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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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IndigoPrime

Too late by then. They derailed it during the IVs, at which point there was still a slender chance something could be salvaged from the wreckage. By the time the party then came to support it, trust was gone, people were bored and even a chunk of Remainers just wanted Brexit done. (Personally, I wish Labour had thrown its weight behind CM2 or hijacked the first major post-Brexit LD policy of "single market at the least". Alas.)

milstar

Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

Jim_Campbell

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The Legendary Shark


Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 12 October, 2021, 11:36:24 PM
Quote from: milstar on 12 October, 2021, 08:52:17 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/12/sally-rooney-beautiful-world-where-are-you-israeli-publisher-hebrew



Point...?

"Sally Rooney has turned down an offer from the Israeli publisher that translated her two previous novels into Hebrew, due to her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict."

Seems like a political act to me, and this is the Political Thread...
[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




CalHab

Meanwhile, the UK government's Coronavirus response is deemed the worst public health failure in history and it barely gets traction in the news cycle. I understand the coronavirus fatigue, but tens of thousands dying unnecessarily as a result of poor decisions seems kind of important.

Funt Solo

Quote from: CalHab on 13 October, 2021, 09:42:40 AM
Meanwhile, the UK government's Coronavirus response is deemed the worst public health failure in history and it barely gets traction in the news cycle. I understand the coronavirus fatigue, but tens of thousands dying unnecessarily as a result of poor decisions seems kind of important.

Right. Time has moved on and nobody has the energy to care - partly because we all know that the government would be in charge of investigating itself, so the result would be a finding that they didn't do badly after all.

Like, Priti Patel was found to be a bully. Result: keeps her job with the absolute backing and support of Boris "The Johnson" Johnson.

Or, the Tories hire a racist non-white man to write a report finding that there's no institutional racism in the UK, just lazy black people. You think I'm exaggerating, but go and read a summary.

Or - China imprisons, enslaves and sterilizes an entire ethnic region and then sells us the by-products (hair and jeans), and what do a bunch of us do? Spend our entire time metaphorically wanking ourselves silly over conspiracy theories about a secret elite who are trying to control our lives. While wearing jeans. That's the thing that irritates me the most about the foil hats - there are *real* conspiracies - you don't need to make them up.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

milstar

Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 October, 2021, 11:17:30 PM
Quote from: CalHab on 13 October, 2021, 09:42:40 AM
Or - China imprisons, enslaves and sterilizes an entire ethnic region and then sells us the by-products (hair and jeans), and what do a bunch of us do?

Yes, well, they have nearly every animal on their menu. Plus, they'll start banning shows with effeminate men. What a bloody country.
Reyt, you lot. Shut up, belt up, 'n if ye can't see t' bloody exit, ye must be bloody blind.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 October, 2021, 11:17:30 PMThat's the thing that irritates me the most about the foil hats - there are *real* conspiracies - you don't need to make them up.

With you all the way.  Conspiracy theorists are a boon to the real powers-that-be, who fuck large swathes of people over in plain sight while the would-be activists are off chasing phantoms.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Tjm86

Quote from: Funt Solo on 18 October, 2021, 11:17:30 PM
That's the thing that irritates me the most about the foil hats - there are *real* conspiracies - you don't need to make them up.

Personally I've always subscribed to Terry Pratchett's Theory of Government Conspiracies.  It's a fascinating little mine field though. 

There is a school of thought that posits the weaponisation of the term by the CIA during the Warren Commission debates.  Looking at the key document that purports to prove this though it is one possible interpretation rather than unequivocal evidence.

Arguably though the use of 'conspiracy theories' or 'alternative facts' has taken on a life of its own in recent years.  Propaganda, disinformation, stoking dissent or insurrection ... there are not many nations across the globe that can be said to be completely innocent in these regards.  The internet seems to have managed to elevate it to a whole new level of sophistication though.

Issues around press ownership and editorial bias have not helped either.  I find myself baffled by accusations of left-wing bias against the BBC when their reporting of strikes and union action is so negative as a rule.  Then again five minutes of the Mail or Express is enough to make me want to wash my brain out with bleach!

