English ‘anti-pope plot’, what a joke

This music video is a live performance by The Damned of their song Antipope.

19 September 2010.

In 1678, the English Protestant clergyman Titus Oates claimed there was a “Popish Plot”. Roman Catholics were supposed to plot all sorts of sinister crimes. Oates’ claims were lies. However, Roman Catholics then were a minority in England, discriminated against by the government and the Anglican established church (as Protestants were discriminated against then in countries where Roman Catholicism was the state church).

In that climate of inequality, government authorities tended to believe Titus Oates’ lies. At least fifteen innocent Roman Catholics were executed, based on false accusations. Later, Oates’ untruths were exposed, but that could not bring the people who had been killed unjustly back to life.

We are not in 1678 anymore, but in 2010. Now, Pope Benedict is visiting Britain. In the past few days, headlines all over the corporate media screamed that a plot by Muslims to kill the pope had supposedly been uncovered. Six men of North African origin had been arrested under the British Terrorism Act 2000.

However, today, in British daily The Guardian:

Meanwhile, the six street cleaners arrested on Friday on suspicion of planning an attack on the pope have been released without charge.

The plot was “just a joke”, according to the Sunday Mirror.

However, jokes like this can become deadly serious in the present climate of Islamophobia and hysteria about “terrorism”, partly fomented by British governments. A climate, not completely different from Titus Oates’ England, over three centuries ago.

Six held over ‘pope threat’ freed: London street cleaners released without charge, with police offering no reasons: here.

TO ADD to the drama surrounding the visit of the Pope – who set the scene with his, and his associates’ attacks on aggressive secularists and atheists who have apparently overrun the UK – it was the ‘old enemy’, since the time of the crusades at least, fellow believers, Muslim street cleaners, who took the strain and were picked up by armed police, accused of a terrorist plot, and imprisoned for 48 hours without charge, without even a shred of evidence against them, except for allegedly overheard remarks in a workers’ canteen: here.

Cleaners at the Initial company in central London witnessed a horrific scene last week when police arrested a colleague for alleged immigration offences: here.

Child abuse: Why the Pope’s “sorrow” isn’t enough: here.

Up to 20,000 people descended on central London on Saturday to voice their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI’s position on issues ranging from clerical sex abuse to women’s rights: here.

The BBC defended its coverage of last week’s state visit of Pope Benedict XVI yesterday after complaints from viewers: here.

Poll shows most Catholics support abortion: here.

USA: Gingrich proposes law to ban Sharia, accuses health secretary of ‘Soviet tyranny’: here.

People often wind up believing their own cover story. Former British prime minister Tony Blair, for example, is trapped forever in the rationalizations he used in 2003 to explain why he was going along with George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He was at it again last week, telling the BBC that “radical Islam” is the greatest threat facing the world today: here.

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