Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

28Feb/086

And they’re cooking our swans as well!!!!!!!

I think if you have a bash at the Daily Mail headline generator, you will eventually come up with this. An utter bullshit story, almost a self-perpetuating Mail myth, based on little or no evidence, utterly prejudiced, anti-immigration, anti-foreigner - balls of the highest order.

Swan bake: carcasses and piles of feathers found next to cooking pots at migrants' camp

The bullshit detector gets set off very rapidly in this one.

Carcasses from dead swans, broken up and stripped for food, have been discovered in a camp used by East European immigrants, according to reports.
Anglers and walkers spotted the sickening remains of the illegally slaughtered royal birds beside the River Lea in east London.

21 words in. 'According to reports'. Hang on a minute, you're a journalist. Have you actually looked at the evidence? Or can anyone 'report' anything nowadays and get it in the paper, so long as it's about immigrants? I 'report' that immigrants are nice people and infinitely superior to Daily Mail journalists. Report that, you fuckwit.

One swan had had the wings snapped from its back, while other bones lay near to a tent and cooking utensils.

According to reports.

Thousands of feathers were also scattered around the dirty camp...

According to reports.

Immigrants apparently live there in makeshift tents, on land which is part of the 2012 Olympics site, as they try to find somewhere else to live.

*tyre screech*

'Apparently'.

Apparently, according to reports, something happened. Yep, sounds like an open-and-shut case to me. Don't call Columbo, we've got this one nailed down.

And why are these 'immigrants' living in tents 'as they try to find somewhere else to live'. I'd been led to believe that they were all scroungers at the front of the council house queue, taking our money! And guess who's paying?!?!? Oh, maybe not.

Angler David Gibson, 42, revealed how he saw a pile of swan wings in the camp on Tuesday.
He said: "It's vile. You could see where they'd snapped off the wings and plucked them before cooking.
"These swans belong to the Queen and for someone to come here and butcher them is a disgrace.

They belong to The QUEEN! How dare they?!

Aha, but here we have the reason for the 'apparently' and 'reports'. It's a lift from the Currant:

"It makes me sick to my stomach. I have heard it is mostly Eastern Europeans who are camping here until they can get a house," she told The Sun.

So one man has heard that Eastern European immigrants have been eating swans, has seen some feathers and has told the Sun, presumably for a bit of cash. Look at the headline again. Didn't seem to be much doubt there, did there? But a beautiful implication in the quote: 'until they can get a house'. Get a house - don't you mean 'find somewhere to live'? No, the subtext is, as I mentioned above, that immigrants get straight to the front of the housing queue (they don't) and 'get a house'. In the meantime they're camping out eating swans, the dirty so-and-sos!

Three tents remained in the camp on Wednesday. Two young Poles living there refused to come out and speak to reporters but denied taking the swans.

'They didn't speak to us, but we know they're Poles. We can tell by the shifty look in their eyes'

A Romanian bible and cooking equipment could be seen outside another tent, while putrid food and thousands of feathers were nearby the third.

Putrid 'food'. Putrid swan? No.

The discovery comes six months after it was revealed that Polish and Lithuanian immigrants in Bedfordshire appeared to be killing swans for food.

'Appeared to be'? Blimey, it's all very couched, isn't it? It's almost as if there's no evidence other than the cruel ramblings of a few fishermen who've seen some feathers. But surely not.

Ready for the comments? Here they come! Bear in mind that, all the way through the story, the Mail has failed to find proof. It's mentioned 'reports', 'apparently' and 'appeared to be'. But that has convinced the readers it's all definitely 100% accurate. It's set the hares running for the usual frothing nutjobs, who deliver on cue:

Ducks have also been taken for food from the River Witham in Lincolnshire, by immigrants. The duck population has reduced.
- Sue, Grantham NOT EU

Has Grantham declared a Kosovo-style independence, Sue? But yes, ducks have been taken - says who? Says you. Oh so it must be true. Ever heard of 'flying south for the winter'?

Another one of NuLabours legacies.
Immigration - You only reap what you sow.
These people have no respect for English law, yet when we visit 'THEIR' countries we are chastised by their law.
Boot the lot of them out - Nulabour included!
- Neil Robinson, Hartlepool, England

'Boot the lot of them out'. By which he means all immigrants, I think. Nice. Because some people think some immigrants are eating swans, we need to boot 'the lot of them' out. A glimpse of the dark heart to these comments.

