The Silencing of Gaza: How Media and Politics Shape Narratives of War. In recent months,…
One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.
( Aldous Huxley )
If my belief in absolute facts upsets your beliefs, then you need to get new beliefs, I don’t need to get new facts.
A Witch Hunt Against Corbyn.
The UK’s main press regulator has reprimanded The Jewish Chronicle for “significantly misleading” claims in reports about supposed anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation also called the newspaper’s obstruction of the investigation into a series of articles published this year “unacceptable.”
In a ruling on Friday, the press body upheld a complaint by a Labour activist named in the articles.
Audrey White is a trade unionist from Liverpool and a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn – a veteran Palestine solidarity campaigner.
The paper smeared her as being behind a “hard-left plot” and of being at “the centre of bullying claims against Jewish MP Dame Louise Ellman” – then the member of Parliament for White’s Liverpool Riverside constituency.
Louise Ellman, the chairperson of Labour Friends of Israel, has for years helped drive a witch hunt against Corbyn and the party grassroots over “Labour anti-Semitism.”
In a now widely discredited episode of Panorama, the BBC in July put Ellman’s claims at the centre of a film which portrayed Labour as an anti-Semitic party.
Ellman, for years a leading Israel lobbyist, quit Labour in October, claiming that party leader Jeremy Corbyn “is not fit to serve as our prime minister.”
( Asa Winstanley, Investigative Journalist, 02.12.2019 )
Since the Tories came to power in 2010, the NHS has endured the longest period of austerity in its history, underfunded by £20-30billion compared to Germany and France.
Since 1950, NHS expenditure has grown at an average annual rate of 4%.
But since 2010, it has risen by just 0.4%.
( James Melville, 01.12.2019 )
Intelligent Folk Recognise The Dishonesty.
Conservative media lies and propaganda aimed at the Labour Party is nothing new.
In 2013, the Tory-supporting Daily Mail described the legacy of Labour leader Ed Miliband’s father, a Jewish refugee, as evil and posted an image of his grave on their website.
Never under-estimate how those in power along with the greedy, wealthy elite are able to not only influence, but to make many people believe and actually support their rhetoric, propaganda and lies.
Intelligent folk recognise the dishonesty and deceit, others need to wake up.
( Rose Winfold )
I myself have never experienced anti-semitism from a member of the Labour Party.
Though there is a big issue and it has to be addressed, I do not myself believe Jeremy Corbyn is anti-semitic, that is my honest view.
( John Bercow, Jewish former Speaker of the House of Commons )
Misleading The Fishermen.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is claiming that the Brexit withdrawal agreement will let Britain take full control of its fishing waters back from the EU.
The withdrawal agreement specifies that the UK will be bound by EU policy until the end of the transition period.
While the UK will cease to be part of the Common Fisheries Policy, its membership of international organisations and the obligations it will have to accept means the UK is not “taking back control” of its fishing waters.
The prime minister is misleading fishermen, who were major supporters of Brexit during the referendum.
Boris Johnson’s pledge for 50,000 more nurses is not quite what it seems – 12,000 from abroad, 14,000 new undergraduate students, and 5,000 degree apprenticeships.
Which leaves 19,000 nurses “retained” who would otherwise have left.
So not “new” nurses at all.
( Rowena Mason, 24.11.2019 )
Truth And Respect Seem To Be In Short Supply.
We live in a time when the truth is not just distorted, but disrespected and totally disregarded by the spiteful and the greedy in a vain and shameful attempt to ridicule or gain advantage over those who oppose them.
Always speak from the heart and don’t say what you think others want to hear you say.
We earn respect by telling the truth.
Sadly, both truth and respect seem to be in short supply at the moment.
( Len Firswood )
Rough sleepers are just the visible tip of the iceberg.
An estimated 320,000 people are homeless in the UK, according to the latest research by Shelter.
The Politicians Led The People.
If EU membership were as onerous as the Brexiteers suggest, the UK would have left decades ago.
Instead it has remained a member for nearly 47 years (albeit in a comatose state for the last three).
In the decade before the 2016 referendum, fewer than 10% of UK voters cited Europe as the most important issue.
Indeed, as late as December 2015, a mere 1% did.
Only after the Leave vote did its salience spike (47% now name it as the most important issue).
In other words, contrary to David Cameron’s claims, it was the politicians who led the public rather than the public who led the politicians.
( George Eaton, 16.10.2019 )
What I can’t understand is: if there is such overwhelming and compelling evidence that the Labour Party is institutionally antisemitic, why did the Jewish Chronicle have to publish an uncorroborated series of lies about the Liverpool Labour Party?
