The End of the Age of Reason

I'm stuck for crazier and more sensational headlines/titles. The world continues to baffle me in ways that even Hollywood (or Eastenders) would baulk at or categorise as 'comedy' or simply 'unreal'.

Earlier this week, while out with a Tory-supporting Remain voter friend, I realised that over the last few years his politics have softened and his anti-Labour position, while not gone, was not as determined as it had been. He's a clever bloke and he doesn't need people like me to point out inequalities and unfairness in the world, he sees it himself, either through social media - where he has 'friends' who are extreme left (me for starters) and so far right their ignorance is scary (no names mentioned to protect the ignorant - although I wonder why...) so I expect that while he probably would never trust Labour with his vote, he's probably also feeling like he can't trust the Tories either.

Sanity. A wee bit of sanity.

Standing in a field, with the dogs and one of my clique of dog-walking chums, I heard, first hand, something that made my heart sink. "If I'd have known it would have caused this much trouble I would have voted Remain." The sentiment is the important thing here, because I think we're all now acutely aware that if the vote had been Remain by 52-48% we'd have Farage, Gove and co., queuing up to start legal proceedings, asking for another referendum, possibly even attacking (verbally or physically) the 'smug' Remainers. The vote needed to be 70-30 either way before defeat would have been conceded and I fear even then, the lunatic minority in the Leave camp would have started targeting foreigners with more gusto and intent than they have already been doing. The fact that a 68-year-old man, who probably doesn't read as diverse stuff as I do can draw the conclusion from just 'authorised' news services that he probably did the wrong thing suggests to me that some people have shaken off that 'feelings' thing and are now beginning to understand 'reality'.

A wee bit more sanity?

I'd be optimistic about it if it wasn't for the wilful ignorance and idiocy I'm witnessing from certain corners of the country. Take the high court ruling about parliament being responsible for the triggering of Article 50. Despite it being spelled out clearly that this was by no means a block on Brexit and was actually exactly what the campaigners to Leave wanted - our own parliament exercising their sovereign right as elected representatives of the people and making decisions as a country and not as part of some EU bloc. Yet to hear some of the rabid right wing Brexiteers talk you have to wonder how on Earth they ever got to a position to be invited to offer their ludicrously alarmist, ignorant and wrong (as in factually) opinions. The media (well, the blue topped press and Murdoch) seem keen to drive a wedge through every shred of decency left in the country by essentially promoting hate and prejudice at every opportunity (so much for the Leveson thing, eh?) while gleefully ignoring facts and just, well, making shit up.

If it was restricted to the UK I'd naturally be worried, but the fact that its happening all over the world is really fucking scary. I said a year ago that the world in 2015 was a safer place than it had been probably forever - poverty down; famine down; wars down and yet why do my friends think the world has suddenly become terrifying? It isn't just the media; we forget that only a small percentage of the population actually read a daily newspaper and that news bulletins tend to be the lowest watched programs, unless someone famous dies. It could be word of mouth (as discussed many times before); but the truth is it might just be that we no longer know how to trust anyone else because there are so many loonies out there. Loonies able to run for president, lead a political party based on laziness and lies, become unelected PMs or promote hate with impunity. I no longer feel that safe.

I'd blame social media, again, but that is just a vessel; a way of articulating frustration, anger and ignorance that already existed, even if it was just a humanitarian story about helping a refugee that broke the back of their reasoning and allowed them to show the world how their subconscious had just become their reality. One thing I've learned in my 50-odd years on this planet is racism, prejudice and hate are not a British or American (a white privileged) thing. The problem is we hate each other; humans can't live without each other but equally under the right circumstances they can't live with each other either. I know that's a terribly cynical generalisation, but, come on, for every nice person you meet there's at least two people out there you wouldn't piss on if they were on fire, because you know whatever you do for them they'll find a way to blame you for their own predicament or make you wonder why you bothered.

