s a wonder that even the tabloid-readers don’t see right through it. Well, maybe not THAT much of a wonder…
‘it’s been about how people living in the rich, secure West feel. ‘
Exactly right – the adoption of the slogan ‘Not In My Name’ encapsulated this narcissistic concern perfectly.
Spot on Eve, and part of that narcissism is the ludricrous miasma of personal betrayal that they exude. The reaction is so visceral and emotive against Blair, it never ceases to surprise me.
Is part of this an attempt to divert shame from their own feelings of guilt at effectively marching to leave Saddam in power? Why reflect on the good in Iraq now, when it’s easier to say Blair is a liar?
Also I suspect that electorate are so used to politicians caving in to the next fashionable cause espoused by the media, and Blair has been guilty of this, that when a politician shows a bit of spine and principle they can’t quite get their heads round the idea. Hence betrayal.
There is this little issue of principle of course. The man lied and this is the probelm most folks have with him.
There is this little issue of principle of course. The man lied and this is the probelm most folks have with him.
Saying he lied isn’t evidence he lied, even when it comes from a holocaust denier – like yourself.
I guess a man with your power of reasoning -or lack of it thereof- I shouldn’t be surprised at your stupidity. Thats’s all I am gonna say on this topic.
You mean holocaust denial like this??
Seems the link doesn’t work.
Here we are
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=633049
[…..]
Karekin Tchekmeyan was five years old in 1921, before his family was deported for the second time. But the sprightly old Armenian can remember all too vividly the day in the south-eastern Turkish city of Marash, when, clothed by his mother in a zubun, a long dress chosen to make him look Turkish, he saw a crowd of people beating drums and playing flutes.
[…..]
An old man’s indelible memory of two scenes – by no means, of course, the worst – in the ethnic cleansing and slaughter from 1915 to 1923 in which 1.5 million Armenians, not to mention Assyrians and Greeks, were eliminated. Incredibly, many modern countries – Britain included – still find impossible formally to recognise it as genocide.
[…..]
Yesterday, to commemorate the 90th anniversary of when the massacres began, Mr Tchekmeyan joined a procession of clerics and lay Armenians in Jerusalem which wound through the Old City from the Armenian Orthodox convent of St James to the cemetery. Because they represent the 3,000 Armenians in Israel and the West Bank, and because they continue to hope for Jews to have a special affinity with their cause, the Jerusalem Armenians have pressed Israel to recognise the genocide – so far in vain.
[…..]
Indeed a leaflet distributed in the Old City yesterday quoted recent Turkish media reports that the Israeli Foreign Minister, Sylvan Shalom, has appealed to Jewish US organisations to help fight against a US Congressional resolution which would deplore the genocide. Mr Shalom warns that it would damage the special relationship between the US, Israel and Turkey.
[…..]
And Yossi Sarid, who worked for recognition as Israeli education minister in the 1990s, has accused Israel of being “among the Holocaust deniers” because of its refusal, under Turkish pressure, to recognise the Armenian genocide. Most Armenians in the Old City yesterday agreed with Mr Sarid’s view that Israel’s view stems both from its desire to preserve relations with Turkey – and its fear of losing the “uniqueness” of the Holocaust by recognising another genocide. Dr Georgette Avakian of the Armenian Case Committee said she would be writing to Mr Shalom, just as in the past she had written to the Deputy Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, when he was PM. “I asked him how he would feel if an Armenian denied the Jewish Holocaust,” she said.
An excellent strawman there, Dave! You’re fairly good with your fallacies!
“engage” with? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blair engage with an interlocutor: evade, swerve, change the subject, insist we “move on”, misrepresent the question and, as sure as eggs is eggs, lie: those I’ve seen.
Fallacies? LOL!
Is that the best you can come up with, Timbaux?
If you deny the story, then why not take issues with the Armenians in J’Slam or indeed Yossi Sarid and/or Dr Georgette Avakian.