Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Is the problem when one individual has a greater voice or power than the majority.
It was a bit scary. I was only 29 and was being very polite but asked a question he didn't like. Steep learning curve! Arrived at gym. Later.
It's Lord Leveson. You are obviously very knowledgeable about the Inquiry and the Report. Tell us more.
I feel oddly reluctant to raise this but there seems to be sufficient drift in place on the thread to warrant doing so now. Has anyone been reading any sources suggesting an element of "false flag" being behind the murders? I have read, in part, an account from someone purportedly "a former CIA employer" (yes, that old chestnut) who stated that the CIA engineered the attacks. I know at least one person who is spinning this possibility in public. I love a good conspiracy theory but I have dismissed this almost out-of-hand - the idea that CIA assets carried out this atrocity. Or, my own devil's advocate idea, the idea that the CIA did nothing with intelligence that warned of the attack, in order to further various aims it doesn't take a genius to work out. When I am faced with unknowns - unknown reasons, unknown motivations, unknown perpetrators - I fall back on the "Who Benefits?" test. Anyone have any thoughts on this matter? My initial (and current) reaction is to dismiss the suggestions.
That way lies insanity. However there is a world of difference between orchestrating such an event and failing to pass on information that may or may not have led to such an event. Ask yourself "Who Benefits" from such an assertion.
At any given time there are sure to be hundreds or thousands of potential terrorists known to the security services. Any of them might carry out the next atrocity, but it is hard to know which ones. Then when an attack actually takes place, it is soon pointed out that the security services "knew of the threat but did nothing" - conveniently omitting to mention the thousands of other threats the security guys were trying to monitor at the same time. There is nothing new about trying to twist things around so as to cast blame on somebody for failing to stop a crime, instead of blaming those who committed it.
There's an element of truth in this argument and it must certainly apply in many cases. However, my concern is answering the accusations that, as opposed to failing to stop something happening, there was a deliberate attempt to allow a crime to happen, in order to further some shadowy agenda. It's certainly possible to dismiss such claims as a twisting of the truth - as I do in this case - but how to demonstrate the falsehood to cynical individuals?
But the whole point about a free press in a democracy is that anyone can have that voice. The trade union movement has pockets deep enough to finance a newspaper and certainly backed the left-leaning News on Sunday short existence in the eighties. If its millions of members had bought it, it would have thrived and could have provided a good counterbalance to the press we have now. Journalists are all for balance, I assure you, even if their proprietors are, in some cases, less concerned. But it's not only the proprietors that are a bar to left-wing papers' success. As I said above, trade union members eschewed the chance to back a paper that would have given them a greater voice and carried on buying the News of the World and other right-wing publications. Some may even have bought Sunday Sport, which was launched around the same time. The public gets what the public wants ... as Mr Weller tells us. Or, put simply, money talks.
Well he wouldn't have asked you. But that aside, is it really wise to wish ill on someone you've never met and about whose life and travails you know absolutely nothing? Say I was now a tetraplegic after having been felled by some thug in the street. You'd look pretty cruel wouldn't you? As it happens I did have to overcome some extremely serious injuries. That's why personal insults made from a state of ignorance are rarely a good idea. Now, if you want to insult my choice of bike or living location, fine. Even my choice of occupation or preferred holiday destination are ripe for mocking. But personal insults and glee at the prospects of extreme violence being visited upon me as I tried to earn a crust. No. That sort of remark says a lot about the person who makes it, and none of it is good.
No. I was a trainee, not long in the job, and he thought it would be "good experience" for me to knock on Mr Minter's door and ask him a few "pertinent questions"!!! I appreciated that you were jocking (sic) but can't help wondering whether that's really something you should reserve for your weekly trips to see finm. It's not illegal between consenting adults in private now you know. :Wtf:
