As young people abandon TV and the required licensing fees, the Westminster regime is fretting over how its scandal scarred, cancerous propaganda machine will maintain totalitarian reach into minds and pockets over the coming decades. With numbing repetition two strategies have been spun through the BBC as “modernising” changes hiding a stealth privatisation consisting of subscription fees and “compulsory broadcasting” taxations paid by all households whether they receive broadcasts or not. For the visually impaired and those not wanting to inflict pyschological abuse, collective ignorance or the next Jimmy Savile on future generations, this may cause alarm.
The current British TV license costs 145.50£ per household per year, and is ~80% of BBC’s ~5b£ annual income. To be precise, the license prevents imprisonment for playback of broadcast TV of any source whether ITV, BBC or Sky, but criminalisation does not apply to other uses such as with DVDs and computing. Even though fees almost exclusively service BBC all broadcasters benefit from the political lobbying, infrastructure building, and other eco-systemic work that funds may enable. Since privatisation began, commercial funding is gaining importance through international sales and advertising, already totalling 1b£ annually. In terms of staff the Westminster regime can afford the largest army of info-mercenaries in the world with twenty-thousand employees. I have focused on money but I mean not to mislead, ideological reach and psychological warfare has always been first remit not profitability, the latter is just an operational necessity. This idea takes precedence in its official charter: “sustaining citizenship and civil society”. Having origins in WW1 when the British Empire required audiences home and abroad be laced with propaganda, digital colonialism continues in the modern era with BBC 24hr news broadcasts in multiple languages, including Spanish targeting the Americas, Russian, Chinese and Arabic, for examples. Those names alone should make its nature obvious, BBC is and always was an imperial tool targeting the ‘hearts and minds’ of Anglo-America’s colonial rivals whilst keeping citizens served with ‘bread and circuses’. Shortly after WW1, second president of the Weimar Republic and former serving militant, Paul von Hindenburg would state that:
Goebbels, inspired by the power of radio and slogan based propaganda, would purpose his machine of misinformation in much the same way, furthering counter-Communist narratives and ultra-nationalism. One may be surprised, but perceived icon of TheLeft®, BBC darling George Orwell would have slotted in to the Ministry of Information quite well given the correct accent. Anglo-american spy groups would use Orwell to disrupt labour movements globally even paying for translations of his texts. The British ruling class saw no danger in having Animal Farm widely rhed and that narrative hasn’t changed. Insider politicians and opinionists today are constantly warning of 1984 whilst implementing the described dystopia. The counter narrative of Orwell as ex-imperial police, double-agent informer working closely to protect the interests of an aristocracy he was born into, certainly has merit. Likewise, BBC action diverges from BBC rhetoric, and the organisation increasingly finds a brand in tatters from multiple abuses. At the same time computing truly has been disruptive and a main driver of shrinking audiences. Even if people are only migrating to rival walled gardens, many seduced by Silicone Valley’s offerings of mostly illusory socio-intellectual exchange, the old colonial Windsor Regime partnered with the City of London, fear a loss of dominance. Released on Thursday was their report of how they seek to maintain pretence of a Public Broadcast Service, or as they euphemize: “relevancy [and] value for money”.
A Scandalous Decline
The report authored by a select committee across all parties, inclusive of Conservatives and crypto-conservatives of the Labour party, covers an organisation in crisis suffering the wake of pervasive child rape, molestation, torture/murder and corrupt payoffs for the main protagonists, or “serious editorial failings” (page 8). This softened language is indicative where the authors persist with an explanation of a bumbling incompetence, spinning long-term, pernicious and ubiquitous malfeasance as “historic”, “mistakes”, “woes” and “blunders”. Bearing in mind BBC has always been overly-staffed, well-funded, and merged with the secret services, the organisation across four decades was incapable of outing what one news-actor described this week as “an open secret” which is the common assertion. (So called First Lady of Fleet Street, Jean Reed would ask prominent BBC host Terry Wogan: “When are they going to expose him?”.) Once the dead man could no longer speak, and after victims found voice, then came toothless inquiry and scripted handwringing. After wrapping up the Savile segment and segueing into a mock interview with the creepy BBC Director James Purnell, the same careerist shit would suggest the BBC “doing more to blow its own trumpet”, and probably without the slightest irony.
