No sooner was the ink dry on my post, than Ms Raccoon was proved, both satisfyingly and depressingly, right – yet again.
It is all OUR fault. Us. The web.
The establishment is circling its wagons to protect ‘the free press‘, you see:
On the whole, journalists are highly intelligent, amusing and frequently idealistic.
Decent coves, to a man, but sadly led astray. What led them astray was:
People are getting their news from different sources – principally the profusion of electronic media – and there seems to be no stopping the erosion in support for traditional papers. Every year, every month, they are losing ground to blogs and Twitter and Google News; every year the internet eats more destructively into the business case for old-fashioned journalism. That is at least one of the reasons why some journalists have been driven to behave so disgracefully, squawking ever louder, no matter how erroneously, in the hope of being noticed.
See what you’ve done? By talking amongst yourselves on the Internet, you’ve starved those decent coves of their rightful income. Forced them into dishonest behaviour that would never have occurred to them before. Made Adam and Eve partake of the apple. It would have been alright if you’d just gone on nattering to yourself in the pubs and workshops of the country, so long as you had continued to shell out your 5op for a copy of ‘Sam’s tits’ and Kardashian’s latest ‘heel caught in a drain pipe’ exclusive. But you couldn’t do that, you put your words into print and left them with a 40% decline in revenue.
Poor media, forced by circumstance into a life of crime. Now the establishment are in full cry to alleviate those circumstances. They don’t want to lose their cosy relationship with the media, a relationship that they have some hope of controlling, so they are intent on dealing with the ’causes of crime’ – the Internet.
Theresa May was quick out of the blocks this morning. Anyone who opposes regulation of the Internet – a matter both discussed and dismissed by Lord Leveson in a brief 12 pages out of 2,000 – will have ‘blood on their hands’. Yep, support the free Internet, and you will find yourself personally responsible for the next terrorist outrage, every incidence of paedophilia right back to Richard III, the death of doe eyed policewoman, and probably the demise of Sooty and Sweep. It must be true, it was in our wonderful free press that the establishment wish to protect, written by one of those decent coves that made Boris Johnson wax lyrical this morning.
Just in case you still haven’t taken on board that you really must give up your Internet freedom, Francis Maude was out on the airwaves this morning, telling us that you might not have any electricity to cook the Christmas dinner by if you don’t let the government take control of the Internet – cyber terrorists, nasty foreigners all of them – are the biggest security threat we face, apparently.
The ‘blood on your hands’ theatrical and emotive piece was penned by the same decent cove who was at pains to point out that the 100,000+ petition demanding that the press be regulated by Ed Richards, was actually signed by an assortment of ‘Donald Ducks’, Mickey Mice’ and Supermans, and thus not really representative of what the public wants.
Ed Richards is one of Gordon Brown’s old henchman from the Damian McBride office of media control. Labour failed to get him in place as Director General of the BBC, so now they are very keen for him to control the print media. So keen, in fact, that Ed Miliband has said that if he is not allowed to win the cross party talks on media control by Christmas, he’s going to take his ball and go home. Not playing any longer.
So there you have it – either we get Gordon Brown’s old media relations unit running the printing presses – our new holder of the moral compass, Hugh ‘blow job’ Grant’s preferred option; or Murdoch’s shower win and shut up the Internet to save us from paedophiles and terrorists, and protect the media from our dreadful influence.
Since ‘we’ seem to be the Christmas Turkeys, I shall be quite glad if there’s no electricity to roast us by.
If we’d just stayed chatting in our pubs – if we could have that is, if they hadn’t forced them all closed - and telephoned each other to relay the latest gossip, d’you think they’d have been trying to ban the telephone? I mean, it’s not as though paedophiles or terrorists ever use the phone is it?
Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France, renowned for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is liable to take off traveling at a moment's notice. Consequently this blog only gets updated these days when it is raining - and it doesn't rain very often round here...
{ 46 comments }
Anna, the establishment has always wanted to control the internet because,
a) it lets people talk and compare over distances they couldn’t in the past,
b) it is instant communication therefore the establishment can’t cover much, if anything, up,
c) the establishment doesn’t understand it and never will – they see it as causing them to loose control.
The big problem the establishment will have is dealing with the fact the internet, by virtue of what it is, always works round any blocks erected by authority.
They tried to block access the the pirate bay site from the UK – anyone that wants to visit that site still can. There are many more instances of things like that.
