…the one-eyed Buck is king.
I was angered into nearly changing the direction of my blog this week.
I never used to watch the news when I was young out of rampant apathy, then I became political as I grew older and watched with a critical, analytic eye. Recently, however I have become so disillusioned that I have been too saddened to watch. Everything is either too trivial and inane to be of any but the most superficial of interest or too predictably cynical and evil.
Everything I watch or read just confirms my world view. Even the knee-jerk idiot-fodder only shows what those in influence want the great (!) unwashed to think. In other words, they confirm my world view by denying it.
Which is pre-amble to my point, that out of boredom the other day I clicked on the ‘news; heading on my Firefox browser jobby. There upon I saw an article about ‘NATO’ bombing two of it’s own petrol tankers in Afghanistan, killing 90 people. There was no immediate link to The Independent (the quality paper for the tree-hugging, free-thinking, Lib-Dem voting, yoghurt-knitting, sandal-wearing, elbow-patched, be-blazered, beardy-weirdy) so I clicked on The Times article.
According to their trite propaganda piece the evil Johnny Foreigner scum had stolen two tankers, one of which got stuck. They were then spotted by a ‘NATO’ ‘plane that radioed back to base confirming that all ninety people surrounding the tankers were terrorists, so was given the green light to bomb the hell out of them. The local villagers who claimed to have spotted the stuck tanker and had their relatives rush to get free hand-outs off the hi-jackers were all seriously bereaved, but patently liars and terrorists to man, woman and child. And even if there were a few civilians present, the hi-jackers had started a fire-fight amongst themselves (at the exact moment the got the shit blown out of them by that ‘NATO’ ‘plane presumably) and probably caused the explosion themselves, an official ‘source’ claimed.
Not being completely stupid, I filled in the comments page. I urged an enquiring mind. I noted that the first rule of authority in cases of error is obfuscation. That in the instance of the police murder of Charles De Menezes, the media was immediately informed that the suspect was wearing a heavy winter coat in summer, that he had wires protruding from it, that uniformed armed police officers shouted ‘Stop! Police!’
This was allowed to sink into the herd consciousness, only to be found out to be total lies years later.
(As it turns out eye witnesses saw him stroll onto a tube in normal attire when a bunch of men in civvies ran on to the train, threw him to the floor and put eight rounds through his head. The jury wasn’t even allowed to return a verdict of ‘unlawful killing’ and had to leave it as an open verdict. Justice in a country without the death penalty.)The bit in brackets is my rage filled digression, I didn’t put that in my comment.
Then I questioned the statement that there were ninety insurgents around the tankers. How many men can they fit in those cabs? I also questioned the validity of their alleged ‘official’ source. I picked up recently that the election could only be held in some of the regions of Afghanistan because the other areas were in insurgents’ control. So the people were allowed to have free and open elections anywhere where they would vote for the puppet government. Kind of takes a shine off the concept of democracy, and therefore the merit of any ‘elected’ official. Then there’s the matter of the small- arms firefight. A military unit, capable of planning and executing a hi-jacking of two military intended tankers that then breaks with discipline and starts shooting at each other. And the clincher, at the exact moment the NATO ‘plane bombs them! I concluded by saying that it is a sad old world, but try not to make it sadder by believing everything you’re told unquestioningly.
I clicked the ‘post’ button and it said "your comment will go to a moderator for consideration before posting."
Did they post it, whole or edited? They did not! Every comment was saying things like "our enemy is stupid, starting a firefight, bet we get blamed for it".
Then I remembered the evil swine Murdoch owns the Times now. I thought somehow the noble newsmen of the Times would rise above such a partisan owner and continue to make sure the truth set us free. No, in a word.
I wrote another comment, just for the attention of the moderator really, saying ‘do you only post comments from idiots? I know this is just the Sun with pretensions, but I thought you still had standards.’
That was not posted either.
*wipes froth from mouth, takes deep breath*
I then had an issue trying to post on the thrice blessed Independents’ page! I was not a happy bunny.
My thinking was, to maybe start applying my cynical and questioning mind to the stories that caught my attention and starting to write up on those.
I do seem to spot a subtext quicker than the average bear (he says immodestly). For instance, I was well ahead of the game when it came to Maggie making deals with the (Provisional) IRA to end the war/ conflict. Nobody else seemed to think it odd that bombers who had been found guilty because they had semtex traces on their hands were released on technicalities, or that those they couldn’t release were caught on video breaking out of jail while the prison guards held back eager German Shepherd dogs to allow them to escape. Or indeed that Maggie, the career politician, recognised them as ‘soldiers’ or an ‘army’ instead of terrorists in a speech. I added all these facts together and saw the bigger picture. A year or two later, under the leadership of John Major, a ceasefire was announced. The preconditions had been met.
I may start writing the truth as I see it, or at least questioning the lies. If I do, I’ll preface each one with (News) in the subject/ title box. This will allow any who are as jaded as I to avoid them.
It would give me more to write about though. Endlessly fascinating as my life is (
) I feel there must be more I could write about!
‘Nuff for now,
Buck.