The corruption around Savile hasn’t even remotely been scratched. He integrated with the Winsdor mafia, spent time with close friend Margaret Thatcher including multiple New Year’s celebrations, Freemasons lined his funeral parade, and to complete the conspiratorial cliche, his strange relationships even extend to Israel. Quite what Savile’s role was remains secreted, he was protected until death but as far as BBC journalists are concerned the “scandal” begins and ends with one man. Murkier still is how all staff were vetted by British military to filter out pacifists, anti-monarchists, communists, and other “subversive” types deemed a threat, meaning he was judged appropriate recieving various Royal approvals which would become a knighthood. (That people still assert a “lefty” bias to the BBC is absurd and historical denialism when fascism has been selected for from inception.) Savile seemed to flaunt his impunity, flirting with self-exposure and in one BBC interview boasted of sneaking young girls into Buckingham Palace. It doesn’t seem to have been the first time and perhaps this was a reminder to his handlers to remain untouchable.
Others too would revel in exposure and Savile’s ‘proclivities’ were a running gag, in 1998, 2000 and himself again in 2011.
It’s easy to pattern Savile with other contemporary cases where child trafficking, murder-torture, ‘lost’ evidence and absentee journalism intersect with the political class. The White House has the Franklin Cover-up where a similarly flamboyant Larry King served children to politicians, likewise in Europe mass child murderer Detroux had unexplained links to Belgium officials, and the discredited Andrew Windsor has close friendship with convicted child trafficker billionaire (but in reality rapist), Jeffery Epstein. Conservative MP, William Hague is connected to a child abuse cover-up in North Wales, various political actors and organisations, including the Conservative Party’s Monday Club, Liberal Democrats, IRA, and the National Front, are connected to a sadistic London guest house murder-torture operation. Another still existed at the heart of the diplomatic sector not far from the Palace, at Dolphin Square. The Labour Party is neither free from connection, its main accused came down with a sudden case of dementia some days after leaving office and thus judged immune from prosecution. The worst perhaps is a children’s home in Kincora, Ireland, implied by its exclusion from official investigation.
All cases seem very closely aligned with spook activity, for the UK this is Special Branch, MI5 and MI6, especially the case for Elm Guest House, ultimately shut down and half-investigated when militant counter-terrorists operating under the Official Secrets Act raided the establishment. The proprietor was later killed as the conspiracy leaked. At the same time, Special Branch funded a parliamentary lobbying group called the Pedophile Information Exchange with the specific intent to blackmail those in office. Officially PIE would lobby to abolish the age of consent. Therefore, from a wide lens, the simplest explanation for Savile seems to be a blackmailer or more likely, a national security asset to entrap political rivals who then was rewarded with impunity. Other hats included marriage councillor for the Prince and likely pimp for wealthy pervs. Protectionism all round. Perhaps GCHQ never meant for children to be dismembered but giving impunity to necrophiliacs probably can’t ever be done in good faith. Speculation might be all left available, there will certainly be no BBC help but more hindrance, having already spiked documentaries on Savile (and those into Charles Winsdor at his request). One can easily suspect given this context, that BBC’s flagship decades long charity cause, Children in Need, was a plan hatched by the security services as a national psychological operation and cover story. Savile would be a frequent participant and he was not a man to resist an opportunity to raid a children’s ward.
BBC executives were given “a whole raft of excessive payoffs […] many of which went well beyond contractual entitlements” (page 8). The highest payment was 949'000£ to the BBC’s former Deputy Director General, Mark Byford (page 32). This would normally be described as bribery, fraud, embezzlement, or perhaps even hush money with the hopes that Savile and his victims will rest in peace, along with Leon Brittan, who allegedly died, thus escaping accusations of child abuse. This includes photographs replete with maids outfit and naked pre-pubescent boy. Of course though, the BBC ran nothing but favourable obituaries for this “brilliant man”. Should some still be in denial, the Select Committee make clear its intent to see no evil:
“Following these events, in the autumn of 2013, whilst the BBC’s woes were still being publicly felt, and a degree of ambiguity remained on exactly what had gone wrong, who was to blame and what the consequences should be, we announced our inquiry into the Future of the BBC. We could have examined any one of these events in depth but we agreed then that rather than dwelling on failures, it would be far more productive to look forward…”
One such ‘forward looking’ move was to cover the Madonna ‘fall’, which made front page news across two news cycles and multiple publications. It’s as if someone off stage, at the perfect angle and timing was placed for that special photograph, also desperate for relevancy amongst younger demographics. There was no nipple or lesbian kiss this year — personally I had no idea she was even putting out ‘new’ material or being involved with CIA coups.