( Ian Saville, 05.12.2019 )
When something ‘wrong’ is made ‘legal’, it has nothing to do with justice, or being fair, or being moral, or being decent.
It’s made legal so that a particular group of people can profit from that wrong.
We live in a time when people will get mad with you for telling the truth, rather than being mad at the politicians they support who lied.
Don’t let this cruel, corrupt world make you hard.
Be gentle.
Be kind.
Don’t let the evil and the greed steal the compassion in your heart.
( Dion Felsrow )
Jews Will Leave If Jeremy Corbyn Wins.
In calmer times, I like to think, a senior, mainstream politician’s ostensible expression of concern for the security of the UK’s Jewish population which at its core contained the antisemitic assumption that all Jews are rich, would have been exposed for its hypocrisy. But such times are a receding memory.
General alarm and media concurrence, rather than reasoned scepticism, met Tory Party chairman James Cleverly’s comment in a Sunday Telegraph interview that Jewish ‘individuals and groups, including entrepreneurs and other business figures’ – people he had known ‘much of my life’ – were planning to leave the country if Labour won the forthcoming General Election.
The paper’s front page editors didn’t hesitate before turning the people Cleverly knows into an unlimited number in their banner headline: ‘Jews will leave if Corbyn wins’ – a statement that, given the paper’s leading role in fanning the flames of a nasty English nationalism, could easily be read as assuming that those clever rootless cosmopolitans, interested only in turning a profit for themselves, can shift their assets and homes around the globe at will.
( Antony Lerman, Open Democracy, 09.11.2019 )
In May 2017, UK Intelligence officers identified 23,000 jihadist extremists living in Britain as potential terrorist attackers.
Only one in 10 jihadis returning from Syria are prosecuted.
In February 2019, UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid said all Isis fighters who re-entered the UK had been investigated and “the majority have been assessed to pose no or a low security risk”.
An Elite Club Of Donors Are Bankrolling The UK Conservative Party.
An elite Tory dining club that enjoys direct access to Boris Johnson has given more than £130million to the Conservative Party since 2010.
More than 80% of funds raised by the Conservatives for the general election so far has come from the secretive Leader’s Group.
For the past eighteen months, the Tories have failed to honour a pledge to publish details of the controversial club, after previous scandals.
The Leader’s Group, which has included wealthy individuals linked to Russia, the fossil fuel industry and climate denial, is open only to those prepared to give the Conservatives at least £50,000 a year.
In return, they receive regular private dinners, lunches and drinks receptions with the prime minister and other senior Tory figures, including leading cabinet ministers.
Sixty Leader’s Group donors are collectively worth at least £45.7billion.
Leader’s Group donors tied to the City of London have given more than £50million since 2010, and just five wealthy hedge fund backers have collectively given more than £18million.
Senior Leader’s Group donors have received honours, including controversial knighthoods and peerages.
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Since 2010, the Tories have been selling off parts of the NHS.
They sold 80% of the NHS blood plasma supply for £200million to a US private equity firm, Bain Capital, who then sold it on to a Chinese company in 2016 for £820million.
( James Melville, 01.12.2019 )
Just 1% control the world (the greedy, corrupt wealthy elite).
4% are their spineless puppets.
90% are asleep.
5% know and try to wake up the 90%.
The 1% use the 4% to prevent the 5% from waking up the 90%.
Good People Should Expose The Lies And Speak The Truth.
This government doesn’t realise or understand that, from their political greed, corruption, ignorance, and arrogance, is born the homeless, the prostitute, the violent criminal, the abandoned child, the loan shark, the depressed and the suicidal.
When presented with irrefutable evidence, the dishonest politician will become irritable, critical and offensive, and just push the truth aside as inconsequential or incidental.
I don’t understand why so many people don’t bother to check the facts or the truth.
They just seem to want constant reassurance from the political party they support that what they are being told is the truth.
When the media and those with power support themselves and the corrupt few because it suits their agenda, it’s the responsibility of good and decent people to expose the lies and speak the truth.
( Rose Winfold, 31.10.2019 )
I know Jeremy Corbyn personally and I know he’s not an anti-semite.
He’s a man of principle.
Johnson has shown again and again that he is not.
I would do anything to keep Boris Johnson out.
I don’t want the England that Johnson wants.
( Miriam Margolye, Jewish Actress )
Fodder For The Tory Propaganda Machine.
Michael Gove took to social media to urge Jeremy Corbyn and some of his high-profile supporters to condemn a tweet from a user claiming to be a member of Labour and Momentum, saying ‘we can’t trust Jews’.
