James O’Brien is a broadcaster and also one of the landlord’s of the British moral high ground. His notorious rants are self-assured but sometimes light on logic. See below to try and get into the mind of the broadcaster when giving his opinions about Russia and Western liberal democracy… Some of the reasoning may give you an ice cream headache.
James O’Brien (JOB): I think what amazes me most is the smile that Vladimir Putin must have on his face when he hears people who’ve grown up with all of the benefits of Western liberal democracy somehow choosing his side against their own country.
Renegade Inc (RI): Unfettered capitalism, mass inequality, expensive education, a housing crisis and a predatory banking sector – all underpinned by neoliberalism….That Western liberal democracy?
JOB: It’s quite incredible a lot of you commented on it yesterday and this show was nowhere near the best example of the brainwashing that’s been undertaken and you’ve got to remember the people that lead these narratives are the same people that describe the Sandy Hook massacre as a hoax. They’re the same people who argue that fruit juice cartons have been impregnated with a special chemical designed to make children gay.
RI: So the people who don’t want war with Russia and question the economics and values of the West are the same as the conspiratorial types who think Sandy Hook didn’t happen? Okay.
JOB: They’re the same people who think that the vapour trails behind aeroplanes are all part of a government plan to brainwash us.
RI: So the people who think Sandy Hook was a hoax and that Tetra Pak packaging is the source of genetically engineered gay and those chemtrails that brainwash everyone are the people who are questioning the government line on the Salisbury incident? Interesting reasoning.
JOB Those are the people that have done Vladimir Putin’s bidding in this country and in America and the success of that project must have amazed even them. It’s in its all in Mein Kampf. It’s all there.
RI: Amazing. Is all this in Mein Kampf?
JOB: Treat people as if they are incredibly stupid. Give them a couple of meaningless slogans a sense of certainty when confronted with complicated issues and they will do your bidding. Donald Trump understands that although I don’t think he’s ever read a book let alone Mein Kampf – he just gets it he gets it in an intuitive way. And Vladimir Putin also gets it in an intuitive way.
RI: Quite an assertion but let’s stick with it…. So intuitively these guys know what they are doing…? Fine. What are the specific slogans that Putin has the British people saying? We’d love to know.
JOB What I didn’t get until the last couple of years was how many people choose to be stupid and ignorant and ill informed.
RI: Not sure that is a choice – unless what you are saying is that unless everyone agree with you they are both stupid and ignorant and ill informed. Is that the gist or are we being stupid?
JOB: And once you’ve gone down that road because life is complicated and reality is confusing and it’s very tempting I guess to pretend that it isn’t.
RI: Choosing to be stupid because the reality is confusing? Okay – this is getting complicated.
JOB And also of course to blame all the things that have gone wrong in your life on some fella from Poland or Pakistan.
RI: But what we are doing is blaming some fella from Russia for all the stuff that’s going wrong…. We thought that was the idea…?
JOB: I guess that’s very seductive as well the more that’s gone wrong in your life the more seductive that becomes.
RI: Yes that’s why we must stay on script and blame Russia – they must be the scapegoat for the failure of Western liberal democracy built on fatally flawed neoliberal economics. That’s the plan – stick to it.
JOB: But Vladimir Putin has one role and one role only now in the Kremlin and that is to sow dissent and division among his what he sees as his foes in Europe.
RI: Back on script – great. Putin invented neoliberalism with Milton Friedman etc. (Read what we have to say about the “Evil Man” script here.)
JOB: As an announcer on Russian television yet last night who said shortly after Rex Tillerson made a comment in support of Britain condemning Russia – he was fired – and the newscaster said the words “Trump is ours Trump is ours”.
RI: We have radio broadcasters here saying that if people question Western liberal democracy and government narratives they have chosen stupidity and ignorance because the reality is complicated and that choice is straight out of Mine Kampf.
JOB: On Russian television and Putin will be watching that knowing that there are loads and loads of people in America that are essentially on the same side as Putin now.
RI: This is true. There are lots of Americans who are delighted with – and supportive of – Putin beating Isis in Syria. Lots of them. Lots more haven’t yet figured out that America funds Isis – but they will. Eventually.
JOB Still surprises me that we have in Britain – still surprises me – that we’ve allowed ourselves to be led by the nose.
RI: Where?
JOB: Quite so – quite so – blindly into a position where now if I opened up the phone lines….
RI: Go on… [doesn’t open the phone lines]
JOB: I’m sorry to say this because I appreciate that all of the clever decent educated people who voted to leave the European Union cannot quite believe they’ve woken up in bed next to but it is pretty much the more. How can we put this politely?… thick as horse poo Brexit voters who are coming down for Vladimir Putin.
RI: So… If you voted to leave the EU you are thick as horse crap [pig shit he means] and you support Putin but not Isis yet think that Sandy Hook was a hoax that Tetra Pak packaging is the source of genetically engineered gayness and chemtrails brainwash all of us? Got it.
JOB: It makes very little sense
RI: Agree…
JOB: Until you see Brexit as of course a successful splintering of the European Union that Vladimir Putin sees as a threat to his rule…
RI: Ah… blame Russia for Brexit – properly back on track now.
JOB …because all of those former Soviet countries on the fringes of the European Union that sit – if you will between us and them – the European Union as it encourages them to embrace democracy… as it encourages them to embrace the freedoms that you and I have taken for granted all our lives.
RI: Does the European Union embrace democracy? Asking for a friend who thinks many of the people within it the EU itself are, well, unelected… Oh and the “us and them” isn’t lost on us. Russian’s are different – not like Poles and Pakistani’s – much worse… All Russians bad!
JOB: He pushes back against that by trying to make our freedoms look unattractive…
RI: Which ones? The freedom to take on massive student debt? Or buy overpriced housing stock? The freedom to question a government narrative? Which freedoms specifically?
JOB: …by trying to make our democracy look divided and ineffective…
RI: Look divided and ineffective? Or is it currently divided and ineffective, which is why we need a scapegoat? Again asking for a friend…
JOB … and I still can’t quite believe that people get paid in this country in this business in broadcasting in journalism and in politics to do his bidding for him.
RI: Nor can we mate. With that blistering logic and adhockery – you’re one of them.
[Ends]
We have now discovered that James has ‘blocked’ us on Twitter. Interesting.
Why is the West looking around the world for a war?
Has the time come for the people of West Asia to reclaim political and media narratives stripped from them by Western imperialism?
Are the chickens finally coming home to roost for the BBC?