Losing the Youth
I would like to think in the wake of such horror, there would be a mass moral backlash. This idea is a brief concern in the report and surveys undertaken show 34% believe BBC provides low quality, compromised journalism (page 58). Increasingly the Westminster regime is left mobilising only the geriatric vote, as was the case with Scottish Independence and BBC’s UKIP astroturfing project targeting the middle-aged racist. (For international readers, UKIP is false opposition much like the American Tea Party, but with more bumbling tweed and funded by the aristocracy. The Marxian reading would be one of crass anti-communist propaganda, encouraging racial hatred and ultra-nationalism —islam replaces judaism, and the Reich becomes “Restoring Britishness”. ) Viewing is in sharp decline for all those young enough to not be possible victims of Jimmy Savile, Leon Brittan, or groomed to think of the BBC as the maternal “Aunty Beeb”. The creepy uncle has let slip its mask to reveal a grotesquery, but alas the likely cause is a migration to junk internet content, Hollywood propaganda and gaming. Capturing the very young, much like Savile, is still going to be a priority for BBC. The report emphasises the importance of maintaining its monopoly on UK children’s programming protecting against American imports:
“[Our] content plays a vital part of children’s early learning experience and understanding of their cultural identity. Children’s content must remain a core and priority PSB genre for the BBC beyond 2016. The BBC will need to be able to continue to innovate and develop new media and distribution strategies for children as the audience for traditional linear television programmes continues to decline over the next few years.” (page 32)
Regional Neglect
There is also a regional crisis where TV viewing is in decline with distance from London. BBC surveys claim around 40% feel their region is neglected, and the sharpest decline in TV viewing has been in the occupied counties outside London (page 58). For most of BBC history, the TV tax has sucked wealth and personnel south into the imperial hub leaving the periphery impoverished. In return has been an effluence of London-centric gentrifying programming, royal coverage, antiques road shows, and people are very much primed for independence as Scotland shows. Should the internet not be successfully crippled a true public broadcast network still remains a possibility. As counter measures, personnel have been moved more remotely, but I speculate the expansion of BBC North into Manchester was a conscious effort to retain ideological dominance and prevent possible competition. Even still, moving two-thousand is only 10% of total staff and will still add to the North-South divide.
This is the key point that is being omitted from the media narrative spun by BBC and others: young people are increasingly not buying televisions so there is not even the legal recourse to enforce fee collection on non-payers. On a long enough timeline without reactionary intervention, funding for BBC disappears and the Westminster regime truly has an existential crisis. There are now a million homes that have broadband but have rejected TV completely. Perhaps Britain becomes even more like a feudal state under American influence, or worse for them, a mass resurgence of counter-political consciousness filling the void. One has to dig through the support material on page 142 to find mention of Peak BBC:
“With fewer people watching TV as it is being broadcast, people will require licences less, and whilst licence revenue increased slightly last year, I think it will peak as the younger generations realise they don’t actually need a licence.”
Another key area of concern is where the next round of empty headed lickspittle news-actors will come from to serve the Westminster regime and provide camouflage for its highly trained spooks and intelligence operatives. MovingForward® the BBC is aiming to make “training and development of talent and skills in the UK’s creative media industries and in journalism” part of core principles (page 24). Freedom of information, mass publications, and many-to-many broadcast is now an expectation for younger demographics who are rejecting sermon-gatekeeper-journalism. The regime hates investigative journalism and the internet has made any one a potential threat to secretive operations. Investigative journalism is listed by the Ministry of Defence as a “national security” threat along side terrorism in its own official internal security manuals, but we only have confirmation due to illicit leaks. It’s understandable then that they would seek to expand ideological reach and social control for a generation that is becoming accustomed to all access information. They risk new journalism resembling descendents of Wikileaks, although activity in this area is grassroots at best if not killed off by the Snowden spectacle. A stronger trend is old media rebranding with more sophistication, for example: Murdoch acquired significant control of Vice’s hipster fascism after his Myspace flop, and Disney/Warner at Fusion Media are busy running destabilising propaganda for the Obama regime targeting Latin America. Google is already lost to the CIA.
