December 2008
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Michael Burleigh
The Real Nasty Party
Tuesday 22nd July 2008
In today's Mail the excellent Quentin Letts takes advantage of the summer recess to draw attention to the venomous postings about Margaret Thatcher's (inevitable) demise on the Guardian website. This came about in response to the suggestion that Baroness Thatcher should have a state funeral, which on many grounds she undoubtedly should. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1037118/QUENTIN-LETTS-Rejoicing-death-Why-Left-hate-Lard-Thatcher.html for the disgusting details. I recently saw Tim Garton Ash at an event where responding to a mistake made by the chairman (who said Ash was from Cambridge rather than Oxford), Ash made the comment: 'At least he didn't say I am a Mail rather than Guardian columnist'. Perhaps Ash doesn't look through the sort of comments that are posted on the Guardian's website? Because most of them are so crass, ill-informed or malevolent that they don't compare with anything that appears on the sites of any other British newspaper. And there are hundreds and hundreds of them, suggesting that the public sector readership has plenty of time to spew forth its resentments. Its time the Tories dropped the conceit that they are the nasty party; there's plenty of nastiness all too evident on the other side.
9:18 am
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COMMENTS
Vernon Howell
July 22nd, 2008
6:07 PM
6:07 PM
A few months ago the Guardian ran a piece on human rights in Iran written by a dissident. Cue a volley of hatred in the comments boxes, accusations that she was a stooge for Bush/Zionists and an apologist for the Shah, whose secret police killed millions and that her real agenda was to advocate the bombing of Iran by Israel etc etc. It was disgusting: here was a woman standing up for everything Guardian readers are supposed to endorse and they tore her to pieces. The revelling in hatred was orgiastic. It was a real specimen of the moral derangement brought on by the oppositional delusion (Bush= bad+ Bush hates Iran)+ (Israel= bad + Israel hates Iran)= Criticism of Iran is an Insidious Neocon/Zionist Ploy. Of course, not only did Khomenei kill more people in one year than the Shah did in several decades but many of his victims were the equivalent of Guardian readers in Iran. Not much solidarity in the left then when the dead leftists have brown skin, but then we all know that. Reading the Guardian comment pages is to be exposed to a toxic blend of profound confusion, repulsive moral equivalence, Western self loathing and absurdity. But then, their parents and grandparents thought Stalin was really groovy back in the day.
mburleigh
July 23rd, 2008
6:07 AM
6:07 AM
Precisely Vernon. They don't seem to notice that Khomeinei et al murdered most of the Communists and liberals of his day.
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