Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Let’s beat the bullies

Today at the Enemies of Reason we highlight a growing problem in society. It's the problem of bullying. With school returning this week it's the ideal time to look at a terrible social ill that goes right through our communities. What can we do to combat bullying - especially when it's the appalling scene of morons who make up a pack of lies for tabloid newspapers being viciously bullied by people who don't like them making up lies?

As ever, you really must credit the Mail with cojones the size of bowling balls for daring to imagine that calling Julie Moult an idiot (which she is) is 'bullying'. Of course, snorting triumphantly about Hazel Blears being 'Googlebombed', which Moult erroneously did, wasn't being in favour of bullying at all; oh no, that was simply investigative journalism at its finest - in a similar vein to the brilliant story Moult wrote about Muslims hounding out hard-working squaddies in Windsor which turned out to be complete and utter fabricated shit on a stick.

Bullying of Muslims in the Mail? No, of course not. It's not bullying to tell lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after lie after lie about people from a certain background; that's not bullying in the slightest. It's not bullying to blame them for things they haven't done. That's not bullying at all.

But when you call someone an idiot for being an idiot, it's quite right that they should go blubbing to teacher and tell and you. Quite right indeed.

For fuck's sake. The Mail is the biggest fucking bully on the block. It's that big ginger kid who used to smash you over the head when you wouldn't give him one of your crisps in the playground. He's the gang of nasties who'll collar you for your dinner money in the corridor. He's the kid from round the block who rode off on your bike with stabilisers and never came back, and then you cried all the way home. If the Mail disapproves of bullying, what do they think they do to immigrants? Or asylum seekers? Or black people? Or Asian people? Or Muslims? Or gay people? Or the police? Or the BBC? Or women in general? Or celebrities? Or anyone? Is that bullying, or is that just fair comment? And if it's just fair comment, can't we have a level fucking playing field and allow everyone to comment on everyone else without having pathetic labels stuck on them? As a man once wisely said:

It's not enough to disagree with them - they have to make you out to be a monster

Yes, that's right, Richard Littlejohn. I know what you mean, though you weren't talking about the Mail but the spectral 'Left'. But the Mail does exactly the same thing: you can't just disagree with them; you have to be evil as well, and be demonised, in exactly the same way Littlejohn would be so vociferous about, were he not being paid £700k a year by those same tossers to spill his seed twice a week from Florida about how England's gone to the dogs. The Mail has to call you a 'bully' if you do something they don't like. They can't just put their fucking hands up and admit when they've dropped a bollock; that isn't their style. They have to go on the attack - that's what makes them beyond just a bunch of hackneyed old twits; it is what makes them a nasty, vindictive, vicious pack of hyenas.

And as Tim points out over at Bloggerheads, the Mail doesn't do itself any favours when it downright lies about things. Don't lie. There's a little tip for you if you don't want to be on th receiving end of 'bullying': don't fucking make up shit about stuff if you don't want to be upsetting ordinary folk. The Mail lied when they said they didn't allow comments on the story because it was a few days old; they very clearly invite comments on stories much older than that. Don't lie. Just say you didn't want to be made to look a tit. That's fine. We understand that. No-one's embarrassed about that. Who wants to look a tit? No-one does. I know I don't. Well then just say you don't want to be made to look a tit, and we'll all be grown-up about the fucking thing; the very worst thing to do, the thing that makes you look like the bunch of rancid cunts you are, is when you make up a complete load of old bollocks to try and pretend that it isn't the not-being-made-to-look-a-tit that is the problem; when you pretend that you've done nothing out of the ordinary in not allowing comments in the slightest.

And please, spare us the drivel about 'not wanting to censor' comments. Oh really? Many people, every day, submit completely rational and articulate comments which are rejected by the moderators, while "Gordon BROWN'S FAULT LOL rofl" gets waved through; and while people have managed to get a handful of anti-Littlejohn comments published on his column, these have often mysteriously disappeared afterwards. What's going on there then? Is that censorship, or what's going on there exactly? Now, only the "Littlejohn for PM" comments get allowed on there; why might that be? Is every single commment on the Richard Littlejohn column positive and sycophantic? Really? You're telling me that's the case, with a straight face? You've really got the stones in your pants to tell me that that's really what's going on? You don't like to censor things, but obviously sometimes things do get removed, by God is it? Or by the Willothewisp? How do these comments suddenly disappear? How do completely rational comments get rejected, while totally inarticulate and at times utterly reprehensible comments get allowed up? Is that censorship or just allowing things through that are of one political slant, while disallowing other things? I don't mind if you have a comments policy, just explain it - just say what you mean, and that's fine. But you don't. You pretend that everything's all right. You pretend that comments are allowed on old stories, by inviting comments, but then say actually they aren't allowed - though of course that is another couple of clicks for the person submitting the comment, isn't it, so I wonder why you don't make that clearer?

For fuck's sake. You big gang of babies. If this is bullying, you need to be bullied more, you bunch of utter bastards.

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