06-02-2011, 11:57 PM
Jan,
My disagreements with your position on this affair summarised:
1) Both the Grauniad and the Green movement are themselves deep state actors and milieux: any serious analysis must factor this in;
2) There is, by your own admission, at least one bureaucratic beneficiary (the Met) of this circumscribed expose, thus raising the question of how "innocent" the campaign of revelation is;
3) While I agree with you unreservedly that the deep state doesn't relish seeing its tawdry and criminal SOPs quite so thoroughly aired, this has precedent* and is an acceptable price to pay for scuppering a rival;
4) I think you overstate by a margin the impact of 3) - the function of the political "elite" & the MSM is, after all, to learn nothing and challenge nothing (at least, nothing of immediate utility or import to the higher levels of government & its allies);
5) Your explanation of how this story was put together can only explain so much: there is detail within it that cannot be attributed to even the most scrupulous pieces of investigative journalism (as commonly understood).
Still, an enjoyable exercise in thinking a subject through.
*MI5 v Special Branch in the early 1990s springs to mind. That got very nasty, as I recall.
My disagreements with your position on this affair summarised:
1) Both the Grauniad and the Green movement are themselves deep state actors and milieux: any serious analysis must factor this in;
2) There is, by your own admission, at least one bureaucratic beneficiary (the Met) of this circumscribed expose, thus raising the question of how "innocent" the campaign of revelation is;
3) While I agree with you unreservedly that the deep state doesn't relish seeing its tawdry and criminal SOPs quite so thoroughly aired, this has precedent* and is an acceptable price to pay for scuppering a rival;
4) I think you overstate by a margin the impact of 3) - the function of the political "elite" & the MSM is, after all, to learn nothing and challenge nothing (at least, nothing of immediate utility or import to the higher levels of government & its allies);
5) Your explanation of how this story was put together can only explain so much: there is detail within it that cannot be attributed to even the most scrupulous pieces of investigative journalism (as commonly understood).
Still, an enjoyable exercise in thinking a subject through.
*MI5 v Special Branch in the early 1990s springs to mind. That got very nasty, as I recall.
"There are three sorts of conspiracy: by the people who complain, by the people who write, by the people who take action. There is nothing to fear from the first group, the two others are more dangerous; but the police have to be part of all three,"
Joseph Fouche
Joseph Fouche