I despair sometimes that society as a whole has lost all sense of how a democracy ought to operate. State abuse has become the norm.
I am astonished that there is not greater reaction to the BBC role in Obama’s statement against Scottish independence. It is now confirmed that not only did No. 10 ask Obama to make the statement, they set up the BBC to ask the question that prompted it.
For a state broadcaster, with a legal obligation to neutrality in the referendum campaign, actively to participate in a stunt plainly aimed to boost one side in the campaign is beyond disgraceful. There is obviously a realisation at the BBC that they have done something very wrong indeed – all of the BBC’s own coverage with unprecedented reticence omitted totally the fact that it was the BBC that asked the question.
This ought to be an absolutely huge scandal which leads to resignations at the BBC. Yes, it is not unprecedented for officials to ask a journalist to ask a helpful question. The Tories might well ask the Sun or Telegraph to ask them something. But it is a completely different thing when it is a state broadcaster legally obliged to neutrality and part of a referendum or election campaign.
That the BBC truthful report that there were no WMD’s in Iraq led to forced resignations, while this twisted propaganda interference has no result, is a sign of the collapse of democratic values in society – and the expectation of them.
Any chance of “The BBC Tells Lies” car stickers?
I am sure that there’s a market for them Peacewisher.
http://the-libertarian.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/bbc_truth_and_lies1.jpg
Google BBC Lies on Images. Quite a selection.
Peacewisher 8 Jun, 2014 – 7:20 pm
“Any chance of “The BBC Tells Lies” car stickers?”
Great idea. Car stickers will reach places these blogs don’t. All you need is a design and a whip round. Then get 1000 for £212 here.
Go on. Don’t wish, act.
Phil, thanks for the clarification.
I understand the point you’re making. I recognise that anger. I enjoy the withering put-downs. But …… you knew a “but” was coming, didn’t you? ….. I think it’s misdirected here. This isn’t an academy for revolutionaries, it’s a talking shop. Craig makes observations and we use them as a starting point to flog our own individual hobby horses. There’s a spectrum of opinion here. A few are here to contradict and spread doubt, one is here for reasons of personal inadequacy, but most of of us are on the same side as you to different degrees.
Nurture that anger, it’s healthy, but find a fairer target than Craig. Don’t attack your fellow travellers because they’re on a different stretch of the same road as yourself. Maybe you set out before them. You didn’t achieve political enlightenment overnight. It probably took years to reach where you are now, and dare I say it, you’re still learning. So are we all (except the aforementioned personality basket-case). I’ve learned more on this blog than any other single source, and it’s primarily Craig’s blend of idiosyncrasies that sustains this delicate habitat.
Now I’m rambling. Why am I telling you what to do? I don’t know. Fuck it, carry on, Craig’s quite capable of speaking up for himself. Keep taking the lager.
Peacewisher
Just to be clear, I was suggesting that you do it yourself.
I presume you are in Scotland and could raise enough cash to pay for it amongst family, friends and neighbours. Put BBC LIES! and the wingsoverscotland (or any yes site) on it. Give them out. Might even make Sky news. Wash and rinse til you are in free Scotland.
You will feel better for it because you literally will be a better person. Don’t wish, act.
Agreed Peacewisher. Not a peep about civilians being killed, again, in Slavyansk. I guess the 8-year-old girl who died today was a “pro-separatist rebel” and so somehow deserved it.
The BBC is an arm of the state.
Peacewisher : “Any chance of “The BBC Tells Lies” car stickers?”
Phil: “Great idea. Car stickers will reach places these blogs don’t. All you need is a design and a whip round. Then get 1000 for £212 here.”
Even easier …. google “inkjet waterproof sticker” and print these designs:
95 mm x 95 mm (4 per A4 sheet)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nxbirul1cd2mykf/The%20BBC%20Lies%2095×95.png
280mm x 45mm (2 per A4 sheet)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lg2al2bw3p3qe4o/The%20BBC%20Lies%20280×45.png
Here’s those transparent waterproof self-adhesive A4 sheets on eBay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A4-Sticky-backed-Plastic-for-Inkjets-Outdoor-Waterproof-Tear-Proof-/111355091815?pt=UK_Computing_Printer_Paper_Accessories_ET&hash=item19ed47db67
The BBC are just part of the Union protection racket. Scottish newspapers bar one dis Salmond on a daily basis.The “Scotsman” is a particular disgrace.Scottish CBI recently caused a kerfuffle by going Pro Union. With the bias that there is against Independence it is amazing that the polls still show the Yes voters have any %.
Now we have a US President whose country’s founding principles are the rights to be Independent going back on them to promote the UK and the EU.No wonder he looked astonished when he said it.
Latest polls show the No’s in the lead and the Poll that cost an arm and a leg with the wrong results is still being kept buried.
The song and dance begins.
The problem I see is that the media tell the lies and when they are proven false, they never retract them.
