We have to pay this in the UK. The BBC is inextricably linked with supporting the rise of the far right, and Brexit.
Considering now this: encouraging people to not pay, to not use the BBC, and deny the UK govt (specifically the right wing Conservatives, but obvs, any party can mis-use this “trusted” mouthpiece).
Whatdja thinks?
I think you’re going to need to support your assertions a little more if you want to get some serious action going.
admittedly American perspective here, and I’m sure I’m not seeing and hearing everything you are, but damn the BBC seems sane compared to the commercial and overtly biased dreck we have stateside. I enjoy BBC entertainment programming and listen to BBC world news. nice to get another perspective on things. Over time i have noticed a slight bias even in the mostly neutral stuff: specifically a condescending tone towards ethic groups and foreigners behind a layer of “nice” that i can’t help but feel is a sort of lingering colonial paternalism. I’m not seeing or hearing pro brexit stuff tho.
Just watch the BBC series the Bodyguard for a pretty clear fear mongering Islamophobic agenda with steamy sex scenes between emotionally complex caucasians.
Heh that is EXACTLY what the BBC is reliant on.
Yesterday they gave a clean and clear 15 minute segment to Steve Bannon on Radio.
“Question Time”, a supposedly assiduous political type show, has been caught repeatedly bringing on the same faces to be crowdspeople, just like … Trump’s team.
They have consistently given a positive platform to Brexit.
Make no mistake - the BBC is a big and diverse organisation, but the political faction is following the Brexit route. They’re writing non-scare Brexit stories and stories about dams bursting, when in reality the politics are collapsing cataclysmically.
I do have to say though, that as the awareness of campaign fiddling, and critically, Boris’s parliamentary support faltering, they did publish this today in the wake of Mark Carney (basically head of the Treasury) talking today:
tldr (ish)
This is pre-brexit, so search for euroscepticism.
“There is a very simple test,” said Vikram. “Is it about bored, tired people having sex?”
“Yes,” said the convert, surprised.
"Then it’s western.
G. Willow Wilson, Alif The Unseen
Yeah what the Beeb actually does is whatever the government of the time wishes. They lost any sense of independence some 10-15 years ago.
Politically, they’re a propaganda tool, useful precisely because most people think they’re just “nice”.
The current administration is hard right, so the BBC elements and opportunistic producers / editors / graphic artists (see below for an interesting depiction of Bannon / BJ) can make a “savvy” decision to promote themselves by promoting the extreme right - a classic way in a pre-autocratic environment to generate a future glittering career, assuming the horse you back successfully tramples society.
You see, it isn’t necessarily a corporate edict. It’s knowing how to act, and lacking the ethical compass to fight the temptation off.
Ok check this piece, both presence and language. See if anything strikes you.
By Laurence PeterBBC News
Image caption The reinforced concrete was so massive that some structures survived the Nazis’ demolition work
Remote, hidden in dense forest, protected by nearby lakes and marshes - the Wolf’s Lair in Poland was a secure headquarters for Adolf Hitler in World War Two.
So much so, that the Nazi dictator spent 850 days at the vast, secret complex in 1941-1944, before withdrawing to his Berlin bunker.
Now the Polish state’s Srokowo Forest District, which manages the site, is giving the Wolf’s Lair a big makeover to pull in more tourists.
The district’s spokesman Sebastian Trapik told the BBC that the foresters were “making every effort” to maintain “due seriousness and respect for historical truth” at the crumbling complex.
But critics argue that insensitive “attractions”, such as amateurish re-enactments with people wearing Nazi uniforms, could turn it into a sort of ghoulish “Disneyland”.
All the Germans’ reinforced concrete bunkers, minefields and camouflage were no protection against the mutinous officers who tried to kill Hitler at the Wolf’s Lair on 20 July 1944.
The assassination plot makes the site all the more fascinating for visitors today.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionMussolini and Hitler inspect the wreckage of the conference room after the bomb
Hitler survived the briefcase bomb with only light injuries, mainly thanks to a massive oak conference table.
The bomb killed four - three of them officers - and injured more than 20. The German army plotters, led by Col Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, were quickly arrested and executed.
Mr Trapik says a “priority” at the site now is to reconstruct the scene of the bombing, including life-size “symbolic figures depicting those present at the time”.
The Nazis detonated massive explosive charges to demolish the dozens of bunkers and other installations as the Soviet Red Army advanced in January 1945.
For decades, in communist Poland, the forest grew back in the ruins and moss spread over the giant concrete blocks.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionWolf’s Lair, August 1941: Hitler © and Mussolini (2nd L) study maps of the Russian front
The site’s managers are now improving tourist facilities, but such efforts would backfire if they encouraged neo-Nazi pilgrimages.
