It's some apparent measure of the arrogance and lack of impartiality that the new taxpayer funded Kent TV shows little if any embarrassment, at promoting and presumably funding what appears to be a PR exercise on behalf of Kent Freemasons. If you do not believe me, click here to view " Freemasons of Kent".
Now whether you happen to be one of those who dresses up with an apron, and exposes yourself in a secret ceremony or the vast majority who at best a view freemasonry as a club for those who seek personal advantage outside public scrutiny or at worst have images of Roberto Calvi allegedly murdered by Italian Freemasons.
Anyway whatever stance you take on freemasonry, the fact is they are a secret society, they are unaccountable, membership lists are not published.
So really you have to ask, just what a public authority thinks it's playing at promoting freemasonry in the unchallenging, way it does on Kent TV.
What next for Kent TV, the benefits of a sharia law, why we should become scientologists etc.
Now I see belatedly that a board of governors has now been appointed, and not surprisingly it seems it is stuffed to the gunwales with those who work with KCC or quangos and or local media. Probably as independent as any lodge might be.
Perhaps it's time for Peter Gilroy KCC's chief executive to justify this enterprise once again, and explain how this Kent TV channel is in any way impartial, perhaps also as a public employee he might also let us know whether he's also a freemason.
For many people freemasonry is a corrupt and corrosive influence in public life, although it's only anecdotal, of those whom I know to be freemasons the vast majority, have made it abundantly clear that their membership is all about personal advancement.
more bent tv than kent tv
ReplyDeleteTony, the actual ritual may be secretive but your attack on Freemasonry is both dated and ignorant. As a major charitable fund-raising organisation, Masons in Kent raise thousands of pounds every year for good causes and this alone would justify an item on Kent TV.
ReplyDeleteI am with you, Tony. Whatever good the freemasons actually do - and I think it is arguable and certainly usually to support their own people - it is a secret society.
ReplyDeleteNational Lottery grants can only be given to organisations that are open to everyone. Perhaps Kent TV should have a similar policy in its publicising of organisations in Kent.
Come off it Anon 8:29:00 I refer to my money being used to promote Freemaosonary, whose under the counter, back slapping occaisionally benign ativities are against the public interest as they are anti competetive.
ReplyDeleteYou may well delude yourself that there is nothing wrong with helping a fellow mason and bunging a few quid to charity some how makes it all right, well it doesn't.
The Masons are open with their membership but what rituals they carry out in private meetings is surely their business as is who they invite to join them as fellow Masons. They are not a secret society but may be described as secretive in terms of what they do in private meetings in their lodges. If you must continue, as many do, to retain blinkered and prejudiced attitudes against Masonry then there is no way I can change that attitude. How can what Masons do be against the public interest? If, when you describe 'helping a fellow Mason' you imply corruptly helping or advancing a fellow Mason's interests in some way,it might come as a surprise that this is expressly forbidden for Masons. Where there has been abuse, and I am not denying there has been, Masons involved have been thrown out of Masonry. Because some mebers of the Labour Party don't seem to understand the Law appertaining to political donations, does that mean the whole Labour Party is a corrupt organisation? I wouldn't believe such a claim but in regard to Masonry you clearly do. Remove the prejuduced blinkers and look at Masonry as a whole and you will find it is not what you clearly think it is.
ReplyDeleteAnon 6:13 you might be that rare example of someone who does not take advantage.
ReplyDeleteWhat Masons care to keep private is there business, what those of us outside this community care to assume is not surprisingly negative.
You don't conduct business in secret unless you have something to hide.
And when hard earned taxpayers money is used to promote freemasonary as appears to be the case on Kent TV THEN I AND OTHERS HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO COMPLAIN.
Its Human nature to take advantage and as I previously mentioned of those who claim to be masons I can only think of one who didn't claim to take advantage.
I'm not suggesting a witch hunt against freemasonary I just don't want taxpayers money being used is such a blatant way.
Tell me about prejudice, whats more likely to prejudice business and public life than having secret societies.
Blinkers I suggest you get your head out of the sand.
As your clip shows Tony, Masonry is of historic interest and with 17,000 members in Kent and a 'tourist' attraction on offer, it is not surprising that an item appears on Kent TV. I agree whole heartedly with your argument over the past 9 months that KCC's expenditure on a TV station is a disgraceful waste of tax-payers money. However, I still believe you have got the whole point of Masonry wrong and it does not deserve your condemnation. We must beg to disagree on that issue!
ReplyDeleteWhether Freemasonry is right or wrong I don't want pay tax to fund blatant propaganda end of story!
ReplyDeleteI have removed the previous comment since its not the purpose of this blog to malign individuals.
ReplyDeleteIf the contributor wishes to contact me, they may do so at Tonyflaig(insert the at sign)Lycos.co.uk.
I have switched on comment moderation temporarily. See next posting.
