How Did We Ever Get To This Stage In Our Lives?

You really couldn't make this stuff up, if you tried!

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you will know that in recent weeks, the Daily Mail has been running a campaign to make sure that no British adult has access to any kind of online pornography, nor any kind of access to anything the remotest bit risque. This is because, in the blinkered, backwards view of the DM, nudity is indecent, and ll men who view porn, are just perverts and paedophiles in waiting, you see! In their eyes, all sexual content should be made a hanging offence.

The thing is, that the Daily Mail, is a publication I am more than happy to expose as the hypocritical publication that it actually is. It's staff seem to be made up of people with no grounding in reality, and who don't actually know anything about the world in which we actually live in. They'll happily write a story saying one thing, and then ten seconds later, the same paper will have published an article by another DM hack, completely supporting the exact opposite view! Sometimes, in the same day's paper!

And so, we end-up with utter garbage like  this  in which  the DM thinks that it can post material online, that it itself has already demanded be banned.

Putting aside the actual issue of whether or not it matters that the BBC has censored THE WHITE QUEEN for its UK transmission, or simply felt that the extended, more explicit nudity was actually wholly unnecessary, the fact that the DM thinks that this is worthy of devoting time and energy into creating a "story" on its website for, is amazing. The fact that this isn't the first time the BBC has done this, is also not exactly shocking news to those of us who keep up-to-date with media stories! This also happens in the USA, as was recently demonstrated when the NBC TV series HANNIBAL had Episode 4, "Oeufs" dropped from mnay States, due to the graphic content and unsettling story about children committing murder. An episode, that we in the UK, saw totally uncut, I might add. So, this is hardly a trend-setter by any stretch of the imagaination. Not in the slightest!

So, not only do we get headline stories from the Daily Mail like  this  and  this  and even  this  but they then contradict themselves in one fell swoop, and post the link mentioned a couple of paragraphs up.

Of course, this being the DM, the posting of the nude and sexual imagery is merely to make a point: to inform and elucidate to its readers of the filth, that the BBC wouldn't let you see. (The DM loves to bash the BBC, so for them to publish this article, they're essentially killing two proverbial birds with one stone: attacking the BBC, and exposing readers to the filth the BBC wouldn't let you see in the first place!) It's absolutely, positively NOT to do with the fact that they are exposing their readers to 18-rated "filth" and "muck". No, the DM would never do that!

No, the nudity is merely to illustrate the "thrust" of the article. In other words, you have to see the actual imagery that was cut in order to explain that you (the DM readers) should never have been allowed to see it in the first place. Despite the fact that you wouldn't have known about the missing footage in the first place, were it not for the parasites at the Mail plastering their wrag with a tell-all expose on it!

It's the "have your cake and eat it" brand of journalism that the DM excels at in such spectacularly awful and spiteful fashion. Still, if Chris Hastings - the author of this article on alleged censorship of THE WHITE QUEEN - thinks this is what DM readers have to see, so that these same readers can then go around condemning the material, and making sure  no one else can ever see it, then that's all well and good, isn't it?

... Except it isn't! Not at all.

Either stick by your views or don't stick by them, but for the love of all that is holy, don't be a hypocrite, and please don't insult me by condemning something, and simultaneously showing me the very thing you think I should not be allowed to see, and telling me I then shouldn't be allowed to see it! Despite the fact that the Daily Mail still has its infamous Sidebar Of Shame - a sidebar on its website that depicts the very stuff that the DM says is prurient and degrading, and must be banned - (as discussed  here  ) - it still baffles me that since 1896, this is a paper that claims to be standing-up for the rights of the normal, average Middle Class Briton, and yet is anything but representative of that very group.

I know three million people read the Daily Mail each day, and that equates to a lot of wasted paper and ink, (which is damaging for the environment too), but if it didn't keep getting on its high-horse and actually took a worthwhile stance on issues that actually mattered, it might be worth something. Not just to the Middle Classes, but to all British people.

Taking a stance on issues like the destruction of the environment, the vast amounts of wasted food we in the West produce, or serious subjects such as why only 30% of the British Population now votes in elections, or why Britain and the USA seem hellbent on wanting to start a war in Syria (as if the previous and costly wars in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and the Falkland's weren't lessons enough). Those are issues worth campaigning for, not this self-manufactured bullshit that the Daily Mail insists on hawking its tired and saggy carcass with, each day!

Yes, the sexualisation of children is an issue. So is the increasing consumption of pornography, but simply demanding it gets banned outright, and thinking that if it's "out of sight, out of mind", that that will solve everything, is woefully naive. Alas, that is what has happened. (See previous articles on my blog for further details!) But worse still, is demanding such things get banned without real justification, and then rubbing people's faces in it, by then posting pictures of the very stuff that you want banned, and shouting from the rooftops "Hey everyone, come look at this disgusting filth" and when people come to look, you then shout "You disgusting, filthy pervert! How dare you look at this degrading and offensive material" in the same breath. It makes you look like a bunch of... Well, a certain four-letter expletive that DM editor Paul Dacre frequently uses around the offices!

Maybe, just maybe once the so-called "Censored Internet" Filter comes into existence, that same Filter will restrict access to the Daily Mail site, and then Paul Dacre will see that campaigning for things you know little about, is actually a very, very bad thing, and can have extremely dire consequences.

Sadly, I suspect that I'm living in cloud cuckoo land, if I hope that that will ever happen... If only...!