Saturday 13 June 2020

Johmson and the BBC are trying to divert BLM with a "Dead Cat Strategy".

I have written before of Boris Johnson and the Dead Cat Strategy


There is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point is that everyone will shout, ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’ In other words, they will be talking about the dead cat – the thing you want them to talk about – and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.


It is clear to me that Johnson is doing this when he highlights the seemingly threat to Winston Churchill's stayie

  The prime minister has said.Protecting a statue of Winston Churchill from potential vandalism by boarding it up is "absurd and shameful", the prime minister has said.
Boris Johnson said the war-time leader expressed opinions that were "unacceptable to us today" but remained a hero for saving the country from "fascist and racist tyranny".
Protesters daubed "was a racist" on the Parliament Square tribute last weekend.
Labour said the PM should address the concerns of those demonstrating.
Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds told the BBC he wanted to hear that Mr Johnson "understands the deep hurt and anger that black people in our country feel".
In a series of tweets, Mr Johnson said monuments like Churchill's were put up by previous generations as he urged people to "stay away" from demonstrations amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"We cannot try to edit or censor our past," he wrote of moves to remove tributes to historical figures. "We cannot pretend to have a different history."

What Johnson is doing is shifting the argument  from Black Lives Matter and the issue of racism not only in the USA but in the UK.

Similarly the decision to remove some "comedy Series"  from streaming platforms because of "offensive content" seems to  have intenitionally or not provoked a backlash without considering the evidence either way 
A 1975 episode titled The Germans was taken off UKTV's streaming service because it contains "racial slurs".
However it seems that  it has less to do with Cleese's Basil Fawlty declaring  "don't mention the war".I but the Major  character using highly offensive language, including the "N" word. which the BBC fail to highlight , often giving the impression , that it is about the Germans  who actuall come out of it well.
UKTV said it expected to reinstate the show with "extra guidance" in "the coming days".
 "The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats."
He added: "I would have hoped that someone at the BBC would understand that there are two ways of making fun of human behaviour.
"One is to attack it directly. The other is to have someone who is patently a figure of fun, speak up on behalf of that behaviour."
He went on to compare the situation with that of Alf Garnett, the racist character in sitcoms Till Death Us Do Part and In Sickness and in Health.
"We laughed at Alf's reactionary views. Thus we discredited them, by laughing at him," Cleese wrote"Of course, there were people - very stupid people - who said 'Thank God someone is saying these things at last'. We laughed at these people too. Now they're taking decisions about BBC comedy."
Actually Cleese underestimates  those who were laughing with the Alf Garnett rather than at him .
He continued: 
"But it's not just stupidity. The BBC is now run by a mixture of marketing people and petty bureaucrats. It used to have a large sprinkling of people who'd actually made programmes. Not any more.
"So BBC decisions are made by persons whose main concern is not losing their jobs... That's why they're so cowardly and gutless and contemptible. I rest my case."
The problem  is however  not only racist using portraying themselves as victims of "Political correct-nus gone mad "  because they  temporally can't watch a TV show, and themselves as defenders os statues to "National Heroes" (though its time we reexamined the likes of Churchill), right wing politicians  like Johnson (and yes he is a racist) , to divert us from our main aim to insist Black Lives Matter, and the reexamination of our own sordid past , when it comes to race.

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