As I understand it before 1799 Freemasonry was but one of a number of Secret Societies (Or Societies with Secrets).
ReplyDeleteIn 1799 the Unlawful Societies Act was passed, as I understand it, because of the fear of such societies being infiltrated by Napoleonic agents of influence.
The Antients and Moderns of Freemasonry gained an exemption from being outlawed because they were headed by Royal family (and thus it was argued inherently loyal to the Crown)
However it remained an interpretation of the law that any masonic lodge formed after 1799 was an unlawful assembly.
As I understand it from 1799 to 1967 (when Harold Wilson repealed the act) it was the duty of JPs to maintain a register of Freemasons in their area as a publicly accessible record.
So it seems that we had a greater right to know who the Masons were on the council or in parliament or on the bench up to 1967 than we do now.
Masons inevitably trot out the charity line. But they never mention to us (who they call "the Profane") that their giving and their oaths are conditional.
"Without detriment" they swear to protect a brother's name in his absence etc. And their basic understanding of the ethic "Family first, employment second, charity third" is that they look after themselves first, their boss second and society takes a third place.
This ethic, interpreted as such, is attractive to a certain type of individual.
But of course it was meant to be a starting point of moral enlightenment via a syetem of allegorical diminution of deception.
As a man advances in morality he would come to see all society as his family and thus that the three tenets are not a dictum but a conundrum.
And at some point he would question whether he can advance further unless he rejects the condition of without detriment.
In other words he would want to move up from the conditional oath of the self server to the full honour oath of the Queens champion.
I will do what is right by my God and my Queen on my life.
This position of the move to a supreme oath by rejection of the initiating degrees was considerably weakened in 1917 when Law Lords removed Chrsitianity and its system of natural justice as a basis for Law. (The St Thomas Aquinas virtues such as Faith Hope and Charity these three)
So Freemasonry declined. After the Napoleonic era they had a monopoly and expanded. Expansion brought about dumbing down of the rituals and the consequent loss of the greater allegorical meanings.
And as we moved into the twentieth century so the government gradually gained the whip hand over the Crown and the independence of judiciary in the administration of justice.
Today I am afraid that Freemasons are but little men.
There you go and not a name mentioned.
I would add that if the questions are based in truth then no one named was maligned.
If it is your ambition to change Thanet for the better, Tony, then you will have to name names and ask questions.
Open with their membership? What ARE you talking about?
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many people saw the documentary on Kenny Noye and the Kent Police investigation eventually leading to his arrest and conviction for the road rage killing ?
ReplyDeleteI don't see Freemasonry leaping forward, even with lottery funding, to comment on the Freemason Kenny Noye.
Nor do I see any explanation or re-assurance about Thomas Hamilton the Dunblane murderer. In his case what were the circumstances in which he was given a firearms certificate in spite of opposition ?
Some years ago, in Thanet, a builder told me that builders gutting a building came across a ledger. It was created in the years after the First World War. Names and addresses of Thanet men. Comments like "He had a good war but it should be remembered he was under military discipline then"
It was an employment blacklist which appeared to be the work of Thanet Freemasonry. Perhaps Order of Secret Monitor ?
The ledger was given, as I understand it, to a local museum or library, intended for display, where the late official concerned was a Freemason.
Anyone seen a post First War ledger ? Funny that.
On the subject of the First World War. Wasn't it the case that Freemasons carried recognition cards so that Freemasons amongst the enemy, if taken prisoner, would treat them better on a quid pro quo basis ?
ReplyDeleteis it the case that Freemason combatants were guided to keep this quiet from non mason ("Profane") soldiers ?
It's possible that I have inadvertently deleted some of your comments.
ReplyDeleteMy only reason for moderating comments is to save offending individuals.
Since it appears that I have deleted some innocuous comments I shall cease moderation. Again I would draw attention to the fact that the Internet is subject to laws of libel etc and if you think your anonymous on the Internet please not that although I don't have the resources to trace individuals the courts do. Be nice
Tony
ReplyDelete(1) What I write on other people's blogs has already been published on websites owned by me with all the parties made aware of the publication.
(2) In the case of Kent Police and Kent Police Authority they were sent first the disc of the proposed website. Then a password to access it before publication. Then the site was published.
(3) I think due to trademark laws rights to sue for libel exist beyond death for individuals who, for example, have charities named after them. And in my case there was one trust and two charities to notify of publication.
(4) The only action, of which I am aware, by a Thanet site blogger in the Courts was by me last year when I issued propceedings against the Suffolk Chief constable. (who retired some months after the hearing aged 53)
(5) I am now opening correspondence with the new Suffolk Chief constable, Simon Ash, who is a former Kent officer !
