BBc to become more right wing and white oriented

What did he say about capital punishment and nuclear weapons?

 

i agree with you, it is unfair that as soon as "people indiginous to britain" (brilliant term) voice opinions about how they feel about immigration or race politics people brand them as racist when we dont have a racist bone in our bodies.

i believe in celebrating difference, celebrating England's traditions and culture, i do not believe in making England one big free for all for people who do not understand England. we need to keep and respect england, i am not saying i am 100% against immigration, as i know "immigrants" like this woman from Bulgaria, one of the nicest people i know.

i love going to another country and seeing their beliefs and culture, and i think people like that about britain too, but our culture is being lost, and that saddens me.

so please, stop saying that we are racist, it is hurtful and untrue.

blessings
xxx
xx
x

 

Not one of us is indigenous to the British Isles*, we are a nation of immgrants, immigration is what made Britain what it is today.

*with the obvious exception of Ann Widdecombe of course, whom I believe is descended from a prehistoric sea creature that lived for thousands of years and hid in a cave somewhere in Wales during the last Ice Age.

 

This gets repeated as axiomatic. But is it really? What aspects of our culture are being "lost" that you would like to see kept?

Culture changes and adapts all the time to new ideas and influences, that's what makes it dynamic. Would we really want to 'fix' any aspect of culture (language, art, tradition, etc) so that it cannot respond and adapt and stay relevant? That's a sure way to kill a culture. Our culture is being enriched, as it always has been.

 

Uhm, who really are the "people indigenous to Britain"?

Even the Celts and the Anglo-Saxons came from somewhere else.

The Celts were a diverse group of people of Indo-European stock, while the Anglo-Saxons were fuckin' Germans.

So, who really are the "people indigenous to Britain"??

 

I think they mean "more" indigenous, the whiter your skin the longer back you can trace your ancestry.

 

That's true.
Therefore, anyone who says that only white people can claim to be "indigenous people of Britain" are racists, because clearly, everybody's ancestors came from somewhere else.

 

Who exactly is the "us" in "our" culture anyway? This kind of "us/them" language reveals a slew of tacit assumptions which while often not consciously racist, point to an underlying mindset of xenophobia and essentialism.

At least Powell was honest by voicing the issue in terms of "the white man" and the "grinning piccaninnies" - visible and superficial differences are the ones most viscerally terrifying to many. The programme made a good point that the issue became polarised following Powell's speech so that the facts of the matter could not be debated other than by reference to race.

What was missing from the programme was a sober analysis of the impact immigration has truly had on the British culture and economy - again it was regarded as axiomatic that its influence has been negative when that proposition is rather controversial and very far from established. We have benefitted greatly from immigration both culturally and economically since Powell's time. The programme did this sleight of hand trick cleverly by talking about the perception of negative influence without any reference to objective standards. A few references to the Bradford riots and the 7/7 bombings do not bear out Powell's "Rivers of blood" prophecy outside of a wider understanding of local and global sociopolitical conditions...

 

I am guilty of using the word "they", but I was refering to the white working class in our society who are supposedly being ignored. Essentially, yes i was guilty of employing rhetoric advocating to fragment society, however this is far from being synonymous with racism. A deep analysis of language and perception will soon reveal the futility in communication ones point without making such objective presumptions.

There is no denying that social and cultural values have declined a lot in recent years, the continued capitalisation on resources and the subsequent industrialisation of the country and it's exponential impact on society and the environment are quite visible.

But, what is it that people want to retain about british culture? Britain will still have it's meat and two veg, there are still a great number of pubs around the country serving traditional ales and cider, we still got us cup of tea and biscuits.

Let us step out of the racism argument for a moment, and taking INTO account the plea of the white working class, consider exactly what factors are responsible for the decay of society.

Alcoholism
Yobbish behaviour
Traffic pollution
Pollution from industry
Drug Abuse
Crime
Corrupt politicians/industries
Environmental pollution from aggri-business
Monopolisation of high street shopping centres and the disappearance of local business
Obesity

How many of those factors are attributable to immigration. Of course the recent terrorists attacks and the rice riots and all that are not good, with all the above factors in mind I'd say Powell was probably right, it was going to happen sooner or later. But you know, don't forget that up until around ten years ago it was the IRA setting off bombs and committing acts of attrocity in our land. And why? Because our government is occupying a small part of their Island. And WHY are we seeing a rise in homeland terrorist attacks now from Islamic extremist may I ask? Because AGAIN our government is occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, and has committed something on the scale of what is objectively defined as GENOCIDE.

...

Sorry to be the bearer of the news, but the government has ALWAYS shat on white working class people, and if you examine the history of our nation you will probably find that, comparatively speaking, white working class people have never been better off than they are now.

I am not saying people have no right to complain, but perhaps people might take greater notice if the race cards weren't played so often.

The roots of the problems we are facing have got little to do with immigration.

 

Powell was always opposed to capital punishment, and by the end of his career he had become convinced that there was no benefit to this country in retaining an "independent" nuclear "deterrent".

 

Sorry for snipping the rest of your post but I take issue with this basic assumption... again this is an axiom repeated so often that it seems to require no thought. Is it really so self-evident? What exactly does it mean? Have social and cultural values really 'declined in recent years'? Every generation has thought so, but I suggest that in terms of violent crime and safety, welfare, employment, medicine, quality of life, equality of opportunity, social justice, the richness and vibrancy of all aspects of culture, most of us (in Britain and the developed West anyway) are massively better off now than we ever would have been at any point in human history. It's tempting to make the assumption that we are always witnessing a slow and gradual decline, but, aside from some short term fluctuations in quality of life and violent crime etc one way or the other, I would make the point that we have seen quite the reverse: a gradual progressive strengthening and deepening of our freedoms, opportunities and abilities. Who would really want to go back 50 years? 100 years? The gradual decline of social and cultural values is a pernicious myth which is demonstrably false.

