My enemy's friend of a neighbour's foe is Pyrrhus

Via Ranting Penguin, is this a win, or a defeat?

Four council workers have been sacked for sending a racist email to colleagues comparing Nazi death camps to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
'After a full investigation, we have taken disciplinary action against a number of staff found to have sent and received highly inappropriate emails.
'Four people have been dismissed with a further five staff receiving formal written warnings.'

It's clear that some people have been circulating what I consider to be foul libels against the Israelis' defence of their civilians against terrorists.
It's no surprise either that members of the religion of peace seem to have been involved in passing these emails, though it's also likely at a formerly Labour-controlled county council that there are plenty hard-Left anti-Semites around too.

Nor do I have any trouble with people being disciplined for using emails on works time when they ought to have been working for their wages, though I think that email logs are things that management increasingly keep handy in case they need an excuse to sack someone for political deviationism, or just having a face that doesn't fit - which appears to be happening to not one but two of my friends here in the North West this week.
Bastard bureaucrats attacking my pals the other bureaucrats. I could weep. But go ahead and laugh: it's on your dime.

Gee, I hope they don't get me too.

And I have no trouble with the idea of monitoring peoples' communications in case they are involved in terrorism or other serious crimes. Not being a libertarian any more is very liberating that way.

It's just...

As I whined at the time (eventually at the end of a long rambling post with banjos in it)

Today this is ‘good power’ by my lights but next time it could be me emailing this very post home to publish it who gets investigated.

If we had honest politics in this country wherein murderous and pro-terrorist anti-Semitic Islam could be named as such, and if we could manage not to be shouted down and branded racists for mentioning the possibility that perhaps some aspects of Islam encourage violence and other brutality, then there would be little or less reason - little moral cause or justification as far as the Queen's Peace is concerned - to spy on and discipline anti-Israel posters and mailers like these people because their voices would be just a few amongst many differing and genuinely diverse opinions in a free and open debate.

Islamist violence and intimidation and roll-me-over-and-pump-me-like-a-bitch dhimmitude amongst our non-authoritative authorities have made such debate all but illegal so it just doesn't happen in the mainstream media without tons of bricks hitting the courageous commentators - Undercover Mosque anyone?.
And that's just the good side - if we assume in our low blood-sugar moments that Lancashire County Council are doing this to prevent anti-Semitic evil being encouraged.

I suspect that there will be at least some aspects of professionalism involved, what with the mailers breaching LCC's IT security system a la Pepper Potts in Iron Man; though public sector security systems have a reputation for being the anti-hacking equivalents of 'Is this trip really necessary?' posters, but mostly what happened is that a scandal hit Lancashire's County Hall and they can't cover it up.
This may be because information about it went public, and I'd bet that someone emailed this trash home and someone later complained anonymously in a similar way.

So, it's illegal to support terrorism in certain complicated ways - including saying nice things about them in some ways - but on the other hand the witch-hunter's unanswerable cry of 'racism' means that all official media and respectable society will shy away from anyone who is accused of it.

So these no-goodniks lose their livelihoods for being anti-Israel arses (their families will be thrilled) but, as the Penguin says the politico keeps his seat becasue he's privileged - and still the BBC and much of the government do not allow heterodox coverage or discussion of Islam and the Middle East for fear of threatening 'community cohesion.' So we get this crock from police via the Guardian:

Commander Shaun Sawyer told a meeting of British Muslims concerned about the danger to their communities that police were responding to the growing threat.Sawyer said of the far right:
"I fear that they will have a spectacular... they will carry out an attack that will lead to a loss of life or injury to a community somewhere. They're not choosy about which community."...

"There is an increased possibility of violence from the far right. There is a trend," said one senior source, adding that the ideology of the violent right was driven by "people who don't like immigration, people who don't like Islam. We're seeing a resurgence of anti-semitism as well."

Hat tip to Biased BBC.

Cracking political analysis from the Guardian there, by the way.
Hmm. The BNP wins 2 Euro seats in a famous peaceful victory, no actual Right-wing violence goes on, and suddenly the Met go to DefCon One against mysterious and carefully unnamed Right-wing enemies willing to blow th ewhole path to power thing for an unheard-of fascist terrorist attack. That makes sense

This attitude will cost innocent lives.
The non-terrorist majority of Muslims and everyone else are kept partly in the dark, and the real killers pass through our airports and railway stations almost at will and bearded nutcases spout their filth and encourage war against our country reported only by the Daily Mail and occasional Channel Four and Telegraph coverage...

And the Internet.

This is the pinnacle of Labour's achievement: No-Win Britain.

Sigh. It's difficult for an authoritarian Right-winger like me to work out what to do for the best, but I'm never going to get the intel I need for my unrepresentative lunatic-fringe ravings to give the respectable rest of the Right a bad name without Internet freedom.

Arse.

Perhaps to be on the safe side when I come to office I'd better bring in sweeping new State powers to punish people who argue for the banning of public dissent from debates seeking to enforce sanctions against those who disapprove of making censorship illegal.

Or vice versa.




Breaking news from Jess the Dog over at Voice of the Resistance.

The Gagged Civil Servant - Update

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

MySociety have checked with Lisa Greenwood to see what actually happened. The email was inadvertently sent from her work account rather than her hotmail account.

I've just had a phone chat with Lisa Greenwood, the sacked civil servant. She's explained, and even been kind enough to send me anemail that I can use as evidence. In short, what she told me happened was:

1.) She used google and ended up on Hazel Blear's page on TheyWorkForYou.com

2.) She clicked through from it to Hazel's official site

3.) She found the 'contact me' page on the official site and thenclicked on the email address, which, using a mailto: tag popped up herwork email client.

4.) She wrote and sent her fatal email, which was delivered from herDCSF email account, not her Hotmail which she'd normally use.

Here's how Lisa describes it in her own words:

"Dear Tom, I googled Hazel Blears and found the website 'they work for you' and it said to contact Hazel Blears click on the following link http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/hazel_blears/salford
I then clicked on her personal webpage that said 'contact me'. You will have to contact the DCFS for them to explain their interception. Many thanks Lisa Greenwood"

My guess is that the recipient – the Blears official site - decided to crush Miss Greenwood and tipped off DCSF, who held a kangaroo court and sacked her.

Utterly outrageous.

Miss Greenwood should get in touch with an employment law solicitor straight away. She should obtain full disclosure of all material relating to her dismissal including any contact made by the Blears office. I predict a minor scandal and a modest pay-off….if this is kept in the public eye. You know now….if you get in touch with a MP or minister’s office and they don’t like what you say, they will try and get you sacked.

The Guardian also covers this.