Altough this comment on Craig Murray’s most recent blog entry holds no surprises for anybody here, I think it’s such a good summary that it’s worth reposting in full:
Baalbek
August 30, 2020 at 19:30“The Guardian has become the dictionary definition of a snake in the grass.”
I agree 100%. A very apt term to describe the duplicitous travesty that is the Guardian.
I was a regular at CiF when it was one of the liveliest political discussion forums on the internet. Moderation was very light and mainly used to discourage blatant trolling and the harassing of other commenters rather than censoring political speech. The Guardian began deteriorating after the Snowden affair and the infamous MI5 instigated hard drive destruction incident and it really went downhill after Viner replaced Rusbridger as Chief Editor.
Looking back at the pre-2013 internet, it’s stunning how restricted it has become. There are no MSM forums that allow anything even remotely resembling free and open discussion and with a few notable exceptions, like Robert Fisk, journalists at mainstream media outlets have been reduced to pro-establishment shills, Atlanticist propagandists and hysterical ‘woke’ scolds. Blatant censorship on sites like YouTube has become the norm and degraded Google search results return an endless list of junk and Atlantic Council approved right think with the quality stuff deliberately buried or disappeared completely.
Among MSM news sites the once semi-respectable Guardian has fallen farther than most. I haven’t posted there in years and now only rarely bother visiting, mainly only when I want to get the definitive establishment approved take on an issue. Articles covering the most contentious, and important, topics are rarely open for comments and when they are the strictly controlled banal blather that passes for discussion there is not worth reading.
I must admit the Graun shoving its virtual begging bowl in my face while telling me about its honest and uncompromised journalism really rankles. How stupid do they think people are? Maybe if they practiced what they preach they wouldn’t have to constantly harass their remaining readers for handouts. After the Guardian’s horrific character assassination of Julian Assange and Jeremy Corbyn and its shameful pro-war cheerleading and Israel über alles stance I have nothing but contempt for that outfit and the gutless hacks it employs. Its demise can’t come soon enough.
Although I agree with everything in the comment, I can’t share the sentiment of its final sentence. The death of the Guardian, however well deserved and long overdue - and I’m not arguing! - would leave liberalism without a home in the mainstream media.
But the topic of the meaning(s) of the word liberalism is one I’ve put off trying to write about for five years now, and intend to go on putting off! For the moment, it’s enough to observe that Craig Murray often describes himself as a liberal, even though he also sometimes uses the same word in its highly pejorative sense, which is clearly also valid, but is confusing, and often renders communication difficult.