I guess the real problem is discerning between what we suspect and what we can prove.  How much of this is down to deliberate manipulation and how much to simply letting people's imagination run away with them?  How much is delusion and how much is justifiable suspicion?

As Sir T put it:  "The truth is out there, but lies are in your head ..."

IndigoPrime

The BBC's main issue is one of resource. People forget how much the corporation's been cut. And the public want it cut further by eradicating the licence fee, which would force content to be skewed towards advertisers and/or subscribers. The logical result of that is a much smaller and more populist BBC that would be far worse at offering balance, news and political programming (not to mention any niche fare, whether that's radio or children's programming).

Very much a "careful what you wish for".

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 19 October, 2021, 10:46:31 AM
The BBC's main issue is one of resource.

...And the revolving door between Conservative Central Office and senior positions in their news organisation, I'd suggest.
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Tjm86

I guess this would be something for a whole new thread of itself but my rather fragmented memory of my youth in the UK [late 77 to early-is 80's] suggests that the Beeb offered quite a varied diet.  Compared to these days where it seems to revolve around Strictly and associated reality shows ... The less said about it's news offerings the better.

My problem is my basis of comparison.  My old man only ever got a TV when either the olympics or the commonwealth games were on.  So there are obvious gaps there.  Plus the early seventies that was Iranian television and the early eighties that was America Forces Network / German TV, except at school.

I do however think that it is a little unfair to single out the BBC when the ownership of the rest of the British media leaves us with serious questions about the impartiality of the information we are presented with.

Sharkey may be at the more extreme end of views on this matter but it may well be worth reconsidering how our favourite Dredd writer has addressed this issue down through the years ...

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Quote from: Tjm86 on 19 October, 2021, 09:38:21 PM
I do however think that it is a little unfair to single out the BBC when the ownership of the rest of the British media leaves us with serious questions about the impartiality of the information we are presented with.

The owners of the rest of British Media can pay for all the bias and Tory propaganda they like, I do however think it is a little unfair when the BBC demands ~£120 a year from me for it.
You may quote me on that.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Tjm86 on 19 October, 2021, 09:38:21 PM
I do however think that it is a little unfair to single out the BBC when the ownership of the rest of the British media leaves us with serious questions about the impartiality of the information we are presented with.

Not really. I'm an instinctive supporter of the BBC, since I'm generally in favour of the idea of a public service broadcaster as a principle, but they have form for this going back to the 80s. The rushes of the disorder at Orgreave, for example, clearly showed that the BBC cut the disorder from the miners to appear before the police mounted a cavalry charge against them, when the exact opposite was what actually happened.

Fast forward to stuff like David Kelley, and we see an organisation cowed by nothing less than government intimidation, followed by the 2010s where we see the still-ongoing revolving door between the Tory establishment and senior positions in their news organisation and we have a systemic problem that renders the BBC news entirely untrustworthy.

Right now, we have flagship BBC news programmes talking about how we deal with issues in the "post-pandemic era" when we're right in the middle of a fucking pandemic with the worst case rates in Europe. They're literally capitulating to the government's desire to define the news agenda and failing in their most basic responsibilities as a public service broadcaster.
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IndigoPrime

There's something broken in the mainstream news arm. Part of that stems from the BBC's absurd reading of 'balance', which isn't only a BBC thing, but seeks to always provide the other side of an argument. The snag is the BBC does this on even footing, rather than on scientific balance. (We see this on things like climate change, where the BBC will create a deliberately combative set-up with someone who's trying to stop humanity from wiping itself out and put them against a sceptic who has well below 5% of the scientific community behind them.)

What's curious is this doesn't typically extend to long-form investigative reporting. While imperfect, shows like Panrorama are still doing good work. But, yes, the main news org needs starting from scratch. The BBC as a whole, though, needs safeguarding. Alas, I suspect it will be a UK PBS within 20 years—perhaps sooner. (One counterpoint here might be the BBC having the balls to attack the Tories where it hurts. If the licence fee is threatened, the BBC says: "Fine. Then we scrap things that aren't profitable, such as the World Service and Radio 4." Then the Tories might suddenly shift to "you can keep the fee, but we're watching you" again.)