We don’t mix God with politics
“Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. If we can’t think up reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit.” Chayefsky 1976
While architecture, music, fine arts and literature owe much to religious inspiration and patronage, average interpretations of religion are at best fluffy, delusional or mediocre, and at worst elitist, despotic and depraved.
Politics is by nature an extension of religion, but without God. We don’t do God in Australian politics (Jensen 2016) though the similarity between politics and religion is undeniable, particularly when you look at neoliberal-driven politics. It has its own catechisms in accordance with an exalted code of conduct, has universal ambitions, is buoyed by a legal system that tramples the meek and vulnerable, and directs its benefits almost exclusively to a ‘power elite’. It even has a prophet in Friedrich Von Hayek, and its church is the The Mont Pelerin Society (Ponniah 2012). This demiurge passes control of its pilfered resources to an undeserving progeny in an act of nepotism. Australian politics is in a death-grip with Mammon, lord of economics, king of all wars and hence the most prolific serial killer of all time. The total deaths in recorded history now number the hundreds of millions (White 2014).
Humanity’s social movements may originate from well-intentioned philosophies but they have a knack of morphing into messy, complex counterfeits. Politics walks a fine line between truth and bullshit.
Mass media follows the corporate imperative
“We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale.” Chayefsky 1976
There is significant mainstream confusion, deliberate or otherwise, surrounding definitions of democracy in capitalist societies. Democratic intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, are relentlessly misrepresented in their defence of social democratic ideology and policies, despite their commitment to raise a lamp and shine light into the darkness, which is not ahead of us but in the here and now. Some Western journalists have portrayed social democracy as a form of either socialism or communism, further adding to the confusion within Western ideological and political debates. If political ideologies are open to interpretation then they are the godless extensions of religious dogma, and in a capitalist free-market state, the definition of a political ideology is limited to the parameters of the dominant economic forces that influence government policy making.
These economic forces direct corporate mass media, and frames mainstream discussion, influencing and manipulating public opinion on the benefits of the state, the free market, and far-right political economic agendas. Mass media always follows the corporate imperative – filtered to assure conformity to the interests and needs of an elite private sector. Media networks that don’t tow the line are pushed aside in favour of those that support the corporate social purpose (Chomsky 1990). Transnational media operates within the limits of a market-driven satellite news oligopoly. The spectacle of distant violence and suffering sells, hence it is prioritised and produced to suit the demands and tastes of a Western audience, while serving shadowy private interests (Chouliaraki 2008).
The Twin towers & disaster capitalism
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad” Chayefsky 1976
Since the events of September 11 2001, political violence has touched every Western nation to some degree. Aired and viewed in real time on screens and portable devices, 9/11 was mediated, analysed and officially concluded, despite valid unanswered questions from professional observers who raised concerns about the physical events of 9/11 (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth 2016). Humanity has been collectively traumatised by an ongoing series of shocks, imparted with precision by transnational media (Chouliaraki 2008). Between shocks, we return to our daily lives, our families, our careers and our pursuits as if nothing has changed. We ask few questions and receive fewer answers, yet obediently follow the edicts of our governments, which are being hijacked by devolving neoliberal ideologies.
It is a fact that the neoliberal agenda seeks nothing less than the transfer of all public goods and services to the private sector. This undermines the significant socio-economic achievements of (once-regulated and fair) capitalist societies like Australia (Chomsky 2015). The post 9/11 period accelerated the global spread of neoliberal principles, using Naomi Klein’s term disaster capitalism with resistance, and viewed as an obstruction to progress (Klein 2007). Symbolically our power is all but privatised and we are expected to buy into neoliberal free-market philosophies, complacently entrusting our health services, our educational institutions and our social security into the private hands of a corporate sector that packages its booty with slick advertising campaigns and media propaganda…while also drawing on the public purse!
