(I also saw part of the debate on this on Channel 4 News last night, with the Grauniad's Polly Toynbee, She may 'fire back' in her next column there).
The Independent. Editorial fires-back today , though it's behind their pay to view.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article336405.ece
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Spread of HIV blamed on 'PC' culture
By Andy McSmith
Published: 04 January 2006
An author who claimed that free speech and public life in Britain were being destroyed by "political correctness" was accused yesterday of being in the grip of "political incorrectness gone mad".
A book published by the think-tank Civitas described political correctness as "soft totalitarianism" and suggested that it was to blame for the bomb attacks on London on 7 July, excessive house building in rural areas, the spread of HIV, and for the deaths of NHS patients who could have been saved by a more efficient health system.
The author, Anthony Browne, a journalist for The Times, claims to have been prevented from appearing on the radio to make the "factually correct" but "politically incorrect" statement that the increase in HIV is caused by immigration from Africa. "The result of that conspiracy of silence is the Government follows a policy that does absolutely nothing to combat the growth of HIV," he wrote.
He also claimed "political correctness" had "allowed the creation of alienated Muslim ghettoes which produce young men who commit mass murder against their fellow citizens"
continues on link...
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Comments
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political philosophy
04.01.2006 17:23
Hang on...surely they mean:
"all views which aren't promoted as 'right wing' are politically incorrect to their viewpoint" ?
ahh, but this is the British version of 'politically correct': which has come to represent:
"a humanistic approach to individual treatment of others lives around us based on
notions of equality & humanitarianism",
other less dumbed down countries see political incorrectness as a relativist concept - as anyone "opposing the shared ideology of the common people, the majority or ruling party"...
To admit this to the British public is to admit that common traits in political thought [the left-right paradigm, for instance] are indoctrinated as a method of thought control, that in fact such notions of
'shared values' [a Blair favourite]
'common sense' [Tory standard]
or the 'moral majority [neo-Christian fundamentalists / Islamofascists - see both above!]'
is a symptom a linguistic indoctrination via a
process of the now Corporate/State controlled Church, Education & Mass Media
In 1930's members of the NAZI party had to conform to the parties strict ideology...obeying the party line was the 'politically correct' thing to do...failure to adhere to this doctrine meant punishment for being politicall incorrect, resulting in banishment from the party / imprisonment / death
To have been against the institutionalised racism that began as name calling / propaganda / rounding up / imprisonment / & ended up as the murdering of minorities on an industrial scale, in the Germany of the 1930's/ 40's would have been the equivalent of being politically incorrect
Notice in this BBC story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4576528.stm
the phrase
"political correctness has allowed the creation of "Muslim ghettos" which produce suicide bombers. "
appears in a similar context to the way Hitlers NAZIS used it in Germany ...Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain notices this too... as we rapidly edge towards another dogmatic political era of National Socialism [this time a GLOBAL SYSTEM] based on the subjegation of the minorites to help keep the majority 'in line' with a strong national identity based on state/corporate sponsored indoctrination of Pride coupled with ignorance, violence, fear & envy.
cw
Civitas
04.01.2006 20:41
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/priv-s22.shtml
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/thinktanks/story/0,10538,1293999,00.html
Look beyond the veneer of civility- they've got an axe to grind and are very good at getting into the news.
We can laugh at how rightwing Protestant political activism has slithered into power in the US, but anyone who thinks it will stay confined to the US is dreaming.
Dav
But I thought PC was Newspeak
05.01.2006 13:12
I always got the impression that it was a Fascist Conspiracy to control language
in order to make everybody too terrified to actually say any words.
As in the way that people are too terrified to say "nationalise industry" because it
might be "mistaken" for a call to promote fascism in the CBI; or the way in which
Newspapers (propagandapapers) might sue people for suggesting that they lie.
And then, because terrified of language, to meekly accept whatever those in
authority say.
Eric Blair
Alternative Opinion
05.01.2006 14:17
A