Beyond Irony 181


The videos of both my speech and my interview at the Berlin Freedom of Expression Forum have been taken down. This is not an accident. All the other speeches and all the other interviews are still there. Both series have been renumbered to hide the fact that someting has been removed.

Given that my talk was about censorship and exclusion of whistleblowers, and the lack of genuine freedom in western societies to explain an alternative policy narrative, it is hard for words adequately to describe the apparent behaviour here. The full title of the event was “Censorship and Freedom in Traditional and New Media: The Revolution of Media as a Tool of Freedom of Expression “.

I have written to the organisers to ask what is happening. It is conceivable there is an innocent explanation, though the removal from different places of both the speech and the interview seems hard to explain. Once I hear back from the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy I will let you know. I do not intend to let this lie.

Craig


Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

181 thoughts on “Beyond Irony

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  • glenn_uk

    Fedup: Did it actually eat it, or did it appear slotted back further? Sorry if it ate it, your comments have been pretty interesting here. It’s always a wise precaution to copy the text you’ve written, and save it on a scratchpad just in case. The scratchpad proves useful too – you may want to quickly look up what you wrote some time back.

  • angrysoba

    The videos of both my speech and my interview at the Berlin Freedom of Expression Forum have been taken down. This is not an accident.
    .
    That’s very bizarre. I listened to about half of it and thought it was a fairly gentle admonishing of the BBC et al.
    .
    By the way, why did you have only two pieces of A4 that you handed around the room? It would surely have made sense to copy enough for everyone to read at their leisure, it is difficult to read some official letter like that while listening to a speech especially when they have to hurry through it to pass it on to the next person.
    .
    Just some advice for the next time.

  • DownWithThisSortOfThing

    There are stories appearing about how the US soldier who murdered 9 children and 7 adults in cold blood was ‘upset at a casualty in his unit’, he didn’t want to go to Afganistan in the first place and he’s apparently worried that his family may face revenge attacks.
    .
    Soon he will become the victim as the media educates the masses about battlefield trauma, PTSD and the like. This sets things up nicely for a lenient sentence, like the 12 week jail sentence handed out to the US soldier who massacred 24 people in Haditha.

  • Mary

    DownWithThisSortOfThing There is already a steady stream of stuff coming out on BBC News and Sky News this morning emanating from this man’s lawyer, Browne, who is doing a Max Clifford exercise eg the perpetrator felt he was not well, was three times in Iraq, had been injured twice, saw his friend’s leg blown off, etc, etc. He is obviously now under the protection of the evil EmPyre. No mention at all of the deaths and injuries inflicted on the Afghan people.
    .
    The man’s a victim for God’s sake!
    .
    US Afghan accused ‘not healthy’ – lawyer John Browne
    John Henry Browne says he was contacted by the accused soldier and his family
    .

    The US soldier accused of shooting dead 16 Afghans had been injured twice while serving in Iraq and was not confident about his health, a lawyer has said.
    .
    John Henry Browne said the soldier – who has not been named – had already completed three tours in Iraq and was not fit for the Afghan tour.
    .
    He also said the accused had witnessed his friend’s leg blown off the day before the killings.
    /..
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17395066

  • Komodo

    The Syria narrative is changing, as Assad is now reported to be gaining the upper hand. It is being suggested (by a Yank last night on R4, and by some latterly silent voices some months ago) that there are interests in the region who would not be too upset if Assad carried on, as the instability resulting from a successful insurrection and the likelihood of Islamists gaining influence might affect their security. Despite the interests’ nukes and Iron Dome system. Which raises the question of whether we are in fact singing from the same hymn sheet as those interests, and how soon we can get back in tune.

  • Mary

    There is a thread on medialens about the ‘lone gunman’. It is still being said, and there are witnesses, that others were involved.
    .
    In the same vein, there is a proposition that this event and all the other horrors have been engineered to give Obomber a Get Out Quick card.
    .
    http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1331885216.html

    .
    (The latest is a NATO helicopter crashing and killing 10 on board.)

  • nevermind

    The infighting never stops. A Palestine for all citizens as envisaged by Sami Jadallah and friends is the only option on the table at present.
    Marwan Barghouti festering away in a jail, the refusal to release him and many others, for fear that they might actually persuade the Israeli public opinion that negotiations can work, make it clear that Netanyahu’s lot does not want talks at any time, is more concerned with splitting up accords and initiatives to negotiate.
    The voices of Judaismn are getting louder, whilst the voices of Zionismn seem to be mesmerised by seven years of inaction. Unable to sit down at the table, they play stoic hard ball, react violently to events that could improve relations and treat international laws with disain and contempt.

    http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2012/03/201231083221669780.html

  • CheebaCow

    Mary, DownWith:
    .
    I find myself terrible conflicted over how to treat soldiers who commit awful crimes during war. Obviously the crimes are truly heinous, and it disgusts me when I hear of the incredibly lenient sentences imposed on soldiers who have done such terrible things. At the same time, I do believe the soldiers are also victims, war can easily destroy a persons soul, and a lot of training/brain washing is required to turn people into efficient industrial killing machines. I can’t reconcile the hatred I have for the crimes with the pity I feel for those fighting in a war.
    .
    I think we should save most of the scorn for the chicken-hawk leaders who start these wars but would never dare fight in them, and the media which is so quick to excuse our own crimes yet uses the crimes of others as justification to wage war on civilian populations.

