Gauguin inscribed the original French title in the upper left corner:. D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous. The inscription the artist wrote on his canvas has no question mark, no dash, and all words are capitalized. In the upper right corner he signed and dated the painting: P. Gauguin / 1897.
Admittedly, we’re not doe-eyed Tahitian ladies, but Craig and I have been asking ourselves similar questions. We sort of know where we come from (the facetious answer is “Biased-BBC circa 2009”) but “what are we and where are we going” - with and without a question mark - are pertinent questions. Despite Brexit (or not Brexit) as the case may be.
Everyone and his dog accuses the BBC of bias. As I tried to point out in my previous post, readers who ‘clicked’ on the linky will be reminded that accusations of bias do indeed come from both sides.
People like myself believe one side (ours) represents the norm, (sanity) while t’other represents the proverbial flat-earth society and its ilk.
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| flat-earth society and ilk |
Nonetheless, the BBC is obliged to appear impartial and the flat-earth side of the coin is duly represented. (Convenient, too, for bolstering the institutionally not-at-all-impartial-BBC machine’s well-worn “complaints from both sides’ defence.) ”Weaponised” I think, would be the current phrase for it. The BBC has ‘weaponised’ ridiculous, feeble, ignorant and straw-man-like allegations of bias for the sleight-of-hand purpose of discrediting genuine concerns.
If the BBC *really* can’t tell the difference between half-baked assertions by juveniles and fools that the BBC is institutionally ‘right-wing’ or a ‘government mouthpiece’ and rational observations about the glaringly obvious left-wing BBC bias, which everyone and his dog politically to the right of Ash Sarkar is aware of and increasingly vociferous about, then we can simply rest our case. In other words, the reason the Beeb can’t differentiate one from the other is …..its bias, stupid!
But I don’t think this is the problem. The BBC can tell the difference, but it chooses to ignore ‘us’. It’s not so much that the BBC is run by people who are ‘literally communists’, but the people it is led and run by are stuck within a particularly incurious and settled mindset.
Anyway, as I was saying, ITBB is like the Brexit Party. There comes a time when we no longer have much of a purpose. If pointing out examples of BBC bias, as a kind of ‘campaign’, has lost impetus, that’s mainly because of its success. It's mainstream now. If "we" have helped to make ourselves redundant (but don’t let’s flatter ourselves by boasting that we had much influence over that) then we are in a way the architects of our own superfluousness.
We’ll either dwindle away or morph into something different. Whichever way the cookie crumbles, as they say on W1A, “it’s all good.”
