this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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I have news for you. The BBC isn't a single liberal entity. Some parts are liberal for sure, but mostly it just "looks" liberal some of the time, especially the news and politics teams who essentially do whatever the current UK government wants, under threat of defunding.
I have news for you
Yes they are.
Liberalism essentially encompasses the entirety of what is broadly considered acceptable within western politics, which is why you'll sometimes hear the term 'western liberal democracies', but for our purposes we are usually referring to the less immediately fascist end of the spectrum ~~(liberalism always eventually decays into fascism due to the utter disempowerment of any force with material interests in resisting the pull of fascism, but nevermind that for now)~~ that like to consider themselves progressive because they engage positively with identity politics.
They aren't truly progressive because they don't fundamentally challenge the systems and power structures that enable these kinds of political developments (loss of bodily autonomy, marriage equality, affirmative gender care, etc) and the proliferation of the "culture war" in the first place, and are very often minimizing and hostile towards those who do take a principled stance against these systems. The extent of their political understanding is largely bound by establishment liberal media which has a clear stake in the continuation of that very same system that is threatened by any real material social progress. This contradiction often leads liberals into defending those systems and power structures even at the expense of the marginalized groups that a liberal would purport to defend, and lashing out against those to the left of them for not "knowing their place" in a system that has for a very long time been ratcheting itself towards fascism.
Put aside the UK government and the BBC. Now find people in Britain today who call themselves liberals and also support Israel, there won't be many. In fact you won't find many people who do at all. It doesn't matter what a trifle meant in the past, it only matters what it means to people on the street today, and that is openness, tolerance, and freedom.
Let me re-apply my analysis for you
It's easy to denounce genocide and say you don't support Israel but if you aren't challenging the systems that led to this point; which even still in the face of this genocide are working overtime to normalize it in whatever angles they can; and confronting the relationship you have with settler-colonialism by default as a person born in the west, you aren't anti-genocide in any meaningful way that could actually end the genocide or prevent another from occuring. You are only reacting to the aesthetics of genocide; exclusive of the mechanisms that produce it; which makes you an unwitting, vibes-based cog in the genocide machine.