Failing to Discern the Real Nature of the BBC and Mainstream Media in the Anglo-American World

https://www.evangelical-times.org/59589/the-noble-liar-how-and-why-the-bbc-distorts-the-news-to-promote-a-liberal-agenda/

There is a lack of discernment on display in the Sharon James article. She laments the fall of the BBC and the abandonment of its Biblical values missing the fact that when the institution was created in 1927 the British Empire was still in full swing. The idea that something like the BBC –a mouthpiece for the British Establishment would in any way represent Christian values or that the ethics of honesty and objectivity wouldn't come into conflict with the Empire – which like all empires is built on lies was just absurd. It was bound to fail. It was from the beginning a lie and therefore prima facie unbiblical.

But instead of acknowledging this and reflecting on it, James instead laments its supposed slide into 'liberalism' by which she means Left-wing political views.

While I may not live in the UK I have visited the country multiple times. I have read and listened to the BBC for decades and am very familiar with it. It's pretty much a part of my daily routine. The truth with regard to the BBC is complicated. On the one hand it seems to stand for the progressive agenda in terms of sociology. It supports feminism and sodomy. But on the other hand it supports the Anglo-American Establishment – Wall Street and the City of London. The City itself took on a very different character in the aftermath of World War II as the empire began to collapse and be subsumed under American leadership. The UK shifted its power base away from its political order, navy and colonies to The City – the financial district. The BBC for all its reporting on inequity and financial corruption nevertheless represents the interests of The City – that unique entity that functions as a parallel government within the UK system and in many respects dominates the elected government situated further up the Thames.

In this respect it's much like the mainstream media in the US. Outlets such as CNN and the old guard ABC/NBC/CBS networks are 'Left' when it comes to social issues but conservative and even Right-wing when it comes to the financial Establishment and the military-intelligence sector. I can safely say the BBC represents the same for the UK. This is why on the one hand it comes across as Left at times, at other times it's maddeningly pro-Establishment and even Right-wing and yet because of this it can claim to be 'balanced' – and yet this too is deceptive. The whole circle of consensus under which it operates is askew to begin with and morally compromised. It's 'balance' and 'objectivity' is only within that already corrupted framework.

The veneer of Christianity that used to govern the British Empire is an indictment of British Christianity itself – that failed to discern that the Empire was anything but Christian both in terms of its foreign and domestic policy. We don't lament the BBC's departure from its 'Biblically' oriented mission statement. For such statements and false assertions are necessarily sacrilegious and should have been condemned outright. It's the same kind of short-sighted thinking that wants the Decalogue posted on courtroom walls on in classrooms. Such displays only sow confusion and ultimately corrupt the nature and integrity of the revelatory message.

Has the BBC failed to critique Islamic Fundamentalism? I can see how someone might say this but they're evidently not understanding where the BBC is coming from. On the one hand it's trying to express a multi-cultural ethos and not attack Islam as Islam. This alone is offensive to conservatives and Evangelicals. But on the other hand the network is like the rest of the West absolutely opposed to the radical movements and their ideology. In reality even the BBC struggles with traditional Islam as it is viewed as patriarchal and misogynistic. They grant a modicum of respectability to a world religion but even mainstream Islam falls under critique let alone anything that smacks of Salafism.

But where the BBC is most egregious on this point is in the ways it programmes cover up the nature of American and British involvement with these very forces and how they were fostered and utilised in order to fight earlier wars. Such honesty makes the Anglo-American political order look bad and so instead the BBC as an agent of the Establishment engages in false exposé and whitewash as it seeks to spin such stories and cover up the Machiavellian calculations of political leaders. It boils down to 'good and well intentioned people make honest mistakes'. But that's not what happened. It reminds of the American Establishment's whitewash of what happened in Vietnam. They weren't mistakes made by good people but calculated and evil policies that destroyed lives and whole societies and fostered the birth of monsters. Thus in some respects the BBC's coverage of Islamic Fundamentalism is in fact not liberal at all but deeply conservative and part of an ongoing cover-up.

As far as immigration and the EU, the BBC embraces the dictates of Classical Liberalism and in many respects absolutises them. The fact that these values come into conflict with nationalist and nativist proclivities is a challenge to those conservatives who profess Classical Liberalism even as they undermine it by the embrace of ethnic nationalism and tribalism. The BBC is being consistent albeit far from objective. Few in the British or European Establishment are willing to come out and reject the universal claims of Liberalism. Those that do so such as Salvini, Orban, LePen, Trump and others are clearly a threat to the post-war Atlanticist order. And in that sense the BBC does oppose them. The real dilemma is for Tories, American Republicans and others that pay lip service to Liberalism even while they seek to subvert its values and undermine it as a holistic system.

Where the BBC struggles with Liberalism is in the realm of economics. It stands with the capitalism of the Anglo-American Establishment but this is where the internal contradictions of the Liberal order are most poignantly exposed. The economic system born of Liberalism begins to trample on the universal rights the system is supposed to guarantee.*  

The Rupert Murdoch world simply ignores this reality and wishes it away. Those who are still attempting to engage in semi-serious reflection and investigation are put into something of a dilemma and the end result is some kind of compromise – the so-called Third Way that emerged in the 1990's.

Contrary to the assertions made by James, the BBC did report on Rotherham and the reporting was quite shocking. I remember it well. Maybe its reporting was too late but again in this respect its values and judgments were that of the British Establishment – a sector in deep dilemma over the fate of British society, a mass of contradictions over values, policy and pragmatism. And personally I think Enoch Powell was on everyone's mind. The reporting of such a story had to be undertaken with great care or else there would be 'rivers of blood' in the streets. In many respects I'm surprised it did not happen – but I don't doubt that the scandal had an impact on grass roots support for UKIP and Brexit.

James fails to grasp that contemporary Identity Politics are neither liberal nor properly speaking a result of Classical Liberalism applied. They are the rotten harvest of a corrupt individualist society that seeks to leverage the values of Liberalism for personal, self-focused and unprincipled political gain. These movements for all their noise do not fundamentally challenge the nature of the system. On the contrary they seek to appropriate its wealth and power which they would then use to oppress others. It's a bankrupt ideology that is born of capitalist culture in a state of decadence. It's a learning moment for the Church but James like other Christian commentators is blind to this reality – too given over to her political alliances and unable to be either discerning or honest when it comes to this point. If she would take the time to investigate actual Leftist publications and commentaries she would discover the real ideologues are quite opposed to Identity Politics and view them as not only manifestations of bourgeois decadence but a cynical ploy utilised by the Establishment to divide the working classes and keep them at each other's throats. The crisis of modern capitalism has generated social upheaval and unrest and the powers that be fear a uniting of the poor and working classes and thus it is in their interest to see these divisions exacerbated. Identity politics provide a means to divide and conquer.

The BBC is little more than a starting point for the news. It coverage on certain issues remains valid and even helpful. On other topics, it's terrible and even deeply deceptive. I always take it with a grain of salt. But as awful as the BBC can sometimes be, it is still of far greater value than an outlet such as FOX which is frankly an absurdity and an insult to anyone with a modicum of knowledge or intelligence.

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*This contradiction helped to fuel the American Civil War and the modification of the Constitution in its aftermath attempted to correct these inconsistencies – and yet the issues remain controversial and some believe the new order was one that broke with Classical Liberalism and set the stage for statism. Others believed the post-war Amendments to be a step on the way of finally achieving democracy.