Our shores have previously been invaded by foreigners who showed less barbarity than this scum.
- Tc, Leeds, U.K.

Those 'foreigners' are now 'us'. Oh, but why bother, TC knows that killing a few swans (not that it's even been proven) is infinitely worse than the crimes against humanity of the invading Normans, Romans or Vikings. Why even bother?

These people are barbaric and should be kicked out of our country. How they came to be here in the first place beggars belief.
- Mike Jones, Farnborough, Hampshire

I see only one kind of 'barbarism' going on here, Mike.

This is absolutely vile, but sadly it goes on in our parks as well. Here in my local park in East London, many birds, mainly geese and ducks, have been disappearing and it is suspected that they are being caught and killed by migrants. Many residents here have now asked for CCTV to be installed, but the culprits will only go to Epping Forest instead where there is even more wildlife.
- Helana, London

Another one who's heard from someone who knows someone. An urban myth becomes reality very quickly. Has anyone been prosecuted? No? Is that because the police are too PC NuLab to do anything about it, or because there isn't any evidence, maybe because it didn't happen?

Unlimited immigration. What do you expect.
- Richard, UK

People like you to be absolute cunts?

Just one more example of the rape of this country. Even our precious wildlife is being decimated. But the biggest criminals are those traitors in Westminster who have betrayed us.
- John Reed, Wolverhampton. England

Grim, grim fare. I think there might be a comparison to be done in the future between how these commenters treat the alleged crimes against human beings of 'our boys' in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how the alleged crimes against swans of 'Eastern Europeans' are dealt with. I've a fair idea of which will be deemed to be the greater atrocity.

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Related posts:

  1. Does the Mail really give a shit about swans?
  2. Cameron: Naughty swan, bad swan
  3. More on the dirty swan-eating immigrants
Comments (6) Trackbacks (0)
  1. Not again!

    The Sun first had a story with the headline ‘Swan Bake’ back in 2003 that turned out to be complete cobblers. The Mail trod over the same ground last year without actually mentioning that anyone had eaten a swan.

    I looked at it then in Rebirth of a Legend and Rebirth of a Legend and Rebirth of a Legend II

    Looks like there’ll be a part 3 now.

    Cheers!

  2. I love the way all the commenters know someone who knows someone who says that evil Poles/Romanians eat swans/ducks/geese.

    The irony of wildfowl being migratory birds is pretty much lost on them, as well. Somewhere in North Africa there’s a newspaper for birds with stories about ‘Swans coming over here, taking YOUR nests – and guess who’s paying?!’

  3. Lets just say, for a moment, that perhaps the “reports” and “apparentlies” are true (and I’m not saying they are, it’s just for the purposes of the point I wish to make).

    What is the moral difference between a Pole catching, killing and eating a swan or someone who is, for want of a better word, “native” British going hunting, shooting a duck and eating it. Or even going down to tesco and paying a fiver to effectively have someone kill a chicken for them to eat?

    What is it? Well? Go one? Can any of the Mail readers point it out to me because I can’t see it.

    No, it would seem that all these people have done wrong is be foreign.

    And you can garuntee that if it had been someone “native” that had done it they would have just been a cheeky scamp that had had the audacity to catch the queen’s bird’s and eat them.

  4. There is a slight hierarchy of animals in newspapers: swans are more important than broiler chickens, obviously. But yes, the only real problem with these foreigners is to be foreign.

    If Brits had done this (and who knows, they might have been the ones to kill the swans, not necessarily to eat them, as I can’t see any compelling evidence that anyone’s actually eaten them judging by the photos in The Sun) then they would have been on the wrong end of Mail commenters, but only to the extent of ‘feral children’ and ‘NuLab’s fault’ and ‘should’ve been given a clip round the ear’. Whereas this lot, by being foreign, deserve much worse opprobrium, because it proves they ‘won’t integrate’ and ‘aren’t like us’.

    That’s what the swan-killing myth is all about: creating difference, showing that immigrants are basically sub-human and not like Brits.

  5. No-one is like Brits! That is one of the reasons people want to go there, to meet people like you.

  6. These guys are only wanna eat something. Let them exploit what we have! Swans are overpopulated anyway!
    :)


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