A Nationalised Bail-in for the Sinking Ship
The end of all Freemarket Capitalism is to have a strong State that guarantees revenue streams whilst spiking disruptive competition and the ever present threat of social revolt. Although media reports have been somewhat vague, as if the Westminster regime is still in deliberation, much of the strategy is clearly outlined. For instance, resembling the privatisation afflicting the NHS, a similar top-down restructuring towards independent directorship is covered in great detail:
“We recommend the BBC to have a unitary board with a non-executive Chair and a majority of nonexecutive directors where the board has complete responsibility for the BBC’s corporate governance and operations, within the confines of the Charter and Framework Agreement with Government.” (page 4)
Elsewhere the continuation towards privatisation is more obvious, although the reality is of an organisation that has been an aristocratic tool since inception, protected both from the turbulence of the market and of democracy. As Lord Grade — former Channel4, ITV and BBC executive — describes: the BBC “[patrols] the borders between the public and private sectors” (page 47). Betwixt the public and the private lies not the Crown? The idea that the BBC exists because of “market failure” is played up to but operating by Royal Charter this is best understood as a continued military occupation of the British media as a form of idealogical protectionism for the ruling classes. All content is privatised, citizens have no rights regarding copyright— re-broadcast, re-publishing, or re-packaging is a criminal offence. Certain commercial services like BBC World even suffer censorship from within the UK. What would be a marketing problem for Rupert Murdoch, becomes more political for the BBC. Profit is not needed to justify existence but rather there is pressure to maintain “value for money”. Without viewers, justification in the minds of the public is tenuous, but more importantly the Regime will need to rework its tools of psychological control. The future of the BBC is very much here, it’s just sold to foreigners, and a roadmap which exists in some private correspondence somewhere can be constructed:
- A scrapping of license fees in a grand display of faux-modernism and a swift “move to a broadcasting levy on all households”. This would be a compulsory 10–20% increase on current tax demands (and one shouldn’t be surprised the Committee that came to such a conclusion is full of Conservatives).
- The subscription model in operation for international customers means that BBC World already provides turn-key privatisation. Content is already fractured by demographic, best exampled by BBC Brit aimed at male pub-bores aged 25–44 wanting “the most interesting conversation in the bar” and BBC Earth which is what the name suggests but through the eyes of Middle England. BBC3 pitched too the youngest teen-adult demographic is already only available online.
- For a number of years BBC have been heavily involved trying to cripple HTML standards with DRM restrictions to protect a long term move towards an iPlayer based subscription model. They will go much further and force TV manufacturers to install “conditional access systems” with an upgrade add-on requirement at an estimated national cost of 500m£.
- Privatisation will move forward similar to the NHS — content production, services and support will be increasingly outsourced with the BBC becoming a shell company diverting tax revenue to insider oligarchs via tax havens and nested companies.
- Premium subscriptions will increasingly service bourgeois Londonite sensibilities. For military and socio-economic propaganda reasons, the Regime will likely maintain a junk news channel and children’s programming as free-access broadcast. The council tax increase will never go away despite the subscription model gaining dominance.
- Neoliberal market constructionism will be complete for the media and be tuned towards the TTIP globalist putsch.
Digital Chains and Faux-Decriminalisation
“Since the BBC’s beginnings, the aim of public service broadcasting in the UK has been to provide for the mass market on a universal, free-to-air basis, albeit with an obligation on householders to pay a licence fee [edit: …] if they watch or record any television services as they are broadcast. Inevitably, in the UK, the way broadcasting funding evolved was in part a consequence of it having not been feasible to exclude someone from receiving an analogue signal.” (p.18)
Much is made of the revolutionary potential of mass digitisation, but many haven’t stopped to consider how this may serve power. BBC some years back had the requirement to push the UK towards digital broadcast as part of its charter, but now relish the prospect of being able to cripple public broadcast with ubiquitous censorship. They claim current licensing enforcement is “anachronistic and out of proportion” with around 51 people imprisoned each year for non-payment, but the reality is that this authoritarian model couldn’t be sustained at an annual cost of 100m£ and ~10% of all magistrate criminal cases. Far more expedient is to have content delivered encrypted, and each household having a digital key — there is no need for a warrant nor judge, just the ins’n’outs of a bank balance then corporate enforcement. Another I’m sure intended effect will be a new ability to profile households, surveil viewing habits, and better fine tune propaganda content for regional variances or perhaps even bespoke programming. GCHQ and the advertising industry will be rubbing their hands.
