Why you'd have to be an idiot to take lessons in patriotism from The S*n

One of the most infuriating thing about the hacks who work for The S*n is the way they repeatedly pose as if they're somehow the moral arbiters of British patriotism.

Of course there are arguments over whether patriotism is a good thing, or the "last refuge of the scoundrel" as Samuel Johnson said in 1775, but whatever our views on patriotism it's absolutely clear that people who work for an Australian/American owned propaganda rag with an provable institutional contempt for Britain and British values are not patriots.

On Friday October 6th 2017 the publisher of The S*n admitted liability for hacking into the email account of a British Army officer, and in 2011 the chief editor of The S*n bribed Ministry of Defence officials into leaking the details of dead British soldiers.

So next time you hear that S*n hacks are on the rampage, deriding politicians as unpatriotic for not bowing deeply enough at the Cenotaph for example, or engaging in poppy fascism when some footballer or celebrity decides not to wear one (or to wear a white one), just remember that these people are happy to work for an organisation that shows its respect for our troops by hacking into their email accounts and even bribing people in order to steal the private information of British soldiers who have died on the battlefield.

Aside from the absolute contempt The S*n have towards the British military, there's also the way this vile propaganda rag has continually promoted the fanatically right-wing economic agenda of neoliberalism that is favoured by their Australian/American owner Rupert Murdoch.

Neoliberalism is the virulent hard-right economic ideology that has completely dominated in the Westminster political establishment since Margaret Thatcher introduced it in 1979.

Neoliberalism is the reason that the British rail network no longer operates on behalf of the British people, and 74% of it now run by foreign state railways, with profits from our overpriced and overcrowded system exported overseas to fund the rail infrastructure of foreign lands (Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Singapore, France ...).

Neoliberalism is the reason the Tories privatised Britain's nuclear expertise, which was then sold on to the French government, and the reason that we can't build our own new nuclear power stations and need to bribe the French and Chinese into doing it for us by promising to use taxpayers' cash to pay them double the market rate for electricity for 35 years.

Neoliberalism is the reason that huge chunks of what used to be public property have been handed out to overseas corporations and foreign governments, because right-wing politicians have such hatred for the British state that they believe that the government of Qatar are better at running our water supplies than we are,  Oman and the United Arab Emirates are better at running our underground aviation fuel network than we are, and that Qatar and China are better at running our national grid than we are.

The S*n has cheered every crooked neoliberalism inspired privatisation scam since the 1980s because their love of hard-right economic dogma is such an item of faith to them that they consider promoting this sickening ideology way more important than the interests of Britain and the British people.

This ideologically driven sell off is nothing short of economic treason, and hacks at The S*n have spent the last four decades promoting it as hard as they can.

Every time you see a S*n headline celebrating "Britishness", or hear a S*n hack questioning someone else's patriotism, remember that this is a foreign-owned propaganda rag that steals the private information of dead British soldiers, and celebrated right-wing politicians as spent the last four decades selling our country out from under us.

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