Both organisations confirmed that the account ‘Joe Woods #JC4PM’ did not belong to any of their members.
Mr Gove was attempting to ‘smear us through association’, Momentum said.
It seems that cabinet ministers are licensed to say anything outrageously untrue to smear Jeremy Corbyn and Labour as anti-Semitic, and that Jews are just fodder for the Tory propaganda machine.
( Antony Lerman, Open Democracy, 09.11.2019 )
Modern conflicts and wars are started by the greedy elite to gain more power and to make themselves even more money.
Those we send to war may suffer or die, but those who do the sending, and profit from the conflict, sit comfortably and safely at home.
( Rose Winfold )
I have never voted in my life.
I have always known and understood that the idiots are in a majority so it’s certain they will win.
( Louis-Ferdinand Céline )
A Well-Packaged Web Of Lies.
The media who support the wealthy elite sell a well-packaged, constant web of lies to the masses, and the good people who speak the real truth are ridiculed and their character smeared by that same media.
A handful of billionaires own 80% of the UK media.
Their influence on elections is huge, yet they and their companies are registered abroad.
They pay no UK tax, and that’s how they want it to stay.
Which is why they back the Conservative Party.
Many of our politicians truly care, but there are many who don’t care, many who are obsessed with power and wealth and are blind to our fears, our sadness, our pain, our anger, and our misery, and who lie and promise just about anything to get us to vote for them.
The politicians who lie to themselves and listen to their own lies come to a point where they cannot distinguish the truth within themselves, or around them, and so lose all respect for themselves and for others.
( Rose Winfold )
Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.
( Aldous Huxley )
Successive Conservative governments have failed to deliver a single new “starter home” despite promising to build 200,000 by 2020.
The Tory party’s 2015 manifesto committed to building the homes across England to be sold exclusively to first-time buyers under the age of 40, to help young people take their first step on the property ladder.
The National Audit Office (NAO) said that, to date, no such homes have been built because the government has not budgeted for them or activated all of the necessary legislation.
The 2015 spending review set aside £2.3billion to support the delivery of the first 60,000 properties under the scheme.
But auditors said the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) no longer has a budget dedicated to the project.
( Rajeev Syal, 05.11.2019 ) .. theguardian.com
When interviewed or giving speeches, listen how many times Boris Johnson mentions Jeremy Corbyn, and indeed attempts to smear Corbyn.
Why?
Because Johnson and his fellow Tories are fearful of good, honest, truthful opponents.
( Rose Winfold, 04.11.2019 )
Millions Are Being Excluded From Mainstream Society.
Social security payments have hit their lowest level since the launch of the welfare state, excluding millions from mainstream society and fuelling food bank use, according to research.
The £73 standard weekly allowance for universal credit, the government’s flagship benefit claimed by 2.3 million people, is now equivalent to 12.5% of median earnings.
By contrast, when unemployment benefit was introduced in 1948 it was worth 20%.
As a result, millions are being “excluded from mainstream society, with the basic goods and amenities needed to survive let alone thrive increasingly out of their grip”, the study by the IPPR think-tank said.
( Robert Booth, The Guardian, 18.11.2019 )
We could make all manner of beautiful things that aid humanity rather than killing it, and how much better we could feel about our nation because of that?
( Alexei Sayle, 20.09.2019 )
One Third Of Billionaires Donate To The Conservative Party.
Why is it that the wealthy, often dishonest, elite who have it all can’t be thankful for what they have, and always want more?
And the honest, humble folk who have nothing count their blessings for what they do have.
Since 2010, the richest 1,000 people in the UK have tripled their wealth.
The six richest people in the UK have the same amount of wealth as 13 million of the poorest people.
One third of billionaires donate to the Conservative Party.
( Rose Winfold )
The election is in the bag for Corbyn if someone can locate the picture of Boris Johnson’s ex-girlfriend Jennifer Arcuri in stiletto heels and whip flogging Johnson on all-fours naked.
If you’ve got the pic (or can photo-shop it), send to the Daily Mail asap.
( Norman G Finkelstein, 10.12.2019 )
The Lie Began To Cut Through To The Electorate.
As I have reported for more than four years, Corbyn’s new Labour Party has been subjected to an unprecedented smear campaign.
Yes, of course, in a mass movement of half a million people, there will inevitably be a few with reactionary views.
But the idea that Corbyn’s Labour Party had any unique problem with anti-Semitism was always a deliberate smear campaign.
There is simply no evidence for this.
It was a lie manufactured to smash the left and the Palestine solidarity movement.
