The Wonderful World of Propaganda

As Rangers fan David Limond contemplates his actions in prison, he will no doubt regret pissing so many Rangers fans off over the last couple of years with his antics.
With a mouth bigger than the Clyde tunnel, and a bizarre idea that the laws of the land didn’t apply to him it was inevitable that he would land himself in trouble with the law.

So, as Rangers fans have decided against taking on various journalists and their hangers on due to his toxicity, the great shame is that his stupidity has allowed the Rangers support to be tarnished by his actions.

While I have little sympathy for “Limmy”, I have to take issue with some of the nonsense written in the last couple of days, in the Scottish media, and also the Press Gazette in London about Angela Haggerty, Phil MacGiollabhain, and Alex Thomson of Channel 4. I also have to take issue with the Scottish media’s ignorance of abuse on social media of Rangers players, and the apparently different sentencing used in social media abuse cases.

In the Daily Record’s first report of Limond’s indiscretions, it quotes both Haggerty and Phil Mac Giollabhain, with absolutely no recognition of Mac Giollabhain’s bigoted past mentioned.
It should be noted that the book Haggerty edited was not an objective analysis of Rangers financial troubles, but a hate filled book written in a vile tone.

Did Limond overstep the mark with his sectarian comments? Absolutely.
Was his target an innocent shrinking violet without a sectarian bone in her body?

With Haggerty yesterday promoting Sectarian IRA publication An Poblacht I’d suggest that you can draw your own conclusions

http://i43.tinypic.com/5m0o6s.jpg

This blog highlights why the IRA were and are sectarian

http://truthonsectarianism.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/ira-are-sectarian.html

MacGiollabhain of course was a writer for said IRA publication, and also co founder of another IRA publication the talfanzine. Unforgettably MacGiollabhain’s book serialisation was pulled from the Sun after some Rangers fans sent copies of some of his previous blogs to the newspaper. A shocked Editor pulled his serialisation and ran an editorial stating that MacGiollabhain was “tarred with a sectarian brush”

As Haggerty and co line up to have a kick at the whole Rangers support for the behaviour of Limond, it is noticeable that Macgiollabhain’s friends Thomson, De Long of the NUJ, and Roy Greenslade are all actively promoting the tired old Rangers are Racist line, despite Haggerty being as Scottish as Limond. It certainly raises questions as to how the judge could decide calling Haggerty a “taig” was Racist. Sectarian? Yes. Racist? How?

MacgiollaBhain has unsurprisingly got in on the act of attacking the wider Rangers support, calling in some quotes and favours from long time collaborators Alex Thomson and Roy Greenslade

Greenslade, is not an objective voice on anything Rangers related

http://williampoole.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/wp-archives-mar-12-2012-roy-greenslade.html


Alex Toxic Thomson is hardly the most reliable “journalist” to comment, given his constant support for MacGiollabhain. How far removed from Phil do you need to be to not be tarred with a sectarian brush?

http://williampoole.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/wp-archives-14-oct-2012-toxic-thomson.html

http://williampoole.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/wp-archives-april-12-useful-idiots.html

http://williampoole.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/wp-archives-april-12-glasgow-toughest.html

http://williampoole.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/wp-archives-14-aug-2012-alex-thomson.html

http://williampoole.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/wp-archives-05-oct-2012-toxic-tomos.html

The Press Gazette report is being widely touted as a voice of reason on the subject, and presumably Dublin born writer and news editor Darren Boyle is another friend of the toxic network of Rangers haters.

The simple fact is that Limond has been punished, and while the sentence is harsh, he can have no complaints about the verdict.

What is most interesting is that the type of provocative language and prose written by MacGiollabhain goes unpunished, while Limond finds himself in the clink.

The same week that Limond was sentenced to 6 months for some online abuse, former Celtic player Paul McGowan was sentenced to 130 hours community service for assaulting a police officer, despite it being his second conviction for such an offence. It seems that calling people names is now worse in Scotland than assaulting people.

Fact is, the mainstream media in Scotland wouldn’t touch MacGiollabhain or Haggerty with a bargepole, despite the sympathetic tone of the reports attacking Limond. They know only too well that employing either of them would significantly damage their circulation, and damage their already fragile reputations.

Darren Boyle also finds himself on the fringes of meaningful employment working for the Press Gazette, although journalists who read the publication should be made aware of the type of company he is keeping

Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Roy Greenslade of the Guardian website found himself in a Brian McNally redundancy situation. McNally displayed all the same traits with an added cockiness of thinking he had a mainstream platform for his agenda. He didn’t. Maybe Republican Roy will learn the same lesson. The people of Britain don’t want to be force fed extremist propaganda, no matter what “side” it comes from.

The People of Scotland should not tolerate that Limond can get 6 months in prison, while vile filth like Ciaran Wallace walks free, or Paul McGowan punches police officers without jail time, and they shouldn’t tolerate that the press won’t point out that imbalance, but will instead be part of it. Either they should all get jailed, or none of them should.

The only people who can affect change are you and me. Make your feelings known and write to your MSPs, MPs and newspapers.
If you think that is futile, then you underestimate the power you have.

Bill.