Going Global

'The Media and the Government is Bigger than you or me' is a ridiculously defeatist statement. A budding journalist once told me this. Are they all this brainwashed? What is our worth as human beings if we continuously bow down to the way things are and never question accepted norms and their irrationality?

Some of you out there may be system puppets, dancing on the strings of 'everything they tell you'; but I believe most people, when mentally able, are free thinkers; capable of removing themselves from the bog of the present and looking at humanity's historical footprint.

The world has always been doing only one thing; consolidating. And what have they been consolidating? Power. Democracy as a concept is insanely awesome. Democracy as a practice is a shit pile. Yes, even in the US of A. its home.

Media ethics, at a fundamental level, ties itself down to the side of the government. The truth will not be told if a country's 'defence' is compromised. The truth will always bow down to the primal human instinct of consolidation. The truth will always be biased to power and not to the people. That would be fine if in reality the people were in power, but the modern nature of democracy largely makes that impossible. Therefore This fundamental media ethic mostly serves the purpose of the subversiveness of governments.

The truth will not be told if the media deems it sensitive to taste (the WTF ethic). Like images of human flesh blown into pieces and blood splattered walls are 'sensitive'. In other words, the media imagines the public to be wussies. The war reporter has balls, because he's a foreign correspondent, but they'll be strung up beneath the butt hole of Great A'tuin if the average Joe can take it.

Saying; 'a few people died..' is less impactful than showing the full brunt of war; the dying and screaming and horribly deformed children etc. The public may start feeling slightly differently about the war if such was the case. But screw public opinion; this is a democracy. The public can't think. The masses are asses.

The media reserves the right to decide what fantasy is and what it’s not. If they percieve that some neo radical thinker will create turmoil by messing up the norms and by endangering the interests of their stakeholders, this ethic gives them room to deem it 'fantasy' and call the guy who said the world was a ball an ignoramus.

The media shall not invade privacy, even though it may conflict strongly with freedom of expression.

The overriding absurdity should be plainly obvious to anyone reading these sets of ethics. On what moral background do they base concepts like 'sensitivity', 'taste', 'privacy' and 'public interest'? Is the media the apostle of God to know what is Right for its Fellow Man?

Nope. The concepts that Media Ethics are based on are subjective beyond belief. For example, something that is 'sensitive' for an American voter will be exactly what the father of the suffering kid with no leg and a ripped off midsection breathing his last breaths in Iraq will want them to see. Confronted with this 'dilemma', the media takes a side; objectivity goes into the dustbin.

These are the core values of the media. Every journalist gets them drilled into their brains when they train. From such subjective and hazy guidelines, can an objective truth ever arise? Can the 'media' in its current form ever not fail epically or otherwise? The media and journalism isn’t about truth. Its ethics have let it make the truth anything it wants it to be. The danger of media ethics is that it leaves ample room for non ethical activity.

Think.

Moving on to Better Things

And on to what the morphology (yes, do look it up) of the media is; it is that branch of journalism that is governed by this set of easily adaptable ethics. It is like a fill in the blanks bible (and there aint no saints out there to save you), it is that industry that sells 'truth' influenced by external interest making it nothing much more than propaganda and advertising.

The media needs a makeover, it is good to see new media coming in ever more strongly to take its place. I hope this is the beginning of a change for the better. The old establishment media is failing as an industry. Its myopic view of itself as the pinnacle of integrity cannot last much longer. It must change and yeild to a new wave of creative destruction* hitting it (and its set of wtf ethics). Or die and let the world move on to better things.


*A good paper on creative destruction from an industry point of view is Theodore Levitt's Marketing Myopia (a very interesting read no matter what your background). Also check out the work of Joseph Schumpeter.

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The mainstream media of Sri Lanka has failed to do its job; again and again and again. Absurdity after absurdity of the government’s actions have passed repeatedly into the public limelight only to be cast aside by the media by the means of ridiculous well-quoted statements from top government officials.

Take Dayan Jayathileke for instance. He was reduced from hero to zero when he was quoted in the media implying that the government was realistically considering implementing the 13th amendment. This to the man who according to government propaganda 'rescued us from unanimous defeat' at the hands of the Western pro-human rights anti-Sri Lankan coalition at the UN.

