What's that sound?
It's the thud, thud of grudges and scores being settled.
It's an unpleasant and highly predictable pounding noise. Pound. Pound. A flurry of punches. A slurry of lunches. It's the pounding of flesh. The smell of sackcloth. The crispy underfoot crackling of ashes. Rotten stinking flesh. The political parties scoring points, the competitive press scoring points over each other. Everyone jockeying for the best place to crow from after the apocalyptic meltdown of the free press.
The blogosphere/mediaverse is having a field day trying to make sense and predicting an outcome of it all.
Dual standards at dawn anyone?
Well what do I know?
Clearly a very very small amount. If anything. Most of what I believe has to be an illusion anyway. It's all all so bloody deja vu. My fixed bias and sceptical mindset defends what I know while my conscious mind tells me to chill the fuck out and learn something!
I'm in a very strange place on all this right now. Like everyone in the UK I hear the daily chatter of political parties feeding on the body of News Corp with a sickening righteousness and hideous lack of grace. But actually it's really quite refreshing. Like somebody has taken the cork out of something. And yet I also hear the chess pieces slithering in the grasping hands of the evil Murdoch Empire. May your source be with you. Until your grave.
I live near Wapping and I can hear the Pound. Pound, Pound of it all live. (Becoming less ker-ching, ker-ching, ker–ching.)
What is actually going on in my head – what do I really make of it all?
Well of course I loathe the dumbed down society that all of this industrial and political mediocrity has created. I see society continuously and insidiously fed and watered by a cynical media - one that grows fat from the lowest common denominator of celebrity trash talk - passing off as news. All in league with each other. Literally in each others pocket-phones.
I loathe the corrupted politics of our society which we all know is bloated and protected by the turkeys who hate Christmas. I am fatigued by even discussing the unfathomably complex systems/policies/traditions that keep us locked into this abominable condition.
My own take on all this sounds cynical - even to me. And I think we ain't seen nothing yet. Maybe we never will actually see it all - but surely we all know how this goes by now. Bribery, corruption, busted, scapegoats, nod, wink - situation normal again.
How will this all get resolved? Do we want that normal again? Will it ever be resolved in societies favor?
So. A Question Of Balance?
We will see some new dynamics to be sure. Outrage by society has been measured by the amount of noise on the wires. Twitter, Blogosphere, the Zeitgeist all up in arms. Murdoch has flown in to put sparkling water on troubled oil. The media is cowed and backing off at speed in expectation that somethings been rumbled.
All of this to be balanced against the oh so predictable back-cloth. The so called 'we' are deeply 'disgusted' and yet oh so implicated. So after we have fed on it until we have sated our appetite for blood - it will probably all die down for a time - and then the primal urges of commercial reality will rise up again under new branding – and all of it under the name of reason.
Will 'we' get the ultimate prize? A better society encouraged by a more intelligent press? A press less besotted by sleaze and trash and in turn driven less by 'marketers' seeking easy audiences who are (in turn(!)) attracted to read sleaze and trash alongside advertisements for their clients products (often also sleaze and trash)?
Or. A Question Of Compromise?
Will we get bored with it all and, as usual, shrug and forget - accept something somewhere in the middle. Will we just get fatigued by the feeding frenzy? Will we sigh and just let it all happen like we did with the Financial debacle of the economic crisis of 2008. (Our memory lasts 3 years?) I worry that we might. Will we get frustrated/confused by the clever language of the usual commentators? Will we be blinded by the bias and self-serving agendas of the players weaving deliberate confusion and fog back into all of this. Who will be the protector of truth in all this. Not the NOTW right?
Making a decision seems a final thing. Making a balanced decision of this nature seems a bit far away. Making a compromise would be a massive missed opportunity. A compromise just rambles on and on – like this post.
Better the devils we know? Agitate to make it better? Hope that society wakes up and votes by not buying into any of this? So is that a question of balance or compromise?
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