A (pseudo) public broadcast is being shaped to an encryption based private narrow casting which leaves the Regime with what they claim is a dilemma outlined in the report. They need to decide whether such a system will be shared with all broadcasters including ITV and Sky which are the examples they use on page 83. Like there is any debate. Let this sink in, the BBC will use compulsory household tax increases to create and sustain the delivery system Rupert Murdoch and other broadcast mafiosos have been dreaming under a ‘Conservative’ government. This leaves the Westminster regime room to expand towards a national paywalled centralised media delivery system allowing for easy content control, and after that possibly a two-tiered internet as net neutrality gets discarded. What appear to be rivals in the private sector make for a bedfellowed racket of convenience, but don’t worry, the usual mewing dipshits like Owen Jones will be ready with the tired Orwellian clichés. Neither will The Guardian mobolise much protest, instead some will certainly be salivating, eager for a place at the trough having already lobbied for a mandatory 2£ monthly broadband levy as protection for their dying newspaper industry. Do not be seduced by Seumas Milne’s sly hand job for BBC nostalgia, he’s largely indistinguishable from the Conservatives he decries and spins a similar narrative.
Fanfare has been given to this idea of “decriminalisation” and of course no news-actor will point out how this is just marketing for an authoritarian creep and act of deep self-interest. Non-payment will still suffer criminal sanctions because you’d have to refuse at least a portion of household taxation resulting in homelessness and prison. This is all compounded because those that don’t even want to watch BBC, ITV and especially Sky info-maiment will be compelled to fund. It doesn’t seem likely that the Westminster regime will allow an escape to the internet, as they half-reveal:
“The BBC has confirmed to [The Select Committee] that unlicensed viewers have been prosecuted who have watched live TV programmes on devices other than televisions but has not disclosed the number of such prosecutions or whether any have resulted in imprisonment for non-payment.” (page 79)
That begs the question: why hold back evidence and details of this new type of prosecution? Can all the small state Conservatives please stand up? Can anyone stand up?
False Opposition as Standard
David Elstein chairman of OpenDemocracy.net was a key witness for the Committee saying an income based tax is a better option than licence fees but prefers privatisation where divestment of Worldwide from the BBC would allow “greater efficiency and access to capital markets to finance activities”. Perhaps he can sit back down or find a bridge. Elstein is also chairman of the Broadcasting Policy Group, director of Kingsbridge Capital Advisors, and a supervisory board member of two German cable companies. If more be needed, a scan of his Wikipedia entry reveals that he was brought to the UK by the Rothschild Foundation in youth, graduated from Cambridge, worked at BBC through the 60's, produced for Channel4, was head of programming at BSkyB, then helped launch Channel5 as chief executive, chaired a dozen private media companies and currently is a director of Virgin Media Inc. Digging at Kingsbridge Capital, it was co-founded by Mathias Hink who started his career privatizing German resource companies then continued as an economic hitman ‘opening’ up public wealth to private equity at Kleinwort Benson. For insiders like these a broadcast levy integrated into the tax system is happy compromise if it can be tapped by the rhizome of boutique media companies that mask a media oligarchy. Completely severing the weak democratic threads and shifting ownership to global financial tyranny is their ideal scenario, they just run into the incumbent political class of the UK who are resistive to give up current protectionism. Running down the BBC would cause turbulence for the Winsdor mafia with potential loss of its chief sycophant, and possible ideological slippage for the associated militant wings. Private finance as America shows no longer requires a divine figure head — maybe just dancing sharks and a blacked up presidency — although regal branding would still be powerful. However, the physical violence needed to “open up democracies” where private equity coup fails will continue to remain a necessity.
Intellectual Property
Analysing how all media companies maintain power and influence reveals how there are merely legal conceits. A main complaint for retaining BBC hegemony is a manifestation of the familiar ‘lesser of two evils’ defence— better to lie with the creepy uncle than the likes of Rupert Murdoch. Better to keep the faith in Obama then suffer the next George Bush. Better the Labour Party than risk the colours of Thatcher. It is likely true, abolish the BBC and a purer American model would fill the vacuum because current political and infrastructure frameworks will always reproduce what they are intended to maintain — empires.