  • John Goss

    Thanks Clark for the video link.
    .
    “I just heard a most amazing man give a talk!”
    .
    Excellent, Mr Murray. Thanks for such a clear and well-presented resume of modern realpolitik. The summary in your lecture of how individuals have made such huge financial fortunes out of the misery of NATO intervention, and how such individuals then go on to fund the next rounds of neo-con intervention was clear and disturbing.
    .
    Sadly, my suspicion is that Cameron has met with Obama not simply to extend the ‘special’ or ‘essential’ relationship, but to plan the schedule for an attack on Iran. The cosy dinners do nothing to hide the real agenda. Sam herself is daughter of Lord Astor, a leading light in Atlantic Bridge. These people never go away they just regroup, and the Fox-Werritty-Gould scandal will soon be lost in a war they were hell-bent on provoking.
    .
    Keep up the great work! It inspires the rest of us.

  • Rocki

    And still you believe the media propaganda about Syria, the same way you believed Libya propaganda. Has no one listened to the words of Journalist Lizzie Phelan ?

    http://govermentterrorism.blogspot.com/2012/03/nato-libya-war-on-africa.html

    I am English married into a Syrian family we now live in Spain BUT all of my husbands family are still in Syria, Damascus. We still talk every couple of days, internet IS NOT DOWN, they are not afraid and have no intention of leaving their homes unless the murdering war machine NATO strikes they will then leave through Turkey and settle in Lebanon, we have property there, well whats left of it! ASSAD IS NOT stopping anyone from leaving Syria HE IS NOT killing his people.NO ONE is asking for NATO to come and bomb their beautiful country.

  • nevermind

    Thanks for the link to another crashing helicopter and its victims, Mary, this rersponse from Ankara seems to be a stcok response to any casualty.

    ““Twelve of our military personnel on board the helicopter have been martyred,” the Turkish General Staff said in a statement in Ankara.”

  • Komodo

    Both Clark’s uploads have gone: conference speech and interview.
    Wayfarer said he had a pre-cut copy.

  • clark

    My web-space has gone over its (meager) transfer allowance, so my ISP has “archived” it. I’ll ask them to restore it, but I’ll have to remove the .mp3 files until next month or it’ll go over the limit again.

  • Komodo

    As far as I can gather, John, that is the cut version. According to more careful observers than me, the original was 1hr 20mins

  • Passerby

    The head of church of England will choose a new charge hand in the Jubilee year.

    Rowan Williams is resigning after a decade of struggling to prevent a schism over women and gay bishops. So the fudge-packing benders have won again!!!! (alright I have set up me stall and I am waiting for the ensuing fuckwit farrago)
    ,
    Lighten up peeps just getting your ire going, after all we need to get some more Afghans and Iraqis to be shot at by the poor, poor, poor, lamb that lill soldier who saw his mate’s leg get blown off, and so he went on killing all those mooslums for the fun of it, sort of a hands on recuperation therapy for the poor little lamb. Really small trouble compared with the huge trauma of gays and lesbians not being able to marry and get to be bishops, oh the humanity of it all.

  • Passerby

    Komodo who is not an iguana of the tree hugin hippie sort,
    The redacted bit is the bothersome part, because if you take note of the director in one of his many long introductions (I hate pratts like him, take the floor and harp on bullocks all in the name of introducing the guests) referred to “undiplomatic ambassador”.
    ,
    Ducnyouluv the smell of “Freedom” in the mornin!?

  • Passerby

    Clark,
    Torrent it mate, and leave the address for peeps to get it.
    although there remains the lill problem of how are we going to get to see or hear the redacted bit?

  • nevermind

    I have just watched it and there is a large chunk missing from 42:58 onwards.
    I also seen the 1hr.20 minute lenght of it initially and said to myself, I shall watch that later. Then it was tempered with.
    I hope that we will find it again, otherwise Craig will have to remember verbatim by watching it.
    With his new RT freebie webcamera he might be able to add it in himself.

  • Merlin

    What is the current situation with these videos?

    (I have caught snatches about bits being redacted, but am having difficulty getting a clear picture without reading through pages of comments, many on different topics, etc…)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Comments are closed.