allan harper said:
That's a great post Damocles and you're far too intelligent for me but even you admit ( in your opinion ) that iAl-Qaeda isn't this super intelligent criminal terrorist organisation yet the media have us all living in fear that it is.
Do they still have a daily terror threat warnings flashing up on the tv's in the states ?
I don't think that this is a concerted effort though, I think that everybody is playing to their strengths which just so happen to interlock with each other.
The media reports things in a tone and language that is designed to enrage, or to frighten. We've all seen it in football reporting, how the headline isn't quite what the actual article says, or an article that has been built around quotes which don't exactly reflect their intention.
In sports reporting, this shapes the narrative of channels such as Sky TV.
In 24 hour news, this shapes whole societies.
The media is here to make money. As a secondary goal, they may try to influence viewers towards a certain conclusion, but this is as I say, secondary. Keeping people in a constant state of fear and confusion keeps people looking for the next update or outrage to cement a depressing and somewhat unrealistic world view. The news media paints life as much more exciting and dangerous than most of our humdrum existences are, and this also appeals to people. Appealing to people = money, from advertisers and from sponsors.
Politicians buy into this frenzy. Any politician in power is by definition, a populist. They take the zeitgeist of the public and use this to get themselves re-elected and their policies across. They may well be trying to achieve what they think is best for the people, but to do so, they need the people onside. And people are stupid. People are irrational. People want short and sharp bytes of information which is why the media feed this to them. The easiest way to get the people onside is to point at a bad guy and united against them.
We have Islamic terrorists as the "Big Bad" at the moment. It used to be the Russians. Before it was the Germans. There's always been something or someone that a society rallies behind.
Media creates fear. Fear leads to irrationality. Irrationality leads to gullibility. Gullibility leads to a surrender of liberty.
And of course, these big bad entities like nothing more than being portrayed as super-powerful entities because it helps them in their own goals. It's far easier to recruit potential terrorists into a worldwide, super secret, underground organisation that strikes fear into the hearts of their enemies than it is to recruit terrorists into a group entirely ran by that weird bloke across the road.
Mutual benefit.
This doesn't mean a concerted plan, it's everybody doing what's best for themselves which in turn happens to be best for everybody.
Damocles you wrote
My main annoyance with many on 9/11 is the mass hypocrisy. You, as a nation, have been bombing the shit out of these people for decades. You have destabilised their nation through infiltrations. You have slaughtered their people, innocents and soldiers. You have armed both sides of a war to the teeth, hoping that they will blow each other apart. You have invaded their lands in both the sense of wars and placement of military bases. You have told them that their way of life is wrong and they should embrace yours. For generations, you treated them as second class citizens, second class nations and second class religious beliefs.
Or in other words a small step towards a national globization ?
Perhaps. I don't particularly have a problem with globalisation because the concept of borders and countries has always troubled me somewhat.
We all share a heritage. Some of us share a cultural heritage, some of us share a biological heritage but we're all pretty much the same. National borders have always troubled me as a concept that provides boundaries to our cultural heritages and separates us into macro clan-like societies. I accept that they are useful in governance but for one moment imagine a world without them. How many territorial and resource disputes would not happen? Economically, we'd have the perfect free trade market. We'd be able to move country to country, without papers or tracking.
I quite like the idea of globalisation. In a strange way, a single currency and global government would provide us with more freedom than we have ever had, at least on a personal level.
