Some thoughts on Galloway, Paxman, Keys in the UK election spectacle
banana | 06.05.2005 15:41 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Social Struggles
Thoughts on the UK election-night media spectacle, with specific reference to Jeremy Paxman's interview with George Galloway, the Galloway victory in an east London constituency, and the candidacy of Reg Keys against Tony Blair in Sedgefield. (As posted to uk.politics.misc and other Usenet newsgroups).
My views on the BBC and George Galloway are on record, but I watched some of the BBC TV election coverage, and I have got to admit that it was satisfying to watch Galloway absolutely wipe the floor with government psy-ops propagandist Jeremy Paxman.
RETURNING OFFICERS AND OTHER PUBLIC OFFICIALS ARE SCUM
It was also good that Galloway attacked the returning officer in Bethnal Green. (Yes, even if he'd earlier been helped by the Rothermere press). The erosion of confidence in public officials - these so-called 'neutrals' who are of course anything but - is a damn good thing in itself. Obviously I do not think that we can rely on politicians, other politicos, or any other people who stand in front of microphones to assist with this erosion. But the fact that a politician has to 'encourage' this view - in order to recuperate it, and then go on to call for the system to be 'cleaned up', thereby strengthening it, of course, but this is not always the most important point - is good insofar as it indicates just how much hatred and contempt of the stinking system and its stinking wars there must be in Bethnal Green and elsewhere in the 'UK'.
THE BBC LIE THAT ANTI-WAR EQUALS RACIST
It was interesting how Paxman was the first to come out with the lie that the vote for Galloway was a result of his having 'stirred up racial tension'; and this lie was then parroted out by politicians from various parts of the political 'spectrum' (oh yes, and of various ethnicities themselves).
Paxman tried to hang this lie on the fact that Galloway had defeated a pro-war piece-of-shit New Labour candidate who happened to be female and black. We are bound to see this lie spread over the media from now on. This lie is designed to sideline the issue of the mass murder by British forces in Iraq and elsewhere...
Having been cued by Paxman, so-called 'left wing' Labour MP Tony Banks then parroted it. He even tried to back it up on the grounds that he supposedly knew the area of Bethnal Green so well, unlike the carpetbagger George Galloway. What a piece of filth!
Some people will of course find it difficult to keep in their minds the two ideas, 1) the war is mass murder, and 2) Galloway is a carpetbagger, simultaneously.
Anyone who doesn't understand what I just wrote should think on it a while.
The fact of course is that Galloway stood on an anti-war platform, and people of various ethnicities voted for him... Banks would like it of course if all white non-Muslims were pro-war, and could be made to remain pro-war by idiotically associating 'opposition to war' with 'a dirty habit only engaged in by other ethnicities and religions'. Precisely what fuckers like Banks and the others don't like is unity among those who are fighting against the system...
As far as talking about the war went, the scumbags in the studio seemed mainly interested in talking about it as an issue for middle-class voters switching their votes from New Labour to the Liberal Democrats... Duhhhhhhhhhhhh!
It was remarkable how, within about a minute of Paxman getting kicked all over the place by Galloway, the schmucks in the studio got down to talking stupid-wanker talk about electoral swings and churning and all that boring shit. One of them even said that 'only anoraks are up at this time', or words to that effect. Try unpacking this. I think he was basically addressing - in a veiled way, of course, but the LIE is these people's element - the common view among those present that they hoped that not very many punters had heard what Galloway had just said...
Paxman of course wouldn't say something like this - he wouldn't talk down BBC audience figures, and is obviously much higher up than Banks... But it is sometimes hard for the critical analyst to separate these people's total cynicism and contempt for punters - their belief that anyone who's not a punter themselves is in it for the money and can be bought off if they haven't already been bought off - from what must surely, because the system they are part of is totally mad, be a certain amount of schizoid self-deception, where the liar has lied to themselves...
PUBLIC OFFICIALS INCLUDE BBC BIGWIGS
Unfortunately Galloway didn't make the point that Paxman also has blood on his hands, as a high-up official at the government propaganda organisation known as the BBC..... Well he wouldn't do that, would he? That's not the role SIS has assigned him...or anyone else for that matter.
RECUPERATION OF A DIFFERENT ORDER
Galloway is basically a recuperator of a different order... He tries to channel opposition to the war into a shitty parliamentary-democratic channel, and even into the channel of local council politics! He talked about how the fight begins on Monday to take over the local council!!! (Whis is reminiscent of Labourists who in the 1980s tried to recuperate opposition to 'Thatcherist' assaults into 'working hard' to ensure a Labour victory in the next election - especially when this meant they could collect lots of names and addresses - oh dear, have I given the game away?). But as I have said, he won't mention stuff such as that the Blair family trust is run by a leading Zionist because few people are interested in that, and there isn't any need to recuperate mass feeling about it, i.e. to play the role of a politician giving people 'permission' to think it and thereby rope them into being his followers and into acting wholly within the system...