When it became clear in 2015 that a veteran Palestine solidarity activist would lead Britain’s main opposition party, the campaign began to falsely paint the movement that swept Corbyn into the leadership as anti-Semitic.
People are not stupid and usually know when they are being lied to.
But propaganda sustained for long enough works.
In this election, the lie began to cut through to the electorate.
( Asa Winstanley, Investigative Journalist, 13.12.2019 )
The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.
( Aldous Huxley )
The Tory Party and the Tory-supporting media are truly great manipulators.
They treat you badly, spew lies, cheat, deceive, and falsify events, and somehow make many people believe it’s someone else’s fault.
Boris Johnson assumes that anything he believes and asserts strongly enough must be the truth.
Whatever the explanation, we now have a prime minister from whom no statement of any kind can be believed without corroboration.
( Rose Winfold )
A Conceited Conspiracy By The British Elite.
There’s no threat of anti-Semitism in British society.
I’ve read all the data. I’ve studied it closely. It just doesn’t exist.
It’s all being designed and manipulated.
I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but this is a conspiracy.
Jews were the spearhead of this campaign to stop Corbyn.
And so, there’s going to be a lot of anger within the Labour Party.
That’s not anti-Semitism, that’s factually based.
The British elites could not have gotten away with calling Corbyn an anti-Semite unless they had the support, the visible support, of all the leading Jewish organisations.
You have to remember that during the summer all three major British publications for the first time in British Jewish history all took out a common editorial denouncing Corbyn as an anti-Semite and saying that we’re now standing on the verge of another Holocaust.
They are the enablers of this conceited conspiracy by the whole British elite society to destroy Jeremy Corbyn.
( Norman G Finkelstein, political scientist, professor, and author, Nov. 2019 )
UK media is now on a war footing.
Literally stunning levels of propaganda; anything goes to stop Corbyn.
The enemy is the public, it cannot be allowed to prevail over elite interests.
UK system reveals itself at these times. Anti-democratic, authoritarian, ruthless.
( Mark Curtis, 08.11.2019 )
So Many Can’t Be Bothered To Check The Truth.
If you can lie without consequence, why would anyone tell the truth?
Nearly 90% of Facebook ads paid for by the UK Conservative Party contained misleading claims, untruths, fake news and blatant lies, an investigation found.
None were found by the Labour Party.
History tells us that Tory Party election promises are never kept, and their time and effort to be re-elected is spent doing nothing other than making the opposition look bad.
It’s strange that so many people say they dislike Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and yet when you ask them why, they repeat, and presumably believe, the rhetoric spouted by Tories and the Tory media, and can’t be bothered to check the facts or the truth.
( Rose Winfold )
In February, 2019, the European Commission added Saudi Arabia, Panama and four U.S.A. territories to a blacklist of nations it considers a threat because of lax controls on terrorism financing and money laundering.
Several countries, including the UK and the USA, criticised the move because of worries about their economic relations with the listed nations.
A conspiracy theorist is often just someone telling the truth and making fairly obvious observations that the government doesn’t like.
( Fred O. Wilson )
Political Forces That Cannot Be Trusted.
Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to follow the rules of common sense and self-interest—forces that look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other centuries.
It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organise masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives.
The Audience Of Mass Propaganda Is Ready At All Times.
In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.
Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow.
The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism.
Instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.
An Intolerable Threat To Order.
The charges of anti-Semitism against Corbyn are without merit, an underhanded contribution to the disgraceful efforts to fend off the threat that a political party might emerge that is led by an admirable and decent human being, a party that is actually committed to the interests and just demands of its popular constituency and the great majority of the population generally, while also authentically concerned with the rights of suffering and oppressed people throughout the world.
Plainly an intolerable threat to order.
( Noam Chomsky, 09.09.2018 )
Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.
The Mainstream Media’s Ability To Distort The Truth.
The BBC, bound by law to impartial political coverage, devoted an hour-long Panorama special to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
The programme was presented by John Ware, a journalist so qualified in impartiality he had previously written an article describing Jeremy Corbyn as a man “whose entire political career has been stimulated by disdain for the West, appeasement of extremism, and who would barely understand what fighting for the revival of British values is really all about”.
Jeremy Corbyn has spent decades serving his parliamentary constituency and campaigning on issues like gay rights, anti-racism, anti-Apartheid and against acts of war such as the UK-US invasion of Iraq and Cameron’s vanity war on Libya.
How this man came to be viewed as a threat to Jewish life is a demonstration of the mainstream media’s ability to distort the truth.
( Rose Winfold )
Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.
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