We Are Lemmings and Mass Media is the Cliff

“The average TV commercial of sixty seconds has one hundred and twenty half-second clips in it, or one-third of a second. We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking.” – Ray Bradbury

There’s a hell lot of moralising at the moment. Most of my white friends are particularly aghast at the fact that large numbers of their contemporaries have opted to use their democratic rights to implement a recidivistic new world order. The collective wailing and self-flagellation of liberals, progressive thinkers and left-wing activists from Los Angeles to London, is as loud as it is belated. Why has this happened? What has happened to our (insert country here)? How can there be so much hatred in the world – I thought we’d moved on. Why weren’t we warned?

Well of course we were warned. But people are ****ing idiots now and have to be spoon fed information like teething babies in order to be able to digest it. Too many of us allow ourselves to be exposed to the junk food of mass media, which is often disguised as news or art but is in actual fact entertainment. And like conventional junk food it is designed to be ingested, forgotten about and replaced with a new gimmick or meal at the earliest convenience. The reality is that 24hr news cycles have created insatiable beasts that are so desperate to fill their airtime, they've neglected their basic duty to report matters factually without bias. They have a duty to provide perspective and objectivity. Actually, maybe I should be saying they had a duty because it sure doesn’t look they believe that to be the case any more.

Apparently we live in a post-fact world where blatant lies are recycled as policy position and then disregarded by their exponents once the falsehoods have served their purpose. And the media has tolerated this, with little challenge or censure. This further emboldens the liars and as a result, we get more lies. Some people think that because they have access to a plethora of radio & TV channels, the internet and multiple newspapers, they are going to get multiple and diverse opinions. But the reality is very often the opposite and they discover that the power of these different mediums creates a huge noise that consistently augments the dominant opinion of the day to such an extent, that it dominates every other opinion.

The walking foetus that is Nigel Farage – supported by the bombastic oaf Boris Johnson - peddled the lie that the UK’s most beloved institution, the NHS, would benefit to the tune of £350 million a week as this money would no longer be sent to the EU. The media outlets which challenged this were almost deferential in doing so and meekly retreated in the face of vituperative from the more right-wing elements of the press. And of course they expressed ‘shock’ and outrage when the lie was immediately disowned by ****wit Farage (the day after the referendum) on national TV. The same has been true in the U.S, where the racist pack of Wotsits (Cheetos for my U.S brethren) has been proven to lie in over 70% of his statements. From birtherism to global warming, from open-borders deceptions to denying knowledge of the existence of the KKK – you know I could go on for pages here – the misogynist sunset lies with such impunity it is easier to sift through the very few truthful statements he pronounces than the fallacies.

But the facts (hah the facts. ****, can you believe we ever used those?) are that the media gave him continuous exposure and feigned horror without actually posing questions that would force Orange Hitler to confront and defend his indefensible comments. And frankly, the obsession with an email server and the use of illegally obtained information from the albino pervert Julian Assange, further served to illustrate their ambivalence to sourcing information appropriately.

So against this backdrop, is it any wonder we are becoming increasingly stupid? We are becoming more conformist because mass media ensures that we are all looking at the same things at the same time in every village, town and city in the country. Censorship has become a tool to block critique and to protect the corrupt and the news is a glorified form of gossip.

So pay attention and absorb actual data and FACTS (there I go, getting wistful about facts again). Support a strong, independent newspaper or campaign against the status quo that protects and rewards the 1%. In the UK we have been guilty of obsessing about the hyperbole surrounding the ascension of Emperor Clementine, so much so that we have ignored the facts on our doorstep. We’ve got our own problems so don’t point the finger at our American cousins and wonder how they could vote the way they did. As a result of Brexit we have an unelected Prime Minister who is seeking to implement the most draconian policies of a lifetime and dismantle the social support networks that we ALL benefit from.

I mean for **** sake. Whatever happened to the truth? It seems it just went out of fashion.