"At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmic chant of 'R-T-C! .... R-T-C! .... R-T-C!' - over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'R' and the 'T' then the 'C' - a heavy murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamps of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of RTC, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise."
I know that Eric Blair will forgive me for replacing some letters in this extract from Big Brother because I do so to right a terrible wrong in the great man's name. This brave and brilliant writer must be spinning in his grave after Rangers Tax Case won the Orwell prize for blogging.
What were the judges thinking of? Their deliberation has made a mockery of everything he stood for. They really should be hanging their heads in shame.
Proclaiming itself to be exposing a craven media in Scotland, the blog is no more than a thinly-veiled haven for self-righteous football bigots.
It has an almost Stalinist refusal to allow anyone who fails to toe its all pervasive anti-Rangers sectarian party line being heard. Posts are swiftly removed which dare to challenge this bigoted orthodoxy. Not only that, posters are then banned and comments removed in a shameful rewriting of history.
That's not free speech. That's sinister. That's Big Brother. And precisely what Mr Blair exposed so brilliantly in 1984, of course.
The failure to preserve free speech will be this blog's lasting legacy. Along with the cult of the personality that's been nurtured by RTC to sycophantic posters hanging on his every word. Far from democratising information distribution, it does the opposite.
"At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmic chant of 'R-T-C! .... R-T-C! .... R-T-C!' - over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first 'R' and the 'T' then the 'C' - a heavy murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamps of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms. For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of RTC, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of rhythmic noise."
I know that Eric Blair will forgive me for replacing some letters in this extract from Big Brother because I do so to right a terrible wrong in the great man's name. This brave and brilliant writer must be spinning in his grave after Rangers Tax Case won the Orwell prize for blogging.
What were the judges thinking of? Their deliberation has made a mockery of everything he stood for. They really should be hanging their heads in shame.
Proclaiming itself to be exposing a craven media in Scotland, the blog is no more than a thinly-veiled haven for self-righteous football bigots.
It has an almost Stalinist refusal to allow anyone who fails to toe its all pervasive anti-Rangers sectarian party line being heard. Posts are swiftly removed which dare to challenge this bigoted orthodoxy. Not only that, posters are then banned and comments removed in a shameful rewriting of history. That's not free speech. That's sinister. That's Big Brother. And precisely what Mr Blair exposed so brilliantly in 1984, of course.
The failure to preserve free speech will be this blog's lasting legacy. Along with the cult of the personality that's been nurtured by RTC to sycophantic posters hanging on his every word. Far from democratising information distribution, it does the opposite.
The judges owe Mr Blair a massive apology.
24 May 2012 - 16:58