I make mistakes. I have ocasionally regretted something I wrote. However I have never written anything motivated by hatred of another race or religion, yet I am too “extreme” for the mainstream media. But Melanie Phillips, darling of the Mail and the BBC, can write this kind of incitement to religious hatred:
Romney lost because, like Britain’s Conservative Party, the Republicans just don’t understand that America and the west are being consumed by a culture war. In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Islamic enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void.
With the re-election of Obama, America now threatens to lead the west into a terrifying darkness.
Can somebody please show anything I have written which is anywhere near as ill-motivated? Or anything near as barking mad? Yet Phillips is mainstream and I am in some way understood to be “beyond the pale” of accepted opinion. How does this happen?
Islam is a religion. I know a great many extremely good Muslims. There are also some bad ones, just as there are good and bad Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, you name it. What if I were to write:
“In their cowardice and moral confusion, they all attempt to appease the enemies within. And from without, the Jewish enemies of civilisation stand poised to occupy the void.”
Why is not everybody protected from hate speech? Unfortunately we don’t have an appropriate word as strong as “racist” to describe the kind of vile bigot Phillips is, Muslims not being a race. For Phillips to accuse Obama of conspiring with racial intolerance while promoting evil and hatred herself, is unspeakable.
Actually if Phillips is acceptable as a mainstream commentator, I am proud that I am not.
“It is essential for mankind to have new leadership! The leadership of mankind by Western man is now on the decline, not because Western culture has become poor materially or because its economic and military power has become weak. The period of the Western system has come to an end primarily because it is deprived of those life-giving values….”
.
Sayyid Qutb wrote this in the 60’s. How prescient he was!
Phil, not sure how these things work – thought it was publicly available. Drat, was a sweet cartoon about two sides firing on – each other’s leaders.
Nuzothie 9 Nov, 2012 – 4:11 pm
“@Phil: that is old news”
Of course. But it is worth repeating considering the nationalists tones that even appears on this site.
Imho, rather than protecting *everyone* from hate-speech, I’d suggest we should protect *nobody*. I argue this for three reasons:
1. The idea of “hate speech” corrupts the principle of “free speech”. For example, genuine criticism of Israel’s foreign policy is often tarred with the brush of antisemitism.
2. When certain forms of racism are illegal, they go underground. That makes them hard to counter. For example, we all know what the BNP really stand for, but Griffin is quite clever at staying just the right side of the legal line. This makes him harder to counter; it makes it more difficult to beat him in open debate, and it makes his words seem just reasonable enough that those who are not politically-minded could be seduced by them (many BNP voters aren’t racists, they just see the “British Jobs for British workers” line, and fail to spot the subtext).
3. It ghettoises the vulnerable groups. To commit hate speech, it must be against a specific, minority, “other”. But we make it worse when we prosecute for that. If someone says something cruel and anti-gay, then we should prosecute for nastiness, rather than homophobia: prosecuting the latter reinforces the very distinction we are trying to equalise.
@Phil: I fear it’s worse than nationalism: there are a whole lot of people who take the so-called “end of ideologies”, add globalisation and extrapolate that nation-states are becoming irrelevant, and that the major issues of the 21st century will be religion (and, they concede, “cultural” or “civilisation” issues, but linked to religion). That comes from people like Tony Blair, whose centre-left pedigree did not predestinate to roll back progress all the way from the 16th century (his whole “Globalisation, development and the role of religion” tour). We live in a crisis of the Western world-view, and thinly disguised racism is becoming more and more acceptable in polite company due to that.
@Richard: this is of course a noble idea, but it is easier to have in a society that has not been traumatised by nazi rule or occupation. Free speech is well and good to a German or a French, but they will always retain a visceral feeling that some sort of speech is a public security issue — not in a Bradley Manning sort of way, but from a Beer Hall putsch perspective.
Komodo; You are an extremely polite poison lizard.
” I’ve no fecebook account.”
I see what you did there, Phil 🙂
“Why is not everybody protected from hate speech?” – You may not like the my view on this Craig, but I’d say it’s because the whole ‘hate speech’ thing was principally designed for just one particular sub-set of society. Anything else is either periphery e.g. Re: Blacks, or can be ignored e.g. Re: Muslims/Islam.
