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Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

theguardian.com

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Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#201

Post by Animats »

atq2119 wrote: post #33
hliyan wrote: post #28

I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives throug…

I like your optimism that a decent end state can be reached at all. There are so many ideas that sound good on paper but are bad in practice, and that happen to be convenient for the goals of unscrupulous powerful people. The notion that society as a whole will at some point stop falling for such ideas seems very optimistic to me.

> I like your optimism that a decent end state can be reached at all.

For a few brief years, it looked like we were there.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#203

Post by TimorousBestie »

ithkuil wrote: post #72
aaomidi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That definition of Terrorism would make Israel a terrorist state.

I guess it's hard to define words. Surely terrorism has this vague meaning of doing very evil and violent things. But a picked up a random dictionary and it says: "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims". I struggle to understand what political aim Israel is pursuing when using unlawful violence and intimidation. If you believe that Israel is perf…

I appreciate the synchronicity between your username and words being hard to define! If only I had the spare time to pick up such a difficult conlang.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#204

Post by chii »

trashtensor wrote: post #198
chii wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and that's why you don't listen to only a single source of news. Find multiple, ideally both geographic as well as political alignment. Learn to discern what is a fact, and what is opinion presented as fact, and learn to read critically - such as question if there would be any omissions, or misrepresentations of facts to make persuasions. Learn to dissect the works, such as dramatic music and literary methods of pers…

> and that's why you don't listen to only a single source of news. > Find multiple, ideally both geographic as well as political alignment. Easy to say in the abstract, harder to do when many "credible" sources toe the line and the ones that don't are discredited as "state sponsored news" or worse.

> are discredited as "state sponsored news" or worse

and who's doing that discrediting? That's also a source.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#205

Post by dismalaf »

Aeolun wrote: post #177
dismalaf wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be alot more than 7 if Hamas didn't murder a bunch.

Sure, but they’ve pretty much stopped now (presumably mostly because they ran out). Israel continues to rack up a larger count every single day.

[flagged]

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#206

Post by jakelazaroff »

YZF wrote: post #128
emseetech wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bob Vylan said "death to the IDF." He didn't call for the death of Israelis. It's the difference between saying "death to the RMP" in Ireland during the troubles versus calling for the deaths of British people themselves. You can disagree with Mr. Vylan or that the BBC should have cut the broadcast but let's not misrepresent the situation.

Pretty much all Israeli serve in the IDF. He called for their death. The mental gymnastics. He chanted for death but he didn't call for the death of Israelis. Right. He also chanted "From the River to the Sea" which is another call for the death of Israelis and he had some other antisemitic content to add to that. But yeah, he's just a great guy and BBC just let him have a stage.

> Pretty much all Israeli serve in the IDF. He called for their death. The mental gymnastics.

This argument makes no sense to me. You're basically saying that it's bad to call for the deaths of a genocidal military… once a certain percentage of the country enlists? Like, at what threshold do you think it would have been unacceptable to chant "death to the Nazis" or "death to the Imperial Japanese Army"?

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#207

Post by tareqak »

Aeolun wrote: post #115
jaek wrote: post #5

Sadly it seems like this is indicative of a broader trend in Public Broadcast in the west. In Australia we've seen similar internal criticism of the ABC of an anti-palestinian bias in reporting[1]. It's deeply concerning that these publicly funded media outlets are being co-opted and manipulated by a foreign power. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/26/australias-abc-staf...

How is it possible they influence so much of what happens in western politics, or at least how whole nations respond to their genocidal war anyway?

Defence contractors hire a lot of people which in turn create a lot of ancillary jobs to support said industries.

Defence contractors are also becoming increasingly sophisticated so they use more software, more chips, more clouds, and more information security.

Almost all of MAFANG has some defence-related footprint, and some have multiple. You might see a few defence/defence adjacent companies in the monthly WhoIsHiring posts as well as https://www.workatastartup.com .

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#209

Post by [deleted] »

tareqak wrote: post #149
topspin wrote: post #99

Recent BBC World headlines: Gaza doctor whose nine children were killed in Israeli strike dies from injuries (June 2) Gaza now worse than hell on earth, humanitarian chief tells BBC (June 4) Three journalists among five killed in Israeli strike on Gaza hospital (June 5) Four killed near Gaza aid centre, health workers say (June 8) Dozens of Palestinians killed while seeking aid in Gaza, hospitals say (June 11) More t…

Good question. I don’t have the answers. I am curious as to when and how journalists use language. Looking at the headlines you chose, I see that some are written in active voice and some are in passive voice. When do journalists choose to use active voice over passive voice?

[deleted]

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#210

Post by [deleted] »

Aeolun wrote: post #115
jaek wrote: post #5

Sadly it seems like this is indicative of a broader trend in Public Broadcast in the west. In Australia we've seen similar internal criticism of the ABC of an anti-palestinian bias in reporting[1]. It's deeply concerning that these publicly funded media outlets are being co-opted and manipulated by a foreign power. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/26/australias-abc-staf...

How is it possible they influence so much of what happens in western politics, or at least how whole nations respond to their genocidal war anyway?

[deleted]
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