The Censorship of the Press

Print is an inherently exclusive media. It has never been able to publish all the information it could. As such it has always been, objectively, a as much a means of censorship as distributing 'truth' or 'conventional wisdom'. And the reliance of newspapers on advertising mean that business has significant control over editorial policy. Which redefines conventional wisdom with every twist and turn of the property market (especially).
The advent of open-source journalism, from Assange to the 12 year old Masai boy uploading videos via his OX1, flows information around this traditional barrier like a river around a shopping trolley.
The new, global conventional wisdom is based on this access to the means of production, distribution and exchange, and has many implications, not least for the defunct concept of the nation state, a relic of the steam age, and one in dire need of re-evaluation. No wonder politicians are shaking in their shoes.

Ross'n'Russ - The BBC and the Charity of Pornographers

The Russ'n'Ross affair is being fought on the grounds of 'offensiveness'. Like rabid muslim fundamentalists, the Immams have proclaimed that 'Middle England' is offended, and so heads must roll. Why is this both familiar and weird at the same time?
The gutter media have been careful to set an agenda which allows them to duck and dive among the indefinable ethical and moral undergrowth, while continually sniping at the BBC. In this case with the new weapon of internet mob rule.
At a time when most people do not get their news by buying a paper but through one of the electronic media, editors are forced to turn their publications into campaign sheets of one sort or another, feeding off a biased interpretation of the news, rather than supplying it. Every story becomes an opportunity for destroying a political enemy. And the British Broadcasting Corporation is one of the great enemies of the tabloid press and their international media barons. And so an internet-turbo-charged resurrection of Mary Whitehouse's 'Viewers and Listeners Association' was only to be expected. But this one with the epic final goal of destroying the BBC as a bastion of socialism - as Rupert Murdoch sees it.
Meanwhile, the fact that the tabloids regularly publish stories and images which are not only offensive, but positively damaging to individuals and groups is conveniently filed in that part of the trained journalistic brain labelled 'Auto-Process', to be ignored for all moral and ethical purposes.
So the surrender by the BBC to this campaign is very bad news indeed. The resignation of producer Lesley Douglas is one thing, but it's a completely different matter to give a craven assurance to obey the non-existent rules of taste, and to agree to be bound by the scrutiny and judgement of pornographers devoted to deciding the political future of this country, and making as much money from it while paying as little tax as possible. To hand the licence-fee over to the pornographers of Wapping and Canary Wharf.

"Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, announced an overhaul of taste and decency guidelines. All programmes will now be re-assessed to ensure they do not offend 'widespread public opinion'."

So the battle is also about who runs the BBC. But the real battle is one of freedom of thought, the flag which the tabloids have been waving in the War Against Terror since 2001. The tabloids today are crammed with demands for 'decency' and other indefinables. They say it's a reaction of the decent-minded to the orgy of smut sponsored by the BBC at the licence-payers expense. This puts them into direct confrontation with the mass of British people who appreciate spontaneity, not the Wapping-censored trash which the pornographers want to impose on them. Like Andrew Sachs when he says that

'These two performers - I'm a performer - sometimes it goes very wrong and it's up to them to do better.'

they appreciate that improvised performance requires spontaneity, and that spontaneity requires freedom. And the price of that freedom is that occasionally, people will get upset. As the handful of people who were upset by this broadcast were. Everyone else was upset by what the Daily Mail told them to be upset about. They were certainly less upset than Andrew Sachs or his dominatrix granddaughter and her manager Max Clifford. The fact that hardly anyone had even heard of Andrew Sach's grandaughter until a week after the infamous broadcast says it all.
This proposed purge of standards at the BBC takes it a step towards the Stalinist organisation which the gutter press have always accused it of being. And as they set the standards in pre-digested propaganda for the masses, they ought to know.
It also removes a source of competition for a whole range of shite, which is their traditional bread and butter. Perhaps the outraged silent moral majority would like to know about the semi-prostitution and sleaze which buys their cheerleaders their yachts, and the expensive accountants who prevent any of their earnings falling into the hands of the NHS or the education system.
After the Daily Mail's Ministry of Approved Entertainment has finished, broadcasting in Britain will be an eternity of 70's knock-knock jokes sprinkled on a bed of soft porn. And everything which breaches its code of political correctness will be banished to outer darkness. It seems that the Mail still can't decide whether it likes political correctness or not, it all seems to depend on which way it's pointing.
Meanwhile, there is definitely an emerging Russ'n'Ross Anti-backlash Backlash, mainly among the young. This campaign might try taking their grievances to the PCC, only to find that it does not cover 'matters of taste'. The Daily Mail is a bigger hypocrite than ever, without even considering its major stake in GCap, the UK's leading commercial radio group.
By causing and revealing an explosion of diversity which the massive, capital-intensive media corporations cannot hope to cater for, the internet has triggered a corresponding howl for a return to rigid conformity - to an arbitrary set of unwritten standards mostly set by the kind of companies which advertise in the Daily Mail.
If they ever win the battle to castrate the BBC, the next logical target for the monopolistic media barons will be the internet. Australia is already following in China's bound footsteps, and their richest son feels no shame at his pioneering assistance to the Chinese regime. With the BBC destroyed, the way would be clear for him and his like to make more money than even they ever dreamed of.
And series like 'Fawlty Towers' would be a fading memory of a service which briefly treated its audience as adults before being plunged into the gory nightmare of perpetual PinkyBlu TV, brought to you by the good folk at McDonnell Douglas.

Political Correctness - Sneering in Safety

Or as it used to be known, in real English, 'respect', or 'decency' or 'fairness'. In the good old pre PC Days, men were men, and the little women and lower classes and all 'lesser breeds without the law' knew their place. Nobody had to worry about offending anyone or exploiting them because of their sex or skin colour or other circumstances of birth. It was the natural state of affairs and accepted by all.

