Imagine that a taxicab rider in the vicinity of the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 had parlayed minor injuries into an interview on "60 Minutes," a blog, a book and an occasional column in The New York Times, taking on the role of poster child and blaring loudspeaker of 9/11 victimhood. Imagine then, that an apparently unbalanced woman challenged her role on her own blog and Ms. Victim managed to have the challenger imprisoned for doing so.
Change the country to Britain and the event to the London bombings of July 7, 2005, and you'd be imaging someone like Rachel North, of whom apparently the Brits must now be so tired that just yesterday she was now bottom-feeding on a lazy Saturday U.S. public radio show that specializes in weird slices of life.
I heard it yesterday, having been apprised of her radio appearance by an alert reader of this blog.
North, which I understand is a pseudonym, was interviewed by an entirely sympathetic English-sounding voice concerning her apparent encounter with British conspiracy theorists who believe she is part of some British coverup concerning the London bombing.
Did she have anything new to say about her experience? No.
Did North have anything to comment concerning her egregious moves to censor another blogger under medieval British laws that allow trial in absentia (!) and jail for the expression of opinion? No.
The show was merely devoted to how teddibly, teddibly difficult life is for poor, forlorn Rachel North who, apparently is pursued by all sorts of British online nutcases, who claim -- obviously irrationally -- that she is part of a government conspiracy to blame Muslims for the attack.
Rachel North is not that important, chaps!
No mention of her publicity-seeking "diary" of her experiences during the bombing on the BBC, her endless blogging on her own tragedy and her continuing nitpicking of the Labour Party government's official investigation. Nor much mention of the money she made off the tragedy with her book and column in ultraconservative news magnate Rupert Murdock's The Times of London.
There was no mention of one Felicity Jane Lowde, against whom North and others campaigned to have jailed for her admittedly questionable opinions concerning North in comment sections on North's blog and posts on Lowde's own. Lowde was imprisoned last summer. So much for Britain's right to free speech.
As I have written here earlier (see here and here) a pox on both their houses. Insofar as I am concerned it's just an online catfight of no significance -- except that it has rattled the cages of the inmates in that asylum called the United Kingdom and she now is trying to bring the circus here. (There's more money to be made in the USA, isn't there?)
Indeed, also not mentioned in the radio show, the behavior displayed by North's own supporters -- see the 250 comments on the first link cited above -- amply demonstrated that they are no lilting, longsuffering wallflowers. Whatever is wrong with Lowde, the "Northsquad" as my cyberfriend Alex Fear calls them, and perhaps anonymously North herself, are as "antisocial" online (this was their charge concerning Lowde) as their bête noir.
Why do I, who am usually more interested in politics, economics, ethics, etc., even care? Because in National Public Radio's one-sided, semi-prurient infotainment about North, I found a saddening blur of lines between blogging and journalism, between right and wrong, between what is important and what should be laughed out of the court of public opinion.
On WAMU, the station I heard her on, they didn't bother to inquire enough to uncover the free speech scandal of a blogger jailed for airing opinion, the travesty of shameless publicity-seeking that surrounds explosive incidents (pun intended) or the silliness of an English-accent-only broadcast segment on a show for American audiences about events and people of no consequence here.
20 comments:
No offence meant but isn't the US the home of 'misery Me Literature'?
True, Oprah, true. You Brits are just shameless imitators.
man - did you actually listen? i can't believe you even heard it...it was a repeat of an old show...tıtle THE SPOKESMAN - it was about people being reluctant spokesmen and the intervıew was about *that* subject not the Labor party or stalkers...
why the hell are you so obsessed wıth this UK blogger anyways? are you pissed or jealous she got a book deal and a column? so what if she does - you have a problem wıth wrıters wrıtıng about their experiences or bloggers goıng MSM?
The CROWN convicts and inprisons in the UK - not the victim - by the way. The CROWN decides whether to proceed wıth a prosecution - not the vıctim. As 2 minutes on google or wiki would have showed you.
This feud you have wıth North - has she ever even mentioned you by the way? Can't see any mention of you on her blog...get over ıt and write about somethıng else.
empo:
Cx hates brits because they sussed him as a nasty pompous little creep.
And he's sore about the Malvinas.
so facts don't bother him a lot.
and he thinks he'll get hits for his poor lonely blog.
Ha - you put him in his place. What an arsehole.
