Photo by The Times/Gallo Images/Getty Images
Posted on 03/27/2015 11:35:57 AM PDT by walford
The BBC just proved that Progressive media serves the tiny elite who think they should run our lives.
It’s official: The BBC have fired Jeremy Clarkson, the main presenter and inventor of the modern version of Top Gear. If you don’t yet know what Top Gear is, go look it up. It pretends to be a show about cars, but it’s actually a fascinating series about three crazy personalities doing insane stunts, and (for very good reasons) it’s been for the last 13 years the most popular non-fiction TV show… in the world.
Photo by The Times/Gallo Images/Getty Images
The craziest thing about it is that, purely by a series of unusual events that spiraled out of the hands of the elitist snobs who run it, Top Gear was made by the British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC). It was a show being made by a broadcaster run by the type of people who despise the type of show Top Gear is: funny, fascinating, utterly irreverent, not environmentally friendly, starring three middle-aged white guys, not even a tiny bit politically correct, and incredibly astoundingly popular. Most sinful of all to them: it makes money. Tons and tons of money. For these types, anything that makes money because it’s popular with everyday people is the very definition of a show that does not under any circumstances belong on the BBC.
The BBC has always, from its inception, been supposed to act in the interest of the British Public. This was understood on its creation to mean that it would put the audiences first, and provide informative, creative and entertaining programming to the British public. This was so important that the BBC’s programming is supposed to be judged not by how much money a show makes (in fact, the vast majority of their shows make no money at all, being instead financed by a TV ownership tax), but by something called the “Audience Appreciation Index”. This is a measurement of how much the public appreciates the program. This is supposed to determine what shows should be be on the BBC.
But it has also been a reality that, almost from the beginning, the BBC has always been run by elitists who felt they knew better than the public, and that they should get to dictate TO (rather than be dictated by) the British public as to what is best to them. The BBC bosses have always been partisans of whatever ideology was the most elitist, the most sanctimonious, the most anti-public, in any given age: in the 60s and 70s it was full of communists, today it is full of Politically-correct Progressives. They are almost always Leftist, always Collectivist, and almost always humorless.
And the BBC’s mid-level bureaucrats have always, always hated Top Gear. The current BBC’s manager, Danny Cohen, had been very vocal about how desperate he was to get rid of Jeremy Clarkson, and now he got his wish. In the process, it made a pretty startling revelation as to how Collectivists work, and who they serve.
When it was announced that the BBC was using a dinnertime argument as an excuse to fire (or “sack” as they say across the pond) the driving force behind Top Gear, two big petitions were being promoted across the social media almost instantly. The first was in support of Clarkson, demanding that the BBC not fire him; it ended up with over a million signatures and became the fastest-growing petition in the history of change.org. The second demanded that Clarkson be fired for his various crimes against humanity (which mostly consisted of being anti-Europe, anti-Left, anti-nanny-state, and anti-political-correctness). This petition garnered a whopping 34127 signatures. It featured, in brazen shamelessness, a completely un-ironic picture of Clarkson with his mouth gagged on it, making it very clear what these people wanted: to totally silence those who disagree with them.
This is an interesting result for two reasons. First, it gives us a very good, albeit non-scientific, look at just what the divide between the Collectivist elitists and the Individualists is: the Collectivist-Crowd made up about 3.2% of the population who signed either petition. These are the people who are strident in their advocacy of the Collectivist values of the modern “progressive” Left, that believe in pogroms against free speech; but more importantly, that will despise anything just because everyday people like it too much. After all, Top Gear was not an overtly political show; this wasn’t a battle against a right-wing radio talk show or something like that.
Top Gear‘s immense popularity allowed it to survive for 13 years without the BBC Commisars being able to shut it down in spite of Jeremy Clarkson’s outspoken anti-PC views, but the show itself was mostly about having wild irreverent fun with cars (seriously, if you’ve never seen it go watch it now; I don’t like cars, I haven’t even driven a car in almost 20 years, but I love the show, not for the cars but for the passion and humor and brilliance of it). So for the Collectivists, getting rid of Jeremy Clarkson wasn’t just about getting rid of Jeremy Clarkson, it was also about getting rid of a show that they hated for being too proletarian, too popular with the unwashed masses who they feel can’t be trusted and who should be told what is the proper kind of fun to have. The show itself was dangerous to them, because it suggested to ordinary people that they could and should have a free choice about what they enjoy, without all the special considerations the Elites put into the (always far less popular) programs that they have chosen for the correct indoctrination of the ‘unwashed masses’. This 3.2% resented Top Gear‘s existence because it was a loud (and fun) statement against their notion that they should control the other 97.8% of us.
