Bob Vylan interview / British Airways

[justanotherpassword]

Seems like BA have now entered the debate.

https://news.sky.com/story/british-airways-pulls-louis-theroux-podcast-funding-over-bob-vylan-interview-13457331

At the end of the day the man is influencial enough that you took an hour out of your day to listen to him along with the 100s of 1000s of other people who listen to each podcast episode. His career isn't about to be ruined just because some people don't like that he interviewed a man who some view as contraversial.

Every single person who speaks out for Palestine or gives a platform to those who do knows that they will be under intense scrutiny, they know that people are waiting in the wings to write blog posts about them and fake outrage. It is what it is. Loius career as you rightly point out has spanned decades, the man is a household name and that's not about to change because a sponsor dropped him or some man who wants Britain to welcome racist football hooligans writes a blog post about him.

@thingsarelookingupfornigel a nonce apologist and an anti-semite apologist. My punctuation makes it ambiguous I agree.

I am not accusing Louis of doing bad things to children and Jews, I am accusing him of being pally with others who do. When "good men" do nothing bad men do what ever they want.

It was obvious what you meant. As someone said upthread LT has long been sleazy, as I said there is a prurience about the subjects he focusses on. He taps into a nastiness in society I think and its more about him than trying to make a positive contribution to society, even if many of his subjects deserve to be exposed and criticised.

But that's the point. Bobby Vylan was not under intense scrutiny, he had a cosy chat with someone basically endorsing him.

People who fight antisemitism like Dave Rich are dealing with reality not 'fake outrage' because antisemitism is very real. You should be outraged by it.

Your post is rather a good example of Dave's last para 'when it comes to the life experiences of the Jewish community, experiencing more religious hate crime per head than any other community in the UK, Theroux and Vylan breezily wave it away. It’s a form of privilege all of its own, the ability to be so dismissive of antisemitism and yet retain a sense of their own progressive righteousness.'

I don’t think it was that obvious I’m afraid. I would edit that post.

He's not under intense scrutiny but here we are talking about him? Pull the other one.

Why would a man who wants to welcome known racists, who chant death to Arabs to Britain's streets and endanger British Arabs and Muslims really give a crap about anything said on the podcast? It's selective outrage and yes it does come across as fake. The man doesn't give a crap about death chants or British peoples safety or he would have backed the ban on violent racists attending a football match. I mean Dave would know all about breezily waving prejudice away wouldn't he?

I'm not going to dignify this rather muddled post with an answer to be honest.

Of course because you don't know how to explain how the person you seem to admire can be OK with some racists and some death chants and some people being put in danger whilst at the same time trying to be some kind of anti racist spokesperson. He is a hypocrite, he is exactly what he is accusing others of being.

Harvey Weinstein won numerous awards too, but somehow I can't quite warm to either of them.

Louis T has a very manipulative and underhand way of coercing people into situations that will make good telly. I don't trust his reporting: he investigates valid topics, such as the WB, but because he generally sets up scenarios designed for his targets to fail in, I find myself wondering what else was happening behind the scenes to produce the final edit.

You can bet that if he'd wanted to portray Bobby/Pascal as a loser, he would have found a sneaky way of doing it. His support/lack of support is always tacit but very clear.

As an aside, his prurient (good word, PPs!!!) fascination with porn and various forms of craziness, combined with his innocent self-distancing from it (that quizzical half-raised eyebrow!), makes me suspect there are are some suppressed monsters yanking his chain from the gloomy depths of his psyche 😆

@Twiglets1 I remember laughing at that Paul Merton joke, but actually later in life found it rather sad. Paul and Debbie truly adored each other, much to Louis T's disgust!

He's one of the most highly respected people working on antisemitism and race hate in the country. You are entitled to your opinion and its up to others to judge whose carries more weight.

Hate speech is wrong. Surely people don't need to be reminded of this. The creep in thexpop punk group has gathered increased following and sales with his hate speech. Says a lot about the followers. Glad people who don't agree with hate speech are shutting him down a bit or calling the hate filled entity out. Grifters grifting

Are you talking about Bob Vylan here?

Yes, sorry its not clear

I agree. I can't watch him any more.

I don’t see why Bobby Vylan is accused of antisemitism. At no point did he say anything about Jewish people, unless I’m wrong. I also don’t even recall him saying anything about Israel. His statement about the IDF was provocative to say the least but surely antisemitism, an obviously racist concept, is demonstrating hatred to all Jewish people regardless of their character or actions.

Thanks for clarifying and yes I do agree with what you say.

All Israelis have to serve in the IDF unless exempt. So he was calling for the death of all Israelis, the mostly Jewish people of the Jewish state. He also went on a rant about a previous boss he had who was Jewish, and called him a cunt. Because he was Jewish.

So did you not do basic research into what he said and thought you'd share your important opinion, or are you just antisemetic yourself?

Not at all. I had no idea he made remarks about his boss because he was Jewish. Are you sure that was the only reason he didn’t like his boss. I may be wrong and am willing to be corrected but as far as I can see, they have never said anything about Jewish people. If I said death to Amazon, I’m not actually calling for the death of all Amazon employees. Just an end to Amazon.

If I said death to Amazon, I’m not actually calling for the death of all Amazon employees. Just an end to Amazon.

So you want all Amazon employees to be unemployed then?

Here's a radical thought. Maybe people shouldn't go around chanting 'Death To (this group)' if they don't want people to think they are racist bigots.

You could do some basic research, like read the article up thread for a start?

A month before Glastonbury, Vylan had called for “Death to every single IDF soldier out there”, at a concert at Alexandra Palace n London. In Amsterdam last month he told a concert audience ““Fck the Zionists! Get out there and fight them! Get out there and meet them in the street. Get out there and let them know that you don’t stand by them.” And at another gig in Spain in August, Vylan said:
We do support the right to an armed resistance. ‘Cause we ain’t no fcking pacifists. We ain’t the nonviolent type. Because we understand. We understand that in dealing with tyrannical fcking governments, you need to be violent sometimes… We are for an armed resistance. We wanna make that explicitly fcking clear.”

You know that if his boss being Jewish was 'only' part of his reason for not liking him he's still a racist, right?

It's a shame they can't find anyone who takes all racism seriously instead of someone who picks and chooses which death chants to be outraged by and which ones they want to import. It's a sad sign of the times when such divisive clowns are 'respected' because it's Muslims they don't care about.

But it’s ok for football thugs to chant death to Arabs? It’s a funny old world.

I get his rhetoric was encouraging violence which I disagree with as a diplomatic solution is always the way to go but can you highlight in that statement what was actually antisemitic. In other words, against all Jewish people. All Israelis have to serve in the IDF including non Jewish Israelis like the Druze. Not all Jewish people are Israeli and they don’t serve in the IDF.

It’s not ok for anyone. At any time.

I went right off Louis Theroux when he did the follow up to his Saville interview. He was a bit too “he was a nice bloke though” for me.

The CST works closely with Tell Mama and other organisations on racial hatred across the board so you seem rather misinformed and you still haven't presented any evidence to support your accusations against Dave Rich.