Très vrai! All of the British Misery Me writers combined can't begin to compete with someone like Dave Pelzer!
The Northsquad is as antisocial online as their bête noir. QED.
Cx: that is a laughably feeble reply - and it took you more than a week to come up with it.
And this - a stricture on antisocial behaviour - from a man who has interfered gratuitously - no less than three times - in an issue that doesn't concern him in ANY CONCEIVABLE WAY, and that he demonstrably knows nothing about.
Sticking your ignorant arrogant nose into other people's affairs for your own amusement is antisocial in anyone's book. No?
Loser.
For heavens sake, you arrogant American plonker, will you stop trolling, libelling and troublemaking! Prove you have got a life to other bloggers by writing on something of interest.
At first you had a fair opinion but you have quickly degenerated into worthless capitalising on the situation.
I have told you, stop calling me 'unbalanced' etc. etc. just to pacify a violent crowd who want to dismiss I have always held lightly. I have never behaved in an 'unbalanced' way throughout this matter. I have never once been diagnosed with the smallest menatl illness and you have absolutely no evidence to suggest that I have.
These opportunist postings of yours are not impressing anyone. It is about as impressive as John McCain's embarrassing speeches, and those of his precedent, George Bush- who come from the States- I believe.
* please read * .....'opinions I have always held lightly' .
( This is the reason I rarely comment on these stupid threads.)
Okay, so some of the observations you make are well phrased and good; fair enough. But you, and others, would be much better dropping a subject that you rightly say is not worth hearing about.
Every time you raise and re raise it, abuse and libel about me goes on for pages and pages. Coming from the most worthless of people. You can't expect me to thank you for perpetually instigating this foolishness.
If encouraging the type of comments boxes that appear after your posts is your interpretation of how to make the most of free speech laws, you can't expect me to share it with you.
How about deleting the abusive comments boxes altogether? That would make an interesting gesture; you'd show that you value intellectual freedom.
'I have never once been diagnosed with the smallest mental illness and you have absolutely no evidence to suggest that I have.'
(I just wrote.)
Usually I don't bother responding to the false claims that I am unbalanced etc. etc. and suffering from a mental illness etc. It is obviously abusive libel designed to discredit me. It has spread like wildfire, but that doesn't make it true.
The sort of libellous abusive comments that are continually left about myself nothing to do with intellectual freedom. It is abusive libel designed to silence a person.
I am tired of hearing it repeated. Dealing with one aspect of the libel: I have never had cause to see a mental health specialist in my life. I do not show any sign of any such need. No one, throughout my life, has ever considered me unbalanced or mentally ill.
Mental illness itself is not a thing to be laughed at as Louise correctly points out. However, she often fails to make the point that labelling someone as mentally ill or unbalanced when all evidence suggests that they are not, is an attempt to silence a person.
This is obvious to me and the company I keep, which is why I don't bother bringing you up on it.
I go further though, as far as you and a number of other pompous pronouncers are cocerned. I think you can see very well that I show no expression of instability. I think, despite your keen enthusiasm for challenging British Court verdicts, that you are in fact a tinsy tad afraid of challenging an abusive verdict outright, ( irrespective of whether its victim, in this case myself, went to prison) and I think you are not so authentic in your defence of free speech and intellectual freedom as you make out. You can't quite risk opposing the Justices, can you.
tw shows the same hypocrisy at times, as does Alex Fear.
If you are capable of challenging a verdict in a manner loyal to a person whom you feel has been unjustly convicted, then do so. If you are not, if you see the harm done to that person, then write or act in a way that cleverly 'ensures you against repercussions', then you do nothing but stir up further difficulties for a defendant who is already in problems.
So who really do you think you are impressing with these postings dcomments boxes Cex? Prisoner's magazines?
Climb down off the fence; no one needs you sitting there on top, perched like a coward, stirring up trouble.
The only birds doing that on a prison fence are outsize magpies.
Your comments box visitors are bullying abusive, Free Speech repressors. Giving them endless space has nothing to do with respect for Free Speech laws. It just shows that you can't use your mind.
... and I do have the right to tell you outright to stop publishing abusive libel about me intimiating that I am 'unbalanced' etc. The same goes for unverified claims. There are civil laws against such libel, for very good reason.
I think you should disallow abusive and libellous mobs on your comments box threads. It is not beyond you to behave responsibly.