PAXMAN AND GALLOWAY
Who displayed the greatest self-adoration, Paxman or Galloway, is open to question. But I think it was Paxman, insofar as he displayed the view that he had an entitlement to get answers from anyone to whom he put his lying, pro-war, evil, manipulative questions. (He accused Galloway of 'threatening' him when Galloway said he'd leave if Paxman didn't move onto the next question!) Of course, the two of them are in the same game - hamming it up for the punters, for their SIS masters, and for personal enrichment - but this didn't stop me deriving pleasure from watching Galloway kick Paxman's arse and, in doing so, make some true statements that I'm quite sure are very rarely heard on TV, such as that New Labour MPs have the blood of 100,000 people in Iraq on their hands - which indeed they do.
REG KEYS
As for Reg Keys, I imagine he was only allowed to speak once the authorities were sure he wasn't going to say anything too dangerous. He crapped on about British service personnel who died in Iraq, ridiculously saying that he would not have complained if the invasion had been backed by the United Nations. Never mind that British service personnel are volunteers, and it is no defence for them to say that they are only obeying orders when those orders are to participate in mass murder. He didn't say anything about those who have had the courage to desert from the British armed forces, or reservists who have said that they would refuse to go to Iraq... But what do you expect?
Now imagine if rather than calling the war 'controversial' he'd turned round and directly called Blair, who was standing behind him, a mass murderer for big business, and a war criminal... Of course, he wouldn't have been allowed to speak if he was going to say this, but hell, a little fantasising is OK...
-- banana
POSTSCRIPT
Another thing worth noting is that the guy in the studio playing the role of 'academic expert on polls and voting' (I believe they call themselves 'psephologists') also jumped in to do his bit to lie about what Galloway had said.
He said Galloway had accused the returning officer of being responsible for low turnout, and he, the great 'psephologist', oh-so-scientifically 'countered' this by quoting a percentage or two in rebuttal. As in, take it from him, he's not 'political', he's just an 'expert'. What a dirty manipulating liar! Galloway said nothing of the kind... He accused the returning officer of presiding over a shambles of an election... He quoted the line about 'disgracing a banana republic'... And he mentioned that far more postal ballots were applied for than returned, obviously implying that one reason for this was fraud to which the returning officer had 'turned a blind eye'... Poor comprehension skills by the psephologist, or a professional academic-cum-broadcaster expertise at lying and twisting? You're the reader, you decide :-)
RETURNING OFFICERS AND OTHER PUBLIC OFFICIALS ARE SCUM
It was also good that Galloway attacked the returning officer in Bethnal Green. (Yes, even if he'd earlier been helped by the Rothermere press). The erosion of confidence in public officials - these so-called 'neutrals' who are of course anything but - is a damn good thing in itself. Obviously I do not think that we can rely on politicians, other politicos, or any other people who stand in front of microphones to assist with this erosion. But the fact that a politician has to 'encourage' this view - in order to recuperate it, and then go on to call for the system to be 'cleaned up', thereby strengthening it, of course, but this is not always the most important point - is good insofar as it indicates just how much hatred and contempt of the stinking system and its stinking wars there must be in Bethnal Green and elsewhere in the 'UK'.
THE BBC LIE THAT ANTI-WAR EQUALS RACIST
It was interesting how Paxman was the first to come out with the lie that the vote for Galloway was a result of his having 'stirred up racial tension'; and this lie was then parroted out by politicians from various parts of the political 'spectrum' (oh yes, and of various ethnicities themselves).
Paxman tried to hang this lie on the fact that Galloway had defeated a pro-war piece-of-shit New Labour candidate who happened to be female and black. We are bound to see this lie spread over the media from now on. This lie is designed to sideline the issue of the mass murder by British forces in Iraq and elsewhere...
Having been cued by Paxman, so-called 'left wing' Labour MP Tony Banks then parroted it. He even tried to back it up on the grounds that he supposedly knew the area of Bethnal Green so well, unlike the carpetbagger George Galloway. What a piece of filth!
Some people will of course find it difficult to keep in their minds the two ideas, 1) the war is mass murder, and 2) Galloway is a carpetbagger, simultaneously.
Anyone who doesn't understand what I just wrote should think on it a while.
The fact of course is that Galloway stood on an anti-war platform, and people of various ethnicities voted for him... Banks would like it of course if all white non-Muslims were pro-war, and could be made to remain pro-war by idiotically associating 'opposition to war' with 'a dirty habit only engaged in by other ethnicities and religions'. Precisely what fuckers like Banks and the others don't like is unity among those who are fighting against the system...
