Schooling and the media

Comprehensively Wrong

or

Grange Hill versus Social Mobility

BBC DVD cover  

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anyone buy it

The broadcast image normalises the image broadcast, which is to say that it makes that image into a norm to deviate from which is to be deviant. That applies across practically all the fields on which there is any broadcasting at all; and is particularly noticeable when applied to the ways in which social norms have developed; and to the narrowing of political possibilities to some minor variations on a common theme. We have just had another sham election between barely distinguishable regime parties offering various shades of more of the same: All were agreed that the cultural revolution must advance rather than be reversed (gay, transgender and reproductive 'rights' at home and abroad). Public spending under Comrade Brezhnev was slightly too high, but more must be spent on health care and education, over 90% of both of which should be supplied within the public sector. We need a State broadcaster to propagandise the planet. Rigid planning control must be maintained.

Can Catholics now only vote for the Democratic Unionist Party?

The honourable exception to some of this, and the only electorally significant party for which a Catholic can vote in good conscience, is the late Dr. Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, which is pro-life, opposed to gay marriage, and anti-BBC, but otherwise accepts the modern socialist State.

Grammar schools, the media, and Alan Bennett's apologia for pederasty The History Boys

Of course, there are always policy differences between parties; they differ from one day to the next, and from election to election. One such difference this year was over grammar schools. There are many arguments supported by statistics both for and against such schools, and I do not propose to rehearse them here. Instead, I would note that the grammar school, which was a standard feature of urban education for a couple of decades, and remains a part of public sector schooling in several areas, failed to endear itself to broadcasters. This resulted in its dropping out of sight; and to its being thought of as an historical experiment or, where it survives, as an anachronism. It is true that there have been various TV or radio dramas in which the 11+ examination featured; there have also been occasional broadcast plays set in grammar schools, most recently adaptations of Alan Bennett's apologia for pederasty The History Boys, but they have never been the setting for popular programmes broadcast on a regular basis. The reason is quite simply that they are not dramatic institutions; they lack either the colour of the independent schools depicted in adaptations of well-known and much-loved children's classics by Frank Richards or Elinor Brent-Dyer, or the breadth of casting possibilities and the potential for 'gritty realism' (i.e. sex and drugs and rock'n'roll) of the comprehensive. The object of drama is to present the dramatic; the common round, the daily task, is irrelevant to it; in the continuing drama forms of the series and serial there is no further or higher purpose in narrative or moral terms (although strands within the narrative may work themselves out to some purpose or other), there is simply a passing stream of incidents to engage the interest of the viewers or listeners. That makes it inevitable that the behaviour of the characters (which is equally inevitably copied by child viewers) is of the worst and most extreme kind the writers can imagine. The everyday and unremarkable are excluded, and grammar schools are nothing if not everyday and unremarkable.

Should the State be involved in schooling at all?

This talk of grammars and comprehensives is, however, somewhat beside the point when the question should be whether and why the State should involve itself in schooling at all. The Church teaches that, if necessary, the State may have schools of its own: “In the first place, it pertains to the State, in view of the common good, to promote in various ways the education and instruction of youth. It should begin by encouraging and assisting, of its own accord, the initiative and activity of the Church and the family, whose successes in this field have been clearly demonstrated by history and experience – It should, moreover, supplement their work whenever this falls short of what is necessary, even by means of its own schools and institutions” (Divini Illius Magistri 46).  The State school should clearly be a rare expedient introduced only where home and Church schooling fail, and other civil society solutions such as commercial or charitable provision prove inadequate. Pius XI wrote at a time when public provision was already widespread, and high levels of taxation were firmly established in many countries, and his further comments on the need for the State to give financial aid to the several schools demanded by families of various religions should be read in that light.

Ideally, a limited tax base should pay limited taxes to meet the necessary purposes of Government, leaving ordinary families sufficient funds to pay modest school fees, which many schools – certainly Catholic schools – would wish to make means-related, as is commonly the case in the parochial schools of America. There is no reason whatever why the State should run schools in a developed country, and every reason why it should not – we have seen the national curriculum used repeatedly to advance atheistic materialism and moral depravity, and to create a sense of dependency by shaping expectations of an omnicompetent, interventionist government. There is also the question of social mobility, which is a phrase of which we have heard a good deal over the last decade or two, invariably in the context of discussing its absence. The two main causes of that absence are the lack of early years support, and the divide sometimes referred to as 'educational apartheid', between the independent and maintained sectors. The abolition of the State school would address both problems by allowing resources to be targetted where they are truly needed, which is to say that the most disadvantaged families should be helped to escape the conditions in which they have been trapped by the socialist model of government.

