Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Here comes the hatred

Who do we think Mail readers blame for racist violence - the violent racists, or the violent racists' victims?

You knew, didn't you? Funnily enough, so did I.

You also knew the kind of comments that would be voted down by fellow readers. Comments like these:

Maybe they should be somewhere safer... NO! Romanians cost us little... NO! They work hard... NO! Is there not a more civil way than violence... NO! Surely they're not that bad... NO! Racist violence is disgusting... NO! Racism is always wrong... NO! It's like having your face pounded at. Now as ever I must supply the caveat that these voters on web comments needn't necessarily represent the majority or anything other than a small minority (oh the irony) of Mail readers; but then again, you have to wonder.

Earlier on, we saw how BNP propaganda is a cigarette paper away from Daily Mail stories; and how Mail columnist Melanie Phillips is almost indistinguishable at times from 'extremist' Geert Wilders. So it's not as if the Mail doesn't bring these fuckknuckles on itself; nor that it doesn't encourage them by putting across extreme views under a cosy cardigan of fluffy lifestyle features.

If you'd like more evidence (h/t to ParentStudent) then I suggest you head along here, to Allison Pearson's bit of hate for the day, where she roars:

No, madam, it's you who have offended MY values

Although the URL gives us a clue as to the original headline

which must have been "No, madam in a burkha... etc"

Anyway, it's the kind of inane babbling you'd expect from a Mail columnist, laced with more than a slight whiff of, well, see for yourself:

So imagine my friend's surprise when she got off at the same station as burkha girl and saw this 'penniless innocent' whip out a credit card from under the folds of her dress with which she promptly bought a Tube ticket.
Jane was so incensed she sent me a text message, explaining what she'd witnessed. It ended: 'Attack of Burkha Rage. Grrr.'

"I got a text from my friend because someone in a burkha got let off something by someone" - so fucking what? If someone didn't give the woman a ticket, and she was trying it on, then that's their fault for being a soft touch, not the woman in the burkha for trying it on (if she did). What of this 'burkha rage'?

Yet Burkha Rage has become our personal shorthand for someone taking the mickey out of our country and its tolerant ways.

Tolerance like yours, Allison? Or that of your readers? Look how tolerant they are!

Some of those comments are about Fatma Lemes, whose case was covered the other day, while others are just plain vitriol about burkhas.

But what of that headline? Where did the woman in Pearson's story ever complain about having HER values offended? Nowhere. Not at all, hence the hasty editing, to imply that Pearson was talking about uppity Muslims in general, not just the one on the train. You know, how we can lump together people in burkhas with East European Muslims - they're all pretty much the same, aren't they?

The more you read it, the more depressing the conclusion - that behind all the powder-puff lifestyle, fashion and other trash in the Mail, there's a pretty horrible agenda.

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