Looks like the angle of attack on Boris Johnson has been established then. Over the weekend we had Doreen Lawrence essentially calling him a racist because he questioned whether the Macpherson Report had done more bad than good in the Metrpolitan Police (see James Cleverly for more). Now we have the Black information Link calling him a white supremicist. I note also that Johann "I'm a member of the pill-popping whistle crew and I never make stuff up" Hari has gone for the same tactic in his article in the Independent this morning.
It's all rather sad really, but I guess it was bound to happen that people would dig through Boris Johnson's writings, especially the anti-political correctness writings, and make charges of racism. We sadly live in a nation now that is so devoid of thought that if one questions the Orwellian nature of thought crimes such as "hate speech" one is automatically classed as being supportive of the view that the ignorant espouse.
You only have to look at the way in which the Black Information Link has written it's piece up to see this sort of intellectual dishonesty in action really. For them, as people of the Left, the only way to tackle bad ideas is to outlaw them and punish those for thinking the worng thing. A free societry of course should not do that ever, racism, sexism, communism, fascism and whatever other distasteful "ism" you can name should be allowed to exist and be tackled through argument.
Of course this view is not something that is popular today, because we live in a "diverse" society where the preachers of tolerance have no tolerance for that which they have decided is, as Orwell put it, unorthodox. This very post in fact may well be read by some as evidence of my secret membership of Combat 18. Such is life I guess, but it is worrying, from a purely intellectual standpoint, that discussion of these subjects are so readily closed down by the Left.
It is not until we are given permission by them that we may speak out about it. The questions about whether multiculturalism is a flawed concept are a shining example of how it works today. If one speaks out they are pariahed by the Left, then, when the Left starts saying the same things it is OK to discuss it without fear of recrimination. It's probably one of the most depressing things about the country as a whole that our freedom to think is placed within strict boundaries of what is acceptable to the dominant intelligensia's paradigm on any given day.
23 comments:
I wouldn't worry too much Dizzy. Boris is well able to to defend himself from such attacks and most people can see right through them anyway.
Hi Dizzy,
I must take issue with your use of the term, 'dominant intelligentsia.' I don't see much intelligence in political correctness.
Most freedoms minorities have came BEFORE political correctness came into being. Which suggests it has another purpose.
On the surface, that purpose appears to be to trash all 'tradition', as if it cannot live alongside freedoms for minorities.
This is, of course, rubbish. But look deeper and you find that, if you can destroy tradition, you destroy the links that make up a country.
Hence, it is a direct attack on the country. Which is, of course, part of growing globalisation - to whittle down on countries to produce a globalised sameness.
The PC brigade appear to be the 'lackeys' of globalisation.
intelligensia and intelligent are not the same thing.
"...most people can see right through them anyway."
Indeed. In fact, for a lot of people, his being on the s**t list of these blatant race-mongering groups is a point in his favour!
"...discussion of these subjects are so readily closed down by the Left"
A bit pessimistic, surely? They don't have it all their own way!
I don't think I'm being pessimistic. I am just saying that these soprt of subject are closed down with dodgy arguments which more often than not get accepted by many people without a second thought.
Hi, again, Dizzy,
The statement was not a dig, but a use of sarcasm. This said, surely 'intelligentsia' means 'class of intellectuals.' Intellectuals are those said to use their 'intelligence.'
I'm no fan of Boris, but Stephan Lawrence would be so ashamed of his mother.
Mrs. Lawrence has shamelessly exploited her son's brutal and barrbaric death to create a fascist politically correct apartheid system where a small and evil cabal of ethnic minority Islamofascists terrorise the libertarian majority with their failed socialist ideology.
Brilliant post Dizzy, I was going to do something similar but now I don't need to!
There are two separate problems here; the Boris problem and the Pc/thought crime problem.
The Boris problem is that Boris is generally disdainful of anyone not of his class. He denegrates all and sundry among the oik community, so much so that blacks should be proud to be part of that majority.
I don't like Boris.
The PC/thought crime problem is something else. It is about social hegemoney. It is about merely substituting one percieved agreived minority with another. In other words the PC practitioners find scapegoats, and in doing so replicate the very thing they claim to challenge.
They do indeed shut down debate, with perversions of the meanings of words and they use what are by now familiar weapons; anything with "phobia" on the end sounds impressive to use against detractors.
