http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/10/whistleblowers-rupert-murdoch-nhs-nick-cohen
I tend to like people who tell the truth. Very few can hack its presence though, which may be why we have so much schmaltz in film, television and ‘literature’. We don’t want to live in interesting times and we show little sign of wanting to change the human condition. My guess is this condition is that of the pack animal. Our public argument is constrained to the noises of such.
One of the great organs of schmaltz has just been slain, ostensibly by its owner. The News of the Screws may be interesting to historians as evidence of the height of our dumb society. Its editor turned down the story on Parliamentary expenses sleaze because there wasn’t enough ‘sex’ in it. If only the duck house had been a little bigger and found to have a bed in it! The ‘Screws News’ will be back, cheaper to produce, and with the same old stories.
What we won’t get is any form of intelligent journalism. Criticism is more or less killed off in our society through ejukation and the ruling “Politburo”. This term evokes Sino-Soviet experiment madness, the Gulags and such matters as 45 million deaths in the ‘Great Leap Forward’. It needs this tinge, though I feel it combines ‘politesse’ and ‘bureaucracy’ rather well. My take on Politburo is that which constrains what we can say and how we can say it. Unlike those of the Sino-Soviet experiment, our Politburo is hidden as a “secret society”. The model I have in mind here is that of the ‘stilted Devils’ of west Africa and its focus on conjuring up power and Juju.
The first issue in free speech is probably the feeling that one wastes one’s breath. The second that the content of what one wants to say will merely establish the speaker as a target in the pack. The third that one wants to speak of a ‘different world’ that the rest of the pack does not want to acknowledge, making the speaker an ‘alien’. The fourth is the weight of having to protect one’s own economy. The fifth that of bring down power, almost as conjuring the Devil or the angry, spiteful alpha on the argument. Somewhere in this, one also knows the listeners are more interested in their versions of the ‘Screws News’. This can be anything from the actual ‘Screws News’, through detective novels, the Royal Family and on to counting Angels on pin-heads.
As I write, BBC News is running pap coverage of our Royal Family in Canada. Kate is cute and this coverage ‘BBC Screws News’. Murdoch’s own news is actually discussing something closer to the criticism of Newscorp. Touched on here is that Murdoch is still responsible for media diversity by killing off the print unions. This, of course, begs the big questions on how the ‘Politburo’ rakes away our ‘cash’ as surely as any union, only in spades. This doesn’t make union bargaining right, but why the focus on that and not the massive rents we pay to doctors, lawyers, senior managers, banksters, sport tars and other celebrities and all the tollbooths rich interests are erecting on our public services.
The News of the World is over, but fear not – the gossip-wanking will resume normal service in the Sexy Sun on Sunday. The Groaniad will try to match the Telegraph’s ‘drip-drip’ tactics on MPs’ expenses on this story, for this is its version of Screws News.
In the meantime, organised crime has re-established itself in our leadership in ways we dare not speak of. This is what Cohen would be writing about if he had balls. Like News Screws, he merely addresses an audience he thinks will ‘pay’. So did the Foucault he lauds (now he was a Screws News story!) on speaking truth to power. Strangely in all this news scew, we are being fucked over and it’s all as serious as the circumstances that took Hitler from 4% to 40% of the German vote in a few years.
One cannot address the NuPolitburo directly. It’s power is not in few hands, but translated into govern-mentality amongst the pack. These ‘alphas’ can rely on ordinary members to rip apart or shun anyone ‘truth-telling’. The story Nick Davis has opened on our dirty press and its dirty political links and techniques merely feeds titillation. Would only the redhead in the middle turn ‘happy hooker’ and we’d all be satisfied! Especially if one of her clients turns out to be the cop who didn’t investigate because at his high rank one doesn’t involve oneself in ‘detail’. Yet another chief executive ‘worth his salt’ knowing nothing when caught out without the protection of his own ‘performance management accountants’.
Around the world there is a need to break the NuPolitburo. We need the direct accounts and can nowhere trust we get them. China is in as bi a mess as the rest of us and for similar reasons. No one can get this story into the news in the way that the expense scandal and phone hacking become ‘fashion’.
The current reality is a combination of Emperor’s New Clothes and the Jabberwock. The Banksters have created a financial blackhole and spread the story for financial instruments only they can manipulate and of the great Devil (Jabberwock) that will consume us if we give up on them. The financial instruments (CDOs etc.) are the application of science jargon in the same manner as clown rip-offs like ‘quantum jumping’ to personal development (long known as Ponzi schemes) and the Jabberwock plays on our fears of not being able to cope ourselves. These are secret society routines as surely as any stilted Devils. The madness involved is the same as in any culture in denial of impending ecocide. The instrument of torture is to shun the very truth we need and to starve anyone promoting it of more or less everything – for to make the claim is the profanity that we are all morally corrupt and our religion once again just a pack of lies. The real claim concerns being able to do much better and even have something approaching real democracy.
Allcoppedout's Blog 
This would be comedy gold were it not for the fact that it contains a quote from the officer who ran the first investigation, now an employee of NI:
July 12, 2009
LAST week the News of the World was the subject of some ferocious and, at times, hysterical attacks on its credibility, integrity and journalistic standards.
…The onslaught was led by a series of reports in the Guardian newspaper and hastily followed by the BBC, Sky News, and ITN.
The essence of their campaign was that members of our staff have engaged in a widespread and unlawful conspiracy to access “thousands” of mobile phones.
However, as Andy Hayman – a former Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, who headed an exhaustive nine-month inquiry into our journalistic conduct – says today: “My recollection is different.” He adds: “As I recall the list of those targeted, which was put together from records kept by Glen Mulcaire, ran to several hundred names.
“Of these,” writes Hayman, “there was a small number – perhaps a handful – where there was evidence that the phones had actually been tampered with.”
and the end of the article:
“So, if the Guardian has any fresh evidence to support their claims against us, we invite them to pass it on to the police without delay.
Yesterday, in their editorial column, they proclaimed: “Decent journalism has never been more necessary . . . ”
We couldn’t agree more. It’s time they practised what they preach. ”
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/news/402737/The-News-of-the-World-was-the-subject-of-some-ferocious-attacks.html
The NOW is much less important than the police failings and the miserable state of public investigation.
To this layman, the police failings smell more like conspiracy than cockup. Any thoughts on this?
John Yates appears to have lied in the course of his duties and is supposedly a very competent senior officer – so cock-up fades as an excuse. At the bottom of all this stuff is a 20 year old axe murder involving ex-cops – this was badly investigated. It seems a case was built 20 years after the fact (this collapsed earlier this year), suggesting dire previous investigation. Quite a few could be involved in covering up this and breaches of security on the PNC and mis-use of police resources.
Yes, it was disturbing to read about the detective investigating that murder being followed by a NotW van in the days after he appeared on Crimewatch appealing for information. The NotW explanation that they suspected him of having an affair with the presenter (actually his wife) does not seem credible. You have no doubt already read about this too.
It seems that both Yates and Hayman were in fear of their extramarital affairs being made public.
one wonders whether the cops set the press on each other.