Griffin On Question Time

[Danny Jarman]

Luckily for Griffin, Jack Straw was on hand to make a bigger fool of himself.

[Jack White]

The above posting makes no sense.

[Magda Hassan]

The above posting makes no sense.

For the US members and readers Nick Griffin, leader of the fascist, reactionary, racist British National party, was invited by the BBC to their programme 'Question Time'. Griffin was an idiot and Jack Straw from the Labor Party was an even bigger one.

[Myra Bronstein]

The above posting makes no sense.

For the US members and readers Nick Griffin, leader of the fascist, reactionary, racist British National party, was invited by the BBC to their programme 'Question Time'. Griffin was an idiot and Jack Straw from the Labor Party was an even bigger one.

Thank you Maggie.

[Ed Jewett]

Good one, Magda, and it serves notice that, as a somewhat international forum, we often come from radically-differing media/governmental/cultural places with local personalities, scandals, politics, and history.

Given the global trend toward, well, globalism, I suggest, therefore (not too-terribly-tongue-in-cheek) a conference someplace for three or four days, all expenses paid (ha!), perhaps in Bermuda, or Paris, or Milan, or Toronto, or Montreal, or maybe on a cruise ship near Cruz Bay or some place dull and far more realistic. (The Black Bear Inn, a few miles north of the runway at the Bangor International Airport near the University of Maine and the world-class Acadia National Park, comes to mind. Perhaps we could get Stephen King to drop by.)

Such an event could include short dinner time skits on trans-cultural awareness and humor, short briefings on the items mentioned in the first paragraph, breakout sessions on selected thread topics (I see at least seven major groupings), and key note speeches by Peter Dale Scott, Ola Tunander, Alfred McCoy, David Ray Griffith and others. [There is enough material here at DPF not to even mention Dallas or interfere with its related events.]

If we planned it right, we could sell tickets and squeeze the heck out of DVD sales and international online conference/blogging/MP3 sales, and have a 'proceedings' or conference syllabus published by someone. It could be DPF's third anniversary gala.

Pardon the interruption... We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread on British parliamentary interactions.

[Myra Bronstein]

Good one, Magda, and it serves notice that, as a somewhat international forum, we often come from radically-differing media/governmental/cultural places with local personalities, scandals, politics, and history.

Given the global trend toward, well, globalism, I suggest, therefore (not too-terribly-tongue-in-cheek) a conference someplace for three or four days, all expenses paid (ha!), perhaps in Bermuda, or Paris, or Milan, or Toronto, or Montreal, or maybe on a cruise ship near Cruz Bay or some place dull and far more realistic. (The Black Bear Inn, a few miles north of the runway at the Bangor International Airport near the University of Maine and the world-class Acadia National Park, comes to mind. Perhaps we could get Stephen King to drop by.)

Such an event could include short dinner time skits on trans-cultural awareness and humor, short briefings on the items mentioned in the first paragraph, breakout sessions on selected thread topics (I see at least seven major groupings), and key note speeches by Peter Dale Scott, Ola Tunander, Alfred McCoy, David Ray Griffith and others. [There is enough material here at DPF not to even mention Dallas or interfere with its related events.]

If we planned it right, we could sell tickets and squeeze the heck out of DVD sales and international online conference/blogging/MP3 sales, and have a 'proceedings' or conference syllabus published by someone. It could be DPF's third anniversary gala.

Pardon the interruption... We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread on British parliamentary interactions.

Fertile ideas Ed. Thanks. I'll just note that, while I'm most certainly not speaking for DPF as I'm merely one voice of many, we have been careful to steer clear of profiting from our efforts. Note, for example, that DPF is untainted by advertising.

And just my own opinion if we were ever to have a conference, and if it were in the US, some mention of Dallas would be essential. All roads lead to Dealey Plaza. It's the rosetta stone.

[Ed Jewett]

Great. I agree about the Rosetta business and Dallas, I just don't want to rain on anyone's parade (though perhaps the deeper Rosetta Stone is an understanding of the post-WWII transition from OSS to CIA and the creation of the National Security Council, and the players thereof). I certainly don't mean to exclude or demean that topic or its importance, especially when -- to this bystander -- things seem to be heating up a bit.

I've been not-for-profit-oriented for most of my professional life and ran such conferences for two organizations. While I'd certainly endorse a very tight review and restriction on "advertising" and acknowledge that there are potential pitfalls, I also appreciate that growth and improved functionality for accomplishment of DPF's mission, whatever the DPF leadership determines that ought to be, requires income. Properly done, such an event might not even require a formal structure or incorporation of DPF but could piggyback off a publisher or another willing ally or organization. But let's set this aside for a different means of communication and time.

[David Guyatt]

Luckily for Griffin, Jack Straw was on hand to make a bigger fool of himself.

Call me a cynical fool, but I chose not to watch it.

Decades ago, when (then) Robin Day was the principal interviewer, it struck me as a programme that was designed to manage the agenda - and Day was ferocious in stamping down (or completely ignoring) questions from the audience that stepped into forbidden areas.

[Paul Rigby]

Luckily for Griffin, Jack Straw was on hand to make a bigger fool of himself.

Griffin's treatment proved a fascinating example of "negative promotion," that is, of a kind visited by the BBC on, for example, Mark Lane in January 1967; or Noam Chomsky by William F. Buckley, Jr., on his TV programme "Firing Line."

"Negative promotion" constitutes the plausibly deniable and temporary foregrounding, via portrayal as dissident underdog assailed by the forces of the establishment consensus, of a deep state asset by an ostensibly disapproving host or broadcaster.

Its purposes are the predictable ones, to delimit a debate and control its outcome.

In due course, after Griffin has served the purpose of electing Cameron, he will be destroyed.

[Magda Hassan]

Interesting that only the head of the Church of England comes out to repudiate the BNP.

"To hear the phrase 'Christian Britain' coming from the mouth of Nick Griffin made me shudder. It was the most chilling moment of Question Time, perhaps better described as the Nick Griffin Show," he said.
"And what a pity that none of the other panellists challenged Griffin's deceitful attempt to align his despicable policies with Chritianity."
He called on "all Christians to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in rejection of Griffin's notion that 'Christianity' has any place in his bigotry".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8324455.stm
Why did any one from any other political party agree to go on the BBC 'Question Time' with the BNP? Jack Straw wouldn't even speak with one of his constituents in his office because she wore a niqab but he is happy to be in the company of fascist Nick Griffin in front of millions? And the others on the panel?
Why did the head of the BBC, a man personally responsible for refusing to broadcast a community announcement appeal to raise money for the victims of Israeli destruction of Gaza, a decision he presumably does not consider to be censorship but permits the BNP a public platform which is against the BBC own standards? There is plenty of editorial control in the BBC for things they want controlled and for the head of the BBC to say that not to have the BNP on 'Question Time' is disingenuous. It amounts to promotion of fascism and racism on the public dime and time. Also antifascists have been meticulously vetted from the audience, while BNP members and supporters were in attendance.