The only way for the establishment to ‘control’ the internet is for them to cut ALL communication with the rest of the world, which would create a bigger noise from the media than anything they are saying at the moment. Even then I doubt that they could cut all communication – some enterprising radio amateur would establish a link and feed it down a phone line or someone will get some satellite internet kit and so on. The internet will keep going and work round government interference.
Indeed. Charles II wanted to ban coffee shops because people (ok, men) went there to talk to each other instead of going to Court where the King’s Eavesdroppers could ensure that his subjects were properly sub pollicem regis. How far we have progressed.
The internet will keep going and work round government interference.
Indeed this goes back to the very origins of the internet. It was originally designed as a resilient network in the event of nuclear war by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA) within the U.S. Department of Defense [sic].
Given recent events in the Middle East, that capability seems to be working very well.
“They say you cannot bribe nor twist,
Thank God,
The British Journalist.
And when you see what he will do,
Un-bribed,
Their’s no occasion too.”
Kipling had these tossers sorted 150 years ago
Well put. I’ve been reciting this to myself for the last two weeks!
Robert – what a superb quote!
I wish I had found it – and all kudos to you for having done so.
I think it was by Humbert Wolfe. Excellent quote and right on.
Quite right Timbo, don’t know why I thought it was Kipling except possibly that it sounds so much like him.
“You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God, the British journalist.
But seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”
Humbert Wolfe
Well Kipling should have known, having been a journalist himself for some years.
Personally, I prefer his cakes.
And I thought it was by Humbert Humbert.
Speaking of pedophiles.
LOL…ita
Geez Louise, this is all very depressing. I
I have pondered their ability to on off the power, specifically electric. Are those well positioned wind turbines accidentally placed close to the new feudal lords holdings to keep the little lights shining for those deemed fit for entrance into the 21st century slick dictatorship?
I am sure it was penned centuries ago that Lucifer would steal the minds of man through electricity, to switch off the lightning would surely close that goggle box in the corner and end the control.
Have they built a secondary grid? well they have built Internet2, but only for the sanitised, the wikipedia-wikileaks bretheren who know history and head the rebellion…. yes of course they do….
Perhaps Thomas is pitching for Asssange’s chair?
I think this was maybe one of the reasons for the push towards IP6 to replace IP4.
The internet was not “running out of numbers,” rather it was becoming more dificult to keep existing blocks of numbers (the ISP’s ranges) and introduce new blocks without adjusting the olds blocks, causing issues, none of which are insurmountable.
One side effect of this is that there will be a push towards multi-IP ranges for consumers (I know BE my ISP is looking to go this way when its networks are all updated), so that every computer will/can have an outward facing IP address, and not be in an internal network behind a single IP using NAT.
At present NAT means that no computer, device, or user can be identified when it connects to the internet; only the IP of the router and its owner…
I leave it up to my fellow “tinfoil hatters” to see a possible conclusion when every one of your personal devices, PCs, phones, webtv, youview boxes are uniquely identifiable by globally unique IP address.
The writer of the article you refer to, Anna, doesn’t seem to understand the internet. That Google News thingy is a digest of news … culled from the on-line versions of the MSM!!
Thank you Anna for another insightful piece.
The powers to “snoop” already exist, it’s just that police have to have some suspicion of illegal activity and obtain a warrant.
We already limit Internet access to convicted sex offenders where it is deemed that use of the Internet will increase their risk to the public and/or of further offences. Those who are subject to such orders may well moan about infringements of their liberties….tough.
It’s not often I agree with Nick Clegg!
It’s even less often that I agree with Shami Chakrabarti.
“…it’s just that police have to have some suspicion of illegal activity…”
Not quite as you imply, Anna-Marie:- the say-so of a senior plod (Chief Inspector or above) is sufficient – hey might say he has suspicions but he doesn’t have to expand, explain or justify them.
In much the same way as the underlings of Lavrenti Beria or Heinrich Himmler were afforded independent autonomy.
I think you miss my point Ted, which is we already have laws in place to deal with crime on the Internet. We don’t need more. The fact that these existing laws are vulnerable to being used for corrupt purposes, as most are if we are not careful , is another issue.
There is a subtle difference between the ‘powers’ to snoop and the capability to do it. For as long as remote communication has existed, there has been the capability to intercept/snoop. And the authorities have done it all along, whether that is postal, telephone, telex or e-mail. Believe me, they don’t spend all their days at Menwith Hill and GCHQ just playing Solitaire.