Western governments will continue to play the impending doom card, whether it’s terrorism, economic collapse or some other disaster, as a political ace. It’s a transparent system that populations dutifully adopt with robotic conformity. We wear this ‘corporatocracy’ like a snug suit because we can’t see the details. And so, we continue to whinge and sling shit – amongst ourselves – while sinking incrementally into a state of powerless despair.
Le cirque de 9/11
“You’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell” Chayefsky 1976
Hiram Johnson said in 1917 that the first casualty in war is truth (Bagdikian 2004). Rumours of war cause social, hence economic panic and a proliferation of propaganda at a time when people need accurate and balanced information, but is this what governments and media deliver? The ‘War on Drugs’ rolled out the red carpet for the War on Terror, which then graduated to the Global War on Terror (GWOT). In what amounts to a class war with the global rich lording it over the global poor, one has to take pause at the power of these terminologies and of the role that mass media plays as vehicles for western propaganda. (Nohrstedt & Ottosen 2008) This kind of rhetoric was a bit of a joke when it first appeared; nevertheless it has become embedded in the mainstream political vernacular.
After the events of September 11 the western world was rocked by events rarely experienced by western nations and all of us witnessed these epic dramas unfold live via satellite. We may never know the whole truth behind 9/11, however western governments have been riding the wave of an emerging fear culture ever since. I.F. Stone once explained to a group of green journalists that when covering politics, the first thing to consider is that all governments lie (Bagdikian 2004). I remember my own instinctive distrust during 9/11 media coverage. it hit me in the gut, knowing it would be used as motivation for an invasion of Iraq. It was inevitable and we all knew it. Media networks covered 9/11 like a bizarre sports event, repeating segments over and over to an international western audience that was dumb struck, horrified, yet too afraid to switch off their televisions. It was reality TV at its finest and it marked the global shift from ‘risk society to threat society’ (Nohrstedt & Ottosen 2008). Rather than a breaking news event, it was an historical narrative complete with denunciative moral agency and promises of revenge (Chouliaraki 2008). The US Government had the whole world’s attention and worked it like a circus, with media ringmasters directing our gaze to wherever was required.
The Bin Laden/ Hussein adjustment & Weapons of Mass Deception
“You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here.” Chayefsky 1976
Who can forget the sudden rhetorical switch from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein in the immediate post 9/11 period…yeah, I remember that switcheroo. I brought it up often in conversation but no one seemed to fully grasp the implications. Sure, I understand, people were in shock, and exposed to successive shocks ever since, so this glaring inconsistency has been lost in the din, forgotten. Osama Bin Laden was conveniently dropped from the mainstream media landscape and Hussein was spliced in as his understudy – no one talked about it much, if at all. bin Laden was eventually snuffed, but the ‘Axis of Evil’ agenda shifted public attention from one enemy to another, as documented in global news trends covering a pre and post 9/11 world. As the US and her allies prepared the public for war, leaders simply manoeuvred their rhetoric through the media (Althaus & Largio 2004).
I could have tuned out and taken solace in the thought that nothing would ever sneak up on me again. I could face reality with resignation and move on, but I looked back and turned to stone. I still joined the march against the invasion of Iraq. Howard ignored us, enamoured as he was of George W. who juiced him up for the upcoming Free Trade Agreement. Murdoch’s journalists dutifully underplayed the numbers, but I was there – a lot of us were. However, the justification for war was sealed a long time before we reached the streets and I think we knew it.
There was no self-critical reflection by journalists, when it finally emerged that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. The media became Weapons of Mass Deception (Nohrstedt & Ottosen 2008). Hussein was conveniently hung and that was that.
