Scottish Independence v. Further devolution, or just convoluted lies?

[Vurtual]

...Note I said the BBC not the BBC and the government cos the latter get regular kickings from Auntie no matter which stripe they happen to be from...

The recent performance of the BBC news since hutton and sexing up has been to almost completely roll over and do what the current government wants - where before that, there was a semblance of investigative journalism, now they seem not much better than pravda to me. Understandably i suppose given the threat of cutting the license coming regualrly from politicians. Even before that the BBC have always had obvious in-built establishment bias (being a key part of it - it's a class thing: most/all of those top jobs go to the same eton-types as run the government/banks/etc).

Just look at the recent record on the privatisation of the NHS - the bbc has hardly mentioned that it's already been effectively privatsed in the HSC act 2012 (let alone the TTIP); and made scant mention of the many campaigns and protest marches which have been trying to highlight this (even virtually ignoring manchester's biggest ever march to a tory conference about it). Maybe something to do with the number of people in the BBC upper echelons who have known links to private healthcare firms (like outgoing tory cunt chris patten for one).

I really don't think i'm imagining the bbc's bias/untrustworthiness - i just read multiple news sources and compare and it seems obvious. The bias of the 'normal' media is another beast: i'd say it's mostly naturally biased towards capitalist politics because to own a big newspaper means you have similar interests to the capitalist class. I agree all news is biased, which is fine if the biases are right in the open; but some sources like the bbc pretend to have no bias (and people believe it), and that cannot be true.

To go against my above waffle: There was an excellent bit of reporting last night on BBC2 - This World telling some of the truth about Rwanda and Paul Kagame (basically almost the reverse of what most people believe happened). That was really good and frank and well worth a watch. The problem is i was reading about that 15 years ago, and the people who i read were castigated by many of the western media as 'genocide deniers' - for those decades, while it was convenient for us to let kagame's RPF kill 5 million people in congo to keep the coltan flowing for all our mobile phones and laptops, the bbc remained effectively silent and so were complicit in helping ignore it.

EDIT: (just reread that and i might have waffled off on a tangent not much to do with what you said, as is my wont - sorry bout that (i talk like that irl too)

 

[Shambles]

One of the projects we had back in my *ahem* media studies (yes, I know ) days was on the BBC Charter issue. Due to the fact I was being paid in drugs to do other peoples courseworks cos I was all clever like and "they" were all drugged up and got drugs to spare to pay their way through (I was all of 15 at the time surrounded by "bigger boys" in my defence) I ended up arguing both sides at length several times over. Despite my initial beliefs I came out in favour of the Charter and associated Licence Fee in my personal case after looking into the whole thing quite extensively. It's easy to criticise, far harder to come up with a viable alternative which would actually be an improvement.

Again, I'd suggest you stop being sucked into "collective punishment" arguments and focus on individual cases. As you point out yourself, their are (I'd argue many, many) cases where the BBC provides excellent coverage - often very much "against the man" in whatever capacity "the man" happens to reside. In other cases they pander to it. This is no way to form a blanket argument. Pick out individual cases. Show me another system where things like Welsh and Gaelic language programming would be funded to exist. Show me another set-up where arts coverage would exist to such an extent. Or any number of cases. Religion is another one - I can't stand it but it must be allowed to exist by law (along with regional language and even the most obscure of arts coverage and so forth) with the BBC model.

You seem to think everybody besides yourself is so stupid as to simply believe every word said by people you disagree with on the BBC - moreover too stupid to agree with the people you agree with on the BBC. Again, take individual cases and balance against the wider picture. Y'know what ultimately made the case for me? The fact that without the BBC it's all commercial. Every single station along with all the web stuffs they do. All of that stuff - both "good" and "bad" - would be yet another ITV, C4 or Dave. Yes they do the odd decent programme. They do not - and can not - provide the things that only the Beeb can provide due to its priveliged position though. As mass-media goes, the Beeb is a darn sight better than the alternative I'd argue.

 

[Sammy G]

It's a state broadcaster, Vurtual. It's not there to reveal 'the truth' to 'the people'. Shit just ain't like that, y'know?

Have a beer.

 

[gannetsarewe]

This is meant to be about Scottish independence not state broadcaster independence or the lack of both. So what next devo max or armed struggle?

 

[Sammy G]

Vurtual believes the result of the referendum was solely down to the influence of The Man and His crooked organ.

 

[gannetsarewe]

I know but it could be worse, we still have people over here on the losing side, still fighting the Tan War.