Latest scare was that the MoD wont be able to remove the rusting Nuke Subs we have at Rosyth. They’ve been there for years,mothballed and forgotten like the Russians did at Murmansk. The MoD covered up the radio active waste in Dalgety Bay for over 50 years.
Both our major cities only 15 minutes away from either live warheads or decaying reactors.
The BBC I suppose have always been as biased as they are now, only difference was we used to swallow their version of the truth more easily.
95 mm x 95 mm (4 per A4 sheet) …
Actually, that should be 6 per A4 sheet
Even more truth for your money.
Are we in danger of literally shooting the messenger? Come out with your hands up MI5 and MI6, don’t hide behind the curtain, BBC are the puppets, you are the puppet-masters. It isn’t even following the government line, the government follows some other’s line, which the parties and now the BBC try sycophantically to anticipate and follow, some deep state inner circle that skewers our illusory democracy. You tell people they can be free, that they are free merely if they choose to be and they hesitate, find reasons to remain ensnared, prisoners, craving the gaolers cruel hand and arbitrary favour.
The lesson of the seventieth anniversary of the Normandy slaughter should not be that it was all in vain; whatever the people fought for or believed they were fighting for, it was not the same as the puppet-master’s reasons for driving them to fight. On that criterion the war, the people’s war for freedom, was lost.
.
I’m an ideas man! I have made an attempt at merchandising in the past, but it’s really not my forte.
I’m sure that there is someone reading this blog who would know how to take this forward…
@Peacewisher
Choose this design:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nxbirul1cd2mykf/The%20BBC%20Lies%2095×95.png
or this design:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lg2al2bw3p3qe4o/The%20BBC%20Lies%20280×45.png
and make your own bumper sticker using these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A4-Sticky-backed-Plastic-for-Inkjets-Outdoor-Waterproof-Tear-Proof-/111355091815?pt=UK_Computing_Printer_Paper_Accessories_ET&hash=item19ed47db67
….no merchandising skills required.
Hmmm. No word yet on BBC journalists being detained, ‘bounce!’.
http://rt.com/news/164332-slavyansk-journalists-missing-ukraine/
@Peacewisher ignore above the links got scrambled, try this ….
Choose this design:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nxbirul1cd2mykf/The%20BBC%20Lies%2095×95.png
or this design:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lg2al2bw3p3qe4o/The%20BBC%20Lies%20280×45.png
and make your own bumper sticker using these:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/A4-Sticky-backed-Plastic-for-Inkjets-Outdoor-Waterproof-Tear-Proof-/111355091815?pt=UK_Computing_Printer_Paper_Accessories_ET&hash=item19ed47db67
….no merchandising skills required.
ANode
Your response deserves a considered answer that I do not have the time to write right now. I accept some of your points and acknowledge I have room to improve my inter personal skills! But of course there’s a but. I will try to reply tomorrow. Thanks for at least not simply ignoring me.
Phil
It’s no news that the BBC are anything but impartial in the matter of Scottish Independence.
Fair enough; they have a view on the matter and report it accordingly. In my view it’s OK for them to have an editorial position.
What they (or at the very least one of their reporters) have done this time though is to act as an agent for the Government. That’s a significant step change.
It’s interesting to compare the position of the UK state broadcaster with that of the Hungarian state broadcaster where charges of impartiality can be challenged in the courts.
http://euobserver.com/eu-elections/124509
A Node, neither dropbox link seems to work for me. I’m not sure why, but please don’t use spaces in filenames, that is some braindead Microsoft sabotage, to limit the usefulness of consumer computer software and hardware, which should have been strangled at birth.
Great idea though; I think Yes stickers would be better, and have one already; plenty of time to spit roast the BBC once the referendum is over.
Working now, got them, very nice. 🙂
@Anode: Not only am I crap at marketing but I’m also crap at design. So I’m really not taking this on.
But in the spirit of adventure…
Of the two, though, I think the second one is better. Perhaps, as we are taking about democracy, there could be a vote:
Press 1: To choose this design:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nxbirul1cd2mykf/The%20BBC%20Lies%2095×95.png
Press 2: for this design:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lg2al2bw3p3qe4o/The%20BBC%20Lies%20280×45.png
Press 3 for neither of the above
Apologies, Craig, if this overheats your blog.
Car stickers are a great idea – something short and witty that packs a punch (hopefully). ‘The BBC tells lies’ is too direct. The Clash song/album ‘London Calling’ occurs to me.
Superb piece on Ukraine, supine EU leaders, and a meeting that took place in Yalta (of all places!) in September 2013. Tony Blair was there !