The only difference is that, by formally taking the official ‘powers’, they can finally admit to doing some of it and can use any captured information as legitimate evidence – to use it before gaining such ‘powers’ would be to admit to what they’ve been doing all along. Therefore, the act of gaining legitimacy does not change one jot of what is or what can be intercepted, it only ever changes the formal uses to which it may then be put.
And if anyone believes it’s not about capturing message content, but only the time-stamp and routing information……….
Tob job again, Anna:
“If you build it, they will come…”
As an example of the internet thumbing its nose at authoritarian censorship have a look at <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/03/syria_internet_blackout_speak2tweet_google_twitter"this
So much for relying on an add-on to do the work.
this is what it should have been.
“Mad Frankie” Maude is spot on about terrorists cutting power off at inconvenient times; however the terrorists will be from the Department of Energy and Climate Change who will order smart meters to switch off washing machines, driers and cookers if the wind isn’t blowing enough/blowing too hard and there isn’t enough spare capacity from nasty polar bear-burning power stations in the grid. Remember that turkey sushi is good for the planet and the money behind the enviroscam.
Indeed, with the cost and scarcity of electricity in the future it will become a truly luxury item, it is easy to envision the government pulling the plug on those nasty server farms. Let the plebs get their news from the government approved news sheet (one sheet only, recycled from toilet paper, fully biodegradable) available at all DPW dole centres.
I exaggerate only slightly.
If you want to see just how uncontrollable the internet really easy, try accessing pirate bay on Virgin or O2. It’s blocked. Then go to Google and type in ‘unblocked pirate bay’
As fast as they shut one avenue down, another opens up. And if they try to trace people speaking their minds, then they’ll just run up against a load of software that stops them doing it by routing everything through anonymous proxys.
It makes a great political soundbite, but in practice it just can’t be done…
Hi Anna,
My G/F is called Ann. Anyway enough chit chat …….
I went on Danny Alexander MP
Chief Secretary to the Treasurys website
http://www.dannyalexander.org.uk/
Pressed the butoon on left
“Make a Donation”
and paid 9 [nine] pence into his account using PayPal.
I urge everyone to send tuppence to Danny.
Done, two English pennies sent.
When The Uniform Penny Post was introduced in January 1840, my Great Great Grandfather said it would do no good and indeed just cause a lot of unnecessary worry and trouble.
During the “Thirty Years’ War” of 1618-1648 bloggers of the time upset the establishment by publishing “news books”. In 1632 the “news books” were banned by the Court of Star Chamber. This didn’t stop the latter day bloggers. They moved to different countries and got their articles into Britain anyway.
Eight years later, in 1640, the Court of Star Chamber was abolished and Habeas Corpus was introduced.
The truth is being manipulated by politicians, the press, corporate lobby groups, “social” lobby groups (Greens, NSPCC, Health Nazis etc). Practically every organization out there manipulates the truth for their own gains. These same organizations demand secrecy to protect their version of the truth, while demanding absolute truth from us in the form of a surveillance state.
I can but hope that history will repeat. A modern day version of Habeas Corpus to safeguard the truth. A transition to a transparent society where those who have power have no secrets.
Speaking of the rent seeking behaviour of UK journalists and newspapers, perhaps Anna is unaware of this one from the Grauniad:
A £2-a-month levy on broadband could save our newspapers
“A small levy on UK broadband providers – no more than £2 a month on each subscriber’s bill – could be distributed to news providers in proportion to their UK online readership. This would solve the financial problems of quality newspapers, whose readers are not disappearing, but simply migrating online.”
I have completely outflabbered my gasp!
Apologies, forgot the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/sep/23/broadband-levy-save-newspapers
If they want me to pay for their stories they are free to go behind a paywall, not dip their hands into my wallet.
The same applies to the Beeb, whose licence I shall not be renewing.
(Yes, I know it wants adults to call it tvlicensing and give it money, but it turns out really it’s just ‘hideous cultural Marxists’ asking to be called Auntie and for time alone with the children.)
Isn’t the alleged aim of cyber terrorists to cut off our power a little bit self-defeating? Or will all the servers be run on biogas?
Anyone who opposes regulation will have ‘blood on their hands’? What arrant nonsense. The mainstream press already have an ocean of haemoglobin on theirs.