Where is the media outcry? if not against the sacking of DJ, at least against the implications of the actions taken by the government to the very initiation of the 13th amendment; an integral part of our constitution. The upholding of which is the duty of any free media framework in a country.

Other Epic fails include the lack of initiative in the investigating and reporting of all the dead bodies turning up everywhere even after the war, not that I think dead bodies being found while the war was on is any less justifiable, but the war is over now, and there should at least be a more rational base to justify the revelation of the goings on behind such atrocious activities to the general public. Even to a media prepared to convolute the already very bendable set of 'ethics' it is governed by.

Other epic fails include the complete lack of interest in questioning intelligently the apparent lack of power of the Sri Lankan judiciary (which is also an epic fail of its own but I’ll write about that later), the exorbitant and skewed taxing system and questionable economic policies (economic and financial critical analysis is almost unheard of except for a bit on LBO), the questions on the justification behind the implementation behind seemingly irrational laws (do i need to go into porno and mobile phones? its been well harped about in the blogosphere) and the apparent disregard to intimidation and coercion in undemocratic provincial council elections (like Jaffna for instance). And nobody even gives a rat’s behind about discussing the age old 'problem' of the executive presidency.

The media is a meek dog that barks only when the government wants it to. It is the government’s smokescreen, a tyrannical propaganda machine. Perhaps I wax too lyrical maybe? What; am I a paranoid conspiracy theorist then?

Economic Hitmen




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The rioters against the President were met by rioters for the President. There was a shooting  incident, and Chavez was accused of opening fire on the people protesting against him. This was then used to catalyze more opposition against him when several chiefs of the army denounced him on the media (which had taken the lead in painting him black for a long time by then), which subsequently led to the overthrowing of the presidential  palace guard and the taking over of the country with a rich businessman at the helm.

Ultimately as it turned out, the army itself had instigated the shooting and reports that the president had abdicated were falsified (his signature was forged and he was kidnapped). There was a major uproar and hundreds of thousands of people stormed the presidential palace, overwhelmed the army and succeeded in reinstating the president - War on Democracy

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It's interesting to speculate on world affairs based on controversy and what are generally regarded as crackpot conspicay theories by the genral public who live and die by what is seen and heard in the mainstream media, but its more than just idle indulgence. There is more than meets the eye most of the time. The order of power and the lines of command are mere illusions. The world operates on a whole different spectrum from where it pretends to.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in Iran now. It seems that most candidates are withdrawing their claims while reports from the media increasingly stress on the 'violent' crackdowns of the government. Perhaps an effort at dragging this as far as possible? Protests are still to spread outside of Tehran so we can't really say that the majority is behind the opposition. Until this whole issue clears up and some perspective can be gained, the story of what is really going on in Iran will not be known.

This media hallabaloo about Iran seems to be based on nothing but cheap conjecture. No facts were uncovered about actual malpractice occuring with regard to the elections. Accusations were made that there was a shortage of ballot papers, 'pressurizing' of voters to vote for Ahmedinejad and candidate's representatives not being allowed to gain access to events at polling stations.

But none of this atually deals with the final count that emerged, the actual problem. Which showed president Ahmedinajad winning the election by a massive margin. Where are the errors pointed out in the actual counting mechanism? none of the protesters could actualy point out what sort of rigging had taken place. There was just a general consensus among them that some sort of rigging had to have taken place. On the surface, as any sane minded person would deduce, they just appear to be acting like sore losers.

Most of the protests were carried out in Tehran, which has a population of 14 million people. Iran itself has 70 million people in it. So how can the conviction of such a small fraction of a population be made to seem like the general consensus of the whole of its population? It just doesnt make sense.

And thats what these types of news stories are made for. To try and convey shallow messages in an attempt to shake up the basket a bit. They are aimed at the sort of people who just glance at the news and do not check their facts. This was simply a badly organized negative PR campaign against the Iranian leadership carried out by the Western media, if we want to get conspiratorial about it. Or rather, as i see it, it was just an opportunity to 'make some news' and all objectivity was lost as the media got blinded by a preconception that Iran's current leadership is essentially 'evil'.

Polls have shown that Ahmedinejad has secured major victories even in areas thought to be Mousavi strongholds and the margin by which he won (60%) is far too large to have been rigged.

