you've got this all wrong, cos you remember it's mossad and the cia what killed the hostages.

oh well, maybe not. cos as soon as the journo opened his mouth those refined muslim chappies heard the Home Counties accent and said: Allah! This man is far too refined for us to cut his head off.

British journalist kidnapped in southern Iraq
A British journalist was abducted by gunmen from his hotel in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, according to the hotel's management.

In London the Sunday Telegraph newspaper told AFP Friday it was extremely concerned about the situation regarding its journalist James Brandon but said it couldn't confirm directly that he had been abducted.

"James Brandon was in Basra filing materials for this Sunday newspaper amongst other projects," said Sunday Telegraph deputy editor Matthew d'Ancona in a statement read to AFP.

[snip]

An AFP correspondent in Basra said he met with the British journalist on Wednesday afternoon shortly after he arrived from Baghdad.

"He told me he wanted to work on the Mehdi Army and oil topics and asked for my help," said Nawfal Hashim. "We chatted for about half-an-hour at the hotel lobby."

 http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/100682/1/.html
--------------------------------


hmmm. oil topics HUH?????

He's lucky 'they' didn't do a Berg on him
or a Mazen Dana










Hashim said he heard again from the journalist on Thursday by telephone to inquire about a demonstration that day against the US-led assault on Najaf.

In this case I don't believe that the fact the journalist was a middle class English man had anything to do with his release (certainly not in any direct way).

It seems if one can believe the reports that Mr Al Sadr used his influence for the guys release for his own political advantage. Even if this in itself was a recognition of power politics. You might say he 'played the media'.

I'm sure I've witnessed working class lorry drivers being released on some occassions.

I don't profess to know or be an expert on this matter but that's how it seems to me.

Prole wrote:

"Middle class journo is set free while loads of working class guys are led to the slaughter. It does not go unnoticed by us prols!"

That's true, remember we live in a class based society, the ultimate inequality and discrimination that over-rides all others bar none, ie race, colour, religion, gender, disability, age etc. It's the core discrimination the one that is consistently hidden, denied and covered up. With statements from people like John Prescott "we're all middle class now", probably what he referring to was 'all' the MPs in the Labour party.

When intelligent and politically advanced working class people raise the issue of class, we're accused of creating false divisions, by the same people who are beneficiaries of such inequalities or if they're working class they're just plain unaware of reality. The truth is we merely highlight that which beneficiaries would prefer to remain hidden, smart thinking working class people know the score and there's a kind of nodding understanding we have that middle class people are totally and utterly locked out from.
Just like racism was largely hidden from view and the direct experience of white English people in this society, it existed out of sight - out of mind, as it still does in 2004. Again there are those who'd prefer to live in 'la-la-land' and believe everything is rosy and racism doesn't exist, it exists and was fundemental to the British empire and was turned into a science in Victorian times and later became known as social-Darwinianism.

You wrote: "Iraqi insurgents set the British freelance journalist James Brandon free. Whilst this is great news for his family and friends, lets not forget about the guys who have been shot and beheaded. Although I am relieved that this journo was set free I still find it rather disturbing that a middle class journalist is set free within 24 hours and a working class lorry driver is beheaded leaving his poor Filipino wife to fend for herself in New York. Then there was the other young working class American worker who was beheaded."

Well the Iraqi freedom fighters (ie fighting for national soverignty) had someone high ranking, sure he's middle class, all journalists bar a token minority are. Just as here in the west the working class are disposable factory/canon fodder to an Iraqi nationalist it would appear the same (sadly) they're not socialist or communists they're not fighting against a class based society, they're fighting for an independent Iraqi society firstly. So they have someone from the media, release him it'll be a big story, it'll end up being front page on a UK newspaper, he'll end up doing a few pages on how he got his blackeye and he'll be interviewed on Richard & Judy, on the radio and TV in the UK, it's the best public relations/propaganda that Al Sadr could have asked for.

It's like here in the UK if you're stopped by a police officer and you speak with a middle class accent you're less likely to be arrested, it's class prejudice, that's what socialists and communists are fighting to eliminate from society 'class', the ultimate prejudice.

You said: "It would seem every string was pulled to get this journo released.

Sure including the editor of the newspaper, who would have got onto the embassy immediately, as you rightly say 'every string was pulled'.

You said: "Heaven forbid we can’t have middle Englanders beheaded can we."

No because then the war would have reached the hallowed grounds of middle England, so far it's been working class young soldiers from our estates and communities paying with their blood on the front lines protecting oil installations and their families who've paid the price. When middle England starts paying the price then we'll see the middle class taking to the streets protesting "BRING THE TROOPS HOME", because only then they'll start to feel the cost is too high to them, despite the working class already losing hundreds in the US and in here in Britain. Unfortunately for working class people it's only middle England who the three main parties are concerned about, they also get open access to the press and media, just notice when there's a campaign, protest, demonstration or news item without fail the press/media will home in on a middle class person to interview, even if they're in a minority. To make a comparison with Liverpool 70%+ (mostly disenfranchised working class) don't vote at all in local elections then we wonder why we're not represented in the council and all decisions go against our best interests.

You said: But fuck us working classes we are just fucking cannon fodder. You can bet your life on the fact that over the next couple of weeks this middle class journo will be hero worshiped by the British bourgeois media."

Indeed...

OK well let's look at some parallels shall we. Louise Woodward, does that name ring a bell, well it should, rewind to circa 1998. Remember she was this middle class young woman early 20's who was a nanny in the US, an absolute darling of the middle class, she had her village fund raising into the hundreds of thousands to get her the best legal defence possible, the media descended on the Cheshire family home and village, it was a total media overload. She was found not guilty of shaking baby Eppen, then she went on to do a degree in law, if however you recall her parents were later accused of misappropriating some of the funds that were raised.

HOWEVER... I bet you all forgot the young Asian woman from Britain who was accused around the same time of a similar offence of shaking a baby to death, she got some very lacklutre coverage, one or two very small (less than a minute) reports taken directly from US TV news. Her case was most definitely not a middle class media crusade.

Also around the same period 1998 a young working class guy called Kenneth Richie originally a Glaswegian facing the Death Penalty (still is) in US state of Ohio, this was the same time that Tony Blair raised in Parliament the matter of the fictional imprisonment of TV character 'Deirdre' on Coronation Street, a UK soap that shows on the same night as World In Action the very night that Kenneth Richie story was broadcast showing clearly that it was an accident absolutely not a murder and he could have physically committed it anyway.

A little more about the Kenneth Richie case on the following website that I put together in 1998, which I no longer have access or control of as I moved my ISP.

 http://homepages.enterprise.net/aok/more.html

You've raised a most valid issue, one of class, Proletariat!

THE MIDDLE CLASS
FEEDS THE RICH
AND STARVES THE POOR

And I suppose those members fo the Iraqi cabinet who have been murdered, those soldiers who have been killed and so on, were all working class? Look at the bigger picture and get real.