Copyright and patents represent two fundamental mechanics from which current empire emerges, whilst being inherently fascist yet readily accepted and acceptable by nearly all tech-hipsters, liberal writers, and lefty wankos even though they would think themselves opposed to rightwing fundamentalism. Full spectrum dominance is obtained as all types have internalised an ideological pillar of neoliberal market mechanics. A complete history of why this is so expands beyond the scope of this piece, but in brief:
- There never was a time when the ruling class didn’t impose royalty structures or licensing fees that were not overt means of protectionism, censorship and rent collection. Early intellectual chains were used to prevent native bible translations as more power lies with keeping a people dependent on an army of approved priests and Latin scripture. To get access required Sunday visits, church collection boxes and tithe taxes but even then, the whole picture would never be revealed lest it fall apart which it would do some centuries later. In this respect, Latin is a direct ideological antecedent to DRM technology of today, the very same that BBC would have installed in all media peripherals to portion exactly what it thinks an audience should consume. Having such a system — a reverse Panopticon — is at very least poor social hygiene risking abuse from future non-benevolent dictators, yet the self-published justification for BBC “Public Service Broadcast” has been psycho-cultural indoctrination though it may not use those words. To rewind slightly — once you have a system policing what information people can share, evolve and access the necessary consequence is thought control hence why fascism is not at all hyperbole. The same legal mechanic servicing the latest Harold Snotter book, makes legal the denial of life saving drugs to those judged not worthy even if the only requirement is their own hard work and resources.
- A necessary condition of patents is to accept an intellectual proprietor who can outsource to wherever and deny or delay market entry to regions on a whim. And note I do not say inventor, as most novel work automatically goes to whichever company they are contracted. Weapons patents remain a significant incentive, however, American law makers have seen fit to explicitly exclude any patent useful for atomic energy or weaponry and any granted have been revoked. One may think this is prudent, but it allows the American regime the full scope to ‘rob’ intellectual property from rivals should they advance. The inverse is also true, the US junta has law allowing them to secrectise any invention deemed useful for regime preservation or attack. Since 2002 the rate at which such orders were imposed has exploded, covering cryptography, weapons, transport, and space. Disruptive weaponry especially those able to attack the ruling class has always been an issue, in 1139 Pope Innocent II would make crossbows illegal to be used against Christians (unless the wrong sort of Christian) — these weapons were powerful enough for an unskilled peasant to pierce the expensive armour of a nobleman, presumably a perversion of the natural order. That may sound familiar when we consider laws selectively enforced for “unconventional weapons”, prisoners of war and torture around modern battlefields yet openly used on civilians.
When crypto-fascists like Molly Crabapple, Owen Jones, and Laurie Penny demand protectionism for their trite bourgeois scribblings, or when the latest Valley nerd guffs some gizmo onto Kickstarter (‘patent pending’), they ultimately give ideological cover for the brutal Anglo-American regime. They are all mercenaries in an attack on the intellectual commons.
“Yeah, but what about innovation!?” — A. Dipshit, 1940–2015+
Again see the history, “intellectual property” was always about limiting the rate of change so incumbents could neuter or divert disruption back into serving power. One can look to P2P software, Napster, Piratebay and Bittorrent which have been persecuted in the short-term lest they create a cultural momentum hard to roll back. This denial gave incumbents time to pivot to bespoke market conduits like iTunes, Steam and BBC iPlayer. It’s easy to see ideological contradiction here:
As the mythology goes, neoclassicals and neoliberals seek to eliminate all “market distortions” — a term they define — yet there is none more obvious than those described above, deemed so important they are codified in law. Market distortions is an economic term describing influences that deny participants complete information, market entry, increase prices or anything that inhibits “perfect competition”. Taxation is especially frowned upon — a sentiment I agree with — but for them ideological room is found for royalty based rent seeking where the State grants participants selective monopoly over ideas, culture, words, manufacturing, maths, and personnel. Consider how neoliberals construct their legal frameworks like the TTIP, written in secret, under copyright and non-disclosure agreements. Since the aim is wealth protection across generations, the first immortal beings will have the first indefinite property claims — Walt may have died but Disney lives on and sadly so does the monarchy.
A Silver Bullet for all Media Beasts
The most primitive public broadcast is the voice, the Commons provided for communication mediums via sound and light. Wisdom persisted as song, sonnet, myth and wives’ tale, free from ownership to morph and appreciate as required. The bard had no need for copyright simply because the ability to sing was his own. Neither did the great artists Marlowe, Milton and M’Angelo suffer innovational crisis. Da Vinci didn’t need convincing with first-mover IP incen…ting. The demand for robbing culture forged by previous generations, chained as property with conditional access controls, came from the business class, church and monarchy. Once ideas could be commodified as symbols thus began the first binary goose-steps. British war mongers mastered the radiowaves early 19th century and Full Digitisation allowed US diplomats and militants an even more impressive reach. Swift information transport creates command and control structures spanning hemispheres—a decision made in the White House may affect some Russian assassination and returned with in the hour to audiences as the latest reason some other place requires bombing into democracy.