Also, on a side note. Iran only has 35% internet penetration and 60% of its population is based in urban areas. Deduce of this what you will, but how can twitter updates from such a narrow margin of the population signify broad based protests sufficint enought to spark talk of the 'next Iranian revolution'?

the government of Iran does not appear to be completely innocent in this though. Apparently there has been some supression of protest activity and a cut down of media broadcasts from within. Though this may be standard government action to prevent things getting out of hand, as we have seen happen over here in SL, it is still enough to cause widespread speculation and concern about what is really happening inside.

Watch this Al-Jazeera take on it, its an interesting one.

The Island wants you to live! Linc, The Company is after your son! Hiro, the virus! It was unleashed in the future by The Company. You need to save the bloody world. Again.


The Big Brother is watching you. Wiretapping is scary...they are LISTENING!!!

Damn. What is this thing about popular culture that simply ices your testicles? Or at least my testicles cos ‘The Company’ (pronounced with full emphasis on the capitals and the inverted commas) is all I’ve been hearing about lately. ‘The Company’ is unleashing a virus, ‘The Company’ wants you dead. I mean, ‘Lost’ is a Robinson Crusoe-esque shipwreck (ok, planewreck if you will) story and it turns out that the very island they are stranded on has got a hidden agenda, and uses all the stranded people as pawns to achieve its goals. I’m talking about an Island here. I mean it’s an inanimate object.

I don’t know exactly why, but the notion that there is a higher unseen entity controlling your every move and attaching strings to you every way you turn, has reached a level of mainstream popularity that to me is quite novel. Think about it, not so long ago it was only the stoners, the UFO people, and my A/L english master who waxed lyrical about ‘hidden agendas’, things that are ‘not what they seem’ and ‘they have got you fooled’ etc.

I was, and am one of those people mind you, no not a stoner or an english master. Well correction, not always a stoner, and as for the UFO's well, all I can say is that i believe in the possibilityof aliens existing. Another post on that maybe  But i've always been a conspiracy nut. If being intrigued by a possible conspiracy makes me a nut.

Someone once told me that the American people were being ‘prepared’ for a black president. He was of course referring to the black president seen in the first season of 24. This post 9/11 trash TV show if you ask me. The first season was great and Elisha Cuthbert was hot but then the whole thing got boring. Kind of noticed that the black president disappeared rather quickly in the following seasons too, I don’t know, maybe Obama should watch out.

‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman’ is a great book. And a must read for all you ‘Company’ skeptics and fanatics out there. It sets out the true story of an ‘Economic Hitman’ working for big corporations involved in exploiting mainly third world/developing counties. Read that, and you’ll get some good insight into how the whole thing worked (this mainly concerns the mid to latter decades of the 20th century), and possibly get an inkling as to how modern mega-powerful corporate interests work too.

Popular culture reflects general sentiment among the larger public. So this is really where Wall Street meets Main Street, inside people's minds. People are increasingly suspicious about big organizations and corporate interests controlling goverments and are increasingly wondering how much privacy and control they really have in their lives. Obama is popular in the polls and Obama is the one promising to cut down the power of Big Organizations. The world is caught in a Big Brother frenzy.

All that of course is primarily in the Western world right? You may ask or you may not. Here is SL, we peacefully navigate our ways through the occasional military checkpoint and avoid the occasional drunk driving rap by refusing to ‘blow the balloon’ and casually slipping the ‘ralahami’ a few hundred bucks. But nevertheless, we too are caught up in the whole global corporate game. Just how do we think we are funding our war? Just how do you think those politicos are getting their filthy hands on billions of dollars? This money has got to come from somewhere right? And the people giving it to us obviously know we are not going to pay them back. So what have they already reserved as collateral? Our natural resources? Our UN votes? Its anyone’s guess. Existing governments can simply sell the country's soul to the devil (read, The Company) and temporarily live it up and then transfer the debris of their spoils on to the poor chaps who come into power next (who will probably in turn carry on with the grand traditions of the first) but I digress.

So has capitalism fuelled this and presented to us a world where governments are mere pawns on a chessboard ruled by the multinationals? I don’t know, I haven’t found out yet, I’m still waiting for Lost Season 5, and the rest of Heroes season 3 and Prison Break 4.