 

[Vurtual]

Sorry thread. Here's some good shit on what could have been and where now for scotland from bella caledonia

Yes lost the referendum but won the argument. No won the battle but will lose the war. That is the conventional wisdom of the independence cause. It would be a mistake, I would suggest, to take too much comfort from that. As the owl is the symbol of wisdom when she flies now in this Autumnal dusk in Scotland what does she see? Is it a “gloomy picture”? Or, to misquote the rogue US Republican senator Ron Paul, is “truth really treason in an empire of lies”?

When it came to the crunch the Better Together message was all about money and it was, I think, a mistake for Yes to “out-money” them. As far as democracy is concerned markets are indicators of nothing and prices are not reliable signals. They could be if we had regulated markets and a balanced media, but we do not. What we have is a state embedded press and this is a form of information fraud just as explicitly as the state bail-out of corrupt financial corporations is embedded fraud. Both the media and the markets have made irregularity normal.

...

The Yes campaign could have argued that we simply lose the banks (RBS, BofS etc) and such financial gloomers as Standard Life. We could have argued that we should start new local banks to encourage savings and investment. Some, I know, did. It might have helped if the SNP instead of debating with the Janus that is Ian Wood about how much oil there is in the North Sea had advocated to reduce our dependency on oil. They could have also stopped reasoning so optimistically about the “UK market” and talked up developing new export markets for Scotland whilst pointing out the current dire performance of UK trade. The Yes campaign should have/could have sung loud and long about a dual currency, our own pound as well as the pound sterling, highlighting the future strengths of the proposed Scottish currency as against the probable decline in the value of the pound sterling and the faltering supremacy of the US dollar as the Russians and Chinese move away from trading in it.

(ps - i agree with a lot of that shambles (and what you said sammy) - i'd rather there was a bbc than not; i'd just prefer it returned to the much better standards it used to have in the past (though still flawed) - we can take this to a media bias thread if you want to carry on (it's just a reflex on my part))

 

[Sammy G]

Have you ever been to Levenshulme? It's still nineteen-fuckin'-sixteen there. The cause buckets only stopped fairly recently. :D

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

Fucking lol

 

[Shambles]

This is meant to be about Scottish independence not state broadcaster independence or the lack of both. So what next devo max or armed struggle?

I'd go with devomax. Is what I have been in favour of all along (and do believe I said as much (also voted as much) earlier in this thread). As I've also said, I think the fact the vote was so very tight (or split if you prefer) strengthens the wider cause for all regions throughout what is currently the UK. It demonstrates the fact there is great appetite for dramatic change but enough restraint to give the UK - as it currently stands - a chance to meet those demands. If it fails to - which history suggests will be the case - then fuck it and all those who ride in her. But I do feel it's worth extending that chance - put the ball in "their" court and see if they can hit it back with enough deftness and savvy to be worth a wank. Has been a long time since such questions were up for grabs (I totally accept the whole Ireland thing is a thornier issue and personally make a general exemption in that case cos my views may not entirely tally with my views on the mainland for a number of reasons - reasons it was made abundantly clear it's best to steer well clear of for folks residing on the mainland cos it really does seem to me to be a different situation to that of Scotland, Wales and England and will leave it at that...).

 

[gannetsarewe]

Have you ever been to Levenshulme, (sounds like a.song) where freedom flickers even in the gloom, of the oppressors land. So we'll all lend a hand and fill up the collecting cans and make Manchester go boom.

I ain't been though nor Manchester either.

 

[Vurtual]

WRITING OFF SCOTLAND explores the research of Dr David Patrick into press bias during the independence campaign. Carried out over Scotland's most politically important year in centuries, the study's findings are a shocking indictment of the role of the UK press in the independence debate. We all know newspapers take political positions but, uniquely for a western democracy, the entire press industry united against independence in an intense systematic propaganda campaign to save the union. In the film, Dr Patrick discusses the framing of the referendum and how front pages, editorial and commentary are used to get key messages across, the lack of media coverage for the research, strange BBC experience and how the Independence debate has damaged public trust in our press.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bYajHIcXMk

 

[parttime crackhead]

WRITING OFF SCOTLAND explores the research of Dr David Patrick...

It's bizarre seeing Butchy referred to as Dr David Patrick. I know him. He's good pals with some of my mates.

It's even more bizarre to see people in this thread claiming no media bias, in particular shouting that the BBC weren't biased. Vurtual has been pretty much spot on.

