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There’s a media storm brewing. The BBC’s decision not to air an appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) for refugees in Gaza is whipping up opinion from all quarters.
I am remaining relatively impartial on this particular debate, though on the issue of the War in Gaza itself, I’ll stick my neck briefly on the line. There is certainly no doubt that what has happened in Gaza is tantamount to a collection of war crimes; with bombings of UN safe zones and buildings and an insurmountable loss of civilian life.
From the Israeli perspective, it is understandable that the politicians, senior military staff and a large part of the public, would wish to end the guerilla style rocket attacks on Israeli cities by the Palistinean paramilitary group Hamas. However, many international observers have viewed the conflict as an extortionate and unnecessary response. From a humanitarian perspective, leaving the political opinions aside, the Gaza conflict is an unmitigated disaster.
And this is where the latest DEC appeal and the BBC’s refusal comes into the picture.
From my perspective, the BBC probably should have broadcast this appeal, in order to aid the humanitarian cause. However, I equally respect the organisation’s editorial right not to. The overwhelming public outcry, as well as condemnations from celebrities, religious figures and politicians, is currently showing all the signs of a media witch hunt – and at that, one which rolls around very regularly.
The BBC comes in for too much criticism, from many different people. Whether it’s for being too lewd and scandalous (i.e. The Ross-Bran debacle), too liberal (sometimes seen in its editorial bias on the news), or simply because it is license fee funded – making it a corrupting factor for the free market.
Sometimes criticism is warranted - it keeps the corporation on its toes and ensures that it correctly serves the license paying public. However, this new trend - to criticise the BBC for not being liberal enough – is sheer madness. Indeed, it has many hallmarks of right-wing, freemarketeer-thinking, prominent in many discussions over the function of the BBC.
Initially, concern may have been raised over the BBC’s decision not to air the DEC appeal by disinterested parties. Since that point, the right-wingers will have picked up on the situation as a perfect opportunity to undermine the stability of that market distorting force.
However, this is a very clever one for them to spin. This isn’t just the usual story to stir up a moral outrage in Middle England, this story has caused left-wing thinkers to be outraged as well.
Many socialists and left-wing groups are appalled at the BBC’s seemingly un-pressured decision to pull the Gaza appeal. This has left the BBC to be attacked from all sides.
However, the left-wing must remember the good work that the BBC also does. The Beeb is supposedly an apolitical arbiter – as director general Mark Thomson would have us think with the cancelation of this appeal. However, the very notion of a public service broadcasting corporation, with its values of education, information and factual entertainment, is in itself a liberal ideal.
The left-wing ought to remember this and that the BBC, despite some tendancies for it to compete with the wider broadcasting market, does offer a service which encourages intelligent thought – and with it, liberal and progressive ideas.
Before blankly listening to the criticisms of the BBC for not airing the Gaza appeal, the liberals amongst British society, and more importantly those protesting the BBC’s decision, ought to take stock.
After all, without the market distortion the BBC provides on all forms of news media in this country, those protesting might never have heard of Gaza in the first place, let alone the unrefuted disaster that the BBC, and others in the UK media, have informed them of.
It’s January, which can only mean one thing for the world of retail – January Sales. Though this year, that alliterative fear mongerer: The Credit Crunch, is having a noticable effect.
Walking through Liverpool One today, it is hard to avoid the garish red signs proclaiming ‘final reductions’ and ‘last few days’. Shockingly however, many stores are advertising their sales as being ‘50% off many items’, a percentage which would never have been seen in years past.
Traditionally, many stores would offer 25% off at best in their January sales. This year, stores seem more desperate than ever to practically give away their products. One store I saw was advertising 80% off, and many more were offering similar reductions.
Now this madness can be read a couple of ways. Conventional wisdom would dictate that the Credit Crunch is having an adverse effect on business, forcing stores to undercut their profits to keep cash flowing in order to maintain their very survival.
However, it could also be read another way.