BOOK LEARNING

And then people started to learn to read - even slaves. And they started to get ideas, and almost immediately realised that their lives were not worth any less than those who were patently living much more comfortable and enjoyable and longer lives - that they were as deserving of respect as anyone richer or whiter. That was when the rot set in.
The most famous expression of this newly emerged class-consciousness in recent memory being the four words 'I have a dream', which also happens to be the most concise expression of the demand for universal respect and equality of opportunity. From then on in the USA, it was not politically correct to treat black people as cattle. The same formal rights had been won for white women in Europe some decades earlier. Clearly, a consensus was growing. And when the newly liberated ex-colonies were added to the global masses demanding the right to have a dream, it became obvious that radical change was possible. The '60's' were upon us.

POWER OF DREAMING

The power of this message was naturally very frightening to some, with its unavoidable implication of equality and the end of privilege. Being allowed to dream implies the leisure to dream, which implies that lifetimes of futile backbreaking labour are a thing of the past - for all. That everyone has the right to be treated with equal respect and enjoy a decent chance of advancement. Unfortunately, that is not possible in practise in our particular social operating system. It is not a command it understands, and one which crashes the system.
So the word 'respect' which everyone understands as a good thing, must be replaced with a more ambiguous, slimier word, or better, a phrase - indicating something thoroughly evasive, shady, suspicious and nasty. Everyone hates politicians. So make respect 'political', and you're half way there. Imply that respect is to be enforced in some way with the spinsterish word 'correct', and the demolition of respect, and the creation of the monster 'political correctness' is complete, and the mass media fighback against the struggle for respect and fairness can go ahead without appearing to offend the memory of a media saint, Dr Martin Luther King. The media has a word it can sneer in safety, albeit one it sdtole from the stodgy academic pages of a feminist treatise, and the career of the modern media hound is created. The snappy little liemongers who love to get their muzzles dirty and bloody for their paymasters in the Bahamas. The likes of Jon Gaunt, Carole Palone, Dan Leslie, Richard Littlejohn, and their massed clones are more to be pitied than censured really. It must be punishment enough to bear that eternal cold hatred for mankind in their souls.

DESTITUTE LAWYERS HOME

In truth, what is now termed 'political correctness' is really a combination of natural everyday developments in modern society and nothing to do with party politics or correctness'- whatever that is.
Firstly, as a result of the massive expansion of the middle classes who do not Know Their Place, we are living in a far more litigious society than ever. This is a direct result of more people being able to read, write and spend. And so schools, local authorities, hospitals, and anyone else likely to risk a suit for damages has to take precautions, and these have to be written down and any employees trained in their application and blah blah blah.. I fall asleep even thinking about it.
Which is the state of mind perfect for surviving the other factor at work, namely the vastly increased bureaucracy made possible by computer technology, and its application to monitoring our lives in closer detail than ever before.
Almost every 'PC' story smirking from the smudgesheets of the Daily Mail can be filed under one or both of those two causes. The desire to get rich quick, and the need to control the lives of the masses. Both of which are vital to preventing a society which is capable of universal respect, and both of which are core values of the Daily Mail and the rest.

"They call me MISTER Nigger."

When young black people use the word nigger, the message to white people is 'we have reclaimed this word for ourselves, and we can use it when you can't.'
That's all. It is a minor act of petty linguistic theft, in part to make up for the appalling crimes of history. The fact that it's 'not fair' is the whole point. 'This is a tiny taste of what it feels like.'
 So there isn’t any hypocrisy, merely a chance taken to make white people feel uncomfortable. Which is fair enough. Quite funny really. And judging from general reaction - job done it seems.
 Now the new street usage may not be a productive or rational tactic, and many black leaders condemn it. But it probably feels good. And another thing. It's use requires CONSENT, which requires contact and communication. In other words, you need to have some form of relationship with the recipient before using it. This again reinforces a sense of identity and kinship and places the emphasis on human contact.. And who can argue with that in a society in which the sense of community is all but dead?
 A world in which a black person gave a white person permission to call him a nigger would be a world without racism. Maybe it could happen in fifty years, if the word is ever washed clean of its history. But it'll take a lot of effort and understanding to do that, and I don't see a lot of that around.
As for the word itself. Try this. Say "Negro" with a Glasgow or Belfast accent. Most of the early middlemen and plantation enforcers were simple farmhands or failed tradesmen or criminals trying to better themselves in the New World. They didn’t speak BBC English.
 So strictly speaking, nigger may well be just an English-speaking corruption from the Latin or more likely Spanish root(negro/negra>nigger) but the fact is that in each form, it was used to refer to people as units of production. It dehumanised black people. They were not people but different brands of slave:
 On Sale Today
3 bull niggers - ages 20 -30 years. All own teeth.
2 She-Mullattos - child-bearing age.

Etc.

It is offensive also because it is an example of a word which has become poisoned by its usage and the history which allowed that usage. The power of words is not limited by the professors at the OED. Words can become tainted by their surroundings. 'Cripple' is another one, off the top of my head, now only ever used as an insult, and never towards people who can't walk. 'Cripple' is a very useful word, but irredemably negative, and therefore not useful as a word for a group of people who have enough problems to deal with. But in terms of sheer injustice and blood, that is not as bad as 'nigger'.
The overall message is: There’s no point getting fussed about black people using it as and when they like, they’ve earned the right to do whatever they want with it. And if ‘That’s SO Unfair.’ Then tough. Find your own word to hijack.

'N'- word Sighting In School