The great, grand BBC: It’s “neutral”!!!

trump kim4

The great, grand BBC was covering the Kim-Trump Singapore summit live. And, as usual it failed to forget its attitude to North Korea: A great show of news-neutrality!

The coverage (June 12, 2018) began at 4:32 as it said:

“A historic day begins.

“Welcome to the BBC’s live coverage of a historic day. The meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un is upon us. It’s 06.30 local time in Singapore – they will meet in a few hours’ time. We’re going to be with you all the way.”

In the next minute (4:33), it said:

“From threats to handshakes?

“Why historic? Well this is the first time a sitting US president had met a leader of North Korea – two previous firm enemies. It’s happening after a surreal roller coaster ride of diplomatic back and forths, and a LOT of uncertainties. The two are discussing a crisis that, only a year ago, saw them threatening each other with nuclear annihilation.”

And, in the next minute (4:34), it said:

“A quick primer

“If you want a very quick primer on what’s going on in North Korea, why it is so isolated and why that matters, take a minute to read our quick explainer: North Korea in 300 words.”

The explainer by BBC was:

“North Korea crisis in 300 words

“1 June 2018

“As the US and North Korea prepare for a historic summit, let’s take a step back and look at the crisis that at worst could threaten nuclear war.

“Why does North Korea want nuclear weapons?

“The Korean peninsula was divided after World War Two and the North developed into a Stalinesque authoritarian system.

“Isolated on the global stage, it says nuclear weapons are its only deterrent against an outside world seeking to destroy it.”

The explainer continued:

“It has also has a ballistic missile that experts believe could reach the US, Pyongyang’s main adversary.

“In response the UN, the US, the EU and have implemented increasingly tough sanctions.

“Why can’t Kim just be removed?” – thus it concluded.

Within two minutes of beginning of the live coverage BBC failed to restrain itself from carrying on its designated task: Present a negative image against whoever standing or speaking against the world imperialist system. In this case, it’s North Korea.

BBC has not uttered a single word about the US, the biggest threat to world peace and sovereignty of many countries, the economy failing in home and cracking dreams of thousands of its citizens.

Was it impossible to present a picture of the US? That could have been done with the same word-length in the following way:

It’s an economy with a major dependence on war-industry.

It’s a ruling system with almost all out surveillance of its citizens.

The exceptionally resource-rich economy fails to fund all its schools; many schools have been shut down; and teachers, in their private capacity, in many schools are to arrange education material for their students.

In the exceptionally high-tech-society, many of its infrastructures including roads and highways are in torn-down condition; and, cases of mistreatment of patients are found regularly.

In the law-rich society, one of its high courts has upgraded man-organized companies to the level of human being in the sphere of electoral politics; and, thus, human being has been downgraded to the level of human-organized company; and, thus, already well-entrenched capital’s clench on politics has further been strengthened.

The socio-economy regularly breeds school-shooting incidents, which takes lives of many students of minor age.

The society essentially harbors hatred although years ago a person named Martin Luther King Jr. yearned in his dream of dream: “[L]et freedom ring [….]”

The ruling system houses the largest prison population in the world.

The economy with unprecedented level of resource in human history fails to feed all its citizens, which is evident in its kitchen programs, and by tireless efforts of hundreds of volunteers.

The economy creates ghost towns as profit shifts from those places.

By skimming thousands of people the economy creates Ponzi schemes including Madoff-cases, and Enron-forgery involving millions of dollars.

It’s a political system rife with dubious deals; although its mainstream media focus on private scandals, height of slit in skirt, height of heels in shoe for women, etc.

And, the political system is experienced with a long history of aggression and war.

But, BBC “failed” to present a picture of the US, which could have made the North Korea-nuclear journey meaningful to the BBC-audience.

To BBC, Kim’s evening stroll is “surreal” – wonderful imagery and inharmonious juxtapositions. The broadcaster/telecaster presented a few pictures, as it was said, at 5:20: “Here are some more pictures of the surreal sight of Kim Jong-un taking an evening stroll around Singapore’s Marina Bay last night.”

The BBC didn’t find Singapore itself is surreal, a city-state having a beautiful appearance with a strong autocracy that, a few years ago, had to initiate a program to instruct people to laugh.

Or, the explainer could have described the US aggression in Korea region, the bombs it dropped, the number of Korean people killed due to the imperialist aggression and bombing [the death-toll was millions], the provocations it kept on making, the number of forces and type of armaments it stations in South Korea, etc.

But nothing was presented. This is “non”-partial presentation of the famous BBC!

Its knowledge-biasness is also evident from the word it used in the explainer: “Stalinesque” although there’s no similarity between the Soviet system under Stalin and the political system now in North Korea. If BBC finds similarities with this level of simple comparison, then, BBC should identify the Maldives as “imperialismesque” as there’s a capital city, an army, many guns and colorful uniforms in the island-country, and imperialist states also have these organizations, etc.