The difference between the young people emerging from the independent and maintained sectors is very largely one of attitude. The State school pupil appears to lack a sense of either entitlement or duty; they do not, on the whole, suppose that the direction of public affairs is their business – it is something for somebody else, for their betters (not that they actually think in those terms now). It is certainly true that grammar school pupils of the 1940s, '50s and '60s reached the highest offices of state, but most of them had gone on to universities with an independently educated majority and had absorbed attitudes prevalent there. They also became politicians of the kind who specialise in business as usual, and whose most radical restructuring plans resulted only in the growth of State control and heavy taxation. In any case, they are and were exceptional, most grammar school pupils ended up in middle management. Full interchangeability of tax allowances for married couples, and convertible tax credits with a large means-related element would enable families to make the right choices, and allow every child to grow up capable of fulfilling his or her potential. The image on screen stops people imagining that alternative to the failed policies we see today.  

By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard

London Pride parade a form of child abuse

London Shame

It is now fifty years since the legalisation of homosexual acts and to celebrate London has just had its biggest "Gay Pride" parade ever, the biggest in Europe. Busses and taxis were decked out in rainbow colours, and the whole panjandrum was sponsored by Barclays Bank as the "Headline" sponsor whose logo was suitably re-coloured rainbow. "Gold" sponsors were Tesco and Starbucks and among the lesser sponsors were Amazon, Vodafone, etc the list is just too long to give here. And like Boris Jonson before him the Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan also took part, so much for his principles as a Muslim.

Hate crime browbeating

Over a million people lined the streets; many young families were present, for this is what passes for a family occasion these days. They saw of course near porn on the streets as men, women and trans in various states of undress, or dressed to accentuate their private parts and parade their shame in public as their so called pride to seduce all and sundry. So homosexual acts, and transgender mutilations have now gained almost the total domination of modern Western culture. Soon to even hint that you find all this disgusting will mean that you could be arrested for hate crime.

Largest number of paedophiles among homosexuals

However, it is the LGBT community that has a disproportionately large number of child abusers. One report says about a third of all "Gay" men had had sex with an underage boys  http://rense.com/general24/reportpedophilia.htm The evidence is overwhelming but under reported and some web browsers even block this information. Nevertheless it is our duty to expose this and before God as these acts between adults are gravely forbidden how much worse it is to lead a child into sin.

Britain's First Man to give birth

Carefully orchestrated to tie in with this fifty year anniversary was the news of Britain first pregnant man to give birth, - however it's not really a man but a woman who has been legally designated a man. However, she has not yet had her breasts removed or her ovaries, but that will happen soon!

Homosexuals rule the lawmakers

Homosexuals seem to rule the media which will not report on the close link between homosexuals and child sex abuse but they do want homosexuality taught in schools and every scout group will have homosexual lessons. Homosexuals have the police, the law makers, the schools, the Government: there is nothing left, just the Church - and they will be coming to get us soon!

Just Having a Laugh 2:

Really Not Funny

When comedy broadcasting is not a theatre of cruelty it seldom reverts to what might be called natural humour, by which I mean simple good fun, instead it falls back on social and political manipulation, some of it quite subtle, some of it very crude indeed. To begin with, the comedians and comic actors are chosen because they are people who fit in with the ethos of the production company or the broadcaster's in-house team; an independent company that hires people who fail to fit in fails to sell its programmes to broadcasters, so their ethos is indistinguishable from that of the TV channels themselves. Then there is the material broadcast, this presents a specific worldview in which certain attitudes are normal and good, and others not simply bad, but so abnormal as to be ludicrous. Where such an approach would be too obvious, or the public has been insufficiently prepared for its crudity, more subtle means are used to normalise the preferred liberal left viewpoint and denigrate more traditional alternatives. Comedy interacts with broadcast drama; sometimes one leads, sometimes the other, and they are combined from time to time in comic plays and sitcoms. Of course, when it comes to radio broadcasting, the BBC has an effective monopoly.