Perhaps this is instead a sign that for a long time the high street has been far to expensive. If some shops can’t sell their products without whacking on massive 80% reductions, why? This penniless blogger has an underlying suspicion that the credit crunch is simply forcing the shops to act in a way in which they should always have done: with the consumer in mind.
It’s hardly surprising that the stores which are doing best at the moment are the ones which have always sold their products at reasonable prices: the budget supermarkets Aldi and Lidl, Primark and Home and Bargains.
In years past, stores set the prices and the consumer quite simply accepted them. However, by today, the poor old consumer has spent up to the hilt and can’t afford to dig any deeper. The Fear of the credit crunch – partly fuelled by the fact that consumers simply can’t afford to spend, is now causing stores to reduce their prices to a level that the consumer can actually afford. And the stores which are doing this aren’t all going under, or suffering particularly badly, despite the oft-heralded news of the failures of a good many others.
When one sees a sign proclaiming 80% off, it just makes you wonder: if they can afford to do that, then why on earth do they expect us to pay full price before the sale went on? They were quite simply ripping us off, you might think. Profits above practicality. In this instance: well done the credit crunch, you’re bringing those prices back down to earth. Let’s hope that the stores realise they’ve been punching above their weight for too long now, before they all crash back down to terra firma with a thud.
The news has been littered of late with reports of madcap environmentally minded protesters taking on the aviation industry. One group in particular springs to mind for their outrageous stunts more than the others. I am of course talking about Plane Stupid – a direct action group whose sole purpose is to ‘bring the aviation industry back down to earth’. However, in the wake of the formation of these green concious, liberal leaning groups, a number of business minded free marketeers have established their own groups in response. I recently saw one mentioned in the Liverpool Daily Post – Flying Matters.
Now, Flying Matters hails the lefties ‘anti-flying circus’ as ‘absurd’ and calls the protesters involved in such daring stunts as tearing down the perimiter fence at Stanstead Airport and creating a blockade on the runway “posh-kid climate-change protesters”.
I think enough is now enough. To settle the debate once and for all, the pro-flying, right-wing economy expansionists ought to duke it out toe-to-toe with the anti-air travel, left-wing, save-the-earth environmentalists. I suggest something akin to the medieval reenactment battles that you see at castles and tudor halls across the land. This would, after all, be a suitably absurd way to settle what can at times be an absolutely off the wall debate. With both sides throwing completely below-the-belt punches and suggesting completely erratic and impracticable solutions, this is surely the only way.
The fight ought to take place on some desolate Yorkshire moor. It’d certainly give the Yorkshire tourist board a noodle-scratcher: here it is, an event commanding a capacity crowd and the majority of the countries media who have nothing to do, yet, at the same time bloodshed and carnage. Maybe we should equip them with a rubber chicken each or a wet fish in a rather Monty Python-esque way.
How about entering both teams into something suitably inane yet competitive as Sky TVs Gladiators. You still get the ratings, yet, without so many casualties. It’d also be quite amazing to see Swampy the eco-warrior running up that travelator whilst some aeging businessman from BAE slips and gets his tie caught in it. Sheer comedy.
We could boil this down further. How about a mud wrestling competition? Or some kind of food fight? That’d go down great. A pie in the face for the environment and a cream cake to the groin for business. How about a game of tiddlywinks? That’s suitably harmless. Let’s see who would win at that.
At the end of the day, this is how it will continue. On and on and on. Words will continue to be thrown, politicians forced for comments and legislation and direct action barricades will continue to be put up. I’m backing the greens for many a famous victory, though with the business power and political connections of the pro-flying lobby, I can see the ultimate outcome of this airborne war being won by conservative interests.
However, just for a moment, wouldn’t it be nice to think that we could settle this simply? In this daydream nation, how about something just as bonkers and out there as a televised fight for the environment. We could begin to resolve all our national issues this way: think of the possibilites; the next England starting eleven will have to be phone voted on to the pitch by the Great British Public after the whole squad endures two weeks in the Big Brother House, the boss of Network Rail will face Chris Tarrant on the set of ITVs Who Wants To Be A Millionare, answering in no more than 60 seconds per question just why the West Coast Mainline is so abysmal, with the million pound prize as to keep his job. I could go on.