Symbolic annihilation of the non-western ‘other’
“There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars” Chayefsky 1976
In a socio-political sense, the non-Western other is only real while being discussed. The moment a designated ‘other’ is dropped from media discourse they cease to exist. It’s the forward thrust of political narcissism and a convenient distraction from the realities of war, which has stalked Middle Eastern oil fields like the many-faced god and his faceless assassins (Game of Thrones, 2016). Western powers can invade the villainous Orient without contrition and with impunity under the banner of democracy and beam these heroic efforts live via satellite through the amphitheatre of western media. We access the horror through the internet on multiple devices 24/7 – as we rely on easy access to news media to assure us the threat is contained. So far, the ultimate heroes and defenders of western democracy have always been the American military – protecting us from the perils of the non-western other.
We can go to sleep safely knowing that all is well, as long as our protector is out there, still stationed in the vast Australian desert, still carefully tending its garden of advanced war tech and missiles.
The people, distracted, will always be divided
“I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” Chayefsky 1976
Social media is both the opportunity to unite and a labyrinth of distraction. Castells bubbles with optimism on the potential of social media networks for social change; for shaping a brave new 21st century (Castells 2015). As a public space we’re still awestruck by the grandeur of cyberspace with its transnational media and social networks. However from where I’m standing, favour increasingly leans toward the corporate interests of the companies that own them; companies that profile each user as a consumer and political punter. Facebook and Google have direct access to vast amounts of data, akin to having a crystal ball that can predict the future. Predictive analytics (Software & Solutions 2016) reveal collective trends across social, political and economic spectrums. Anyone who has the money and power to access and mine the data can prepare well in advance to stem the flow of an inconvenient social movement. They can divert attention, manipulate opinion and cut it off at the pass. It remains to be seen what kind of social change the World Wide Web will enable before I stop feeling like a fat juicy fly.
Australia has a complacent, manageable population with a vulnerable indigenous community. Most of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, with either colonial or post-war histories, and the majority of us are disinterested in politics beyond the few weeks of pre election madness that lead to an election, and our personal investment in the promises that come with this cyclical ritual. However we have a compulsory voting system with 78% enrolled (& 93 % of those voted in the 2013 election; IDEA 2016). The rest of the time we disengage from the political process and it shows. The rise of armchair activism aka ‘Clicktivism’ is one telltale sign of a dying democracy. More people claim to know that the emperor is stark naked yet only a fraction turn up at public protests – less if it’s raining. One could be forgiven for believing we’ve fallen into the clutches of a sociopathic, corporate ruling class (Chomsky 2001). In Australia, Democracy can still parade the streets but only after applying for permission to protest. The naked emperor has been pirouetting openly for quite a while.
Bearing witness
“Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer” Chayefsky 1976
My friend came to Australia from Bosnia as a refugee. He works hard to pay his mortgage and run a thriving business. He came with nothing from a war that left him with a multitude of unanswered questions. Why did UN peacekeepers disarm the Bosnians, put them all in one place and then leave them to be massacred? World governments knew it was happening. There were clear verified reports coming out of Bosnia through embedded Western journalists, yet no one saved them (Crossette 1999). As my friend explained, they waited but nobody came. When his 21-year-old cousin was raped, mortally stabbed and left to die in the boot of her car, they couldn’t help her because snipers took aim at anyone who tried. The family began covert preparations to move their remaining youth to Italy. The eventual autopsy showed that she had lived for days, dying just metres from her family in the boot of her own car. It’s one story among thousands, however it is my friend’s personal story that brought the reality of war up close.
I searched for online footage of the Bosnian genocide and scoured the Internet for balanced media reports and footage, not because I thought I could change anything, or to satisfy morbid curiosity. I was bearing witness for my friend.
