Tag: terrorism

BBC Racism

The public can see for themselves the ‘neutral’ media language used to describe Israeli actions: ‘incursion’, ‘retaliation’, ‘military operations’. By contrast, Israel endures ‘terrorist attacks’, ‘slaughter’, ‘a bloodbath’. Careful analysis by Greg Philo and Mike Berry, of the Glasgow University Media Group, found a persistent, ugly pattern:

“In our samples of news content, words such as ‘mass murder’, ‘savage cold-blooded killing’ and ‘lynching’ were used by journalists to describe Israeli deaths but not those of Palestinians/Arabs. The word ‘terrorist’ was used to describe Palestinians, but when an Israeli group was reported as trying to bomb a Palestinian school, they were referred to as ‘extremists’ or ‘vigilantes’.” (Philo and Berry, ‘Bad News From Israel’, Pluto Press, London, 2004, p. 259)

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/08/080311_israeli_deaths_matter.php

11/3/2008 2 Comments

Air passengers ‘could be tagged’

BBC News is running this press release from the University College London: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6044310.stm

“Electronically tagging passengers at airports could help the fight against terrorism, scientists have said.”

But the only explanation of how this will actually help the “fight against terrorism” is

“the tags could aid security by allowing airports to track the movement patterns of passengers deemed to be suspicious and prevent them from entering restricted areas.”

Which seems to roughly translate to

Step 1: Tag passengers electronically so you can track their movements

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Security!!

Oh, I missed step 0

Step 0: Get big fat grant from the government and impress your fellow professors

The BBC obviously don’t ask any pertinent questions.

13/10/2006 Add Comment

White Terrorists White Washed

So, a BNP election candidate has been accused of possessing the largest amount of chemical explosives of its type ever found in Britain. The government held a press conference. I read it on the BBC.

The guy was charged under the Explosives Substances Act 1883 last Monday. Another guy has been charged with similar offences. Yeah, I read it in the Guardian.

It has been reported that police discovered a rocket launcher, a nuclear biological suit, chemicals and BNP literature. It was right there in the Independent.

I’m glad to see that our government and corporate media treat all acts of terrorism equally, be they committed by brown people or be they committed by white people.

9/10/2006 4 Comments

London bombs

Over 50 people died in the explosions in London last week. I don’t think it’s right to surrender freedoms to fight terrorism when that many people die every week in road accidents. I should have to surrender my car before I surrender my privacy and my freedom.

This terrorist act is being used, as 9/11 was, to push through privacy-busting legislation that the government has been gagging to implement. The mouth of the home secratery must have been watering in anticipation.

Within hours, both Tony Blair and George W. Bush were using news of these attacks as vindication for their own illegal and considerably more brutal attacks on Iraq. Knowing the opposite to be true, as the Joint Intelligence Committee did before the war even began, this is sickening.

15/7/2005 Add Comment

the sky is falling

Our beloved government are planning new measures to combat terrorism. These new measures break Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a fair trial. These measures of course apply to everyone in the UK, not just terrorist suspects. They include a “whole range” of measures they call control orders. Control orders could include house arrest, electronic tagging, denied access to communications (phone, Internet etc.) and denial of association with unspecified people. All of this without having to present any actual evidence to a court.
(more…)

31/1/2005 3 Comments

tell them they are being attacked

obviously an old and often reused quote, but I’d like to publish it here:

“…it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. … All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” – Hermann Goering, founder of the Gestapo and one of the main architects of Nazi Germany.

Our governments have just replaced the threat from communists with the threat from terrorists. They only needed to change six letters and already here I am exposing the country to danger.

27/1/2005 Add Comment