Ben Franklin (head honcho CIA Office for Craig Murray Operations) 9 Nov, 2012 – 5:58 pm
“I see what you did there, Phil”
Unfortunately it was a typo Ben. But I shall forever use it from now on.
Melanie Phillips continues on her path to incite hatred of other thinking, that why Anders Breivig choose her mindset for his manifesto.
Mad Mel is a fascist in the true meaning, she believes in the chosen one’s occupying the moral high-ground, above the world community and its legally binding resolutions.
When it suits them they use justice systems as and when, to legitimately claim back their property and wealth, and to pursue those who wronged humankind.
Their fierce long journey to gain lands that belong to others thought, is an outrageous crime against humanity and should never be forgotten. One bad thing committed against them, some 80years back, has been used to trance the world, blinding it from seeing the same evil committed by Israel on the Palestinian’s as was done to them.
I pity you Melanie Phillips, for you are just as human as others, and you are filling in the time between birth and death with hatred for others, call it an occupation even.
Thanks for pointing out this hyena of the journalist world for what she is Craig.
I thought Komodo was being extremely polite there too, like a schoolboy when the teacher comes in. Liked the appeal, on Craig’s behalf, of course, too. Very sweet.
There is also failbook, and (my favourite) facebuck.
I’d love to send Melanie Phillips to Gaza, although I doubt they would want her. I wonder if she has ever, for a second, thought, or hoped she might be wrong. Fine writing, Nevermind.
Craig. she’s written a whole book on this theme. I’ve not read her latest article but the choice quote you give us is a metaphor for everything she writes about be it drugs, crime, Jimmy Saville (I kid you not!) to Obama.
That woman fought the corner of the MMR hoax and its progenitor, the former “Dr” Wakefield, for years. Millions of anxious parents read that MMR is dangerous and could lead to autism. Thanks for her total misunderstanding of very basic science, kids now attend schools where children are not vaccinated against killer diseases. Her latest broadside on “arrogant” and murderous medics is aimed at the Liverpool Care Pathway for the dying. She uses anecdote as a weapon to aim at the medical profession. The science of epidemiology is of course nonsense in her mind.
One of her articles attacking scientists (morally bankrupt etc etc) proposed intelligent design as the only plausible explanation to describe the complexity of cell biology. These awful, arrogant scientists who tout evolution have got it all wrong because they don’t have the evidence to explain the missing link. Melanie is right and Dawkins & co. are spiritually empty, left-wing liberal intelligentsia islam loving anti-semitic lunatics!
She’s upset too many people when writing for the Spectator costing them several tens of thousands in compensation. Brillo got rid of her. Now she’s holding court with the Daily Mail readership and graces our airwaves on the awful “moral maize” on r4 – thankfully confined to the wee small hours of a saturday night.
A deranged and lunatic woman who unfortunately writes very well and has a love of hyperbole and anecdote that has no peer in Fleet Street.
Pamela Geller too, its just that the truth about 911 is slowly going mainstream and it seems they want us goyim looking the other way, at mo muzzy (of Rochdale!). If the devils so want us to hate the muzzies, I am tempted to have a peek at their Book – just to find out what it is that geller/phillips are so much afraid of?!
@Nuzothie interesting points. honest criticism.
Mad Mel writes extremely well. There’s a superficial cogency and rationality to all her work for the Mail. Her themes are relentlessly the same. But dig a bit deeper especially into her attempts to engage with science and its obvious she is f*cking clueless and totally out of her depth. The way she relentlessly promoted ex “Dr” Wakefield and his academic fraud led one blogger to call her a crank-magnet. (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/06/melanie-phillips-crank-magnetism-in-acti/)
At heart she is a conspiracy theorist. Be it medics, islamists, anti-zionsists, environmentalists, evolutionary biologists: if there’s a whiff of an alternative explanation she’s writing about it by laying into them using her absurd view of the world to justify her position.
‘Why is not everybody protected from hate speech?’
Perhaps because if they were christians and muslims wouldn’t be allowed to say people who don’t accept their absurd and vile superstitions will be sent to hell and tortured for ever by a benevolent just and merciful god.
We can argue about voter choices, based upon hit-or-miss exit polling, until the cows come home – and I still stick to my claims about Jewish-American support for Obama – but the proof will be in Washington’s policies towards Israel as the showdown with Iran takes place, and Bibi tries to increase his standing in its upcoming elections.
