Defunding the BBC an Idea Whose Time Has Come
Fri 7:44 pm +01:00, 12 Jun 2020
12 June, 2020 by Stephen Lendman
The UK owned and controlled BBC operates as a propaganda service.
It features state-approved content on major domestic and geopolitical issues, suppressing what Brits and others following its broadcasts have a right to know.
Watching television in Britain requires paying for a license, even if only watch by computer, mobile phone, or other device.
The current cost is about $200 annually in US dollars for color television set owners, around one-third this amount if watch on black and white sets alone.
Money raised is used mainly to fund BBC propaganda. What I don’t watch and wouldn’t if lived in Britain I’d have to pay for anyway if there.
It’s one of countless examples of transferring wealth from ordinary people to privileged ones in the West.
A campaign to defund the BBC in Britain struck a nerve, tens of thousands supporting a Twitter campaign “in the last 24 hours,” alone, the UK Express reported on June 8.
The campaign is about unacceptable bias. It should also be about Brits with devices able to receive its propaganda having to pay for it even if don’t watch.
Campaign founder James Yucel, a UK student, said he’s fed up with how it operates. So he “founded this movement to defund the BBC. It’s time,” he stressed, adding:
“The BBC can’t ignore the people forever. This isn’t just a campaign anymore. This is a movement.”
“Ultimately, the BBC is not impartial. They regularly refuse to introduce guests with a political background, and they edit the footage to make the government look worse than they actually are.”
Brits “have had enough really. It’s up to all of you to share the hashtag to defund the BBC.”
Defunding is a good start, but way inadequate. Replacing it with viewer/listener supported independent media should come next — real news, information and analysis instead of state approved propaganda.
The British Broadcasting Company (BBC or Beeb) has been around since its 1922 founding, nearly a century of exclusively serving state and monied interests over journalism the way it should be.
Its first general manager John Reith infamously said the establishment “know(s) they can trust us not to be really impartial.”
How can it be when its management is appointed by UK ruling authorities to assure what’s reported serves their interests.
From inception to today, the public trust was and continues to be betrayed, truth and full disclosure in reporting never how the beeb operates — why its reports make painful viewing and listening.
Long ago it was labeled the British Falsehood Corporation for being a reliable government and business partner.
Its claim about “honesty, integrity (being) what the BBC stands for, free from political influence and commercial pressure” is utter rubbish.
Last December, independent Media Lens explained that staff of establishment media like the BBC aren’t told in so many words what’s acceptable or unacceptable to report.
They know without being told. Political criticism in support of one party over another on certain issues is OK — not disagreement with fundamental state policy, notably not on geopolitical issues.
When Britain goes to war with the US as an imperial junior partner, the BBC marches in lockstep like other establishment media — supporting the homeland agenda against targeted nations, no matter the illegality of preemptive wars.
Victimized nations threatening no one are considered guilty of imperial crimes against them, notably mass slaughter of civilians by Pentagon and RAF warplanes, along with atrocities committed by US/UK-supported jihadists.
In its books and numerous alerts, Media Lens explained that it documented volumes of evidence, “showing that BBC News has systematically presented ‘news’ and commentary from a skewed perspective that strongly favors state and corporate power” over truth and full disclosure.
The beeb consistently lies about nations attacked by the US, Britain, and their imperial allies.
It lied about Iraqi WMDs that didn’t exist in supporting the rape and destruction of the country.
If fronted for Obama regime/UK preemptive wars on Libya and Syria over their sovereign independence, not for any threat they posed.
It’s been on the wrong side of US war on Afghanistan and Yemen, both launched preemptively in October 2001.
It’s hostile toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela and North Korea — nations waging peace, not war.
Partially for power elite interests is longstanding BBC policy, including one-sided support for apartheid Israel over long-suffering Palestinians.
The BBC was part of the anti-Jeremy Corbyn campaign because of his support for peace, equity and justice over government serving privileged interests exclusively.
Media Lens called his Labor Party leadership and candidacy for prime minister last year “an almost unique opportunity to vote for an opponent of (Britain’s) worst moral (and legal) crimes in modern times.”
A BBC included hugely biased media campaign against him based on Big Lies and slander gave Boris Johnson’s Tories a landslide victory — dirty business as usual maintaining power over a chance for peace and government serving all Brits equitably.
The BBC and other UK establishment media match the worst of their US counterparts — with an English accent.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked that both countries are separated by a common language.
On matters of war and peace and privilege over the public welfare, their language may differ but their unacceptable policies are virtually identical.
The same goes for their establishment media, including the BBC, operating as mouthpieces for wealth and power interests exclusively.
VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
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Source: https://stephenlendman.org/2020/06/defunding-the-bbc-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/
