Tuning in to Today on Radio 4 always requires a strong stomach although I normally steel myself and do it to keep an eye on what the BBC gets up to but even I was left queasy at an item ran around 6.50am on the poetry of Osama Bin Laden. Some left wing US academic was invited on to read out an example of the ramblings of the Al Queda leader to which James Naughtie intoned “powerful stuff”. Yeah. This was a mutual love-in about the alleged poetical skills of the world’s most evil terrorist. However don’t despair because just before 7am the BBC ran a trailer for a programme it is running next week entitled “Is Al Queda winning”?
I know we go on about it day in day out here but really when you stop and just reflect, the problem with this State Broadcaster is enormous. It’s not just the left wing bias it exudes at every opportunity but it is more to do with the systemic undermining of just about every value we hold dear via the BBC 24/7 news cycle. Just imagine you are the family of a British soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan and you hit the dial only to have the BBC churn out programmes extolling the merits of Bin Laden and the success of Al Queda. What does this do for your moral? The drip drip drip of poison from the BBC is killing our country. Clearly the removal of the license tax is vital since that will at least take away the financial backing required for 24/7 broadcasting toxicity but in the meantime we do provide an important function here trying to document and then hold the rotten BBC to account. During WW2, do you think they would have ran an item on the literary skills of Hitler. After all, he loved animals, was vegetarian and despised Christianity so he really was their kind of guy back then…but they held back. Now, they just can’t resist hailing our enemies. Scum.
“The sole occupation of Humanities departments is essentially to develop the current leftist ‘narrative'”
Have you been to a university in the past 20 years?
We all live with the result of todays university education..mindless leftist cant.
Yes, yes, but have you been to a university recently? Sat in on any seminars? Read any papers?
Anonymous | 25.09.08 – 5:48 pm | #
I Googled again, this time using Google.co.uk….and got exactly the same results. The BBC does not mention the threat. You can search the BBC website itself and see for yourself. There were search results on Google which mention both the threat and the BBC, but they weren’t from the BBC. Maybe you got confused with that.
And I stand firmly with my original point about the BBC using the word “militants”. Their choice of term, plus the fact that they have an explicit POLICY not to use the word “terrorist”, says it all. Yes, it matters what term is used. They are deliberately trying not to demonize Islamic terrorists for reasons I can only assume have to do with not wanting to offend any Muslim readers who happen to think that killing in the name of Islam is justified.
Let me put it another way. How would you feel about the BBC using the word “fetishists” to describe child rapists, so as not to offend pedophiles?
As for the universities – sure, they are hotbeds of leftism and I say that without any doubt whatsoever. No, they haven’t moved on much from the 70’s. Leftist liberal mindsets prevail, just like at the BBC and just like universities in all Western countries, America being a good example.
Maybe students give less of a crap about politics now than they did 20/30 years ago, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t coming out of their educations with a left-leaning mindset. I didn’t go to university, but I knew a hell of a lot of students back in my late teens/early 20’s and they all had a leftist world view, particularly when it came to authority, history, politics, economics and the subject of identity (race, gender, class etc)
So, would someone fighting for a “just” cause using violent methods still be a terrorist? Or would they be a militant? Or would they be a freedom fighter?
Depends, doesn’t it.
But what on?
Anonymous | 25.09.08 – 7:54 pm | #
I have to take issue with this bullshit. No, using violent methods in a just cause is not necessarily “terrorism”. The difference lies in whether or not you are deliberately targeting and murdering innocent civilians for a political cause. THAT is terrorism. Fighting a just war in which you do everything you can to avoid civilian casualties is not terrorism. Especially when that just cause is unseating someone who is a threat to millions of lives.
And you really believe that universities aren’t still bastions of leftism? I truly, truly beg to differ:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/736686/the-universities-witchhunt-against-the-jews.thtml
So you’re basing your opinions universities being full of “leftists” having never been to university yourself. This, while not wholly invalidating your view, damages it slightly.
And to back it up you quote a piece by the always balanced and reasonable Melanie Phillips. The fact is, however, that the UCU have little influence.
My classes at university were taught by professors who generally seemed to be coming from the right. Likewise, the student base seemed to be more right than left. My British politics seminar, out of 12, eight of us supported the Iraq war.
There’s a socialist workers stand outside the union, but they are universally ignored by students and faculty alike.
It ain’t 1968, anymore, believe me.
They are deliberately trying not to demonize Islamic terrorists for reasons I can only assume have to do with not wanting to offend any Muslim readers who happen to think that killing in the name of Islam is justified.
Let me put it another way. How would you feel about the BBC using the word “fetishists” to describe child rapists, so as not to offend pedophiles?
It’s not the job of the BBC to demonize terrorists. It is the BBC’s job to report their actions, and let the viewer/reader judge them.
For your example I don’t think you can compare a child rapist and a “fetishist”. A militant and a terrorist are, however, much more similar.
Anonymous | 26.09.08 – 12:43 am | #
I’m basic my view of university on the fact that the bulk of anything academic I’ve ever read that could potentially fall either left or right, falls to the left. And also that while I’ve heard literally hundreds of people complain that universities in general (not just yours) are dominated by the leftist mindset (and give good reason), I’ve never heard anyone say the opposite. Never. Find me one person who complains that universities are “too right wing”.
There exist thousands of articles online which describe and theorize about the leftist hegemony in universities, but none which describe a right wing hegemony.
Sure, Melanie Phillips is balanced and reasonable – she’s objective. And she is by no means the only person who’s ever written on the subject.
In certainly ain’t 1968, but universities are still chock full of the kind of pro-Marxist nonsense and world view which started to dominate them in the 50’s.
Anonymous | 26.09.08 – 12:47 am | #
Anon, you are so full of sh*t at this point that I see no reason to continue to be polite to you. It’s not the job of the BBC to “demonize terrorists” but it certainly is NOT the job of the BBC to trivialize their undeniable evil by calling them “militants”, a term which was freely used to describe socialists in the UK during the 80’s, for example.
See here, the BBC’s search results for “Hatton Militant”.
http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?uri=%2F&scope=all&go=toolbar&q=hatton+militant
Note their description of Derek Hatton as “the former Militant boss of Liverpool council”. And you think the words “militant” and “terrorist” are so much closer in meaning than “fetishist” and “pedophile”?
Time out, son! This is getting ridiculous!
By the way, if you’d like to get into a discussion regarding my definition of the word “evil” I’d be very happy to oblige.
anon…worked up until dec at manchester uni for 19 years…so pretty qualified to state that the place was crawling with che loving islamist appeasing little idiots.
Ah, Manchester. Fair enough. You’re probably right, unis are still relatively left wing (perhaps people on the left are just more intelligent? – Oh, come on, I’m fucking kidding), but, I’d argue, far less than they used to be. Which is a good thing. Always got to read to things different from your own view – a reason I frequent this blog.
As for the militant/terrorist thing, I see your point, and I retract what I said re: paedo/fetish. I think, however, militant has evolved in its meaning. For me, a person who doesn’t remember the ‘militancy’ of trade unions in the 70s/80s, militant has always meant a political organisation going for change via violent means. If you give militant a broader definition, more harmless definition then it can be seen to be softer than terrorist.
As for academic trends, the pendulum has swung far away from Marxist interpretations. The most popular historians today come from the right (Ferguson, Roberts et al) and, in general, Marxism has become discredited as a means of understanding certain issues.
Perhaps ‘Today’ can add this to another area of its artistic appreciation:
“Cleric Omar Bakri’s daughter is a pole dancer”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3083855/Cleric-Omar-Bakris-daughter-is-a-pole-dancer.html