(c) From Crisis Magazine

An obvious example of the crude method of propaganda is the way in which Brexit and its supporters have been treated. Whilst news programmes and current affairs documentaries preserved the legally required neutrality before the referendum and remain somewhat cautious in their Europhilia, the comedians never ceased in their mockery of Brexit supporters and politicians, many of whom had been figures of fun for many years. Since the vote comedians have repeatedly claimed (without being challenged because they seldom appear on programmes requiring balance or accuracy) that Leave supporters lied, are unintelligent and are racists. There has been a radio play satirising the three Brexiteers, and have been a couple more at least on the theme of an apocalyptic Britain from which refugees have to escape to civilisation in France or Ireland. I can only conjecture that the purpose of this propaganda, which is combined with partial and selective news reporting now that the level of scrutiny in the pre-referendum period has been relaxed, is either somehow to thwart the Brexit process or else to create a public mood in favour of an application to re-join the EU at some future point.

The most glaring example of the more subtle method of social engineering via broadcast propaganda is, of course, the normalisation of homosexuality to the point where same-sex unions have become commonplace and are legally dignified with the name of marriage. This all began with radio comedies. There were novels and feature films, but it was the weekly encounter with wireless favourites that made people who had never knowingly met any homosexuals think that they were not uncommon, and that their peculiarities are harmless. At first they were figures of fun, but that in itself established them as an ordinary element in society so that people would expect a group to contain a clever one, a dim one, a crook and a queer. Then they became entirely ordinary characters rather than being the subject of jokes; then sympathetic figures, the victims of discrimination in serious dramas. Finally we reached where we are today with any challenge to gay rights and gay marriage portrayed as intolerable bigotry – and it all began with “I'm Julian and this is my friend, Sandy”.     

All of this political propaganda and social engineering draws its strength from our natural openness to humour, our instinctive expectation that what is presented as comedy really will be comedy, a sharing of goodness and joy. Because true humour is a reflection of the divine, we expect the comic to be deeply and innately good, somebody who is always on the right side and a friend to all. These people are not like that, not at all. Of course, there are some good people in broadcast comedy, allowed to slip through and spread some true joy so the ideological character of the rest of it does not become too obvious; they might even be allowed to poke a little gentle fun at the prevailing orthodoxies as long as they pose no real threat. The majority, and it is now a majority, however, are quite simply not the kind of people we would care to invite into our homes. They are no friends of ours, they are the shock troops, the Red Guard, of a cultural revolution, they are radical feminists, camaigning atheists, 'out and proud' homosexual activists, supporters of far left organisations and drug-addled libertines. Just look at the TV and radio listings, and look up some profiles and CVs – see what I mean? 

By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard

On the use of Pervert

Has the meaning of the word "Pervert" changed?

Can this word still be used or is it now too offensive?

• An exchange of Emails over the use of the word pervert.

A Three Man Marriage - photo Daily Mail

From Prayer Crusader St Theresa of Avila

It was your use of the word "pervert" that I thought was perhaps going a bit far. For some homosexuals, their condition is something they're stuck with, so in a sense it is natural to them, and the word "pervert" (which always carries negative overtones) is a bit unfair. This doesn't mean to say that indulging in their desires is ok, any more than it is ok for an alcoholic to indulge in his/her desires; the only rational way an alcoholic can come to terms with his (her)condition is to abstain; same for homosexuals. After all, they are not the only people called on to abstain from sexual activity.

Of course, there are others for whom the homosexual condition is not so much natural as something they are willing to try out. In the last couple of years I met a woman who was living with a female partner, although she had been married and indeed was a mother and a grandmother. She and her "partner" were going to go abroad together. I didn't see them for a long while, but then heard through a 3rd party that she had left her "partner"

and gone back to her husband. So what was all that about?

Prayer Crusader St Philomena

Thank you for this explanation, but I think most who engage in

Homosexual acts know, even if they are not religious, that it is contrary to natural law hence their continued attempts to outlaw anyone who will speak against these acts. I would never use the slang "perv" as this as you say has a negative and hurtful resonance. However, isn't Pervert a legitimate word and is the noun for perversity?

