Stream of conciousness

[Guest]

Some thoughts.....

The BNP have had a Party Election Broadcast banned tonight. Whilst I do not agree in anyway, shape or form whatsoever with what the BNP stand for, does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the censorship currently being metered out in this country against them?
The Postmen in Bridgwater refused to deliver the BNP pamphlets and got the backing of their management. Whilst on one hand this is an admirable gesture in the fight against right-wing extremism, it can also be viewed as a nail in the coffin of free speech.
Surely the blanket banning and censorship of what the BNP has to say is an extension of the "nanny state"? Why is it assumed that you and I are too stupid to make up their own minds? Where will this stop?

I can see that the BNP's story of a gang of Asians raping a girl is only being used to stir up racial hatred. The crime itself is sickening, regardless of the perpertrator's race. But I think that censoring the item is counter-productive. The fact that the censorship of the item has been reported on all the major TV and Radio news bulletins only gives more publicity to the BNP and their ridiculous notions. Surely this sort of thing is only going to add fuel to their fire? The misguided people that support them will see this as another blow and it will only serve to strengthen their racism.

One of the good things about living in this country is the right to free speech. I find it disturbing that Sheik Abu Hamza has been locked up at the request of the Americans. Again, I don't agree with the "point of view for which he stands" (sic), but why are we arresting him just because America says so? This is a sinister echo of the way Britain marched into Iraq at the request of America. What has that acheived, exactly? As far as I can see the country has been plunged into a far more uncertian state than it was in before. Yes, Saddam Hussein's regime was terrible, but is the current state of affairs really any better?

Free Speech means just that. Perhaps Joe Strummer was right when he said "You have the right to free speech. Providing you're not dumb enough to actually try it"

Where will this stop? We are surely only a step away from becoming just like the regimes that were considered so evil. Hitler, Communism, the Taliban, the Baath Party all supported censorship. How long before people in this country are locked up for disagreeing with the Government, or (God forbid!) the American Government?

People change things, Governments don't.

Ironically our only hope may come from the Americans.
"We the people...."

[Dubya - T]

Once again I am victim of my login being reset with my Internet connection.
It's my rant!, I'm not trying to hide!
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We would like to announce that due to cutbacks the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off.....

[John Mc]

I saw 2 BNP broadcasts yesterday. The first was on Five at 6 o'clock. The BNP had submitted it to the TV station and they'd said they wouldn't screen it because it would stir up racial tensions. So in the end an edited version was shown with lots of the soundtrack destorted either by missing bits of sentences out or playing sound effects over the top to distort it. You could still make out what was going on though, the main arguement was that a multi cutural Britain does work and it gave examples of acts of violence in Britain by "immigrants" against honest, hard working white people.

The second one I saw was on about 11pm on BBC1 (I turned over from watching Big Brother, I wasn't making a special effort to watch right wing programming that day). I don't think it had been edited at all and it had the leader of BNP standing infront of a Spitfire, reminising about his grandfather fighting in the war alongside Poles and Czechs and people from all races. Again the point was that there's too much many immigrants in Britain now and he also criticised Islam for being a religion of hate. He said that Christianity had adopted to modern life while Islam was old fashioned and preached hatred.

From my point of view most of the opinions expressed were either ill informed or just plainly wrong but it was really odd to see them being broadcast on TV. I can't remember seeing representatives of the BNP on Question Time or Newsnight very often. Dubya T is right though, these people should be able to put there views forward. At least that way the arguments against them can be heard. I'm currently reading a Noam Chomsky book and it he mentions how little of the political spectrum actually gets mentioned in the media. People who are considered to be very left or right wing by the media actually aren't in the grand scheme of things. But as the range of views expressed on TV and in the papers is so narrow anyone who deviates a little bit from the norm is seen as being radical, whereas people who are truly left or right of centre don't even get mentioned.

I remember a debate on Radio Five last year in which a journalist said that the BBC is inherently left wing because of the people who work for them. Therefore they assume all their listeners or viewers are the same as them and often dismiss as stupid views which many of the listeners may actually hold and so many areas never get discussed. Again this isn't healthy.

I'm not sure how this can be resolved. The BNP broadcast on Five had to be edited at the request of the Channel itself, rather than due to any laws (I think). I'm not sure how party political broadcasts are assigned, do partys pay for them, are TV stations obliged to give air time to all partys? Presumably Five wouldn't want to air anything which would reflect badly on the station. In the news bulletin just before the broadcast they made a point of saying that they'd asked for the broadcast to be editted thus distancing themselves from the views expressed.

[Setareh Juventina]

Journalists/reporters do generally have a higher percentage of lefties in them than the entire population of their country...that might not be very incisively put, say if a country has 10% voters for left winged parties, the journalists would maybe have a 36% voting rate for the left winged branch. This isn't specific for the BBC. (same thing with liberal parties)

Question is wether this affects the actual broadcasts or articles, because I don't know about the editors, who are ultimately the people making the important selection.

Love and Peace
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Man is the only animal clever enough to build The Empire State Building and stupid enough to jump from it.