ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PULP
ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PULP
Despite not minding too much the concept of working for money, the thought of having to grind out reams and reams of opinionated rubbish to appeal to Middle Conservative England terrifies me. Not, of course, any old opinionated rubbish. I do my own brand of opinionated rubbish for free – but a particular brand of opinion.
The Evening Standard type of rubbish we’re talking here. Though I’d rather it – like all newspapers – just be honest and admit that it was Lowering The Standard. And The Sun would be called Tits, Immigrants and ‘Slebs, (and The Star would be called Cheap Shite.
But that’s what would happen in a world where newspapers told the facts. These days, it’s never the facts : it’s the ‘truth’. Some copy and some photos shoehorned to support an opinion.
LOWERING THE STANDARD
I hate to sound patronising, I’m sure most people know this, but some people don’t. Surely everyone who reads The Evening Standard is doing it as some kind of joke? Some kind of post-modern, ironic, ha-ha I’m-reading-this-to-familiarise-myself-with-The-Enemy jape?
Then I remember that the Conservative Party ruled this country until 5 years ago, and I realise that some people actually believe what’s in the paper. Scared, frightened people who can’t see beyond terraced flats, obscene mortgage prices, two and one quarter children, a big flash car, and the latest Harry Potter novel.
If I was a tree, I’d be furious I’d been sliced to bits to allow some ignorant scared little fool pen to rant about the immigrants and the liberals who are a threat to our way of life. All these people are are failed Hitlers and suburban Pinochets with spellcheckers.
Still, if I was a tree, I’d be praying that I would be born in the countryside instead of South America or on a Pulping Farm.
Nonetheless, a handful of tedious commutes for business – and some flat walkman batteries – have resulted in my having to read newspapers to stave off boredom of the worst kind.
BLACK AND WHITE
All writing takes some form of talent, and newspaper journalism of a certain kind takes a talent beyond mine to transform reality into the kind of simplistic, Noddy Playground of Immigrants, Commies, and Baddies.
Newspapers are comics for grown-ups. They even have stick drawings on some pages. They’re used to describe how buildings collapse, how armies fight wars, and even some fiction about how the World Trade Center collapsed in a controlled demolition which happened to just fall – coincidentally – out of the wreckage of a plane.
Wow, what are the odds of that? Pretty high huh?
Still, I just wished I lived in a world that simple. A world where the Baddies were brown and had moustaches and names you can’t pronounce, like Rumplestiltskin, and General Pinochio of the Wooden Liberation Army.
Brown people are baddies. People with turbans are immigrants and all they want to do is blow things up whilst taking our Unemployment benefit. Everyone in France wants to smuggle themselves in under the tunnel, and everyone who doesn’t agree in Tony&George’s War For Oil is a terrorist.
Is this what the Bilderberg conspiracy really is? Keeping people stupid so they actually believe that kind of bullshit?
REGIME A LA CHANGE
Still, according to todays headline, a poll of 230,000 people run by The Sun (the paper that singlehandedly took the claim for the election and Oasis’ continued existence), influenced Tony Blair to ‘get tough on immigrants’. Shame though, the 80% of this country that don’t want to go to war aren’t quite enough to influence Mr. Blair, yet the 0.4% that want us to get tough on immigrants are.
I love democracy. May the largest minority win.
Though, as we all know, the easiest way to solve the immigrant problem is…. Regime Change!
Voila! Instant Peace. Price 1,000,000 dead darkies and a few soldiers.
PROMISED LAND
Personally, my solution is to find some of those abandoned islands, put in a bit of plumbing, and send all the immigrants over there. A brand new state, and – taking the lead from Australia – quite a successful concept so I can tell.
We can also, while we’re at it, create a little island called ‘Engerland’ If nobody minds too much, lets give the white supremacists their very own land. I reckon you get 300 of them or so onto an island outside Scotland (current population : birds and grass) and then the country – and all the population who don’t come in shades of white – would be a lot happier when people with small, petty, frightened minds have their own land. That might be quite successful. Worked for Israel.
Besides, If ‘Engerland’ would ever try to declare war, Tony could always try Regime Change. Or bombing them.
THE TRUE THREAT
And so, the true threat to this country isn’t the bleeding heart liberals – the people who love this country so much that we don’t want to see it dragged into a war for oil to support 100-yard-a-gallon SUV’s for a country we’re not even in – but the hawks. The dumb advocates of war who believe that war is a goiod thing. They’re far more of a threat to our civilisation than a crazy man with a turban on page 4 of The Evening Standard.
These people are so misguided, they don’t understand that they are threatening our way of life. They want to bankrupt the nation, cause a war for oil, kill our children, bring on terrorist attacks on every high street, and create a nation of martyrs with religious causes – and plenty of grieving, vengeful relatives who want to destroy the Capitalist PigDogs.
That’s what it’s all about. These people are the true threat. Nobody should be self-appointed, and hypocritical, Policemen of The World. Especially when they speak English as a second language yet are President.
Yes. There are terrorist threats to this country.
Yes. There are some intolerant fools who seek to destroy other people’s way of life. Some are in Combat 18. Some are in extremist Muslim sects. Some are in Government.
Yes. They are the men who were elected to represent us, but who we find reprehensible.
And for every copy of The Evening Standard sold, and for every bored Commuter who picks it up unthinkingly – and who stays unthinking – there is a market. A market of fools and idiots and mindless little sheeple who buy what they’re told and lie to themselves that they are thinking, when all they are doing is rearranging their prejudices with newsprint.
Before the Internet, the massive groundswell of resistance to the war would’ve been in isolated pockets. But now we can see and understand that we are not alone. Boycott the Print Media until it tells us what’s really happening in the world. And drive The Evening Standard, with its hateful lies and ignorant, paranoid fears, out of business.
I told you I would never make a newspaper columnist.
© copyright Mark Reed, 1991-2003 except where indicated