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@braker
***This is a guest post by Nelson of spEak You’re bRanes.*
[INDENT]Do you think I don’t understand what my friend, the Professor, long ago called The Hydrostatic Paradox of Controversy?
Don’t know what that means? – Well, I will tell you. You know that, if you had a bent tube, one arm of which was of the size of a pipe-stem, and the other big enough to hold the ocean, water would
stand at the same height in one as in the other. Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way, – And the fools know it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
[/INDENT]**Like any thoughtful person, I think the BBC’s “Have Your Say” (HYS) is fucking rubbish. It’s not entirely down to the inherent futility of arguing on the internet, and it’s not just because the BNP appear to be actively targeting it, creating the perception that public opinion is skewed towards hate and stupidity. It’s down to the concept of “balance” which, in BBC world at least, appears to involve treating every opinion equally, no matter how idiotic or dangerous it might be.
Unlike the Guardian site or the Daily Mail site, the BBC don’t often allow all comments (with occasional moderation, of course) but rather tend to hold everything in a moderation queue before making editorial decisions about which to publish. This is apparently done in an effort to keep things “balanced”. Frankly, it does my nut that, somewhere at the Beeb, there are otherwise intelligent people who subscribe to the idea that choosing what to publish and what to suppress is somehow going to make things more representative of public opinion. Presumably these people are so ludicrously impartial, so supremely capable of stepping outside their own frame of reference that they are able to divine the mood of the nation better than the nation itself.
As a result of this highly-educated lunacy, HYS is worse than “Comment is Free” at the Guardian and it’s worse than the Daily Mail, where everything gets published but people can at least vote comments down as well as up.
Everyone knows HYS is shit. It’s why I created the Speak You’re Branes blog and it’s why people read it. We all share this bemusement and a kind of grumbling baseline level of anger that the BBC are wasting our money nurturing the awfulness. But this is not why I’m having my say now. I’m always a bit angry about the BBC (BBC news specifically) whether it’s their refusal to broadcast a charity appeal when Palestinians are being murdered or the remarkable deference and credulity they extend to powers who’ve been caught lying and cheating over and over again. Today, however, I’m very angry at the BBC. Angry enough that I finally have to say something serious about their craven behaviour.
Tonight the BBC will host an episode of Question Time on which they have invited the ex-National Front, holocaust-denying, criminal, racist Nick Griffin to appear. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not bang up to date with the fucking news but as I understand it Peter Hain tried to mount a legal challenge to this and has sadly failed. I’m very much behind the idea that, as a criminal “whites only” organisation, the BNP shouldn’t be accorded the same status as other political parties but what if, as seems likely, they change their rules to fit within the law? Much as I’d love to see every last brown-skinned person in this country join the BNP and destroy it from within, I doubt that will happen. We cannot oppose the BNP on legal grounds alone.
I think the BBC is presenting two, equally facile, arguments here. Firstly, let’s get the free speech thing out the way. The issue is not free speech. Free speech is what I’m doing right now. It doesn’t entitle me to get on Question Time. In fact, the kind of language I use would be deemed too offensive. Unlike that revolting wanksock Nick fucking Griffin. By preventing Griffin from appearing on Question Time they would be making the same class of decision as when they decide not to invite Gok Wan on. It’s an editorial decision. The BBC trust are mostly fairly clear on this themselves, but when the point is pressed, Mark Thompson starts to talk about democracy, censorship and free speech. Free speech does not mean providing a platform, on Question Time, for anyone that would like one.
The second problem is the idea that, just because the BNP exist and are a political party, they are somehow entitled to be listened to. This is all down to the BBC’s retarded idea of “balance”, only now it’s not funny. It’s moved from creating a comically stupid comments board to legitimising a bunch of far-right racists and, almost certainly, contributing to their future electoral success. As Wikipedia puts it:
[INDENT]Because voters have to predict in advance who the top two candidates will be, this can cause significant perturbation to the system:
[...]
[/INDENT]You may even be agreeing with everything here but think that the BNP should still be allowed to appear, in which case I’d ask you to have a think about where you would draw a line. Would you allow a platform to a party that wanted to bring back slavery? A party that wanted to take away the right of women to vote? A party that wanted to lower the age of consent to 14? What about 10? 5? 2? I’m hoping we’d all draw the line somewhere. My point is simply that we can’t pretend there’s some kind of universal accepted threshold, written on a stone tablet by an omniscient moral arbiter. We have to decide, as a society, what is and isn’t acceptable and draw the line at that point. Everyone I know would agree that all humans, regardless of nationality or skin colour, are equal. Yet the BBC, by allowing the BNP a platform on Question Time, have drawn that line in such a way as to make racism appear acceptable. It’s not a forced move, they’ve made a disgusting, cowardly choice. Fuck everyone involved.