And on that note, I'm ofksi again. Peace.

 

[Sammy G]

I don't think anybody's claimed that the BBC coverage wasn't biased; merely that it shouldn't be a surprise that a state broadcaster with a long history of pandering to the policy of the government reverts to type once again. Did the coverage of events in Northern Ireland - as recently as a couple of decades ago - not shatter any remaining illusions regarding Auntie's impartiality and integrity?

It's like getting mad at a dog for pissing up a fucking tree.

 

[Vurtual]

Shambles did actually say it seemed to him it was biased towards independence sometimes, and generally balanced - which is why i was arguing. It's a many layered media and it's possible to see many things depnding on the path you thread through it i guess. Modern propaganda is more subtle than uniform control - even when they're covering shit up on the main broadcasts, they'll shove a mention of it on newsnight, or at worst, hidden somewhere on the BBC website; this allows them to give the 'we were balanced across the entire output' excuse they give when you try and complain (and i have). It also allows people to argue that there is more freedom than there is. It's the same in the press generally - we hear all sorts of details in the 'clever' newspapers (guardian, FT, telegraph) which doesn't come into view of the majority until years later, when there's loads of inquiries, hand-wringing and 'what went wrong'-ing.

This form of news management is much more effective than just uniform blocking out of stories, cos then everyone automatically distrusts the media - like pravda in ussr. I know you know this sammy (and thanks PTCH )

 

[Vurtual]

This isn't going away... Recent polls have shown a slight majority for independence as the veracity of the Vow becomes clearer. Also, however people voted in the referendum, the scottish labour party look like they're in for a drubbing in the election - because even the people who gave into the fear project recognise the double-dealing and westminster focus they had (indicated by their 'devolution' tax proposals being even worse than the tories'). If this gives succour to the UK tories, so be it - it's our fault for not getting as active/bolshie as the scots have; it's not fair for the lefties of rUK to drag scotland down with us because we haven't done well enough building sopport for our ideas from the grass roots.

I happen to believe that the people of the uk generally support social democratic policies anyway - there's a website - http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ - that surveys people's views of policies without ever saying which party they belong to - and the winner is... the green party's policies! (labour 2nd, lib dems 3rd, tories 4th, then ukip then bnp). Chomsky quotes similar polling that shows american voters are similarly social democratic when not told what party the policies are associated with (just don't mention socialism!)

...

Here's another good piece from Irvine Welsh on where now for independence: All roads lead back to the independence debate:

It’s not surprising that the concept of the UK as a political entity is in decline. Historically, it was an imperialist construct established to further the interests of a ruling elite, and it has pretty much operated in that way ever since, bar a golden era of 1945-70, where, following the unique and cataclysmic aftermath of the battle against Nazism, it briefly aspired to be something more inclusive. So there’s probably about 30 years out of over 300, when the UK state wasn’t solely about a struggle for most of its citizens against zero democracy, political oppression, economic depressions and recessions, world wars, union busting, negating democracy, neo-liberalism and the exploitation of the general populace by the super rich.

With the welfare state and NHS gains of that post-war window now all but gone, the British left finds itself hanging its appeal on retaking them. It hopes to do this through the Labour Party, despite the fact that this institution manifestly no longer exists as a valid agent of change. If a much more militant Labour Party, backed by a powerful trade union movement in an industrial society, failed to resist the Tory dismantling of the welfare state, how feasible is it to expect the current political class opportunists, who have aided and abetted the Conservatives in this process, to now suddenly do so? Leftist pundits embody this dilemma, forensically dismantling the party for its shortcomings, yet seeming to assume it can magically resurrect, and then remold the UK state, as it did in 1945-70. In the meantime, they support the de facto preservation of this exploitative and elitist state.

To argue to maintain a divisive and reactionary UK state on that basis, pretending it’s about ‘worker’s solidarity’, is both self-deluding and an insult to the intelligence of everybody else. Slavering on like a Hovis advert about the traditions of British working class resistance can’t disguise the fact that you’re bending over backwards to preserve a state that has been doing everything in its power to negate and crush this resistance for the last 35 years, and practically since it’s inception, right up to World War Two. The tragedy of the British left is that it’s got so used to playing this perennial losers game against the UK state. This obsession with protecting it, and continually rolling the same dice, which is so obviously weighted against you, has surely now expired as viable strategy.

Also, quite a good overview of BBC bias from bellacaledonia - The revolution will not be televised

 

[gannetsarewe]

What chances now for Scout?