Good, bad and ugly [Guardian column] Pt. 1

[MikeGalos]

Good, bad and ugly
Julie Burchill
Saturday November 29, 2003
The Guardian

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Not only do I admire the Guardian, I also find it fun to read, which in a way is more of a compliment. But if there is one issue that has made me feel less loyal to my newspaper over the past year, it has been what I, as a non-Jew, perceive to be a quite striking bias against the state of Israel. Which, for all its faults, is the only country in that barren region that you or I, or any feminist, atheist, homosexual or trade unionist, could bear to live under.

I find this hard to accept because, crucially, I don't swallow the modern liberal line that anti-Zionism is entirely different from anti-semitism; the first good, the other bad. Judeophobia - as the brilliant collection of essays A New Antisemitism? Debating Judeophobia In 21st-Century Britain (axt.org.uk), published this year, points out - is a shape-shifting virus, as opposed to the straightforward stereotypical prejudice applied to other groups (Irish stupid, Japanese cruel, Germans humourless, etc). Jews historically have been blamed for everything we might disapprove of: they can be rabid revolutionaries, responsible for the might of the late Soviet empire, and the greediest of fat cats, enslaving the planet to the demands of international high finance. They are insular, cliquey and clannish, yet they worm their way into the highest positions of power in their adopted countries, changing their names and marrying Gentile women. They collectively possess a huge, slippery wealth that knows no boundaries - yet Israel is said to be an impoverished, lame-duck state, bleeding the west dry.

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[MikeGalos]

1. In this two part Guardian column

The author clears her chest over the Guardian's anti-Israel policies before leaving the paper.

Part 2 is The hate that shames us Pt. 2

[drdon326]

3. Sorry, Mike

:)

[bemildred]

2. Dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=35086

[legin]

4. Also Julie Burchill

is a complete fruitcake too.

[drdon326]

5. And you slander her good name....

based on what??

[legin]

6. just google her

she is a nut.

[GabysPoppy]

7. Google her?

There is a ban on sex threads you know.

[bluesoul]

8. He ment putting the name

into Google.com search machine. But you knew that...

[bemildred]

9. She is a pistol, isn't she?

Some excerpts from a year and one half ago:

At 25 she abandoned Parsons and their three-year-old son and
moved in with journalist Cosmo Landesman. She left him and
their son - she lost custody - after 10 years. She went on to have a
brief fling with writer Charlotte Raven, before moving on to
Raven's younger brother, Daniel, who was 25. At each stage she
burned her bridges. No goodbye tears, no regrets.

At the height of her turbulent career in the late Eighties and early
Nineties everything about her - her marriages, her debauchery,
her children - seemed to be news. She was in the comment pages
and the news pages of the same papers. For a moment, it
seemed as if she would never go away. And then, after founding
and then closing the Modern Review, she abruptly quit London
and moved to Sussex to live with Daniel in a pink and gold house
with a swimming pool and bits of leopard print. Burchill talked of
the house as her 'retirement home'. For the first time since she
was a 17-year-old star of the pop press, it seemed as if failure
might be staring her in the face.

---

Her favourite targets are men, the middle-classes, and whingeing
women. She likes to shock - describing in detail her abortions as
if they were a nice day out, and praising casual sex and drug use.
The nastier she is, the more clearly she defines her role in the
marketplace, and the more we seem to want to read her and
write letters of complaint which only encourage her to do worse.

With her bulky frame, squeaky voice and constant nervous
hair-tugging, she cuts an unlikely figure as a character assassin
or heroine of the West End stage but friends and enemies say she
deserves the acclaim this week's play will bring.

Guardian

[MikeGalos]

10. So you're saying

that The Guardian's staff columnists include fruitcakes?

I'll remember that the next time they're cited for their wonderful level of journalism...

[legin]

11. you do have a point there actually

I am surpised that the Gaurdian didn't tell her to sling her hook a couple of years ago. Her ex Tony Parsons isn't that much better at the Mirror from what I read of him a good while ago.

[Aidoneus]

13. Yes

some fruitcakes & Labour asskissers, the Observer moreso (though on occasion they'll produce some halfway decent reports on my pet issue, so it's a mixed bag). Their news coverage is better, but that's mostly off the wires originally.

[Blitz]

14. Maybe, maybe not

But she's spot-on this time.

[MikeGalos]

15. Yep

No matter what you think of the writer (or, for that matter, The Guardian) it IS nice to see some honesty out of there.

[Aidoneus]

12. old piece & dupe

wasn't worth the time I wasted the first time I read it, nor now.

To avoid repetition, the other bit of drool is just as worthwhile, and that King piece is still a hoax.