Facebook discussion on the BBC

Borjabrela: The only way ahead with the BBC (and any other state-funded media) is scrapping the TV licence, thank her for her services and wish her a better life.

STOP STATE INDOCTRINATION.

RandomSpaniard: Done. My email to these guys: "I write to inform you that I live in the year 2011 Anno Domini and was not aware there was a Common Era.
I will not be paying my TV licence until the BBC returns to the same time dimension I live in. The ...See more
Less dramatic than it sounds, given we don't own a TV or pay the licence anyway.

Borjabrela: Excellent!

Labour-leaning colleague: I wish there was a dislike button, as having travelled in other countries I thank god we have the BBC every time I flick a TV on switch. The state/establishment bias on the BBC is no worse than the corporate bias of the commercial media and it has been the the commercial media that has used wholesale mysogny, xenophobia and scientific illiteracy to debauch our culture these past forty years.

Borjabrela: I don't pay for the corporate bias of the commercial media. I pay for the bias of the BBC. You like the BBC, you pay for it. I don't like the BBC, I should not be made pay for it. Period.

Labour-leaning colleague: The BBC is democratically accountable: this sometimes means the wishes of the majority(those who want a counterweight in the form of state funded media) sometimes outweigh the minority (those who would not pay for it). The BBC is a good thing for society and we know this because people keep voting for it. All you have to do to get rid of it is elect a party with its removal on their manifesto. This democratic accountability is in stark contrast to the corporate media, where whilst I have never bought a Murdoch paper, the minority that do are considered sufficiently powerful to corrupt the political and law enforcement fabric of this country - something which directly affects me as a non-purchaser.

RandomSpaniard: LLC, nobody has ever been given a choice on the BBC so stop fantasising about democratic accountability. All the main parties have colluded to keep it place and not give voters a choice.

Labour-leaning colleague: They haven't colluded. If there was a strong move in public opinion against it you can bet it would appear on a manifesto. The conservatives in particular despise it - Thatcher hated the BBC, but recognised it would have been electoral suicide to touch it. Even when the establishment does feel brave enough to move against public opinion and attack the BBC (Hutton report) or after the tv faking scandals of a few years ago people still love the BBC. It is one of the core British institutions and a huge part of the nation's intellectual and cultural life.

Borjabrela: LLC, "democratically accountable" are two words used by authoritarian people who want to force unwilling individuals to fund their wishes (just like you). The same way that the fact that Hitler and Franco won polls didn't make them any more "democratic". What is "democratic" by the way? It is one of those words manipulated by socialists/authoritarians to deceive the population. Any time anyone uses the "democratic" argument is discredited in my opinion in the same way that you claim any time anyone uses the "nazi" argument is discredited.

Also I don't need a strong move in public opinion against the BBC for me to deem the BBC a despicable attack to my liberty and therefore for me to consider retaliation actions. The same way that the strong move in some countries to chop female gonads doesn't make this practice any more acceptable in my opinion. STOP STATE INDOCTRINATION still beholds.

It happens that individuals who are against the State are less organised and have less will to use the resorts of power offered by the State (ie., libertarians don't hold a grip in any political party like the unions do) or the mass-manipulation methods (like the liberals do with the BBC). This causes a bias in favour of the state in the governing elite. This does not indicate that my opinion is less valid.

Finally, it makes me laugh that socialist/authoritarians usually use the argument of "evil corporativism influencing the government and hence people's lives" against anti-statist individual-freedom advocates. Don't you guys realise that the main issues in that sentence are: 1, there is a government which can be used as a channel to dominate people's lives, so the solution is to limit government's power; and 2, corporativism is the result of no freedom of competition usually endorsed by the governments. People in power both in government and business collude, but it happens that Tesco/Times can't send me to prison whereas the government would send me to prison/fine me if I don't pay the BBC licence.

Love and Freedom.

Film on Mitterrand

Heidi Ellison's review of the film Le Promeneur du Champ-de-Mars, directed by Robert Guédiguian and based on the book Le Dernier Mitterrand by Georges-Marc Benamou, casts some light on the real person of Socialist François Mitterrand, President of France for 14 years (1981-95).

He was also a consummate politician who was not above lying to preserve his position. Although he knew he had prostate cancer and a short life expectancy at the beginning of his first term in office, he never told the public [...].

Shortly before his death in January 1996, the existence of a long-term mistress and a teenage daughter, Mazarine Pingeot, was revealed in the press, which had known about them all along but dared not reveal their existence because of France’s strict privacy laws and for fear of retribution from the president.

A man who did not tolerate opposition lightly, Mitterrand went so far as to order illegal wiretapping of his perceived enemies. Even the actress Carole Bouquet’s phone was tapped, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

And, in an issue treated in the new film, he never really came clean about his participation in the collaborationist Vichy government during World War II before he switched sides and joined the Resistance.

This last bit about the collaboration with dictatorships before switching to the winning democratic side is something many Spanish Socialist politicians know a lot about.

My old post gives more interesting information on Mitterrand.

Love and Freedom.

Discurso de Arcadi Espada para Ciutadans en Madrid

Discurso de Arcadi Espada para Ciutadans en Madrid: Un texto que todo español debería leer.

http://estaticos.elmundo.es/elmundo/blogs/elmundopordentro/documentos/Ciutadans_en_Madrid.pdf

A mi juicio, restablecer la confianza y la complicidad entre españoles debería ser una tarea prioritaria en estos momentos para cualquier partido político. [...]

España no es una idea. Es una acción. Es un Estado de Derecho. Es un pacto constitucional que ha dado a sus habitantes los que probablemente sean los mejores
años de su historia. Pero España, sobre todo, es una acción diversa. Una de las calamidades intelectuales de nuestro tiempo es cómo los nacionalismos se han apoderado del concepto de la diversidad. Porque, paradójicamente, la gran víctima de la hegemonía del nacionalismo, es la diversidad. La garantía de la diversidad catalana, vasca, andaluza, gallega, valenciana, es España. [...]

Un catalán al que limitan su posibilidad de ser español es como un español al que limitaran su posibilidad de ser europeo. Una pérdida injustificable. Un pésimo negocio ciudadano. [...]

España respecto a los nacionalismos, comprendidos los oximorónicos y ornitorrínticos nacionalismos democráticos, es una vigilancia… democrática. [...]

Y ahora me permitirán que firmemente, aunque sin énfasis. Con frialdad y en caja baja. Seco, sinecdótico y sin música les diga viva españa.

Love and Freedom.

Spanish PM Zapatero gone

It scares me to death what these weak politicians who unfortunately rule Spain nowadays might give us up in order not to defend the Nation. Zapatero and his friends resemble Agila II and his gang of witiza-ists, who wouldn't hesitate to sell their own countrymen to the Muslim Caliphate in vengeance.

Love and Freedom.

MBA at LBS: Lesson 1

Hello again dear readers!

 

Lots of things have happened since I last wrote to you. For instance, I was accepted to the MBAs of both Insead and London Business School. After a lengthy, careful thought process I chose to join the London Business School. And so here I am, sharing the next two years with other 400+ ambitious potential leaders.

 

The first lesson from the MBA reinforces an idea I already had: Whereas one of the most difficult things to achieve is to convince someone to change their mind in one-to-one  conversations, convincing many people by using techniques of mass persuasion is among the easiest ones.

 

In our Understanding General Management module we discussed two cases: Honda and Apple. We all know that it is very hard to persuade someone in a one-to-one conversation that Honda is better than Yamaha or that Macs are better than PCs if they already had a predetermined view. The first report of each case conveyed a positive view of the company, which seemed to explain its success; during the debates that followed most people seemed to believe this report and voiced very positive opinions on the leaders of these companies (Soichiro Honda and Steve Jobs).

 

However, the second report of each case portrayed a more realistic, even slightly negative version of the story to explain the success of the company. Suddenly, almost everyone changed their mind, bought in the last version and suggested they always knew the first version was not realistic and expressed their concerns about the qualities of the company leaders.

 

It looks like MBA candidates are no better than the average citizen.

 

Love and Freedom.