Really… What the fuck is going on?
I was watching this mini documentary the other day:
For those of you who don’t have time to watch the whole thing, the upshot is that there’s a guy who’s kept Putin in power for fifteen years by supporting his friends, enemies and random parties who don’t have much to do with anything. He’s let it be known that he’s doing this and the result is that no one who wants to oppose him has the first clue what the hell is going on. It’s a constantly moving target that can’t be grasped, let alone attacked. The doc then goes on to say that the same thing is happening in the UK: we’ve pulled out of Afghanistan, but did we win or lose?; we practice quantitative easing at the same time as austerity; we prosecuted DJs who felt up a fifteen-year-old on Top Of The Pops forty years ago but not the bankers who brought the country to its knees.
Interesting…
I often find myself scratching my head and wondering why people who commit such obvious crimes get away with it. Sure, they are powerful and in that amorphous bracket we refer to with the phrase, ‘those kind of people always get away with it’. But it happens again and again without consequence. A prime example is what’s happening with the Chilcot Inquiry, which has now taken five years to properly explain what happened in the illegal, hated and disastrous Iraq War of 2003. We hear of messages between Tony Blair and George Bush that can’t be published, so now we’ll only bet getting the ‘gist’ of them. Clearly, every intelligent person who hears that then thinks, ‘Bloody hell, there must be some incredibly dodgy stuff in those letters. I wonder what it could be…?’. My guess is the financial divvying up of Iraq’s oil reserves, along with allocation of arms contacts that enriched the US and UK to a massive extent, and still do.
But what can we do about it? I’m not sure I agree with Adam, who says we tend to greet our impotence in these situations with the words, ‘Oh dear’. Instead I think we tend to come at it from the angle of ‘Fucking hell’, where we know lots and lots of terrible things are happening behind the scenes to exploit the less well-off and powerful so that they/we might benefit those who are pulling the strings, but we feel entirely unable to do anything about it.
–It’s obvious the NHS is not being supported so it can be called a failure and placed in private hands for people to make money from, leaving the care of the unwell as a lower priority than the generation of cash.
–No one can rationally agree with the ridiculous proliferation of gun ownership in America, but the ‘powerful’ gun lobby prevents all calls for reduction. How? And why do supposedly intelligent people happily go along with extending this terrible situation?
–£80bn in bankers’ bonuses and £80bn in austerity measures. WHAT THE FUCK? People have to go without food and education so incredibly rich people can become even more incredibly rich? No one is stopping that? No one capped the bankers’ bonuses after the crash they created? And no one was jailed for that crash?
–The newspapers vilify supposed benefit ‘cheats’, who cost the country £2bn, while doing nothing about the giant corporations (Starbucks, Amazon, Vodaphone etc.) dodging tax worth £25bn. We can’t change the law to make them pay that tax? Why the fuck not?
–HSBC laundered drug money for Mexican cartels. Did anyone get in trouble for that beyond a fine which represented a tiny percentage of the bank’s income?
And EVERYONE KNOWS THIS IS GOING ON. It’s in massive newspapers like The Guardian and the New York Times, in hugely popular magazines such as Rolling Stone, on millions of Tweets and Facebook posts. None of it is hidden and yet it still happens all over the world, every single day.
Fucking Hell…
Fucking Hell indeed.
Not sure what to do. But I’ll keep trying to change it. It’s all I can. And I owe it to the world. No?
Yes.
Newspapers always pay their fair share of tax, of course.
All it comes down to is the sickening and malicious effects of corporations.
They have no interest in humanity, only money and greed.
You lot who spend your lives subverting the public consciousness should wake the fuck up.
Do something useful, become a tailor, social worker, chef. Anything.
Supposedly you are creative, use it for some good in the world.
So long as bright people consider their own activites and good in the world, the working man will be screwed over.
In terms of overall good in the world the best thing any marketeers or advertising people could do is purchase a shotgun and use it as vertically integrated market solution.
I’d concur with HH that there’s a certain irony to this post.
Oh, I’m very aware that I’m not being as much of the solution as I’d like to be.
But I think the problems I mentioned (although based in the same principle as how I earn a living) are bigger, more damaging and less understandable.
Is that what you meant?
I think enough “What the fuck?” and the peasants will ultimately get out the pitchforks and torches. but you are absolutely right. And something (not sure what) will happen as a reaction to all the very obviously wrong bullshit.
Vinny, I think the same, but what will it take that’s going to be more seismic and unfair than the Iraq war or the financial meltdown of 2008 and its ridiculous solution.
It’s going to be world leaders mandating that we just become slaves that help the rich still further, kind of like the second episode of Black Mirror.
