permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

  [image: 240C9AAF-2ECD-481D-952C-307845D7CA84.png]

“I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of
ignorance....” - Reuben Blades
I stopped watching TV altogether over a year ago. I don't buy newspapers,
mainstream news makes my blood boil it's not news it's propaganda, at best.
I had to ask my husband not to have it on at dinner time it ruins my
appetite for so many reasons. Most of the 1st world walks about with its
head up its arse. More and more people like me must be waking up and
realising that that suspicion you had when you were young that the matrix
might not be all fiction was much, much closer to the truth that anybody is
comfortable with. The fact that I'm more aware of the dreadful state of
affairs the world is in has made some changes in my life like not listening
reading or watching any mainstream news and current affairs. I am very
conscious of projecting peace and love to every person I see and meet,
especially as the area I live in is full of immigrant people that get a lot
of hate and have left their own countries probably because of some great
western super power ban hammering. I should do more, as much as possible,
but I don't. Thinking too much about all this stuff will kill you. Guilt
tripping here on my privileged life that allows me to largely ignore it and
carry on in my happy bubble. People are anaesthetised and brain washed and
terrorised into hating their fellow humans. Society demands a load of sheep
clever enough to work the machines but not to question anything or be
capable of critical thinking. We are being manipulated by the people that
own the world into killing each other and ourselves to save them the bother
  @dredmorbius <https://ello.co/dredmorbius>

So much this.

The observations (and the problems) aren't new. Two recent commentators
who've described the problem (and solution) better than most are the late
Neil Postman, in *Amusing Ourselves to Death
<http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780143036531-2>* and *Technopoly
<http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780679745402-34>*, and Jerry Mander, in
the 1970s classic, *Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television*
<http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780688082741-13>.

I've been exploring some late 19th / early 20th cnetury affairs, the Bankers
Manifesto of 1892 hoax
<https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/39w8u4/jp_morgan_and_the_bankers_manifesto_of_1892_hoax/>,
which involved a lot of digging through newspaper archives of the time. I
was particularly struck by both the parisanship of newspapers (many of
which were *explicitly* and openly "party papers), and the conflict at the
time over both "outrage journalism" (the "Manifesto" in question) and other
editors' fervent calls for accuracy.

>From the editor of the Nebraska *Alliance* in May or June of 1892:

If the genuineness of this dispatch cannot be established, it should
be taken in at once. If reform writers put it alongside the Huscard
and Buell circulars and various other documents of like character, the
public faith in the genuineness of all may be shaken. We cannot afford
to father any fakes.

The lies of omission and distraction in the media are tremendous. Sadly,
it's not just the commercial media but increasingly "public broadcasters"
including PBS, NPR, Canada's CBC, and the BBC which participate in this,
though some misguided mission for "relevance", "audience", and
"engagement". Yes, they cover meaningful issues *at times*, but the quality
of their coverage has been on a long two-decade slide in my estimation.

NPR is increasingly a cipher to me. Its present CEO, Jarl
Mohn <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarl_Mohn>, its seventh in eight years,
is an interesting choice. He's the createor of E! Entertainmnet Television,
but also an active supporter of the ACLU (serving as chair of its Southern
California branch). I found myself so curious about him that when I found
he didn't have a Wikipedia page I created it....

*The Guardian <https://www.theguardian.com/>*, *Democracy Now*
<https://democracynow.org>, and a few other outlets (Pro Publica, the
ICIJ,...), do a fair job. *The New York Times* has its moments. *Rolling
Stone* <https://www.rollingstone.com> has knocked my socks off multiple
times. Probably *The Atlantic* <https://www.theatlantic.com/> as well.


-- 
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared/