the sir jimmy savile obe thread

[Frances Lengel]

Meanwhile shall we all grill ourselves about whether early life lessons play a part. Dont tell tales! Dont be a grass, etc. Thats what they taught me when I was at school, an early playground lesson.

Yeah but maybe no... I'm not disagreeing with you per se, but I'd maybe make a case for the idea that "don't grass" is a far less pernicious life lesson you could give to a kid than "do what you're told for no other reason than it's an adult who's telling you to". I've a feeling the point's moot anyway though - Savile (and possibly his ilk) knew what vulnerabilities to exploit and I doubt any playground wisdom would've made much difference - They knew what they were doing and they were always going to get what they wanted.

 

[Louloubelle]

one thing's for sure tho, rantzen, gambaccini etc should be pulled in and grilled as to why they didn't do anything about it - rantzen is the founder of childline ffs

Anyone who actually witnessed abuse should have reported it. As for Esther Rantzen, if she only heard rumours she couldn't report it could she?

As I've mentioned before I have tried to report all kinds of dodgy things to the police but when it comes to child abuse they will only act if you have witnessed a child being abused or can give them the name of a child who is at risk or has been abused and have evidence.

Childline deals mostly with bullying and to act on rumours without any evidence is arguably to join in with bullying as rumours are often based on projections and gossip.

I'm no great fan of Esther Rantzen as a TV presenter but I do think that she has done a lot of good work with Childline and I think that her mistake was to publicly admit culpability for something she was not culpable for, at least if what she has told us so far is true.

 

[kenny g]

Rantzen is and always has been full of shit. She made a living from sexualising vegetables on family TV for fucks sake.

Savile probably did a lot of genuinely good work for charidee between noncing - rantzen chose to lecture the nation whilst turning a blind eye to the village nonce working in the same building.

 

[frogwoman]

Rantzen is and always has been full of shit. She made a living from sexualising vegetables on family TV for fucks sake.

 

[kenny g]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unusually_shaped_vegetable

The woman is on the Savile continuam.

 

[Louloubelle]

Rantzen is and always has been full of shit. She made a living from sexualising vegetables on family TV for fucks sake.

Savile probably did a lot of genuinely good work for charidee between noncing - rantzen chose to lecture the nation whilst turning a blind eye to the village nonce working in the same building.

I get your point about the vegetables but are you sure that she was working in the same building even? Even if it was the same building the BBC buildings are large, sprawling affairs (I know I used to work at one in the 80s - though never with Savile I hasten to add). I think it#s a bit of a leap to conclude that ER must have known because she heard gossip and also worked for the BBC

 

[Wilf]

Anyone who actually witnessed abuse should have reported it. As for Esther Rantzen, if she only heard rumours she couldn't report it could she?

Suppose it depends on the word rumour. Rumour could mean going to a party, meeting someone you'd never met before and couldn't vouch for telling you something that a friend of theirs had heard. Agreed, not much you could do with that.

Taking it away from her personally, I assumed when there was talk of 'green room rumours' it was more direct and from someone who the parties knew. I've also assumed - quite possibly wrongly - that when these TV folks were talking about 'rumours' they were slightly downgrading things they had actually heard quite a lot about. In a sense the thing we all do when something we should have acted upon turns out to be very bad - it downplays personal responsibility to reduce it to just 'rumours'. I'm also assuming the entertainment industry with it's multiple channels of communication, gossip columnists and agents was the perfect environment for rumours to stack up and repeat. Lots of assumptions on my part, but plausible ones I think. And bringing her back in, it could be argued that armed with only rumours and gossip, she was uniquely well placed to get those listened to by the police or BBC management.

Finally, very early on in all this (actually, no more than 3 weeks ago!) Michael Grade was interviewed:


At the time he looked more than complacent - 'wasn't the fear of exposure in those days... managed to keep it quiet'. Not quite an admission of a cover up (over anything general or specific) but pretty astonishing words to use. He also, literally, shrugged his shoulders over Savile - there 'were question marks'. Looks even worse 3 weeks on.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Some choice lines in there though-

"I will happily give you my FB and twitter details by PM so you can start trawling them as well"

Yes please. I really think you have posted too little shit on urban so would like to trawl your twitter posts in the meantime.

You can think what you like though AFIAC. I can handle you thinking I talk shit. You haven't groundlessly accused me of anti-semitism and relied on flacid conjecture to do so.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Do you honestly think *anyone* reads posts that long?

People who groundlessly accuse others of anti-semitism ought to give come back a consideration. That doesn't include you IIRC.

 

[kenny g]

You can think what you like though AFIAC. I can handle you thinking I talk shit. You haven't groundlessly accused me of anti-semitism and relied on flacid conjecture to do so.

Very true. For that I have not done and may I thank you for not having made that accusation towards me?

 

[Pickman's model]

People who groundlessly accuse others of anti-semitism ought to give come back a consideration. That doesn't include you IIRC.

I'm not sure if that's a 'yes' or if you mean I accuse people of anti-semitism with proof.

 

[kenny g]

Interesting ...

google web cache of Sir George's website (now amended)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c....uk/pages/biog3.htm+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Bottom line, Taffy, if I wasn't antisemitic - and I'm not suggesting you personally are - I'd be keen to put as much fucking distance between myself and those who are as is humanly possible

I think this diversion into CTs is actually quite productive. Seems to press all the right buttons - rings of abusers... hidden in plain sight.... links to the establishment... BBC... Savile and the royals.... Jimbo and Thatcher - it's the 9/11 of noncery. However even the most basic analysis of the story shows that an application of ideas about class, gender, power, organisations and celebrity delivers the goods. Conspiracy? Quite possibly in the sense of a criminal conspiracy, but nothing requiring a turn to batshit. In a mathematical sense it's amazing how he got away with it for so long. In the circumstances of him raping each institutionalised kid in an era of limited procedure, the chanes of him being caught were limited (just as the chances of anything being done were even more remote). However given that he seems to have been doing it for decades on an at least weekly basis, so the probablilities of capture should have gone up. Maybe he was just 'lucky', in a situation where the cards were anyway stacked in his favour. However, when it comes to understanding that, no lizards required.

My original point was less about CT and more about re-curring narratives, especially the "no one knew/everybody knew" one. I just find cognitive dissonance fascinating from a human POV.

Yes I also talked about things derided just on the grounds of being CT that turned out to be true, that's interesting as well.

But in this case, and the RC abuse scandals - there doesn't appear to be a grand over-arching conspiracy as much as small conspiracies within an overall structure that perhaps creates a de facto conspiracy of silence, sometimes active under-the-carpet stuff as with Ratzinger, sometimes less so.

You are right that no lizards are required, which is one of the reasons I didn't mention lizards.

Good post btw. Ta.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

I'm not sure if that's a 'yes' or if you mean I accuse people of anti-semitism with proof.

Soz. I don't recall you accusing me of it at all. My post was aimed chiefly at FW. I am fully aware of my verbosity and some of the negative consequences.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Fascists challenged the money system too. Using much the same propaganda. A focus on "international finance elites" while ignoring the capital/labour struggle.

Very true, but they also were very keen to cut deals with the same elites, being a cruel hoax on the working class among many other things.

 

[Blagsta]

Very true, but they also were very keen to cut deals with the same elites, being a cruel hoax on the working class among many other things.

Yet you're promoting this shit.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

pathetic.

Found the evidence yet? Or is this what you are reduced to by way of shifting goalposts?

The logic of my case is pretty consistent in fact, certainly far less contorted than the logic of yours, and mine was only hypothetical. Which makes you considerably beneath "pathetic", which doesn't bother me. Offensive without qualification bothers me.

Evidence please. I must have asked at least 6 times now. You seemed so certain, I thought you'd have had it your fingertips.

 

[Blagsta]

Very true, but they also were very keen to cut deals with the same elites, being a cruel hoax on the working class among many other things.

It's also interesting that you don't question the existence of these "elites", you appear to accept these ideas of "international finance elites" as existing apart from productive capital.

 

[frogwoman]

Found the evidence yet? Or is this what you are reduced to by way of shifting goalposts?

The logic of my case is pretty consistent in fact, certainly far less contorted than the logic of yours, and mine was only hypothetical.

Evidence please. I must have asked at least 6 times now. You seemed so certain, I thought you'd have had it your fingertips.

your consistent defence of this shit, your characterisation of people who disagree with you as fash or as establishment stooges who would prefer not to have JS and co investigated, your attempt to link saville and paedophile conspiracies/coverups to "international finance". do you have the memory of a goldfish, it#s been pointed out to you countless times and whenever you've had this discussion with people on here, what this shit is, but you persist in trying to give it some kind of credibility, you persist in trying to present it as a legitimate part of anti capitalist struggles. at least jazzz is honest about what he believes, you're doing the hedging your bets keep an open mind type shit.

 

[frogwoman]

It's also interesting that you don't question the existence of these "elites", you appear to accept these ideas of "international finance elites" as existing apart from productive capital.