Regarding the permissive climate mitigating the act, perhaps in some cases (very very few and even here my conscience is saying to me don't ever go down that route) but only if they have been abused whilst very young before the moral conscience has been formed. Those who are "turned" as adults will always have full knowledge of what they are doing, some will engage for this reason alone others couldn't care less, some just find the same-sex attractive but all will know it's wrong, it's built into our very selves by God who created man in his image (male and female he created them).

This is why St Paul writes in the passage I sent you Romans 1:27

"Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own

persons the due penalty for their perversity." Earlier in verse 20

"Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of

eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and

perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse;" to

me and reading the whole passage this seems to apply not only to Christians but to all.

Anyway Judge not least you are judged as we keep being reminded these days.

From Prayer Crusader St Theresa of Avila

Yes, "pervert" is a legitimate word, which can be a noun or a verb, but the disapproval is built into the meaning of the word.

Quite a number of children are now being brought up by homosexual couples (both men and women), presumably being thoroughly accustomed to meeting same-sex as well as opposite-sex couples even if not themselves being subjected to abuse. Possibly they never come across the view that sexual actions should be restricted to opposite-sex couples within marriage. Or, if they do come across such a view, it will be only to hear it condemned as bigoted. That's what I had in mind as "mitigating circumstances". For them, the voice of "natural law" may be completely submerged by the attitudes which prevail around them, at least until they grow up and move into wider circles.

Homosexuality doesn't seem to have been a problem among 1st-century Jews, though it clearly was among the Greeks and Romans.

Prayer Crusader St Philomena

Yes chapter one of Romans is a two edged sword Paul is using the example of homosexual practice as a way of teaching on paganism as vice versa - but there is also a warning in there for Christians. Thank you for your explanation on the word pervert as noun and verb, we use our language without really thinking about it.

From Prayer Crusader St Theresa of Avila

I'm sure CUT can claim "You read it here first".

The Three Man "Marriage" read more:

The "Three Man Marriage"

Prayer Crusader St Theresa of Avila is our proof reader, I would like to thank the Crusader for all the many hours of help given to CUT

BBC terrorists

The Bloody BBC

Three major Islamic terrorist attacks in three months and after each one the BBC interview "nice" Muslims who sound so reasonable in a deliberate attempt to deflect criticism from the diabolic religion. By doing this and the corporation's long history of denigrating Christianity and holding up Islam as a peaceful religion, have the BBC misled us so much that they now have blood on their hands?

They had done the country a great disservice in stating in their documentaries and commentaries on the Crusades for instance that they were unjustified wars against peaceful Muslims when the opposite was the case. This has given Muslim "extremists" in their small narrow minds a sort of "justification" for all this violence. The Crusaders of course should be held up as the true heroes they are.

Their interviewing of Imams and even the Muslim Mayor of London are a disgrace; the mayor is quoted as saying that London is the safest city in the world! However every city that has a Muslim mayor anywhere in the word is in chaos, and violence. There is a simple rule of thumb: the more Muslims in the community, town or city the more violence, whether it's towards Christians or other religious groups,  or even Muslims if they are from the "wrong" sect.

Another reason for Muslim violence is the decadence of the West, the complacent attitudes towards the LGBT "community". For us as Christians it is our duty to save their souls and to state  that they the will bring upon themselves the due penalty for their perversity (see Romans 1:27), but we would never go around killing them, absolutely not! It's only by peaceful conversion that we hope to cure these poor deluded people of their affliction. But again here the BBC and most of the Main Stream Media (MSM) have blood on their hands for they actually encourage these disordered people. And just like Islamic terrorists they use suicide as their major weapon, or rather they use the threat of suicide, for that if they don't get equal rights in every way to the sexually normal majority they will kill themselves!

Poor Ireland lived and survived being so close to England for so long, they kept the faith through many a repressive British regime, but have now capitulated completely to the secular terrorists of the MSM led by the BBC. Voting en-mass to legalise so called Gay-marriage and now brainwashed as they are by the media they have just elected a new prime minister who is not only homosexual, he is married ... er to another man. Sunday ... Bloody ... Sunday?  BBC ... Bloody ... BBC.

