We are facing a tsunami of fake news, PR on crack, from people with not one shred of decency or humanity amongst them.
It is worth bearing in mind that these are all power plays, it’s all deception from the utterly corrupt, but more than that is the cynicism of fake news, driven by pictures, memes, stories, faked up knowingly and deliberately to deceive.
It is an onslaught against the lives of ordinary people, which has been ramped up since the banking crisis. The demonisation of poor people, vulnerable people, disabled people, children, the jobless and low waged, health care, care needs, housing needs, those seeking sanctuary from war and persecution, every cut can be seen as a sanction on the lives of ordinary people.
The majority of the worlds population lives in poverty with half the global population living on less than $2.50 a day, whilst the richest 1% have as much wealth as the rest of the entire population of the world (99%).
It is, I feel, simplistic to say that these multiple onslaughts on our lives are to divide and conquer, although it cannot be denied that is part of it. The motivation for all of this is greed for wealth and power. Of course it helps ‘them’ to set us against each other, but that is really just a diversion in their rapacious greed and self serving pathological narcissism.
The Mail, Sun and Express are not newspapers, they exist to inflame and promote hate, they don’t give tinkers cuss about their readers other than feeding an addiction to hatred. They serve their own interests and the interests of power and wealth.
Every time it kicks off on social media and becomes a torrent of abuse, people have taken their eye off the ball, every troll is fishing and once someone takes the bait, they’re hooked and the whole thing unravels with a dreadful vitriolic inevitability. Threads become a battle field in which those embroiled take pot shots from their bunkers, nothing is resolved, the players just become more and more entrenched as the insults fly. No one ever resolved an argument by calling someone a fuckwit. They might ‘win’ if they can come up with a suitably unanswerable line of vitriolic hurtful abuse, but what a shallow victory that is.
Politicians who sell out to greed riddle politics with lies and spin, their speeches are exercises in deception, their words are nonsense, not worth a moment of our time or attention, other than in comparing their weasel words with reality – what is actually happening on the ground in real life, like the humanitarian crisis happening in our NHS deliberately caused by the Tories and Jeremy Hunt in particular.
In October 2016 Theresa May said at conference, reported by the BBC, ‘The Conservatives will use the power of government to “restore fairness” in Britain and spread prosperity more widely’, and the ‘UK must change after the “quiet revolution” of the Brexit vote, urging people to “seize the day”.
Every word of that was meaningless bollocks, yet the BBC trotted it all out like the good little poodle it is, but the most tragic part is that anyone might actually believe it. We invented language so that we could communicate meaningfully, not spout meaningless nonsense. Statements like that from Theresa May demean language itself and insult everyone it is inflicted upon. It’s toxic noise and mind pollution.
We have to move on from this place. If someone is lying or talking nonsense, it doesn’t gain any validity just because they are wealthy or powerful, although that can and does frequently make it more toxic.
Plain and honest speech isn’t an optional extra, it is crucial and in our times more crucial than ever. What is happening with the rise of right wing extremism is an assault on our humanity.
Quite simply, liars hurt us, and rich and powerful liars hurt us more. Voting for them is not any kind of answer, telling the truth is. Yes, truth still has meaning, despite all attempts to suppress it or suggest we live in a post-truth era.
KOG. 15 February 2017
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-global-poverty
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35339475
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37556019
