Little Nemo:
I’m not so old that my memory is failing, yet, but I certainly recall the recording being played heavily down here in Florida during the '70s and then, suddenly, it was off of the radio. I recall reading a news article about how the record had been pulled from radio play and shortly after it appeared in the 7-11s with a lot of fanfare concerning free speech. Since then, being an avid radio listener, I have not heard it played. Back then, the FCC COULD and DID ban recordings if they found them offensive and radio stations often went right along with them.
MARY HARTS LEGS:
America doesn’t have the monopoly on self serving ideology nor idiots in office. Hearken to examples from your home land:
**Today in 1993 there are still Iraqis and Kurds who remember being bombed and machine-gunned by the RAF in the 1920s. A Kurd from the Korak Mountains commented, seventy years after the event: They were bombing here in the Kaniya Khoran…Sometimes they raided three times a day. Wing Commander Lewis, then of 30 Squadron (RAF), Iraq, recalls how quite often one would get a signal that a certain Kurdish village would have to be bombed…, the RAF pilots being ordered to bomb any Kurd who looked hostile. In the same vein, Squadron-Leader Kendal of 30 Squadron recalls that if the tribespeople were doing something they ought not be doing then you shot them.
Similarly, Wing-Commander Gale, also of 30 Squadron: *If the Kurds hadn't learned by our example to behave themselves in a civilized way then we had to spank their bottoms. This was done by bombs and guns.
Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber Command) was happy to emphasize that *The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured. * It was an easy matter to bomb and machine-gun the tribespeople, because they had no means of defense or retaliation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also useful laboratories for new weapons; devices specifically developed by the Air Ministry for use against tribal villages. The ministry drew up a list of possible weapons, some of them the forerunners of napalm and air-to-ground missiles:
Phosphorus bombs, war rockets, metal crowsfeet [to maim livestock] man-killing shrapnel, liquid fire, delay-action bombs. Many of these weapons were first used in Kurdistan.
Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff. Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam.
London: St. Martins Press, 1994.
From a British Correspondent
Friday, 12 July 1996
"The article below was found while browsing through the archives. It is typical of UK Government (the author is on the SEAC committee) in that it gives as little information as possible whilst giving the impression that the government is in control and that there is nothing to worry about. Nevertheless, it gives an insight into the direction of UK government funded research. People in the US are not aware that while the UK puts about the image of the mother of democracies and all that, it is rather far from the truth. Although we were more democratic that most countries a long time ago, they have moved on and we have not. Consider the following:
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We have an unelected head of state
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We have an unelected second house
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Our MPs boast that they vote "according to their conscience" i.e. not in accordance with their constituents wishes
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The party system "whips" MPs into uniformity
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The cost of standing for Parliament has been raised
beyond the affordability of individual citizens - We do not have a secret ballot for elections (unbelievable isn’t
it?)
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We have a formal system for news censorship (the D Notice system)
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Key matters are decided in secret by the Privy Council, which answers only to the sovereign. Members are appointed and include the leaders of all the political parties. Hence our loss of sovereignty to Europe. We have no documented civil rights or free speech entitlements such as you have in the US - There is no freedom of information act. In law a civil servant can be jailed for revealing what brand of tea his minister drinks
The D Notice system is used not just for national security matters, but to suppress “unwelcome” information. The UK Windscale and Russian Chernobyl UK radiation levels were suppressed over here. One of our most senior conservative elder statesmen described our political system as “an elective dictatorship”: we elect them but have no control over them. 70% of the people want to bring back hanging for certain crimes but there is absolutely no chance of getting it through Parliament.
You have to understand this to appreciate how the BSE crisis developed. In many ways our political system is more akin to the old communist regimes in Eastern Europe than a Western democracy. Apart from the vastly different timescales the UK government reaction to BSE has been the same as the Russian regime to Chernobyl: first deny it exists, when that it not possible play it down, then try and make out it is all under control, and when the truth comes out panic!
I hope this helps people in America put UK news and government actions into context. As you can imagine, the Internet is having a dramatic impact over here." ***
Hmmm? Should we talk about the very many groups which have sprung up in the United Kingdom to try to stop racism? Not to mention the many attempts by Britain to wreck the Irish under the guise of creating peace?
By the way, we have a freedom of information act here and free speech so anyone can get statistics of crime in America and even break it down by sections. You know it is almost impossible to get freely given statistics on national crime in Britain? It’s like it’s almost a state secret or something.
What? Me worry?’