The problem is ignorance, prejudice and a lack of compassion hides inside people in their own houses. You have no idea what goes on in other peoples lives, we only base things on our own lives, so we don't know what is said or believed or peddled inside even the most respectable members of society. I mean, if it's okay for Donald Trump to be openly offensive what are people really like when they see something on TV that tugs at their primordial hate.

How about this for a conspiracy theory? It came to me while making a cup of coffee and watching BBC News. Could this be the reason why some corners of politics and the media are doing what they're doing.

warmonger

 (ˈwɔːˌmʌŋɡə)

n

a person who fosters warlike ideas or advocates war

ˈwarˌmongering n

We all know that war is a major economic force. War through the arms trade is unbelievably lucrative and there have been many accusations and conspiracy theories bandied around to suggest that arms dealers and manufacturers create unrest in unstable countries just to make more money. We know that there are a number of people on this planet who have no problem sending others to die, or killing in the name of cash. After Colombine, sales of guns in the USA actually went up. Put the fear of God into people and they reach for a weapon; add them to the people who willingly carry weapons as a way of life and suddenly you have a situation that becomes difficult to police.

There are people out there who have vested interests in arms manufacturers; the UK government have hosted arms dealers, conventions and sales jamborees. We sell arms to some of the most despicable regimes in the world, but the press don't talk about that and as long as Britain is making money a huge percentage of the population couldn't give a toss. As long as they can be preoccupied by trivial celebrity rubbish and buying every fake gold lined lie fed to them by post-expert blokes, then we can continue doing shady and dodgy deals, in the Nation's interest.

The press appears to be stoking fires that have been suppressed, ignored or simply only remained in people instinctively. History tells us that divisions and prejudice are usually the reason for wars and peace on earth equals severely diminished profits. I said to a friend six months ago, at the start of when real life became a surreality TV show, that it was like some were angling for a war. They solve a lot of problems, you see. Sometimes it's like humanity is simply a flu virus and wars are limited, but quite effective, vaccines.

The Astounding Truth About Jeremy Corbyn and the 37 Naked Contortionist Porn Stars

"The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous." - Joseph Goebbels.

There is a large part of society that really dislikes people quoting Nazis. However, this is one quote - the correct one - that extreme nasty bastard Joseph Goebbels said that should you remove his name and replace it with...

"The English follow the principle that when one lies, it should be a big lie, and one should stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous." - Donald Trump/Tusk/Duck

... could easily be believed (especially about Donald Tusk and his observation of the Out campaign).

Just because someone is seen as a thoroughly despicable human being doesn't mean they can't be accurate in an observation. The last x number of years have been built on a large number of lies and exaggerations of the truth and depending on what newspaper you read, or TV news station you watch, some lies are more important than others. Tony Blair probably lied about the circumstances that led to the Iraq war and his ongoing vilification has been expected and generally welcomed. The Coalition government essentially blaming a portion of the population draining £2billion from the budget were responsible for the country's ills and not the tax avoiding corporations not paying in excess of £40billion in legitimate taxes - the comparisons were never addressed in the mainstream media - was a lie. Recently we've had £350million promised to the NHS as the pinnacle of the Leave campaign's reason for leaving the EU and did you notice how quickly that was dropped? Or how many of our 'impartial' media outlets made an issue out of it? Lies.

The simple truth is we're being lied to by the sources we depend on for fair and even coverage. Take the BBC, always accused of being left wing biased by the right wing, yet the corporation currently produces some of the most anodyne 'current affairs' content in its history and has a news department that is awash with Conservative editors, who have recently admitted - and ignored by the mainstream press - that it might have possibly maybe shown some anti-Corbyn bias in its coverage. Or as an independent blogger worked out: Labour in-fighting is covered on a ratio of 4:1 against Conservative in-fighting; Leadership contests - until the announcement of Theresa May, Labour's coverage was 2:1. More strikingly is that media coverage of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was extensively on them with less than 20% of media coverage on the 'in-turmoil' Tories or their various leaders. Once the coalition came in focus on Ed Milliband - the opposition leader - rose to almost 50%. His pales into insignificance at the almost persistent hounding of Jeremy Corbyn.