Second, it made it very clear where the BBC stands on this. They have regularly influenced the facts of their reporting to represent the liberal biases of their mid-level bureaucrats: having downplayed a massive child-abuse scandal that was going on in England because they felt it would look “racist”, having consistently refused to use the word “terrorism” (even during the brutal Mumbai terrorist attacks), and have bent over backward to appease the pro-Palestine anti-Israel Leftists to the point of claiming that Jerusalem is the “capital” of Palestine and that Israel has no capital. They have openly admitted to their intense anti-American bias ), they have been found in two different independent reports of having an extreme pro-European-Union bias, and a pro-immigrant bias that focused on anecdotal personal stories rather than concrete data as a way to influence the public. Here, with Jeremy Clarkson, they suddenly felt they had to take a ‘strong principled stand’ about ‘policing their own house’ because God forbid a man who makes them more than a hundred million dollars a year and invented the most popular TV show they currently air should get mad about the BBC crew not having a hot meal for him at the end of a full day’s work. And yet they never felt the need to take such a stand for the THIRTY YEARS they spent actively covering up pedophile scandals in their own studio.
The BBC stands with the 3.2%, with the over-indoctrinated self-satisfied elitists, and against the 97.8% of the public they were chartered to serve.
I can tell you how the rest of this will play out from here, too. Clarkson and his co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond (who will almost certainly choose to leave with him) will, if they so desire, get a new contract for insanely more money than the BBC ever gave them, to do a Top Gear-clone for a private broadcaster. That show will be more popular than ever. 
Source: Twitter
Meanwhile, the BBC will almost certainly re-staff Top Gear with presenters chosen for their identity-politic demographics (race, gender, sexuality; you know, all that stuff that’s so incredibly important as a qualification to host a show about driving fast cars) rather than anything resembling a personality. They’ll retool the show to get rid of the most “offensive” parts, and to make it more “educational”. It will be a horrific flop, which will allow the BBC executives to do what they wanted in the first place and either cancel it or relegate it to bleakest outlying corners of their government-funded media empire, and then do a lot of commentary on “News” shows about how the failure of the New Top Gear was the public’s fault for being such horrible racists/sexists/whatever.
And the 3.2% will sagely nod in agreement and bemoan the cruelty of a world full of people who are so much less sophisticated and righteous than they are, and wonder why these ignorants don’t just give in and let them run all our lives.
Wanna see a bunch of a-holes come out of the woodwork?
Who’s who in the Chipping Norton set?
Interactive graphic showing the connections between the Chipping Norton set which includes David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks and Jeremy Clarkson.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/interactive-graphics/9124278/Whos-who-in-the-Chipping-Norton-set.html
Can’t wait to see the new show! Bring it on!
This isn’t about his words. This is about his physically attacking another crewmember.
If you punch a co-worker, expect to get fired.
Brother...
He punched a producer. He went to the network and told them he did, and has never denied it.
This isn’t some left-wing conspiracy to kill off this show. This is a grown man with no self-control assaulting a staff person and having celebrity-worshiping idiots rally around him because they really like seeing this guy drive around in cars.
Clarkson IS Top Gear. And one of the most entertaining and irreverent people on the planet.
Imagine if these three guys go on Duck Dynasty..
But it was over something important like getting cold cuts when a steak was required. If only the BBC was conservative they would realize sometimes a star just needs to physically express displeasure at insulting cold cuts and not fire him. Or something.
FReegards
[ If you punch a co-worker, expect to get fired. ]
But, But, According to the Bamster, it is oly workplace violence if you start mowing down your co-workers with guns.....
/sarc
so that’s what happened? He took a poke at someone? - he should be fired. Whatever the BBC is, they are not a small mom & pop shop. This is a rule every company I deal with has and I’ve personally witnessed this (firing for assault) happen.
I just wish the BBC was this diligent with Jimmy Savile.
Sometimes people need to be hit upside the head.
Sometimes it’s the only way to get their attention.
Sometimes ya just hafta spit.
He is an arrogant, narcissistic pr@ck.
And the only reason I watch Top Gear
FReegards
It was after a long tirade and a lost temper.
The producer sole job is to keep the stars happy, so it's probable this was the eruption of a long line of problems. Unfortunately, with Clarkson being so polarizing we will never really know.
I was in the UK for the last 3 weeks and followed the story there, it was quite educational on the polarization - politically between liberal and conservative and sexist between male and female, with most women hating him.
But diddle little kids for over 40 years, and it’s perfectly Okey-Dokey with the Beeb.
I heard he yelled for 20 minutes and then he got physical. As far as the sole job of a producer, it sound like this guy is happiest when he is flying off the handle about something. Maybe the producer got him insulting cold cuts to release the pressure about something else.
Freegards
An ugly situation like that probably had many running from the truth, kinda like the Penn State mess.
Personally, I'd be partial to beating them with a 9 iron, with a nice, stiff carbon fiber shaft. (A lighter shaft is that much less mass you have to lift.)
Before I hear too much condemnation, read DU, and come to the realization that They hate us, all of us. The Left wouldn't so much as pause to exterminate every conservative and Christian on the planet, were it not for all those nasty guns we'd use, in Payback.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