You should read it, Craig.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/tightening-the-u-s-grip-on-western-europe-washingtons-iron-curtain-in-ukraine/5386090
As Phil says, of course BBC propagandising long antedates the Scottih referendum. Sadly we tend to notice these things only when they affect us more closely. Here’s some stuff on their complicity in the dismantling of the NHS.
http://opendemocracy.net/ourbeeb/oliver-huitson/how-bbc-betrayed-nhs-exclusive-report-on-two-years-of-censorship-and-distorti
“Much has been written about the failure of the BBC to properly inform the public of the nature of the coalition government’s NHS bill, now the Health and Social Care Act, passed by the Lords on 19 March 2012. Many felt the BBC had abandoned the NHS under Conservative pressure and it appears significant numbers lodged complaints. And quite rightly. Having spent a number of days researching BBC coverage of the NHS, the picture which emerges should be of deep concern for both the BBC and the public”
V; There should be no shame associated with having an interest in profitability, as long as that does not contravene the ostensible public service our media should voluntarily accept as a social norm. Financing and profit dove-tailed with that responsibility intact is not a problem for me. People have to be paid. What I object to is the dash-for-cash dictated by non-news Boards of Directors who normally occupy a conservative pov. When the stock price is the maginot-line for all things newsworthy, then it’s a problem.
Many formerly respected outlets (NYT) cobble a direct relationship between stakeholders and news that’s fit to print, you get bullshit like Judith Miller and Keller diddling with history’s narrative with the commensurate influence forcing an outcome. Those outcomes rarely benefit the people these outlets purport to support.
@Mike: This is such a good article. Relates to the BBC because they have been presenting quite a different narrative. I know that some here pooh-pooh anything on Global Research, but all the facts presented here are verifiable and it cannot easily be dismissed as “propaganda” (although, no doubt, some will try).
A Node
‘Don’t attack your fellow travellers because they’re on a different stretch of the same road as yourself. Maybe you set out before them.’
That’s lovely – nice one!
http://blog.transnational.org/2014/05/tff-pressinfo-why-obamas-speech-should-make-us-think/
“”By most measures, America has rarely been stronger relative to the rest of the world…Think about it. Our military has no peer.”
Most measures? Wrong. Take trade and investment, political, economic and cultural power relative to the rest of the world; take perceived legitimacy worldwide, take moral/values and take adherence to international law – the U.S. is a shadow of what it was, say, 50 years ago.
True, militarily it is second to none. But that is exactly the problem when you are getting weaker on all other indicators.
”And when a typhoon hits the Philippines, or girls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine – it is America that the world looks to for help.”
Even if it were true that the world sees the U.S. as the benign helper, Obama ought to have deplored that countries don’t turn to the multilateral or regional institutions.
The U.S. has, since Yugoslavia, done about everything it could to undermine the U.N. Later he says that ”the UN provides a platform to keep the peace in states torn apart by conflict.”
But is it that really the task of the world’s normatively most important organisation: to make peace where others, including the U.S. itself, has ravaged countries?
The U.S. as a great helper is not a perception shared by many enlightened people – see the failure in the Israel-Palestinian mediation and the handling of Syria. Btw. he doesn’t even mention the Middle East.
”The United States is the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed, and will likely be true for the century to come.”
What in effect Obama is saying here is that every other nation – peoples of the earth – can be dispensed with. Why offend everybody? Why make yourself so good that it becomes pathetic, laughable?
And 100 years more? Just how stupid do the speechwriters in the White House think we are? Regrettably, there is more where it comes from:
”The question we face – the question you will face – is not whether America will lead, but how we will lead, not just to secure our peace and prosperity, but also to extend peace and prosperity around the globe.”
The obsession with leadership that goes through his speech reveals a deep fear of not being a leader for much longer.
But people with little sense of history and young West Point patriots may believe such nonsense – including the stated but unfounded unity between America’s and the world’s peace and prosperity. And peace is extended from the U.S. – it is not something we create together.
”Regional aggression that goes unchecked – in southern Ukraine, the South China Sea, or anywhere else in the world – will ultimately impact our allies, and could draw in our military.”
Here Obama ignores the brilliant opportunity to reach out as a true world leader would to Russia and China at this important moment. And who can talk convincingly about what aggression is and how unacceptable it is?
”Here’s my bottom line: America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will.”
Again the leadership obsession – ”must always lead”. ”If we don’t, no one else will” – well, that could be a much much better world for all humankind! But President Obama believes that only the U.S. can lead.”
I can’t imagine a less likely proponent of change or a more Statist poseur, than Obama.
The US and the EU have been leaning on Bulgaria with success.
Bulgaria halts work on gas pipeline after US talks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27755032
Andy Murray and Gordon Brown are said to have criticized Salmond today for displaying the Saltire at last year’s Wimbledon. Why is that being raked up now?
KingofWelshNoir
A tip of the hat from yourself is praise indeed. Thanks.
@Mary: another example of the EU having lost the plot. Bulgaria will be poorer, and the pipeline will go through Turkey, or even Greece (maybe the newly empowered Greek left will tell the EU where to go if they try to interfere); Turkey can do what it likes.
If, by the same token, France cancels its aircraft carriers that would be another own goal for the EU. Good thing that The French Nationalists did well… I’m sure they’ll be putting pressure on France to resist EU (really US!) pressure.