Yes, he is popular and yes he personally makes money for the BBC through the popularity of sales and so what? The man is an unprofessional, arrogant bully with a tendency to blurt out nasty insulting remarks which reveal casual intolerance of social groupings which he perceives, or declares, to be inferior and inadequate in some way. He also expresses his intolerance of his personal notion of the criminal and idol. Certainly, this is just another incident which reveals his "out of control" petulant ego.
So why have 350,000 members of the public signed an online petition asking for his reinstatement. They obviously don't need more evidence of his inappropriate behaviour (I will enjoy listing some of his discrepancies below). Have they have just decided he's amusing and it doesn't matter, or do they agree with his intolerance. It makes you wonder.
Either way, it matters to me.
2008 Clarkson makes a joke during an episode about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes, which attracts more than 1000 complaints to the BCC.
2010 Jokes made during the show about Mexicans, which include them being branded "lazy", "feckless" and "flatulent", spark controversy and prompt an apology from the BBC to the Mexican ambassador.
2011 During a 10 minute India special a car fitted with a toilet in the boot is described by Clarkson as "perfect for India as everyone who comes here gets the trots."
2012 Clarkson is found to have breached BBC guidelines by comparing a Japanese car to people with growth on their faces.
2014 Clarkson appears to use the N word while reciting Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe during filming.
Jane Martinson, The Guardian, Wednesday March 11th, 2015
The BBC has received more than 21,000 complaints over
Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson's remarks that striking public sector
workers should be shot.
He was censured with his comments on The One Show and Unison called for him to be sacked. He later apologised.
Unison said it welcomed the apology and invited Clarkson to spend a day with a healthcare assistant.
Recently, by coincidence, I purchased a DVD entitled "Auschwitz" made by German director Uwe Boll, in an attempt to counter the fading memory of one particular Nazi death camp in a world where younger people were beginning to trivialise and overlook the crime of systematic mass murder of perceived inferior social groupings and races (jews, homosexuals, bohemians, gypsies, trade unionists, communists, criminals, people with learning difficulties and/or mental health problems, socialists, anarchists, transgender, slavic peoples) and lose sight of its significance.
Boll wanted the film to concentrate on the everyday running of a well organised, efficient extermination camp run by ordinary people with a causal disregard for the lives of others, whom they believed to be part of an inferior grouping, who deserved to die. Most of those people working the camp did nothing to stop it. He didn't want to make another romanticised portrayal of heroic saviour as in "Schindler's List" when the reality was more straightforward and grim.
Personally I was struck by the fact that the Nazi system may have been politically engineered racism and mass murder but it also revealed something very important that is essential to our well being as a society.
The lack of compassion and empathy towards others. Compassion towards others and empathy is essential in a fair and just civilised society. The idea that other people were just some kind of scum who did not matter and deserved to suffer for being weak and inferior. That is the kind of roots to fascism which I feel so angry about. The politics of casual hatred which the German population willingly took part in. Gassing a room full of innocent people and then having a casual cigarette afterwards with a private joke.
I can't help feeling that when the likes of Jeremy Clarkson express snide humour aimed at racial groupings considered inferior that he isn't some kind of part of this lack of compassion and empathy. Definitely he could be described as a nasty right wing big expressing his innermost desire to eradicate the weaker members of society in some form or other, to punish them and put them to work at least, or at least embrace the snotty notion of giving weak minded people a "kick up the arse".
And it doesn't surprise me that this is popular and amsuing to tens of thousands in the population.
Like it is no surprise to learn that one of our most popular newspapers Daily Mail openly supported fascism in the 1930s and has spent the rest of its time as a newspaper attacking perceived inferior and feckless social groupings along with perceived hypocritical and weak "lefties" with stories that former employees claim anecdotally to be part of an overall ideological strategy.
Or that, Clarkson's stunning mix of self righteous petulance and belligerent arrogance is mirrored by the likes of the Duke of Edinburgh with his history of public guffs (click below to read a list of them published in the Mirror on his 93rd birthday) http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/prince-philip-turns-93-cringe-3667124
Personally I fear that kind of popular blind hatred of groupings whether fuelled by the media or popular presenters like Clarkson, be it people on benefits, foreign workers, lefties, trade unions, the notion of an Irish stereotype, any of it. I consider it dangerous and threatening.
I fear writing this blog for the nasty reaction it may produce or the quiet social exclusion and lingering resent that may be held against me because it challenges the personal morals of individuals I've met who enjoy bullying and nasty banter.
I know that I'm dealing with people who present a view of reality which suits their own lack of morality and concern for the well being of others. One in which all left wing activists are hypocrites, all trade unions are corrupt, all Labour leaders are incompetent, teachers and social workers, catholic priests are paedophiles and people on benefits are wealthy, cheating scroungers.These are the traditional prejudices and part of the long term anti-liberal smearing media campaigns of the right, now so generally popular in the UK.
I think I have a real case to say that Clarkson is some kind of nasty fascist bully, a right wing bigot at best, and the people who like him must have some of that in them too. Because I don't find his nastiness funny, so I cannot understand who does. And it feels as if he personally reflects an undercurrent of politicised nastiness prevalent in our everyday life.
As for the association of fast cars and bullying power seekers. Well you can mull that over yourselves and make up your own minds.
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