Photo by Linh Dinh
Nothing new here about the media, to be honest, but some good thoughts worth pondering as the piece goes on. I won't waste your time with references to who owns the media or the purpose of all this mind-numbing diversion crap thrown out there each day. I won't bother to go into control of information issues. We all know about this ... to that regard the author seems a tad negligent, however, he earns his stripes near the end... smile.
Oh, and Happy New Year, make of every minute the most you can.
That "pervasive dread" got a big boost yesterday when Obama signed the martial law papers.... love how they sign in the doozies (like the Federal Reserve Act) whilst the people are off frolicking and having their seasonal jollies and not paying so much (if any) attention to the news...
By Linh Dinh
December 31st, 2011
For the last two days,
Yahoo! has featured an article, “N. Korea alters photo of Kim Jong Il funeral.”
Juxtaposing two images, it shows that half a dozen inconsequential figures have
been photo-shopped out. It is fitting that Yahoo!, a leader in frivolity, is
burdening its attentive yahoos with a pointless, carping article masquerading
as political expose.
This bitch-slapping piece
of pseudo-journalism is juxtaposed with “Baby Startled by Mom’s Noise,” “Model
Pregnant on Runway,” “NASCAR Star Sorry for Tweets” and “Disney’s Women’s
‘Real’ Looks.”
Future observers will be
aghast to discover that, as our economy collapses and the country slides into
Fascism, our mostly numb and passive population is left to ponder the true
identities of cartoon characters and who Jim Carrey is sleeping with.
When it comes to putting
a population to sleep, North Korea could take a few lessons from the US, and, in
fact, many Communist states already have. Don’t ban anything, just suffocate
people with nonsense, bombard each brain cell relentlessly with so much tedious
“entertainment” that it can no longer think straight.
All governments lie, but
empires lie even more voluminously because they have a grander fiction to
maintain, as well as a larger and more complex audience to pacify, stroke and
sucker. The list of facts and events ~ recent and historical ~ that have been
airbrushed from American history would occupy thousands of Howard Zinns for
thousands of years.
In their places, the
official, unending bullshit.
Wonders of wonders,
tallest buildings collapsing at free fall speed, one without being hit by
anything, its demise announced before the fact even.
Or a murder
without corpse of a most wanted target, with the “heroic” hit team conveniently
packed into a helicopter, then killed. Nothing is ever explained, because
nothing needs to be explained to a well-opiated audience.
I have contended that a hidden agenda of the Occupy Movement’s
tent cities, now mostly gone, is to remove oneself from a normal, domesticated
environment, with its attendant, non-stop media brainwashing via television,
computer and other electronic gadgets.
Freed from these insidious and poisonous mediators, one could discover other human beings, one’s neighbors, and oneself, at last. It wasn’t just a sacrifice to endure the elements and poor sanitation to feel solidarity and community. It was also an attraction, an atavistic yearning to see, hear and feel directly, and to jettison all of the soft yet stubborn, plugged-in shackles.
“FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY
LIFE,
I FEEL AT HOME.”
Many inhabitants of these
encampments had no other homes, however, so when these tents were cleared out,
they had to scramble. In Philadelphia, a group relocated to an out of the way,
vacant lot in a distressed neighborhood, then issued this plea to be left
alone,
“We are not here protesting or to make a statement, we’re homeless. We are sick of being forced to exist alone, sick of being told that shelters, which are not tolerable living facilities for sober people, are an adequate alternative to being “allowed”, by the government, to work, live and share together to create for ourselves […] ”
Forced by necessity or
motivated by activism and desire, these tent dwellers will only multiply in the
years ahead.
Becoming a tribe unto themselves, they will reclaim entire swaths of America. Squatting on land, they will also get a chance to occupy their own minds. There, they will discover that the tucked away answers are already many degrees wiser and saner than the drivel being pumped out daily by their masters of murderous greed and war.
So far, our overlords
have not been overly alarmed by our budding awakening and rebellion. Time
magazine even gave the movement a pat on the head, with a chuckling reminder
that it took the Civil Rights Movement a decade to achieve tangible results,
but we don’t have ten years to chip and dally away.
ED: Although there is a great difference between the OWS group and those in the following post, take a look at what can be done by the homeless:-+
The bankers are more
entrenched than ever, with the next POTUS, their loyal servant, no different
than the last, and don’t bet on Ron Paul being allowed to occupy that
ceremonial seat.
The Pentagon’s core
budget, as submitted by Peace Laureate Obama, is the biggest ever, though hefty
cuts have been applied to Overseas Contingency Operations. Whenever another war
starts, however, and who knows how many more we’ll see in 2012, the cash spigot
will spill as madly as the blood. Trust me.
It’s another year coming,
but I doubt that most Americans feel any sense of renewal.
In spite of reassuring or
silly headlines,
pervasive dread is in the
air.
The election year will
give the Occupy Movement energy and focus, but unless it can sharpen its
message and allow exceptional individuals already in its midst to emerge as
spokesmen and leaders, it will continue to accomplish merely minor, symbolic
victories, as their opponents continue to kill, loot and, yes, laugh in their
faces.
The “you are a leader, I
am a leader” mantra is patently nonsense, because it takes a highly
intelligent, charismatic and forceful figure to galvanize and inspire.
A leader must earn his
status, and when he has, lesser voices will naturally defer, and if he turns
out to be a fraud, he should be chucked aside.
Faced with a monomaniacal, brutal and well organized enemy,
we cannot just offer them a horizontal position,
because they will gladly accommodate this inclination.
Linh Dinh is the author
of two books of stories, five of poems, and a just released novel, Love Like Hate. He's tracking our
deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, State of
the Union. Read other articles by Linh.
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