It is an example of the mauling of the language, but language is key in the arsenal of the Politically Correct, for they have long known that if you conrol language you control thought. To paraphrase George Orwel in "1984" :
In a few years time a person will simply not be able to think a thought crime. The vocabulary will not be availble.
When people talk of shutting down debate, I suggest they really mean subversion of the language of debate, since the list of words you supposedly cannot use gets longer and changes all the time. To use the right terms for disabled people is a coded sign of your credentials, for example.
So where does this leave Boris? Boris is anachronistic in his use of language, and I am not comfortable with his outmoded terms for ethnic minorities, but they are not sufficient to prove that he could be termed a "racist" in any meaningful use of the word. And yet that word is used against him and nobody challenges the PCs as to what they mean. Since they have no need to define their terms they get away with the first specious part of their attack.
It is time we fought them back at their own game and developed a language of freedom and democracy.
What is Boris's class? I;ve been wondering this because people portray him as a "toff2 and yet he was actually a scholarship winnner to Eton and not from some landed family.
Don't get me wrong Dizzy. I don't care if he is a toff or not. The class system is as valid as any other index of social position. It's the way he uses it. Maybe, if he is from a more modest background, it makes him all the more detestable.
I do believe his vocabulary is being used to stitch him up. And that is just nasty political posturing. He may not be a racist, but he certainly is a snob.
nice blog BTW
The left can't stand the idea of anyone with a good education not being left-wing, therefore anyone who has had a good education but isn't in the Inner Party is decried as a "toff".
These people have completely undermined the weight that the term racist use to have. Once a powerful phrase attached to some of the most bigoted in our society it's now become a generic form of abuse - does anyone bat a lid now when it's used?
Where were these people when Ken was hugging Yusuf al-Qaradawi at public expense?
The Right also abuse racial terminolgy to shut down debate in the guise of 'anti-Semitic', particularly in the US. So I don't think this kind of rhetoric is a defining characteristic of the Left, although it is one of the main weapons in their arsenal.
All totalitarian ideologies need scapegoats. They act as a unifier by appealing to man's inate tribal instincts.
The Fabian one-worlders are, at the current state of play, winning. To equate the mind-boggling accomplishments in exploration, administration and invention of Britain, the United States and the rest of the Anglosphere, and indeed, the Francosphere, and say they are no more worthy than basket weaving in Mali shows the depth of contempt these people have for their own society. It also shows that they are clinically insane and should be challenged constantly and with mirth.
Why do people back down before these malevolent inadequates? "Teachers" and head teachers and the whole educational establishment should be challenged viciously, but you wouldn't get a platform because the BBC is on the side of the one-worlders.
I wish one-worlderism was a capital crime.
The whole programme would be even more advanced by now were it not for the blogosphere! Thank God for the blogosphere! It evolved at exactly the right time!
Exactly right Guido Faux, and you put it so elegantly.
Multiculturalism is a direct attack on democracy.
Democracy means people power.
If there's not one people (i.e. a number of different competing cultures), then there's no demos and thus no democracy.
I do love it that people are saying Boris should not be mayor because he is a toff and he could therefore not represent all the non toffs in London. Imagine the outcry if someone said a black politician could not be major because he would not represent the white population of London.
BTW, I just read Hari's article which contained a great number of inaccurate representations of what Boris has written and unjustified invective. It is clearly a sign that the left is rattled by his candidacy.
Boris should not be mayor because he's a toff? And not all Londoners are toffs.
Ken should not be mayor because he's a fuckwit. Not all Londoners are fuckwits (no, it's true, especially since I left).
Boris should be mayor because he's aspirational. And most Londoners are aspirational.
The left stink, check this, lefty blogger Bob Piper, who touted the anti-Boris Guardian smear, reckons the NHS are likely to be institutionally racist!
http://thoughtsfromtheborders.blogspot.com/
Funny that Bob Piper is accusing Boris of racist, extremist views on the basis of the article satirising Blair's foreign policy. I seem to remember it was Bob Piper who thought it was hilarious to distribute that picture of a blacked-up Cameron with 'Yo Niggahs' on it...
Piper really is a complete moron.
"I just read Hari's article which contained a great number of inaccurate representations of what Boris has written and unjustified invective. It is clearly a sign that the left is rattled by his candidacy."
Possibly. Equally possible, it's a clear sign Hari is overrated as a writer....
I'm not trying to be funny, but is Joanne Hari a bloke?
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