In terms of the point you raise about environmental pollution - the fact that we have become aware of and are talking about our wasteful use of resources and attempting (however difficult it is) to amend our ways rather than continue in our profligacy indicates that society is able to adaptively and reflexively respond to its own behaviour and change itself for the better.

 

ok,, so i was curious and i went and found the commercial..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg54xTaJ-Kc

i gotta say,,

OMFG,,and people talk about america?
isnt the BBC ran by your government??

WHAT THE FUCK? THERE PROMOTING A RACE WAR!!!

thats absolutely insane.. the people of the uk outta be rioting in the streets..

of course judging from that commercial,id say thats what yalls government wants.. a lil patriotic ethnic cleansing of the U.K.

just damn........

 

I think that if it's an issue it obviously needs to be addressed, and it seems that white working-classes feel they aren't being heard. Therefore it needs to be approached the same way as any other race. Calling it racist is just being trivial.

 

oh i think it gos far beyond racism per se,as this is coming from the government there.. if they felt there was a problem then why not address it in parliament? why make a blatantly inflammatory commercial designed to provoke division and then go even further and change the format of the station to spew propaganda aimed at the white man who is by there own definition being treated unfairly by the system they themselves have the power to correct..

seems to me its a direct attempt by the powers in your country to spark race issues amongst the common people..

if the commercial is anything like the new format will be then id say there plan will be a overwhelming success...

 

Americans often have a quaint idea of what the BBC is:tongue: It is not "run by the government", it is a fully independent body funded by taxation. This is also not a "new format" as the misleading title of the thread suggests, it's a season of four or five programmes on BBC2.

 

well i stand corrected. thank you for the clarifications.. however that doesnt change my opinion of the commercial or the motivation of those that allowed the comercial to be aired..

although i doubt that commercial would be allowed to air here in the states,if it was i feel sure it would be only once and the outrage of the people over it would linger for long enough that the programs it was promoting would NEVER be aired..

i find it outrageous that there is even a debate over it here...

 

Yes, but I wasn't talking about wealth, or standards of living. And regardless of whether overall we are better off in that respect, there are still more children living in poverty in the UK than ever before.

I thought you supporters of Powell were trying to tell everyone else that this country is going to the dogs? Forgive me if I misread you. You seem to be inferring that things are bad because of the massive influx in immigration, yet at the same time you are unwilling to accept that there are a great number of OTHER problems in our modern society that are directly attributable to nobody else but the people who supposedly have the right to be here.

There are more people in prison than ever before, violent crime is on the increase, people are becoming more and more depressed, suicide rates are increasing, drug abuse is more prevalent than ever before, people live in hermitically sealed with the walls of their house and never talk to their neighbours, no-one seems to give a damn about the ethics of what they buy in the supermarket or the high street anymore. People are predominantly fascinated by the mediocrity and fake champoinship of corporate run football tournaments, and have generally less value for the finer things in life such as art and music. Society is becoming ever more competitive, more materialistic, fewer people have any interest in spiritual values of any kind.

And how much of an effect do think that will have on the damage already done? Sure FINALLY the UK is coming round to adopting a greener lifestyle, but there is still a LONG way to go. The food we buy is becoming more and more polluted with industrial mass produced chemicals that are causing an epidemic in cancers, heart disease and obesity. Aggri business is still polluting our landscapes with more monoculture, pesticides, and GM shit.

Last spring, remember that one, it was one of the most beautiful springs I have sen in recent years. I saw an EXPLOSION of life at my local ex quarry site/now nice loch to go for walks round and smoke my hash pipe. The place was swarming with tiny little frogs the size of ha'pennies, you could not walk for standing on the poor little buggers. And what did the fucking local council do in it's infinite wisdom, send a load of community service monkeys round with strimmers cutting the grass, subsequently killing all the poor little froggies.

Society in general has got no respect for the environment these days, it is viewed as a place to manage, not to coexist within. It is increasingly abused by man, and the effects of which are infecting our social values in return.

 

I'd disagree, the lowest classes are better off than ever before. The high poverty rates you hear reported are relative to an immeasurably increased general standard of living - our standards for measuring poverty have changed. What we regard as poverty nowadays would have been regarded as unspeakable affluence to a family living in poverty a century ago, we don't let children die of malnutrition or lack of access to healthcare any more, we have a welfare state and free compulsory education for all. These social safety nets have all but eradicated what we would have called poverty in times past. There is always room for improvement, of course, and there are still those who fall through the net (homelessness for instance) but the statement that we are worse off in terms of poverty is absolutely the opposite to the reality of the situation.

Interesting article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4070112.stm

You would have heard slightly different versions of all these arguments 50, 100, 200, 300 years ago... meanwhile quality of life and vibrancy of culture has steadily evolved and improved for all. Society always has such problems - or different versions of them - to a more less constant degree. Some are not problems at all (the high/low culture issue, 'spritual decline') and some are inescapable and fairly constant, though tragic, realities (depression, crime, substance abuse, etc). Seeing these things as undeniable aspects of a continuing decline is an interesting issue of perception which bear little or no resemblance to reality...

And I have no clue why you think I am a supporter of Powell! I couldn't be more opposed to his stance on this issue, through as Roffa pointed out, he was a progressive on one or two issues.

 

Violent crime has fallen 41% since 1995...
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/violent-crime/

 

I still think that it's an issue that needs serious consideration. If this is a growing concern for some white working-class people, then it needs to be publicly addressed, rather than sweeped under the carpet to build up and not be aired.