There are new information panels, a new car park and entrance building, and plans to build a hotel and restaurant.
A free app guides visitors round the site and they can watch a film about the Nazi HQ’s history. Some military equipment is also on show.
Nearly 300,000 tourists visit every year, most of them Poles and Germans. The basic entrance fee is 15 zloty (£3.16; $4).
Historical re-enactments are popular now in Poland, but having actors posing in Nazi uniforms would be even more controversial than the static Nazi figures envisaged by Mr Trapik.
A leading Polish historian of the war, Prof Pawel Machcewicz, said such a move would be “insane and outrageous”.
He told the BBC that “the scars left by the war should be preserved and presented as a lesson, a warning”.
“Exhibitions should explain the history, contextualise the place, but not completely overshadow it.”
Mr Trapik says there are plans for historical re-enactments, starting this summer with a staging of Operation “Ostra Brama”, when the Polish Home Army defeated the German Wehrmacht in Vilnius in 1944.
That Polish victory was short-lived, as Soviet forces sweeping westward soon began imposing a communist terror.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionThe Allies only discovered the Wolf’s Lair after Hitler had abandoned it
The BBC’s Jim Todd writes:
Visiting the Wolf’s Lair gives a chilling insight into the German war machine. The vast bunkers were constructed above-ground with concrete walls 8m (26ft) thick - so solid that the SS were unable to demolish them in 1945, despite using tons of dynamite.
Some lie on their side, others are more or less intact, though with large cracks. Tourists can go inside them, and walk among the barracks, in conditions a little less health and safety-conscious than British holidaymakers might find normal.
Information boards are sparse and there is not much explanation in English.
Trees and shrubs grow out of some bunkers, and bits of iron stick out of the forest paths in places.
Of the building where Hitler survived the assassination attempt, only the concrete floor remains. It seems extraordinary - and rather an unreal experience - to stand on the spot where the momentous event happened.
The Wolf’s Lair was where the Nazis took notorious decisions on the Holocaust and the slaughter of civilians in Warsaw, so history must be presented there sensitively, out of respect for the many victims, Prof Machcewicz argued.
Media captionSilent film shows the intense fighting at Stalingrad in 1942-43
He warned against creating “a moribund Disneyland, which could promote a sort of fascination with Nazi Germany and Hitler”.
Prof Machcewicz described the Polish trend for historical re-enactments as “morally dubious”. They have included:
The modern presentation of painful history raises challenging issues of taste and morality. Young visitors are further removed from those dark events, so history needs to be made real and accessible for them.
The Wolf’s Lair is an extraordinary place, seen by Poles as a scar on the beautiful Masurian landscape. But gimmicks to entertain tourists risk making a mockery of Poland’s wartime suffering.
Compare the language:
20 July 2019
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionAngela Merkel visited an exhibit in Berlin in July on anti-Nazi conspirator Claus von Stauffenberg
German Chancellor Angela Markel has used the 75th anniversary of the most famous plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler to call on citizens to counter rising right-wing extremism.
Ms Merkel thanked the German officer, Claus von Stauffenberg, and other plotters who tried in 1944 to kill the Nazi dictator with a briefcase bomb.
Stauffenberg and some 200 co-conspirators were caught and executed.
Mrs Merkel urged people to join programmes for strengthening democracy.
“This day is a reminder to us, not only of those who acted on July 20, but also of everyone who stood up against Nazi rule,” she said in her weekly video podcast.
“We are likewise obliged today to oppose all tendencies that seek to destroy democracy. That includes right-wing extremism.”
The right-wing party Alternative for Germany in May became the country’s largest opposition party in parliament with an anti-immigrant and nationalist agenda.
In recent years there has been a rise in far-right attacks, including the murder of a German politician, whose death prosecutors believe was politically motivated and carried out by assassins with neo-Nazi extremist links.
According to government figures, there are 24,000 right-wing extremists in Germany. Nearly 13,000 are believed to have a tendency to violence.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionCount Claus von Stauffenberg pictured with his children in 1940
The German colonel was 36 years old when he tried to kill Adolf Hilter during a meeting at the Nazi leader’s secret headquarters - called the Wolf’s Lair - in a forest in East Prussia.
Hitler survived the assassination attempt with minor injuries after someone had moved the bomb, concealed in a briefcase, next to a heavy table leg, deflecting much of the explosion.
Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators were branded as cowards and traitors, and executed within hours. Their plot to seize control of the regime and make peace with Western allies to end World War II went relatively unrecognised for decades.
The plot, known as Operation Valkyrie, came back to prominence with the 2008 film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise as the former count attempting to over-throw Hitler’s Nazi regime.
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