There is, unfortunately, a global tendency for Governments to control things they either don’t understand, or are afraid of. The uncontrolled power of the Internet (as understood by Government) is that it can freely be exercised by citizens and that those citizens can use it to organise themselves, to stand up for themselves, in some instances (usually a point of view reserved for our Government when it abhors the practices of another countries’ Government and wishes to support its citizens in their struggle for human rights) or when its own actions are called into question, to circumvent or prevent moral or other opposition.
An example: Gordon Brown was mentioned. Look how swiftly the Internet brought him to task for labelling one of his own supporters a ‘Bigot’ – an incident that destroyed any remote chance of a Labour victory at the last General Election. Take the moral crusade against MP’s expenses, with fresh revelations being swiftly passed from outraged citizen to citizen, far faster than the spread of news by tabloid or terrestrial television. Consider also that if there was no Internet, the whole sorry ‘Hacking’ scandal could never have happened and certainly the newspapers own vested interests would have ensured that the news of their shenanigans would have been printed on Page 20 in those participating ‘rags’.
It is a powerful tool, which the Government do not trust its citizens to use properly.
“We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.” Livy, Titus.
I have read that when the telephone was coming into widespread use, some people were concerned that criminals could use it to organise crimes and warn people of the approach of a policeman.
I also read, in “Flat Earth news” by Nick Davies, that the fall in newspaper quality (e.g. spending less on journalists, running more tabloid gossip, etc) began long before the internet made an impact, and was due to the desire of newspaper owners to make even bigger profits than they already were. This matches my impression from reading newspapers over the last 20 years.
We know that journalism has ALWAYS been a respectable up-holder of public morals and probity because the Telegraph kindly point out that Leveson is the SEVENTH inquiry since the second world war, approximately one inquiry every ten years. What other trade has attracted such attention, and why? One could easily come to the conclusion that a minority of journalists have always been corrupt or corruptible. And while we are talking about corruptible, note too how the politicians and police have banded together, when their actions were found equally wanting by Leveson too! The camoron with his inept LOL to the editor of the News of the World, and multiple social meetings, the bent coppers providing information at a tenner-a-time, the whole MP expense fiasco where our employees (the MP’s) were found to be stealing yet only a select few were bought to justice. But of course journalistic integrity and internet use are the great issues that beset the nation-pathetic.
Internet access for the gret unwashed public via ISP’s did not evolve until the early 1990′s so any connection between bad behaviour by journalists due to a perceived problem that internet scribblers might blow their “scoop” is utter nonsense, the bad behaviour was already well entrenched, as is plainly obvious from Robert the Biker’s excellent comment above.
I suppose I should be more exercised by this grab of our rights to free speech but quite honestly we are talking the government here, whatever they enact will be unwieldy, unmanageable, irrelevant and in the end will fail. Its what the yUK government does best at enormous expense.
“Leveson is the SEVENTH inquiry since the second world war, approximately one inquiry every ten years. What other trade has attracted such attention, and why?”
As a matter of interest, how many inquirieshave been held into Social Services?
I await the day when tinterwebz is so regulated we begin to see small printing presses in basements producing revolutionary leaflets and seditious pamphlets which are circulated in clandestine ways…
Can’t stop the signal
Business would grind to a standstill without the net but most politicians are ignorant as to how much it used.
I’m waiting for MWT to tweet this, but then again I’m not holding my breath – could be injurious to health
http://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/News/Areas/Maidenhead/Man-80-released-after-speaking-to-Jimmy-Savile-case-officers-04122012.htm
No action has been taken by police against a Berkshire man in his 80s interviewed under caution as part of a post Jimmy Savile investigation.
The man attended a south London police station by appointment on Thursday and left the station the same day.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said he was interviewed under caution by officers working on Operation Yewtree and had not been asked to return for further questioning.
I have a feeling that MWT has been contacted by the man in his 80s lawyers. You can’t defame someone the way MWT did and get away with it in this day and age. If MWT hadn’t blabbed, nobody would be any the wiser as to the man’s identity.
I’m surprised how little his name has spread on the net apart from the usual suspects : those who have weaved him into the Freemason/Ted Heath/Rothschilds/Jewish/Pedo/NWO movement.
Yet the Press Gazette is screaming that Leveson has frightened the police into not revealing his name so they can demolish him in every way.
Well they weren’t frightened to name Stuart Hall were they? Or was that because he has actually been arrested? This parade of octogenarian alleged offenders is becoming grotesque. I would far rather they spent their time and our money stopping the abuse that is happening now.
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 2 trackbacks }