7 Responses leave one →
2009 October 22
liquidindian permalink
“We have to decide, as a society, what is and isn’t acceptable and draw the line at that point.”
We had that chance. We had it back at the European elections. Everyone knew that the BNP had the chance to make ground. ” Two thirds of us decided to idly sit by and let one-third decide who should represent us. This is the consequence, and we get what we deserve.
Reply
2009 October 22
Nelson permalink
Right. And if the white majority voted to expel the black minority, that’d be what “we” deserve.
Fight it or shut up.
Reply
2009 October 22
Jesus Chris permalink
It’s a craven and cowardly move because the current mood has them fearing for their own funding model, and there’s nothing more apologetic and sorry-looking than an organisation at risk of losing its funding, be that PSB models or advertising models.
Even if it’s only a very vocal minority – and the silent majority are currently contributing £3bn in revenue via the TV Licence every year, quite happily – as the saying goes, “the squeaky wheel gets the oil”. And there are some very squeaky wheels hanging around on the internet astroturfing for Nick Griffin – if only because in real life, as we saw when the BNP membership list was published, they’re proven to be wholly unacceptable views to hold. They get you fired and they get you ostracised. If they’re such a great party to be associated with then those people on that list wouldn’t give a fuck about their details being public. No-one is interested in the Green Party list, are they?
The problem is that the BBC is, like a few other previously decent outlets, increasingly run by dipshits with agendas they’re trying to be proud of and credentials they’re trying to stand up for. With the BBC it’s impartiality; with the Grauniad it’s their liberal credentials; the Telegraph tries to cram as much of itself as it can up David Cameron’s arsehole.
At least they didn’t pull that stupid shit that the Mail’s chief mouthpieces, Littlejohn and Phillips did – bitch about Islam and the tide of immigration one second, tell their readers it’s not worth voting and then complain that the BNP got a foothold in the godawful version of proportional representation the EU use. The Greens pulled in more votes than the BNP in that voting system on issues just as critical to their core – but they’re not slapped all over every fucking paper every single day.
Fuck the BBC, completely – impartiality should be weighted by a party’s popularity, not the objectionable characteristics of its leaders and not by how loud a couple of thousand of scaremongering gobshites can be. If it was, then Griffin and Brons would be hosting Blue Peter.
Reply
2009 October 22
Fin permalink
It’s not about providing a “platform on question time for anyone who wants one” e.g. Gok Wan it’s about providing a platform for politicians or party leaders who enough of the country has spoken in favour of, regardless of your opinion of them. You don’t deserve to be on QT not because of your language but because you have no political power.
I think you over estimate the power of QT the morons and racists who supported BNP before this will still support them, and it will just embolden everyone else who wants to see the back of them.
The electorate need to wake up and vote against them, this might do it. I don’t think the BNP or Question Time are strong enough to change anyone’s mind. Nick Griffin will be crushed tonight.
Reply
2009 October 22
Nelson permalink
I think YOU overestimate the power of Question Time to seriously examine anything. It’s not about changing people’s minds. It’s about the platform.
I think you also underestimate Griffin. He’s a convicted racist criminal who’s on record with his racism and holocaust denial. Yet he’s gathering votes from people who wouldn’t want to admit to being racist. And you think he’s going to be BAD at manipulating the media? That this Cambridge graduate is going to come across as a fool? God, I hope so but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Reply
2009 October 22
Nelson permalink
Curse you people. Distracting me. There’s a moral issue here.
I’m saying that it’s immoral to allow him on. It’s disgraceful.
As far as I can see, there are two arguments against it:
1) No, it’s fine, it’s only racism. Not something important like council tax or wheelie bins.
Nobody, except racists, hold that view.
2) Sure, he’s disgusting, but we have to let him on anyway. Besides, he’ll destroy himself.
I’m wary of any variety of pragmatism that involves compromising a fundamental moral principle. We have to decide where to draw the line. Then we have to stick with it. I draw the line so that we ALL have to accept that human beings are all equal. I’m happy to argue with anyone about taxation, education, health, finance, whatever. But anyone who doesn’t accept the basic equality of all humans can fuck right off. I think that puts me in a massive majority, along with everyone likely to be reading this.
Oh, also, how the fuck can a racist party represent the people of this country, when we’re NOT all “indigenous” or whatever the current euphemism for “white” is.