It is my view that this woman is a complete and utter DINGBAT. I read her articles for their comedy value and they really do make me laugh myself silly.
However, when one considers the effects of her ravings, it is not the least bit funny for many people.
Phil:
” I’ve no fecebook account.”
A friend of mine would call it arsebook, but really this takes the cake!
Like you, i shall too hereon…
Craig – with all due respect – what you called for regarding the dissolvement of sovereign countries and an EU totalitarian state was just as dangerous and ill judged,if not more so, than many of philips’ ramblings
Technicolour:
“In fact this is a winder problem than Phillips, of course. …”
TC was that deliberate or just a Freudian slip? Just curious.
Your point overall is totally valid in this age of corruption we live in.
One has only to look at her list of publications to which she contributes. It silently says a lot….
Melanie Phillips serves a very useful purpose for the ‘Establishment’ – those who have a lot of power – in that firstly, she states things openly that others would like to state but might be reticent to ‘go first’ about and so then gives them license to follow suit – she is a weather-vane in that regard, though no doubt like her extremist US counterparts – Michelle Bachman et al – she probably sees herself as Joan of Arc. Secondly, she makes most of the (for want of a better term) ‘imperialist, warmongering establishment’ look moderate and tolerant – a bit like Nick Griffin did on that episode of the BBC’s ‘Question Time’. Thirdly, she provides drama and a sort of freak-show eloquence – in essence, she taps into the same vein as ‘Big Brother’, that dominatrix who used to present a silly quiz-show (I forget her name) and all those shouting, screaming chefs/businessmen, etc. She, and they, operate through spectacular ritual humiliation and basically, bullying. They, of transiently uber individuals, she, of entire communities. I am told by someone who knows that she was exactly the same in her approach to colleagues when she was a Left-winger. Personality does not really change.
Finally, Craig, the views espoused by such as Phillips are racist. Bigotry too, of course. Most Muslims in the UK, and indeed, in the world, are brown, yellow or black, and it’s very obvious that the no longer widely acceptable familiar form of racism elides well with cultural racism and the perceived difference b/w these two, deeply entangled, phenomena has been a means of obscuring the basic rubric of hate. The same thing applied to anti-Semitism in Europe. It’s all racism.
And of course, Melanie Phillips is part of the Far Right Islamophobia industry. Think, Senator Joseph McCarthy and you get the picture.
Neo Liberal hypocrisy is also a great danger – many people (on here and elsewhere) feel it is perfectly acceptable to attack,stereotype and be utterly prejudiced against people who could be described as white conservative Christians – (if they are american and republicans,however moderate, they are automatically the devils spawn of course) but yet recoil in horror with any judgement or stereotyping of any religion or group of people other than white Christians. The lack of balance in the debate can be quite worrying
– Not that white (or brown,pink yellow,green) conservatives have to be conservative either – i’m sure they come in as many varied forms as Muslims,Hinduists,Buddhists, Paganists,Shintoists, Aethists and Agnostics
(corrected) – Not that white (or brown,pink yellow,green) Christians have to be conservative either – i’m sure they come in as many varied forms as Muslims,Hinduists,Buddhists, Paganists,Shintoists, Aethists and Agnostics
Indeed, Chris. Hatespeak emanates from all groups and there are good people in all groups. Yet politically-speaking, the Far Right (defined in this configuration as ‘Mad Mel’ et al) and the Christian Right/Tea Party Right (eg. the ‘Teavangelicals’) in the USA get enormous mainstream airtime and have massive amounts of money and so are able to project their systematised propaganda widely and, to some extent, to leverage mainstream discourse/policy. They are promoting an even greater concentration of power in the hands of groups/elites who already wield power – even if individuals withion the groups promoting this do not. Whereas someone like Craig Murray gets nothing like the same exposure – that was the point Craig was making in his post.
One of the “wonderful” features about the UK is the panoply of laws – common and statute – that can be deployed by the state and private individuals against those who prove themselves “akward” in order to suppress dissent.
With this in mind, I wonder if anyone has ever thought of launching a private prosecution against Philips? I’m sure there’s some weasely law she could be held to have broken (how about “incitement to racial or religious hatred”?
As some commenters have said, substitute the word “Jewish” for “Moslem” and shed have been in court years ago.