Discourse and Social Reality
by salamander Thursday, Aug 3 2006, 2:07pm
international / mass media / commentary

In Defence of Mel Gibson

The major communication mediums of the world continue to bombard the public with images and descriptions of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict. The media works tirelessly to deliver our social consciousness. Today’s mass media maintains its status as the principal means of creating and sustaining social realities. The internet-based ‘independents’ lack real independent front-line resources and continue to rely on the mainstream for most of their information (much to their chagrin).

Mel Gibson is only human

It is in the interests of some to present a view of ‘reality’ that serves to reinforce a particular worldview while backgrounding or even eliminating other discourses deemed incompatible with the prevailing dominant discourse/reality. The current war in Lebanon serves to background issues of global warming which is without doubt the most pervasively destructive event the world is facing today. The war also serves to distract the public from rampant exploitation of ‘developing’ nations and the appalling failures of the Bush regime in Iraq and Afghanistan; the prospect of imminent economic and social collapse as a result of extremely inept management has also taken a back seat to the news of War!

It therefore becomes imperative for the powers to manipulate the public’s attention and shift focus away from the appalling failures of government and the incompetence of other administrative institutions; certain realities must be avoided at all costs. The mass media is the traditional means with which the public’s attention is manipulated, managed and hijacked.

The public is constantly bombarded with grotesque and shocking images of wanton destruction and the death of innocents; images selected to polarise, numb and create a sense of helplessness – a greater degree of social manageability is effected as a result of this aversion therapy practised on the entire population.

The average citizen faced with the overwhelming tragedies of our time experiences a sense of helplessness, which usually results in denial, evasion and increased dependence. The pressures of daily life leave little energy for solving the problems of the world.

An odd mix of psychological and physical fatigue and the real need to experience a modicum of joy results in a strong disinclination to affect the status quo or effect lasting social change through direct intervention/action. Various forms of escapism and substance abuse are the preferred modes of 'coping' for most people. Critical situations in need of immediate public intervention and rectification are ignored, denied and generally disregarded in favour of self-centred pursuits; and so it is with our governments. [Odd coincidence?]

Is it surprising therefore that self-serving avaricious interests with little regard for anything outside their own immediate needs, would pursue anything other than short-term/short-sighted policies and gratifications?

The enduring news of the day, however, is that the universe is a long-term (infinite) project! What has humanity missed or forfeited in the translation from the greater good to selfish, self-serving pursuits? One answer is the living treasures (now extinct) that an unspoiled world once offered; but perhaps the highest price of all has been paid for a fleeting glitter of a glass bead, the future (tolerable) tenability of the human race.

All the ‘civilised’ religions, philosophies and political systems (ideologies) have brought us to the threshold of extinction – a fitting outcome for a perverse species.

Once again it’s time to refer to the news/lies of the day; grab your favourite form of escape, religious text, bottle, pill, ideological treatise or whatever, and greet your TV screens, radios or online sources with a smiling, delusional and pathologically ill psyche – modern man has become a destructive disease good for absolutely nothing but extinction, and so it will be!

To what end I hear you ask, where did we think we were going?

What better way to expedite death and destruction than to disguise it as economic growth, prosperity or eternal life! What a farce! Archaeological evidence exists that measures an unbroken occupation of the Australian continent by the indigenous people to approximately sixty thousand years. Some fossil evidence actually places a hundred and thirty thousand year figure on a society that was able to appreciate the ‘prosperity’, ‘growth’ and ‘eternity’ in the natural universe. Numerous traditional societies around the globe shared a similar respect and harmonious relationship with their immediate environment. They were acutely aware that the environment sustained their lives.

In the recent past (of only a few thousand years) a poisonous and destructive aberration occurred. A demon God was created who embodied the perfect qualities of self-destruction and socio-pathology, a blood lusting, child murdering God of Hell. The name of that God is Jehovah and his people are the Jews, Muslims and Christians; the most destructive groups the world has ever known. The three bastard sons of Abraham all follow the divisive dictates of their God.

A God who created private property, taxes and a love of money; a God who ordered his people to “subdue” the natural environment and all the creatures it sustained. A sociopathic killer of innocents with a manic need for blood, gold and silver was released to become the ruler of today's world. Witness his grotesque handiwork in the invasion of Lebanon and in the enslaving power of the Banks, Financial institutions and other organisations of slavery and exploitation.

Today we witness the legacy of that God of division, murder, greed and other unspeakable horrors. A God in whose name the total destruction of the earth is promised! His three bastard sons are pursuing his dictates with fervent zeal even as I write.

Take delight in the news of the day!