At the same time though, civilian infrastructure inevitably had to be given room simply because the military would need the resources to piggy back its imperial intent. (That being said the inverse may have been more the reality.) Regardless, constructs like Youtube, Facebook, networked Wordpress sites and so on seem to be providing Public Broadcast in a literal sense even if you have one chance before digital assassination. Anyone can now publish anything (in theory) and reach an audience of any size, with the caveat being resident in the privileged areas of ‘net infrastructure (60% of the world goes without, so hype around technology like Bitcoin and Tor needs re-assessment). A primitive return to chinese whispers, however quaint, is not likely and there is great utility with USian children admiring the computer gaming prowess of the dominant Koreans. 고수 (pronounced ‘gosu’) is now a universal word for a particular demographic. National borders drawn on maps during colonial times as a key component for modern warfare are dissolving in a meaningful way. However, the ‘thieving’ Nigerian, the Russian ‘scammer’, the Chinese ‘hacker’ and the arabian tech-terrorist might be noteworthy stereotypes that persist.
Monetization — however odd a requirement since we are lucky that first primates didn’t sit scratching heads prevented from building the first campfires because they couldn’t raise the funds not invented yet, and even more so that they then didn’t then file for patent…
“Hjunter! Your licence fees are up for renewal. Pay up or go back to sleeping with the pig and if Hjuntina kicks you out again, there’s always the barn.” — Samuel Winslow, 3001735–3001701 BC
Oh, if only the first patent was for the book keeping of patents and we were left with a non-implementation and the propreieter going round suing any that tried to ‘steal’ the idea. That’s not far from what we have today but I digress. The point would have been and is that monetization provides the main vector of internet militarisation — khaki traded for the dour grey suits of advertising. No one likes adverts, without men with guns enforcing copyright for oligarchs market participants will be able to repackage and redistribute as they see fit. No longer would financial alchemists be able to violate the laws of physics — money from money is money from nothing, and that which is hot, fast or obscenely wealthy should have increasing difficulty to gain further momentum. Denying oligarchs the ability to write into law perpetual motion machines against which we will inevitably be dashed despite the ever rising tides, should be the corner stone of all activism, opposition and strategy.
On a long enough timeline longevity may be threatened by peak oil as a googleplex of servers stamps a huge energy jackboot— infrastructure might migrate decentrally to mirror solar supplies. Many perhaps don’t want to wait that long, besides, the UK government have already protected against widespread onshore windfarms, and predictably the US oil industry patented high capacity of nickel metal hydride batteries to delay ‘market entry’ back in the `90s. Jaywalking laws they invented much earlier and the annual global genocide of 1.4 million victims still protect against any meaningful share of ‘market participants’ migrating back to walking or cycling.
Hollywood (a main vector for CIA propaganda) needs no explanation. The number of billionaires especially media oligarchs is increasing. Sportsmen are being sold for 100m€ or paid over 150k$ per game with peak silly-hair-arm-sleaves not yet in sight. Fascists in the tech-sector like Bill Gates have transitioned to medicinal colonialism presumably because ‘the negro’ scores lower for the actuary in his risk assessment. All these horrors rely on thought control and chaining human creativity under a contrived economic model existing as a realisation of the mechanics the constructionists claim to exclude. Liberal sensibility usually hides a fascism behind a veneer of good taste and pleasant accent, but anyone helping to build these tools of oppression is the enemy if only a dim-witted unknowing but keenly self-interested 5th Column. If you hate Murdoccios, deny them the protection money. If you hate endless war, deny Hollywood the collection of endless royalties. If you are sickened at the prospect of prospecting genetic properteers, deny Monsanto the ability to Enclose evolutionary eons. If you hate how Thatcher and Raegan gutted the manufacturing sector, start ignoring the patents that allow hedgefunds to enslave and skip the whole jail braking process. If you hate a Coalition government batting for monarchy, deny them BBC. Allow fibre and radio signal to return to what it was, a collectively owned analogue free at the point of use.