The MSM try to bring down its audience’s level of rationality/logic with simple comparisons, cheap arguments, semi-facts so that facts are not compared and dissected, and “conclusions” presented by the MSM are not questioned. The approach helps secure capital and imperialist interests as its audience will get habituated with the approach the MSM present. Otherwise, its audience will create questions impossible to attend to by the MSM. The MSM dislikes answering primary questions like (1) from where profit comes, (2) why imperialist countries behave in an arrogant way and trample sovereignty of countries, (3) how war industry enslaves state machine.

Nick Bryant, BBC’s New York correspondent added information as he tweeted:

“Is there a special place in hell for a dictator whose regime has jailed up to 130,000 political prisoners and, according to the International Bar Association, is guilty of ‘systematic murder (including infanticide), torture, forced abortions and starvation’?”

Has the correspondent’s tweet cited the number of prison-population in the US, and its color-biasness? Or, has it cited the number of persons sentenced to death in the US? Or, what’s the reason that increases these numbers? Or, the way a part of the punishment industry has been handed over to private capital in the US, and the rate of profit in the privately-run punishment industry? The member of the MSM clan unmasks its “beautiful”, a surreal, face as they remain silent on these issues.

The member of the MSM family – BBC – writes:

“While much of the world’s attention is focused on the summit, much less is known about who is running the reclusive country while the Supreme Leader is away, say our colleagues at BBC Monitoring.”

The MSM-intellect has not said: “Who is running the greatest imperialism – the US – while its commander-in-chief is away”.

Does the wise MSM-member know that no statecraft is ever run by individual or a number of individuals irrespective of level of statecraft, even if a small coterie is at helm? Is it rational to imagine that a country being strangulated with sanctions, but capable of developing powerful machine for war turns inoperative due to a few days’ absence of its chief? Even, in the medieval age, did it happen in any monarchy, or in cases of marauding hordes crossing the steppe?

The great member of the MSM wrote/said at 6:09:

“The summit in a nutshell

“North Korea is a communist dictatorship and a terrible human rights abuser and has been isolated on the global stage for decades.”

North Korea isn’t a “communist dictatorship”. Gleaming through a few pages of Marx will let the great learned member of the MSM know the meaning of communist. It – communist – is a higher level of society that has not been yet accessed by any country.

And, BBC feels shy to say that all states are dictatorships of classe(s) – one class or another. And, the US, whatever the country continuously propagates, is also a dictatorship; a dictatorship of certain classes, in which wings of those classes compete, but the rule of the classes remain intact, and remain over all other subdued classes, and in which the ruling machine has never taken any step that hurts interests of the ruling classes.

At 6:25, BBC said:

“What they won’t talk about

“From foreign detentions to women’s rights to prison conditions, North Korea’s human rights record has long been considered one of the worst in the world. That’s one reason they’ve been shunned for so long. But it’s likely these topics will be kept off the table today, as they have been at previous high-level talks.”

Has BBC referred to the empire’s human rights record? It’s well-informed about that record. Doesn’t it know the human rights report that comes out from Beijing? That report records the human rights condition in the empire. Does the charter of BBC, that governs it, say that only US-voice is to be voiced? Is it a fair representation of facts? And, does it expect that its level of credibility will not erode all after these?

The MSM’s type of taste, and the level of intellect it like to infuse into its audience’s brain gets exposed as, it has been claimed, one from the MSM group writes: “[A]n analyst argued […] that Trump’s team had ‘legitimized’ Kim by releasing the details of the lunch menu earlier than usual.” [Italicized in the original]

Is any comment required with this: An earlier release of menu legitimizes a regime?

Then, why not delegitimize the regime by a delayed release of menu next time?

And, it was reported by another member of the MSM tribe:

“As former BBC bureau chief Paul Danahar noted in a tweet, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that Trump would suspend military exercises with South Korea even before Trump announced it at his own press briefing. ‘That suggests Kim’s people were on the phone to Beijing straight after the meeting cos they recognized how big a concession it was,’ Danahar tweeted.” (“Trump’s ‘astonishing’ concession to Kim Jong Un and North Korea”, Yahoo News, June 13, 2018)

A former news-person smells Beijing’s collaboration, etc.

What’s the problem if Beijing stays in touch with one of its allies? Doesn’t the empire stay in close contact with its allies? Has not the world’s former greatest power – the UK – stay in close contact with its ally on the other side of the Atlantic? Don’t states keep in touch with other states in the same camp? And, even, on occasions, in the opposite camp? And, have not journalists, on many occasions, presented news prior to all? Is there a word “scoop”? What happened in the case of the UK’s Falkland War, and the US’ Iraq- and Libya-invasions? Have not the great Atlantic allies – the US and the UK – shared information? Don’t the US and Israel share information and coordinate actions? Even, information is shared by the empire with lackey-allies. These facts are known to all readers/listeners of the MSM as the MSM carry such news.

Actually, these are a few latest examples from the MSM engaged with creating a public mindset tuned to imperialist interpretation and world view. It’s the great, grand MSM!

Farooque writes from Dhaka.

 

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