* and for the record........ I do not agree with the conspiracy theorists re 7/7 and never have done. Not interested in any of it. Three and a half years ago, culprits identified, let's move on, ( with love to the injured and bereaved), end of subject.
nb as far as regards Freedom of speech, you have every right to oppose the Justices who made the order that contravened Freedom of Speech laws with your comments. ( In fact is was a magistrate, Judge Cheney, who almost always supports the Crown Prosecution as a matter of course. She is quite well known for this.) You are correct to point out that verdicts made with the defendant in absence are often overturned ( eventually, in some cases). If that's what you want to do, then do it, without causing a defendant further problems. ( repeating libel regarding me, allowing all the dreadful abuse of me to taske place abuse on your comments threads, etc.)
The problems I have been in because of the libel and abuse that has circulated have been serious and needless.
Did the Magistrate's verdict abuse my right to Freedom of Speech, was it abusive in that respect, yes, it did. Was it made in my absence, yes it was. It is blatently obvious, as you point out.
So make that point without allowing abusive libel about me in your comments boxes or making libellous claims about my alleged 'instability' etc. etc.
Why don't you show some integrity, and delete these comments boxes altogether? They are full of extremely abusive comments written by people who wish for nothing more than to see me crushed and silenced for no reason. (I want nothing whatever to do with them.)
And yet you make out that your posts are all about defending someone whose Free Speech has been denied by a British Court.
pffft.
Stop profiteering from my situation ( I can't work out if you desperately want to increase your stats, or if you're just being purient) and go and write on something else.
I think people should be allowed wide Freedom of Speech. This should include the web. However, when there are Court proceedings going on, people should bear in mind that there is a difference between using your Freedom of Speech to make an interested comment and exploiting a situation to a defendant's detrement- which is what you are doing.
Both the UK and the USA have respectable Courts in place that protect defendants from media profiteering and endless gossip that might serve to unjustly damage their cases and their lives.
Use your intelligence.
* Blatant*
not *blatent*- excuse type error. Another correction for clarity:
"The sort of libellous abusive comments that are continually left about myself are nothing to do with intellectual freedom. It is abusive libel designed to silence a person."
Anyway I appreciate that American Courts are not suffering the progressive degeneration into the hapless police state to the extent that the UK Courts are - and most of all, perhaps, you don't know about Magistrate's Courts, a place where it is very difficult indeed for any defendant to obtain Justice. Perhaps you don't know that cases that get referred to the Crown automatically pass through the Magistrates in first instance. Because the Magistrates are not so qualified as the Judges, and don't have the same objectivity as a Jury, they often tend to be "Crown Prosecution agents." This is how they are often described.
Here's a motto for you: if you see a vulnerable defendant, take more care, rather than less.
Ask yourself, 'would I take this risk with my own life?' If the answer is 'no, probably not', then don't do it.
Throughout this matter I have seen people who claim to be objective indulge in the most incredible abusive foolishness. It's been quite astonishing. Then of course there's those who've been extremely harassing and abusive.
What a comment it's all been on human nature.
* Incidentally I am not a defendant at present and these is no case in Court against me.
I speak of defendants generally. They are vulnerable people. I care about what becomes of them. And I say: respect the fact, respect their rights, and stop predatory, profiteer blogging and media.
~ the one case in Court regarding me, is my further appeal.
* This is not to say that the above description applies to all magistrates. It doesn't, I'm happy to say: there are people of integrity on this planet.
;-)
Good thing too: or we'd be seeing endless schemes from prosecutors who have nothing better to do than bully human rights attourneys while knowing all the while that, for example, that police notes giving them the confidence to indulge in such behaviours were an entirely false picture.
N'est ce pas.
Good thing freedom of speech exists. Or we'd all be putting up with these bott-om dwe-llers who think that being a CPS advocate is an excuse for anything they like: ( one good example here.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2463005/
CPS-lawyer-works-as-nude-model-while-on-sick-leave.html
bottom-dweller
1. A fish that lives and feeds on the bottom of a body of water; a scavenger that feeds low on the food chain; a bottom-feeder such as carp and catfish.
2. A person of low character, having no scruples; a selfish, conniving and amoral person; a scumbag.
Karl Rove -- political strategist, dirty trickster and all-around bottom-dweller -- is known to some as "Bush's brain."
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