Last year I was privileged enough to be part of the team doing advertising etc for the YesScotland campaign for Scottish independence. It was a real eye opener for what happens when you try to effect real change (the break up of the UK to create a fairer nation – Scotland). The media and establishment assault was incredible. Every UK newspaper aimed their guns at us, not to mention the BBC in an unashamed display of media bias. The UK government wrote to every government in the world asking their views (i.e. to speak out against) on Indy for Scotland. Almost all declined to comment. However, Obama implied he was pro NO, as did the Spanish (fear of Catalan indy). Others who spoke out against Scots indy included the Pope, Hilary Clinton, David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Eddie Izzard – not one of them Scottish. Despite the media backlash/ frenzy we managed to double our support, eventually losing 55% to 45%. The day after the referendum SNP membership climbed so rapidly it is now the third largest party in the UK – which means change will inevitably happen in our neck of the global woods. Whether you support Scottish indy or not the lesson to be learned is that the minute you put your head above the parapet to create real, meaningful change the entire establishment will use every weapon in their armoury to stop you. That includes ad agencies (Hi M&C Saatchi – you weren’t very good were you?) I think change in the world is possible through democratic means (and the occasional pitchfork) but we have let the world establishment establish it’s own world order – it’s crooked as hell and they believe they are, and conspire to be, above the law. Sadly I think most people are too wrapped up in just trying to get through life to have the energy to do anything about it. HH says do something useful – become a tailor etc. I suggest you look hard at your own corner of existence and decide how you can change that for the better. Then every corner will get better. (Idealistic I agree, but why not?)
Looking forward to comments about whingeing Jocks flying my way.
That documentary was embarrassingly thin. Seemed almost like a spoof.
Most of these things have explanations if you care to look and want to think.
But even in this post, it is the sheer weight of injustice that creates that feeling of impotency. It’s easy to get angry about single issues; the Poll Tax for instance. But when it’s the Poll Tax, the War in Iraq, Bankers’ Bonuses, The Bedroom Tax, selling off our railways, the slow death of the NHS, etc, etc, it becomes harder to focus and get mobilised. And that is the whole point of our media’s agenda. Fear and confusion + helplessness equals obedience.
@will atkinson
Hoping not to dissappoint, I hope I might have a wee snipe.
The Yes campaign was just as bad as the better together campaign. People wanted REAL change, and had REAL change been an option I may have voted for it. Tactics used by Yes:
Targeting children by lowering the voting age and brainwashing them with Braveheart at school.
Bullying people and calling them non-patriotic if they didn’t want independence.
Scaremongering over the NHS
Falsifying data about North Sea Oil.
Banning all non-residents Scots from voting basically implying they are no longer Scots.
The list goes on and on.
The SNP lost voters because they couldn’t answer any questions. Had they had the answers, and not behaved so underhandedly, perhaps I would be living in an independent Scotland.
Capitalism is set up like a lottery. The overwhelming majority of people don’t win. But they feel there’s a chance, if they can play football well enough, or sing well enough. And it seems people prefer this lottery-based system to socialism, because when they have a choice, that’s what they choose.
Indeed.
*sigh*
Define winning? If capitalism is supposed to supply us all with Ferraris it’s definitely failing but it’s enormously successful at providing people with basic needs.
I think we need a sense of perspective here.
This is a good read, goes some way toward explaining why economic crimes aren’t dealt with properly: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval
Check out the dude on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrancer
@15: well, we may be oversimplifying things here. The choice clearly isn’t capitalism vs socialism, and you can certainly take the best parts of capitalism and indeed provide people with a huge number of their requirements.
The problem today is the extent to which this is leading to the ‘give ’em an inch’ mentality, where people are bending the system to give themselves a much bigger piece of the pie, often illegally, often without consequences. If you go back to the way in which wealth was distributed even ten years ago, and certainly twenty or thirty, then you can see that we could have the benefits without the current adverse imbalance.
Ben, I’m sure you’ve already seen it but Alex and Oli are leading by example – starting with the tobacco industry:
http://www.usvthem.org
‘Better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness’ and all that?
Indeed.
It’s a lottery which people who went to Eton and Oxford are guaranteed to win.
*that
Adam Curtis is one of the most dishonest, partisan documentary makers around. A hollow sham of a thinker.
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/guy-walters/2011/06/video-brilliantly-curtis
Just watched “Bitter Lake” and it is the biggest mess, wrapped in the thinnest story, dragged out for far, far, far too long.
It is a mistake to call Adam Curtis a documentarian, he is an essayist at best. A more pompous filmmaker it would be hard to find. Sophomoric and soporific.
The only upside is that it only cost £12K to make, allegedly. Curtis must be being paid a fortune to by the BBC, and it is all wasted. Dreadful.