BBC licence fee

[Fame Monster]

Which is a shame because it can produce some brilliant programming, and commercial television is for dullards (I don’t ever watch anything on ITV it’s so shit!).

For too long, however, it’s not been impartial in its news broadcasting and is too concerned with America.

I think, if or when the BBC does get privatised, it would be a good idea to issue state grants to production companies and for the production of culturally important documentaries and programmes rather than giving money direct to broadcasters.

I've read your posts before on your concerns about every programme becoming commercially focused Love Island/X Factor shite so I think that would be a good way of getting around it and also means that the state isn't directly funding politicised idiocy like the Vicar of Dibley.

 

[Ban-jani]

Except one group are mistreated in criminal justice, mental health settings and schools.

Aren’t working class white males doing the worst in education, most likely to commit suicide, become homeless, killed in police custody?

Dr King’s brilliant speeches will always be relevant. What seems to be happening now is not judge on character, it’s judge on skin colour and distort what’s happening to divide.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

Am thinking of having a crack at this book sometime soon, given the ongoing debate over white privilege, BLM and what went on at Millwall (and also apparently West Ham) yesterday.

This Amazon review certainly makes it look interesting:

Kurt Barling's background gives him certain unique advantages in tackling this complex and paradoxical subject. However, it is his personal experience, intellectual grasp and journalistic/academic background that lends the book its weight and objectivity.

The key to his thesis is stated directly early in the first part of the book: "anti-racists and racists have come to rely on each other to preserve a set of orthodoxies that impoverish us all." The remainder of the book is an attempt to see a way through this maze that will liberate us, While Barling stresses that racism is all too alive and well in the UK, he is equally concerned to show that there have been huge advances over recent decades, advances all too seldom recognised by the population at large and those in positions of authority, the media included, who use the term, without any real understanding, so that we are trapped in a mindset that blocks significant progress. "Race remains an idea with a vice-like grip on people's imaginations."

What Barling looks towards is that people pigeon-holed in ethnic categories can advance personally and that society can become more "inclusive". Much has been written about victims, and of course they exist, but when victimhood becomes a hard-wired state of mind then social optimism dwindles. Skin colour is not the only form of discrimination. Social deprivation cuts across colour and perhaps runs even deeper. Poverty and inequality are by no means ethnic preserves In his analysis Kurt Barling calls on the particular. From the notorious words of Enoch Powell to PC Blakelock and the Stephen Lawrence case. He does not for one moment gloss over the cruelties that people have suffered on account of the colour of their skin, but he balances this with the often ignored fact that victims come from all ethnic backgrounds and paradoxically include racists themselves.

For a journalist I find Barling's prose dense and sometimes seriously lacking in lucidity. I think the book could be much more readable, without any loss of argument. That is my sole reservation. It is a sincere, thought-provoking account that deserves a wide audience.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

I think, if or when the BBC does get privatised, it would be a good idea to issue state grants to production companies and for the production of culturally important documentaries and programmes rather than giving money direct to broadcasters.

I've read your posts before on your concerns about every programme becoming commercially focused Love Island/X Factor shite so I think that would be a good way of getting around it and also means that the state isn't directly funding politicised idiocy like the Vicar of Dibley.

Indeed. At its best, the BBC is world-leading. If the level of its best broadcasting can be given to other production companies through investment then maybe the dumbdowned commercial channels can improve their output too.

 

[Rascal]

I think, if or when the BBC does get privatised, it would be a good idea to issue state grants to production companies and for the production of culturally important documentaries and programmes rather than giving money direct to broadcasters.

I've read your posts before on your concerns about every programme becoming commercially focused Love Island/X Factor shite so I think that would be a good way of getting around it and also means that the state isn't directly funding politicised idiocy like the Vicar of Dibley.

Why on earth should the state give money to private companies. We already have far too much Socialism for the rich.

If people want the free market in TV then let the free market decide who funds what TV programs.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Why on earth should the state give money to private companies. We already have far too much Socialism for the rich.

If people want the free market in TV then let the free market decide who funds what TV programs.

Yu are missing the point mate - some people just have blind hatred for the BBC. As a result they don't want their money to pay for strictly but will see their money given to production companies for I'm a Celeb.......its all about the channels they air on

 

[Blue Hefner]

Aren’t working class white males doing the worst in education, most likely to commit suicide, become homeless, killed in police custody?

Dr King’s brilliant speeches will always be relevant. What seems to be happening now is not judge on character, it’s judge on skin colour and distort what’s happening to divide.

Thank you for the reply, but I can’t get into this. I simply haven’t got the energy. I’ve done it too many times

But, the idea that those campaigning for equality are the problem, is for the birds. They hated MLK when he was alive, same with Malcolm X. They treated them as thugs, beat them up and then ultimately killed them.

The white working class are not performing badly because of their ‘whiteness’. The system fucks them over. But they are convinced that the EU are the problem or that immigration is the problem, black people are now in the firing line.

They will do exactly what you have just done. Compare white working class outcomes to black outcomes. Rather than white middle class outcomes. They are told to punch down rather than up - it works every time, remarkable really.

I look forward to exchanges on other topics. Just not this one

 

[domalino]

The ‘I have a dream’ speech is parroted by the likes of Farage and Ben Bradley in an entirely see through attempt to label those campaigning for equality as the problem

People are judged by the colour of their skin and until that changes(I don’t think it ever will) then Dr King’s speech is still relevant

There's a brilliant book called A Beatiful and More Terrible History, which is all about how the story of the civil rights movement and it's leaders have been sanitised by history and distorted as a fable.

It would be great to sit some modern right wingers like Farage down with MLK's anti-capitalist and pro-immigrant speeches and see them squirm.

 

[5 Hit Gibbon]

To answer the OP, in my opinion it should be privatised. If people want the service they should have to subscribe to it or the BBC should start showing adverts. Having to buy a TV license is outdated and many people who want to watch TV don't even watch the BBC. Being faced with potential prosecution for not wanting to fund the BBC but watch other TV channels is ridiculous. It offends me how much people like Lineker get paid also out of what is essentially a tax.

 

[Ban-jani]

Thank you for the reply, but I can’t get into this. I simply haven’t got the energy. I’ve done it too many times

But, the idea that those campaigning for equality are the problem, is for the birds. They hated MLK when he was alive, same with Malcolm X. They treated them as thugs, beat them up and then ultimately killed them.

The white working class are not performing badly because of their ‘whiteness’. The system fucks them over. But they are convinced that the EU are the problem or that immigration is the problem, black people are now in the firing line.

They will do exactly what you have just done. Compare white working class outcomes to black outcomes. Rather than white middle class outcomes. They are told to punch down rather than up - it works every time, remarkable really.

I look forward to exchanges on other topics. Just not this one

Those campaigning already have equality and are chasing a ghost, that’s my point.

Malcolm was killed by the Nation of Islam, just to be accurate.

I never said they were but the fact they are doing worse than their black colleagues is pretty telling that maybe all this bluster isn’t needed?

Why are black people in the firing line? Where? The reason race is being debated is because it was picked up by certain people this year once George Floyd was killed... 3000 miles away in another country. Last year it wasn’t front page news.

To suggest leave voters have suddenly moved from not liking the EU to not liking black people is ridiculous and has no evidence.

Those chasing the ghost and pushing for social justice that we already have are the ones obsessed with race, most other people were happy to carry on living life without the ‘cause’.

I am white working class and I am frustrated at race being the hot topic all the time when there’s plenty of others suffering too, I’m not punching down at all.

I think people better get used to what happened at Millwall happening elsewhere, because a lot of people are fed up.