If you’ve enjoyed this nonsense, leave your suggestions for some more outlandish ways of resolving conflict below.
Celebrated as a novel which gave expression to a free-spirited generation, passionate about music, longing for travel and a bohemian lifestyle, On the Road should be considered as one of the most important American novels of the last century. To coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of its UK publication in 1958, the original manuscript is now on show for the first time in Europe at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham.
Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in just three weeks on teletype paper which forms a single scroll about 150 feet long. Until the 28th of January visitors of the exhibition can tilt their head to read about a seventh of its full glory.The exhibition also hosts some fascinating maps of the road trip, posters, photographs and various jazz records.
Speaking from one who has read the legend of the novel on the humble streets of Birmingham, On the Road brings with it a fitting reminder of an excitement for life: something we may easily forget within today’s often depressing climate.
It’s the soul of the Beat generation:
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn.
My musical sensibilities were quite vigorously shaken this week after seeing the King Lizard of punk rock himself, Iggy Pop, shaking his thing for an insurance advert. Punk , it seems, has sold out. Though should we really be that shocked and surprised?
Iggy isn’t alone in this current speight of flagrant commercialism, the high priest of anarchy in the UK John Lydon has also recently been seen on our screens putting his name to butter whilst romping round the English countryside wearing a tweed suit.
He told the Guardian: ”People know I only do things that I want to or that I believe in and I have to do it my way,”
“I’ve never done anything like this before and never thought I would, but this Country Life ad was made for me and I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”
Vivé le rock and roll.
Now many a feather has been ruffled by Lydon’s punk-faux-pas career move, with the music website Drownedinsound.com’s community forum having been deluged with hundreds of abusive comments declaring Lydon every profanity under the sun.
However some don’t go with the standard outraged profanities and jump to Lydon’s defense; Moker comments on the Drowned In Sound website:
“The whole point of punk is that it’s anarchical. If Lydon wants to advertise butter he will. If he wants to go fuck a married goat up the arse, he will. And he doesn’t have to give a fuck what anyone thinks. That’s more punk to me than playing up to a tired old stereotype.”
Here here, yet by the same argument, it could be seen that Lydon could also be a pin-up for the me me me 80s – take the money and screw what anyone thinks: not very anarchic.
The truth of the matter is that punk is a commercial construction and has to be sold to people just the same as butter or insurance. We need some kind of exchange mechanism – such as advertising, the media and at the end of it: hard cash – in order to communicate our music, culture and opinions to eachother. Fans of punk who forget this commercial aspect to their favourite anti-genre are quite simply delusional.
However, this blogger still remains a little riled. I accept the pragmatic approach to money our anti-heroes have taken, after all they certainly aren’t getting any younger and time and money are definitely powerful and necessary things. Though to go as far as putting their names to such trivial things as butter and insurance? Perhaps a step too far.
At least with the selling of punk it had some purpose, despite the raw fact that it made a lot of people very rich. The methods which punk used to sell itself were often subversive, different and challenging to the established way. Magazines were xeroxed and sold for tiny prices, records were produced on miniscule budgets and distrobuted by the cheapest possible means.
Selling insurance and butter on prime-time television is not at all subversive or challenging. It is clear evidence that even the most subversive are part of this goliath commercial machine that is capitalism. However, we need to remember that we can manipulate it how we will.
These two anti-heroes at one time represented a positive use of the capitalist machine by trying to change the society they lived in. Like us all in the end, they’re now over the hill. Mellowed with age. They’re comfortable in the machine as they now have the money to escape its harsher trappings.
However, we musn’t forget that it can still be done. Let us not simply be-moan the death of punk, let’s engage with its most positive virtues in the present day, and attempt to put these commercial tools once more to good use.