As far as talking about the war went, the scumbags in the studio seemed mainly interested in talking about it as an issue for middle-class voters switching their votes from New Labour to the Liberal Democrats... Duhhhhhhhhhhhh!
It was remarkable how, within about a minute of Paxman getting kicked all over the place by Galloway, the schmucks in the studio got down to talking stupid-wanker talk about electoral swings and churning and all that boring shit. One of them even said that 'only anoraks are up at this time', or words to that effect. Try unpacking this. I think he was basically addressing - in a veiled way, of course, but the LIE is these people's element - the common view among those present that they hoped that not very many punters had heard what Galloway had just said...
Paxman of course wouldn't say something like this - he wouldn't talk down BBC audience figures, and is obviously much higher up than Banks... But it is sometimes hard for the critical analyst to separate these people's total cynicism and contempt for punters - their belief that anyone who's not a punter themselves is in it for the money and can be bought off if they haven't already been bought off - from what must surely, because the system they are part of is totally mad, be a certain amount of schizoid self-deception, where the liar has lied to themselves...
PUBLIC OFFICIALS INCLUDE BBC BIGWIGS
Unfortunately Galloway didn't make the point that Paxman also has blood on his hands, as a high-up official at the government propaganda organisation known as the BBC..... Well he wouldn't do that, would he? That's not the role SIS has assigned him...or anyone else for that matter.
RECUPERATION OF A DIFFERENT ORDER
Galloway is basically a recuperator of a different order... He tries to channel opposition to the war into a shitty parliamentary-democratic channel, and even into the channel of local council politics! He talked about how the fight begins on Monday to take over the local council!!! (Whis is reminiscent of Labourists who in the 1980s tried to recuperate opposition to 'Thatcherist' assaults into 'working hard' to ensure a Labour victory in the next election - especially when this meant they could collect lots of names and addresses - oh dear, have I given the game away?). But as I have said, he won't mention stuff such as that the Blair family trust is run by a leading Zionist because few people are interested in that, and there isn't any need to recuperate mass feeling about it, i.e. to play the role of a politician giving people 'permission' to think it and thereby rope them into being his followers and into acting wholly within the system...
PAXMAN AND GALLOWAY
Who displayed the greatest self-adoration, Paxman or Galloway, is open to question. But I think it was Paxman, insofar as he displayed the view that he had an entitlement to get answers from anyone to whom he put his lying, pro-war, evil, manipulative questions. (He accused Galloway of 'threatening' him when Galloway said he'd leave if Paxman didn't move onto the next question!) Of course, the two of them are in the same game - hamming it up for the punters, for their SIS masters, and for personal enrichment - but this didn't stop me deriving pleasure from watching Galloway kick Paxman's arse and, in doing so, make some true statements that I'm quite sure are very rarely heard on TV, such as that New Labour MPs have the blood of 100,000 people in Iraq on their hands - which indeed they do.
REG KEYS
As for Reg Keys, I imagine he was only allowed to speak once the authorities were sure he wasn't going to say anything too dangerous. He crapped on about British service personnel who died in Iraq, ridiculously saying that he would not have complained if the invasion had been backed by the United Nations. Never mind that British service personnel are volunteers, and it is no defence for them to say that they are only obeying orders when those orders are to participate in mass murder. He didn't say anything about those who have had the courage to desert from the British armed forces, or reservists who have said that they would refuse to go to Iraq... But what do you expect?
Now imagine if rather than calling the war 'controversial' he'd turned round and directly called Blair, who was standing behind him, a mass murderer for big business, and a war criminal... Of course, he wouldn't have been allowed to speak if he was going to say this, but hell, a little fantasising is OK...
-- banana
POSTSCRIPT
Another thing worth noting is that the guy in the studio playing the role of 'academic expert on polls and voting' (I believe they call themselves 'psephologists') also jumped in to do his bit to lie about what Galloway had said.
He said Galloway had accused the returning officer of being responsible for low turnout, and he, the great 'psephologist', oh-so-scientifically 'countered' this by quoting a percentage or two in rebuttal. As in, take it from him, he's not 'political', he's just an 'expert'. What a dirty manipulating liar! Galloway said nothing of the kind... He accused the returning officer of presiding over a shambles of an election... He quoted the line about 'disgracing a banana republic'... And he mentioned that far more postal ballots were applied for than returned, obviously implying that one reason for this was fraud to which the returning officer had 'turned a blind eye'... Poor comprehension skills by the psephologist, or a professional academic-cum-broadcaster expertise at lying and twisting? You're the reader, you decide :-)
banana
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