I did email you but just received failed delivery notices. I pointed out that you had left my name on thread and so your comment above implicitly accused me of maligning individuals. I find that defammatory. I asked you to take my name off. But to be honest I aint that bothered. If you were a Chief constable then I would be bothered.
The originating case for my interests was in January 1972 when a volunteer Matron died at the HQ of the Sue Ryder charity on my rural beat. her body was reported as discovered in a boatshed half in water and half on staging. One foot bare. Pyjamas. Not naked not clad not barefoot not shod not indoor not outdoor not ashore not afloat.
This sort of quasi masonic ritualistic mumbo jumbo may just occur by coincidence. It also occurred in the Gwendoline Marshall murder in the Darling Buds of May village, I am told and in the nuclear protestor Hilda Murrell death whose body was found at a leyline intersection etc.
Supposing that it is not coincidence it probably is not a black magic ritualistic abusing quasi masonic job either.
But if you have an inkling MI5 or MI6 is at work then put yer money on a deception. Because if the details reach the Mason suspicious public then the police inquiry will bog down in masonic conspiracy letters. And if the police inquiry goes awry in the first 48 hours then bet yer life masonry in the police will be lined up by the spooks to feed public appetite for masonic conspiracy.
There was someone there that day whose autobiography tells of being trained in MI6 deception techniques. A redoubtable little lady.
The two founding trustees of the charity were both MI6 (and in Airey Neaves case 23 SAS, MI9 and MI14.) Henry Sporborg was the founder of the post war secret cell network Gladio allegedly run by the P2 lodge of Italy which linked up to Sporborg's Hambros employee McCaffrey who admitted to a US inquiry he was also MI6 man in Italy.
A member of the P2 was Roberto Calvi who you mention.
Calvi did not get the not naked not clad not barefoot not shod treatment. He got a swinging under Blackfriars and some masonry in his pockets ?
What did I say about if you suspect the spooks are afoot look out for the masons being used as dull scapegoats for ineffective inquiry ? I know of no other use for them though. Dullards. What sort of man accepts an oath to protect secrets before they are revealed to him ?
A man entering Freemasonry via the Entered Apprentice degree kind of reminds me of the mother of a school mate of mine "Our boy did really well at eleven plus and won a place at the secondary modern school".
Rick
Re "Open with membership" ?
ReplyDeleteI asked the solicitor to TDC to declare members interests to me. And he replied that Freemasonry is an exception to the rule. IE That it is not a declarable interest.
Is he right ?
While I realise it will not change the mind of the anti mason brigade I will however point out that East Kent Masons donated some £400,000 to NON masonic charities last year which would always include disaster relief orgs. hospices,mental health,elderly and many others Indeed this weeks local rag reports a donation to the three Thanet Mayors Christmas Funds, all raised by 1 local lodge
ReplyDeleteThey may all not like us but nobody turns down our money!!
Local Mason and proud to be
No slight was intended to the postee of the deleted comment, a quick look , sugested it would be wise remove the comment.
ReplyDeleteI had the option of either deleting apparently temporarily or permantly I chose the former, on the comment page it did not Im sure show the identity of the postee.
However I have now deleted it permantly, I thought you may be able to substanciate of offer some authentication.
My apologies, any way since freemasonry is such a murky world, I have to be cautious.
If you wish to contact me try the email address in the next comment since the lycos one does appear a bit dodgy.
tonyflaig(insert the at sign)gmail.com I will remove this comment shortly so as I don't add to the 10,000 pieces of junk mail I receive each weeek
ReplyDeleteSo Proud of being a Mason but remain anonymous come off it.
ReplyDeleteCharity donations might well come from the fact that mason frequently circumnavigate normal competitive proceedure, thus cheating the community as a whole.
The largess of the Masonic community to mind mind indicates just how much is being creamed off the economy by non competitive practices!
Just for information, members interests register can be viewed at TDC offices.
ReplyDeleteGoodness me! Your anti-masonic prejudice blinds you completely from the truth. Look at the gazette and see decent people raising money for charity and quite happy to be identified as masons. Some people just cannot get over the fact that they were never invited to join the masons. You sound more and more like one of them.
ReplyDeleteI have been subject to free masonry prestdidigitation
ReplyDeleteI whistle blew at patient deaths caused by senior clinicians at my hospital and both legal firms attached the coded 666 within the reference numbers . These were being used to tip off the recipient in some way from the 2 law firms , the hospital earlier in the year were taking donations from masons £36000.
I now have circumstancial evidence that implicates them and the NHS Trust I was sacked from for raising protected disclosures. The whole legal system is being under mined by an occult organization.
Paulio IS RIGHT,
ReplyDeleteI whistleblew on a US COrporation, received death threats and again Freemasons were selected and appointed to destroy the evidence.
DCA deliberately lost the file of evidence. The Occult virus of freemasonry is eating away at the British Justice system and the tazpayer is unknownly financing the entire Masonic Scam.