THE ILLUMINATI BANKERS WORKED WITH HITLER TO START WWI AND WWII

 

[frogwoman]

im putting you on ignore as its quite clear that your loon theories are going to serve their purpose of helping to mask and close down discussion of actual conspiracies now.

 

[DotCommunist]

You can think what you like though AFIAC. I can handle you thinking I talk shit. You haven't groundlessly accused me of anti-semitism and relied on flacid conjecture to do so.

two c's in flaccid btw. Two c's in central committee also.

Der Weisse engel!

or something.

 

[DotCommunist]

your shit is a bit dodge, joking aside

 

[Louloubelle]

Taking it away from her personally, I assumed when there was talk of 'green room rumours' it was more direct and from someone who the parties knew. I've also assumed - quite possibly wrongly - that when these TV folks were talking about 'rumours' they were slightly downgrading things they had actually heard quite a lot about. In a sense the thing we all do when something we should have acted upon turns out to be very bad - it downplays personal responsibility to reduce it to just 'rumours'. I'm also assuming the entertainment industry with it's multiple channels of communication, gossip columnists and agents was the perfect environment for rumours to stack up and repeat. Lots of assumptions on my part, but plausible ones I think. And bringing her back in, it could be argued that armed with only rumours and gossip, she was uniquely well placed to get those listened to by the police or BBC management.

Just in my experience, it goes like this:

You personally experience a sexual assault, you personally witness a sexual assault or you have a lot of hard evidence about something, you go to the police and they respond by investigating and, if appropriate arresting the perpetrator/s.

Someone tells you that they were assaulted / raped and you go to the police and they say "we cannot do anything unless the victim comes forward to make a complaint". You cannot force someone to go to the police if they do not want to go.

Someone tells you that "everyone knows that xxxxx is a child abuser" and even if you have a ton of data indicating that they probably are (no proof though) and the police will say that they cannot do anything.

My experience of reporting a sexual assault by a BBC kids TV presenter, even though I was the victim, was for their representative to tell me "You could be making it all up" "why should I believe you?" "you could just be someone with a grudge"

Granted I do not have the influence that Rantzen has / had but I cannot see how she could report something that she had no proof or evidence for. She could have said that xxxx make up artist told me that Savile was a child molester - probably that will result in xxx make up artist crying on the stairs and getting fired. I think that it is very difficult if you do not have proof or cannot honestly say "this happened to me"

 

[Wilf]

For me it's not so much the reaction she would have got (which given her positon would have been a serious hearing from the police), it's whether she should have tried. Without linking to the mail, which I've just been reading, she admits to hearing the general rumours about Savile - then there was a disputed conversation with a campaigner in 1994, who reported more accusations and/or rumours. If that conversation happened it's possible that a report to the police might have linked in to their presvious investigations.

Might be being hard on her, but when you set up childline, hear rumours and then - allegedly - get reports from a campaigner... well, it's just an example of one point amongst many where something could have been done.

 

[not-bono-ever]

I have a big slab of hindsight for you to chew over

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/493/sir_jimmy_savile_salutes_top_junior_doctors

look at what the scholarship was called

the CLUES WERE THERE all along. etc

 

[laptop]

I have a big slab of hindsight for you to chew over

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/493/sir_jimmy_savile_salutes_top_junior_doctors

...a scholarship scheme he made possible to develop inspiring doctors of the

Trainee medics Lakshmanan Arunachalam, Junaid Azam, Peter Mackley ...

At this point the press officer was groped?

 

[Favelado]

I have a big slab of hindsight for you to chew over

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/493/sir_jimmy_savile_salutes_top_junior_doctors

look at what the scholarship was called

the CLUES WERE THERE all along. etc

It was when he founded the New Enterprise Collaborative Research Organisation for Progressive Help in Institutes of Leeds Education that I really got suspicious.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

It's also interesting that you don't question the existence of these "elites", you appear to accept these ideas of "international finance elites" as existing apart from productive capital.

Elites exist. That's why I don't question the existence of them. I do not consider faith or ethnicity relevant unless they are perhaps elites within a given faith or ethnicity. That's because I'm not a bigot, which is why no one can quote me as saying anything anti-semitic.

I consider finance capital as being separate in function from industrial capital, even more useless and more fraudulent. Ultimately the unaccountable owning entities are likely to be the same, so they are not at all separate in that way. There has been a transition in emphasis, from one to the other, especially since the big bang, and softening on fraud after the Blue Arrow scandal, relaxation of Glass Steagal type legislation, Labour's Prawn Cocktail Offensive and Light Touch Regulation.

 

[Favelado]

Why do you hate Jews so much Taffboy?