A Place to Stand

  
  A few days ago I was told by somebody who should know that BBC internal polling shows 82% of Scottish people get their political "news" overwhelmingly from the BBC. That explains a lot about what is wrong with Scottish politics, why we have 5 parties with barely a policy difference between them, all of whom voted specifically to destroy 58% of the Scottish economy over the next 9 years why this undeniable fact is not allowed to intrude into the campaign and how it is possible to keep parties who do not support this destruction out of debate. Orwell''s Ministry of Truth would be lost in admiration.

    Which brings us to the most recent BBC reply on the correspondence about their official decision to maintain that catastrophic warming is the single most accepted theory in all of science, despite admitting it to be a total lie and not being able to name even one scientist, worldwide, who is independent of government and supports it. Also that when the BBC say "balance" they mean "100s of thousands of hours devoted to propaganda lies and a total censorship of the truth".

   Colin's latest:

"I'm sorry if my response to your email was not as clear as it could have been. The point I was trying to make was that I think it is reasonable to rely upon the scientific opinion of organisations which are "independent" in the sense that they are outside of the framework of government. Such organisations may not be independent in terms of funding but can, I believe, be considered independent from government persuasion or influence which might materially affect their decisions or opinions. I appreciate that you don't share that view (or my understanding of the meaning of "independent") but I stand by my description of the Royal Society etc as "leading independent scientific bodies...outside the framework of government".


I have not responded to your broad allegations about the BBC because they fall outside the remit of the Editorial Complaints Unit. We are confined to considering potentially serious breaches of the standards expressed in the BBC's Editorial Guidelines about specific items broadcast or published by the BBC; it would therefore be inappropriate for me to address your general comments about the BBC.

If you wish to take your complaint about Making Scotland's Landscape further, then you can, as I have explained previously, ask the BBC Trust to conduct its own review of your complaint and the ECU's finding."    

To which I replied:

"Dear Colin,


That is OK I found your letter entirely clear. The assumption that "he who pays the piper calls the tune" is sufficiently well understood to be universally recognised. Your and presumably the BBC's re-definition of "independent" as "paid by but trying not to give the appearance of being under control" is indeed an example of the redefinition of words to mean their opposite previously described as "Newspeak". I believe a current advertising term is "astroturfing". You know perfectly well that organisations you describe as "independent" aren't.

Of course if the BBC were even trying to be consistent in their dishonesty you would never allow any suggestion that anybody funded by somebody else was not "independent" by your skewed definition. Well I guess we can put that down as just another instance of the highest standard of honesty to which the BBC aspire as this entirely gratuitous dig at anybody who gets funds from a tobacco company shows http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/184253.stm
You made a major issue of having the broad support of "independent" scientists for your propaganda position and have quite clearly proven that you are unable to name one single such scientist anywhere in the world who supports the BBC's warming claims or even anything remotely close to them.

On your decision not to defend against the accusation that the BBC have continuously lied and censored to promote war crimes, genocide and worse atrocities. As pointed out the BBC have already guaranteed to promptly answer specific accusations, were it possible in May 2006. Every day since, at latest July, simply reinforces the proof that the entire BBC are wholly corrupt, racist, genocidal, child raping Nazis with absolutely no trace of honesty, integrity or human decency. You had the option to stop piling up the proof and have chosen not to.

Wishing you good health.
**********************************
No reply to that.

   Which puts in perspective Fox News firing of Glenn Beck of whom Sarah Palin said "Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House". The apparent reason for his firing is because of pressure from advertisers - the Guardian assures us that it happened  "after advertisers and even viewers started staying away in droves". The "even viewers" is, as normal, a lie for though viewing figures had fallen slightly from their peak (as one expects with peaks) he was still one of the 3 most popular TV news figures. Whether it really was advertisers, which ones and whether they were being pressured in turn must remain a mystery.


   James Delingpole explains why firing Beck is a worrying sign for the US media (and strong proof that Fox News, while denounced by America's big statists as "right wing" is not so in any objective terms, it is just that it is a bit less censored than most of the media.

  By comparison in Britain people like Beck or Ann Coulter never get airtime to be fired from in the first place - anybody getting on our airwaves has to be vetted first even if it means crap programmes..
 
  I commented on Dellers quoting him

"we have no real equivalent of Beck and we could do with one. One of the reasons this country is so totally screwed at the moment is because of the shocking political apathy and ignorance of almost everyone outside Westminster and the media village: everyone has a vague sense that things are wrong, but almost no one has the vocabulary or ideological base to articulate what the problem is"


Because in Britain we don't have a serious free media. I am told that the BBC have found that 82% of people in Scotland get almost all their "news" from the BBC (I assume it is similar but perhaps a little less in England). Bear in mind that C4 is also a government quango, paid by a slightly differnet sort of tax on ITV & that ITV itself is heavily regulated to ensure it doesn't stray from the "balanced" BBC pravda.

Imagine what America would be like if 90% of their media was PBS and that 90% felt less reason to report accurately than PBS already does because there was no competition.

Murdoch may have folded on government demands they censor Beck but at least they initially made the attempt.

BBC delenda est.

“The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being” - Thomas Jefferson

"“The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses” - Validimir Illich

Does anybody doubt which one the BBC is more aligned with?