In the last twelve months there has been a record number of newspaper retractions of things they, wrongly, said about the Labour leader. There has been an almost constant trivialisation of the man, while simultaneously building him up as both dangerous and unelectable. In a sensible society, one should wonder why the media are so desperate to continue warning us about the dangers of a man with policies that would have had 1960s Tory MPs nodding in agreement (with the exception of the Trident bit, naturally)? If the man is so dangerous, how come he's not being, you know, dangerous? Preventing 25 Tory bills in 12 months, 11 of which have been banished from the statute books is actually a better record than any opposition leader in 50 years in such a short space of time. I actually couldn't find any examples of anything the Tories prevented during the Blair/Brown era. Obviously information like this is not important to the general public; they're more interested in the size of Jeremy's marrow or that he was sitting in a park playing Pokemon Go (when, in reality, the desperate Daily Mail reporter handed Jezza the game and asked him to comment on its current trendiness).

Plus it's really easy to make click bait headlines against him. Corbyn attacks Eagle with knife is better than Corbyn grows prize marrow.

There are a number of reports floating around at the moment that shows enormous amounts of evidence to back up the media bias against Corbyn: this is one example - http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/media-depictions-of-corbyn-are-an-affront-to-democracy/ and even some of the broadsheets have briefly mentioned this, but none have supported it, condemned it or criticised any of their competition about it. Even The Guardian, for some inexplicable reason now, still the preferred choice of the intellectual Labour voter, has pretty much nailed its allegiance to a lost cause - neoliberalism or Blairism.

Despite Labour continuing to win council by-elections and now mobilising a greater number of young voters, the knives are out again and sharper, because of the Labour Party's desire to self-destruct for the sake of some career politicians. 

This isn't a conspiracy theory, it's a fact - the country is pretty much run by a small bunch of people from all across the political spectrum who do everything in their own interests first; it has been seen with the expenses scandal, it has been hinted at with the simmering but never likely to amount to anything election budgeting 'scandal' and the continued onslaught by the none-left wing members of the Parliamentary Labour Party to do anything they can to prevent someone who isn't them and doesn't share their ideology from disrupting their comfortable status quo. The press hasn't really focused any of its attention on Owen Smith or Angela Eagle because there's a Corbyn to be scalped and the fact the old bird is still around makes that scalp really valuable.

I'd like to throw in a theory; it's tenuous I warn you...

UKip are reported as being the biggest threat to luring older Labour voters away (this could be down to the media's knowledge that old Labour voters would never vote Tory, but might be duped into voting Tory under a different name), yet in the majority of those council by-elections I like to bang on about over 90% saw a substantial drop in UKip support (incidentally as the primary goal of UKip has been achieved, how come the mainstream press aren't questioning their continued existence?). It is possible that Corbyn is having a similar effect, but on a different demographic, which Nigel Farage had when his purple fascists suddenly became players on the political landscape (through vote share rather than any seats in Westminster; and remember, their only MP is Douglas Carswell, a former centre-right Tory MP with some hard-right ideas). Some people out there suspect Corbyn isn't the Antichrist and won't eat your children regardless of what Rupert, Paul, Rebekka and co want you to believe.

I've maintained for years that Farage's appeal to your average, largely ignorant, over 50 has been down to his stirring up of jingoistic attitudes and laying the blame at the feet of all the people not responsible for all the ills he peddled. 21st Century fascism encouraged by an inordinate amount of screen time given to, I presume, his general entertainment value. It's like putting subliminal messages into Teletubbies cartoons, programming your children to axe murder you when the signal is given. All he did was peddle lies, deceit and worst of all echoed the urban myths and legends floating around canteens and factories all over the country; it has to be true even if many never saw any evidence of it. Corbyn appears to be galvanising people who still have a social conscience in a similar way.

