Scary times, kids. Right outside your front door is the biggest threat to mankind ever. EVER. It's invisible. It clogs up engines. It can transform into glass. It can get into your lungs and KILL YOU. And what's worst? It's cos' o' 'dem bloodeh' foreigners. Specifically the Icelandic. Ooh, yes. Those islanders who owe US, the British taxpayers, £3,300,000,000 (split with the Dutch)! The cheek they have to blow up a volcano JUST as we're on our holidays. Conspiracy? Yes. Definitely.
Turn to page 94 for more, plus an interview with Kerry Katona, who's worried to death that her kids may develop asthma due to the amount of ash in the atmosphere!
See, I could write for The Daily Star. The Daily Star that I admit to buying (I always end up with 20p spare otherwise) and enjoy reading, if only to laugh at the piss poor quality of journalism. A month ago, a leading article was entitled "ONLY 5% OF BRITONS WANT THE BURKA!". I had to read on. As somebody who is completely indifferent to the Burkha (not my style but who am I to impose) the amount of fuss over it in this country that seems to have been started by Jack Straw a few years ago intrigues me. Some see them as oppressive, others as plain ugly, even recently being seen as a paper bag according to a Tory MP. To me, it's like wearing jogging trousers casually; feel free to, but don't be a tit about it. Anyway! This article claimed that 96% of people according to a poll wanted the Burka banned. As you are probably thinking now, that is an extraordinary figure, and contrary to the typical vox-popping subjects' opinions on the BBC News, not to mention the fact that around 9% of the population is of an ethnic minority. I continued to read. Amidst all the references to a broken Britain and how immigration is crushing our "flourishing economy" (they must've written this in Germany) a little footnote mentioned:
"Figures from a poll of Daily Star readers, question: Do you want the Burka?"
This made me happy. You see, people who will actually spend the money it costs to send a text PLUS the charge put upon the texter by the Daily Star when they vote in one of these polls tends to be stupid. As mentioned before, I only buy the doormat with spare change. What the Daily Star has done is targeted it's mainly couch bound, patriotic audience with a rather imposing question, the sort of thing you'd hear from a Kurdish street vendor. It wasn't a fair poll, nor was it a very controversial one (not forgetting the dire quality of writing), it just reinforced the fact that British people are scared. Scared out of their little minds.
How do you tackle fear? Therapy say some, others are in favour of medication, but feeding it? That's what newspapers seem to do. Every day there is a new threat to our health/civilisation as we know it. Remember bird flu? How it would wipe out our whole society, reducing us to barbarism? Peter thinks the world's doing quite well for 2 years of scavenging and cannibalism.
Another massive problem is the media's problem with consistency. Very rarely do they stick to one scare story for more than a year (except for things like cancer, which the Daily Express jumps on at every given opportunity), because they know that the only thing that gets people remotely interested in this sort of story is the first time shock factor. There's only so much that can be discussed about Bird Flu before things move into a more scientific description, something people really aren't generally interested in. Sure, it can be simplified massively but this quickly gets repetitive, so it's back to hunting for a new story. Bird Flu and Swine Flu were of course massively overshadowed by the banking crisis, something (although terrible for Wall Street) that was blown well out of proportion by the papers, suggesting people would lose their houses and savings at the drop of a hat. This led to the famous mile long queues outside Northern Rock banks as people hurried to withdraw their hard earned cash, despite being told their money was more than safe, and the best way to secure it and the future of the bank (plus because of the Government bailout and nationalisation) and the economy was to keep it in there. Instead, the panic factor came back into play and more or less everyone had their cash in hand.
The media seem to feel as if they defend the people; if they smell something that could be of even the slightest risk to the public, they immediately jump into action and plaster warnings all over Fleet Street. But rather than help them gear up for action against whatever threat has arisen, people just get scared. The British public is fundamentally stupid, Great Britain is a stupid place. The papers seem to be milking this, nobody apart from the misguided editor who thinks he's doing the world a favour by telling us that spark plugs give you cancer really cares past making money, or getting their way among the public. Look at Rupert Murdoch and his rag, The Sun. Through this paper he has effectively manipulated 2,000,000 voters in the elections since 1992. Turning from red to blue at will, he favours whoever will give News International the best deal at the time. Of course, this is most often the Conservatives, hence the shock in 1997 when they supported Labour. In fact, that probably is an example of a paper caring about the people, as things certainly weren't tip top at that time. But, as soon as Labour announced they would be clamping down on the corporations and foreign companies (News International being American and owned by an Australian-American) to stimulate the local economy, The Sun turned blue and started spinning shite up about how things for the public would gradually get worse under the current government, when in fact it was the fault of foreign companies there was any mess in the first place and living conditions for average Joe Sunreader would stay more or less the same.
Still, away from the newspapers, films and television are constantly giving us a worst case scenario. 'Threads' by Barry Hines portrays a massive nuclear attack on the UK, with horrific consequences. Made in 1984, a time of very high Cold War tension, the worst case scenario shown in the film still petrifies viewers to this day. Other films such as 'Outbreak', '28 Days Later' and little known Spanish thriller 'La Cabina' all represent domestic horrors, and whilst some are more farfetched than others, the public can still believe there is a possibility of each happening.
To summarise, the rather idiotic public believes anything a higher, respected body tells them, and sadly, these bodies can be as pathetic as tabloid newspapers. I know I'm whining for a lost cause, but if the public were to decide to think for themselves, keep calm and carry on we'd be living in a better place. So really, peace.
Thank you very much for reading, very long one that was.