A Poem by John Medlin - Sorrowful tramp of boots on sanded streets

THE TRIUMPH OF ISLAM

“That England that was wont to conquer others

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.”

(Richard II, 2:1, ll. 65-6)

Sorrowful tramp of boots on sanded streets:

In winter’s grey, sad companies of men

Manhandle Churchill’s coffin with dull beats

Of drum and growling brass. Grown men and children

Sag heads and make their peace, and St Pauls greets

The last of England, mourned in fen and glen:

The state he served, those thin wan faces tell,

Has hollowed like the booming, death-march bell.

Mere thirty years from Pericles’ repose

Refulgent Athens died in Sparta’s fist.

In Ludgate Hill foxish lawyers at their windows

Watched Churchill pass and since have ticked their list

Of state-upturning statutes which in prose

Have sundered epic: mealy “one-world” grist

Which Albion’s beaches ramped with unjust laws

Bringing the millioned umma to these shores.

That stocky soldiery, those weeping folk,

That stark January day, in thirty years

Fast shrivelled to an untamed tribe bespoke

On sink estates of pierced lips and ears,

Their pride as great-strength oxen at the yoke

Neutered by those lawyers’ brats whose fears

Of nation-love have brewed with other spawn

A curdled rainbow in a sullen dawn.

On Sundays Finsbury Park is loud with trade,

Hijab and djellaba command the scene,

A church where once the liturgy was prayed

Disgorges carpets of a Turkish sheen,

The mosques are brimming, that which kept the shade

Tide-like swamps suburbs with the muezzin’s keen;

Soon, time-old villages, deep-valleyed towns,

Will startle as that cold wave slaps and drowns.

The crop-rich fields and gorse-bedazzled moors

Enfold two thousand years of Christ-mens’ cells,

Those chapels, caves, where what’s eternal pours

Through being, fruitful as baptismal shells:

All lost; a rotted people slamming doors

Against its past must pander to the yells

Of ghazis who in church and manor halls

Gouge mihrabs in those age-encrusted walls.

April 2014

Note:

Umma – the worldwide Muslim “community.”

Ghazi – a Muslim warrior particularly one who fights against non-Muslims.

Mihrab – prayer niche showing the direction of Mecca.

====================

© April 2014

For more poems by John Medlin please see Medlin the Writer blog

The Lord is Risen

Happy Easter 

It is  difficult for many to hang on to the true meaning of Christianity. Today we have news that Tesco's extremely poor understanding of Christianity and natural moral values have surfaced again with their advert "Great offers on beer and cider. Good Friday just got better". What a pathetic and misguided slogan. They wouldn't dare use an Islamic slogan, their ad men would do their homework, but once again as far as Christianity goes - anything goes!

BBC pay rise
The BBC have increased the licence fee to £147 from £145 - the Devil looks after his own! They continue their cover up of Islamic terror, they soon dropped the Egypt Coptic massacres  from their news (they were obviously not secular people getting killed as happens in the West). Did you know that on average a Christian is killed in Egypt every 11 days? And yet the BBC appoints another Muslim as head of Religious broadcasting. Of course Islam is a "peaceful religion" isn't it - well no it's not and never has been. The peace that Muslims talk about is the peace that will cover the world once its all Islamic, however since there has been infighting between Shia and Sunni from it's very beginning, heaven forbid that this Islamic "world peace" will every happen.  You may wish to sign this petition from citizanGo  http://www.citizengo.org/en/signit/41632/view

Some general news:

Ireland and the TV licence.

I'm told by one of our long time members from Ireland,  our Prayer Crusader under the patronage of St Andrew, "Our problems here with RTE bias are at least as big as yours with the BBC. To make matters worse, new legislation is coming out that will mandate the payment of the TV licence - even if one doesn't have a TV - once one has a computer and internet connection in the house."

The continued sexualisation of young Children

Mail on-line Police investigate children as young as SEVEN for sending x-rated pictures on their phones as sexting epidemic sweeps across Britain.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4404024/Britain-facing-child-sexting-epidemic.html#ixzz4e8XXg0cK

Nevertheless Christ arose from the dead - the victory of life over death - peace over war - and love over hate. 

Please keep up your prayers for our latest Prayer Crusade to stop the Islamification of the BBC.