Once the media started its halfhearted attacks on Farage it increased his support - the little guy who stands up for us workers is being attacked by those lying scumbag newspapers; what are they scared of? Oddly enough the same people will perpetuate myths such as Corbyn not singing the National Anthem or bowing low enough at the Epitaph because they read it in the Sun or the Mail (or those lying scumbag papers, when it suits them)... 

I know people who buy it all; believe that Corbyn is not the right man for a variety of reasons all culminating in, 'and he's simply unelectable' using a term that the media coined, so however much people protest their opinion of the man is their own and hasn't been tainted by outside influences, why aren't you looking at his record, why are you looking at his tie?

Anyhow, Paul Dacre at the Mail will continue to sanction some of the vilest and despicable lies imaginable and somehow remain above the law or criticism. The far right supporting Daily Mail isn't going to be criticised by Tories for blurring the boundaries of impartiality by printing spurious bullshit and if someone from the left attempts to criticise them or take them to task they just lash out again because they know they have no leash. Look at the vicious attacks on the Millibands' dead father and yet Cameron's father was involved in all kinds of tax dodges and the same newspaper called for the dead man's memory to be left unsullied and people believe and support them despite blatant double standards and promoting elitism.

Remember the Sun in 1992? "It was the Sun what won it" or some similarly grammatically appalling headline and I think most people over the age of 40 believe that newspapers can win elections for people; the Sun claimed it won it for Blair, which newspaper historians might interpret as 'Murdoch says this guy will bend over more for me than the last guy'. The Sun didn't win it for Cameron in 2010, but they tend not to mention that. 

More and more people no longer listen to the radio how they once did. TV is changing all the time and our new and innovative ways of viewing are being adopted by more people. Newspapers are dying out among younger audiences, who get their news from different sources. My generation is probably the last one to depend on a lot of 20th century staples and yet we're slowly adapting; but in 20 years many of us will be very old or dead and the people who will become us will have a completely different approach to everything and hopefully that will mean changes in the way we do politics and engage with common people. 

I think this is what Jeremy Corbyn's team has been trying to do. For every person saying, he's unapproachable, he's not statesmanlike, he's out of touch; he doesn't engage with the press enough, there are more people praising his constituency work; his campaigning, his charity work, his support and how, unlike so many other politicians, he's approachable if your intentions are earnest. He gets out and meets people, talks to them and does it the old fashioned way, while simultaneously getting his army of younger political activists to target the places that most people over 50 only hear about from kids or on TV. Young people writing messages about politics aimed at young people doesn't sound so crazy when you say it out loud.

Corbyn and his team are well aware that he is never going to court support from the majority of papers, but Momentum are looking ahead at how things will be fought in the future, while Corbyn remains this quiet, largely unruffled figure refusing to play the games or pander to the media. The biggest problem for Corbyn with right wing leaning news reporting is that if there is a slow news day they aren't averse to manufacturing a story that is negative rather than run a story that is positive. The press would rather you know that someone, somewhere, might be Muslim who is linked to a crime and supports Corbyn than report on how the negative and devastating cuts have decimated deprived areas even more.

If Corbyn's brand of politics is going to remain in charge they need to get a bit slicker in the PR department and they need to try and get a lot of their MPs deselected and new faces to replace them before the next election; so these candidates can win these seats. He also needs to adopt some populist language - or constructive lies - to appease those who think he's soft on areas they want strength. Cameron came across like a sexually aroused horse sporting an enormous erection when he lied to the nation he'd get immigration down; it hurt him that he didn't - but probably nowhere near as much as Jeremy Corbyn's failed radish crop will spell the next downfall of the freakish warmongering vegetarian peacenik (™ The Daily Mail). It's nice to think we have a politician whose principles embrace honesty, but we've got used to being lied to. We don't believe the lies, but we want to and that keeps us going until the next lie comes along.