We the Victorious
“No matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he’s going to win.” Chayefsky 1976
The ancient ruins of blood sport arenas, sacrificial temples and amphitheatres dot our globe. Bloodlust is part of our entertainment histories. These days the West fights its wars on foreign soil and continues to perfect military technologies that can destroy the planet in a day. For the West, the line between reality and fiction is blurred and the bloody horror of war is sanitised. Therefore the viewer is spared the full shock that precipitates action and transformation (Chouliaraki 2008). The horror is only partially revealed; made palatable for consumption through privatised networks. Violence and the threat of violence, disaster and the threat of disaster, poverty and the threat of poverty, are hidden beneath the spectacle. The Western psyche is hijacked by well-crafted rhetorical tales of suffering and doom, with the promise that the heroic West will do its utmost to stop disaster from reaching our shores (Borchers, 2013). After all, we’re the victorious West. We consume distant suffering like vampires. Our mainstream news media goes into a competitive frenzy over every latest disaster, lingering on every detail. If a network can’t report anything new, it picks over the carcass and endlessly speculates chat-show style (Thussu, 2003). In Australia we get a well-monitored feast or black-out famine. A gratuitous glut, or nothing at all. Produced as infotainment, it’s filtered, sanitised, sensationalised and de-contextualised, in order to reduce demand on the emotional and cognitive capacities of a western audience (Chouliaraki 2008).
Wanted: Western audiences – dead or alive
“This is not a psychotic episode. This is a cleansing moment of clarity. I’m imbued, Max.” Chayefsky 1976
One of the primary contributory effects of Western media is the distorted perception an audience forms of a villainous non-western other (Kamalipour 2004). I’ve caught myself with the same perception. I exorcise this demon by careful self-observation, by paying close attention to my thoughts and reactions to local and transnational news reports. I ask questions. I don’t assume what I read or hear is truth. Nevertheless I have a dead spot, which is only resurrected by the realisation that I have it, although the alternative isn’t much better as compassion turns to empathy, empathy turns to grief, and grief to despair. The Western cultural perspective is etched into my consciousness. It’s my operating system. I have learned to enjoy a good war epic because actors are playing the roles of the heroes and villains. I can rest in my imaginary place of indifference, and lose myself through the willing suspension of disbelief.
Epilogue: The devil hides in the detail
“We want a prophet, not a curmudgeon…He should do more apocalyptic doom.” Chayefsky 1976
From the banks of the river, a crocodilian humanoid grins from its leafy shadows. The hush-hush of water lapping at the hull, lulls the passengers into a deep sleep. No one on the boat can see the camouflaged reptilian grinning knowingly from the riverbank. And the closer I look the wider it grins. I awake in my bed with the eyes of that creature burned into my memory.
But it’s just a dream set in the dusk of a mental landscape, with me on a long wooden boat, seated on a bench at the stern. When I notice the creature, I turn to see if anyone else can see it, but no. All I find are the glassy faraway stares looking straight ahead. The devil’s in the detail. My fellow passengers are not aware of each other. They’re alone in the crowd, mesmerised by the forward thrust of this damned vessel.
…………………………………………………………
(2014)
We don’t mix God with politics
“Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. If we can’t think up reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit.” Chayefsky 1976
While architecture, music, fine arts and literature owe much to religious inspiration and patronage, average interpretations of religion are at best fluffy, delusional or mediocre, and at worst elitist, despotic and depraved.
Politics is by nature an extension of religion – but without God. We don’t do God in Australian politics (Jensen 2016) though the similarity between politics and religion is undeniable, particularly when you look at neoliberal-driven politics. It has its own catechisms in accordance with an exalted code of conduct, has universal ambitions, is buoyed by a legal system that tramples the meek and vulnerable, and directs its benefits almost exclusively to a power elite. It even has a prophet in Friedrich Von Hayek and its church is the The Mont Pelerin Society (Ponniah 2012). This demiurge passes control of its pilfered resources to an undeserving progeny in an act of nepotism. Australian politics is in a death-grip with Mammon, lord of economics, king of all wars and hence the most prolific serial killer of all time. The total deaths in recorded history now number the hundreds of millions (White 2014).
Humanity’s social movements may originate from well-intentioned philosophies but they have a knack of morphing into messy, complex counterfeits. Politics walks a fine line between truth and bullshit.
Mass media follows the corporate imperative
“We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale.” Chayefsky 1976
There is significant mainstream confusion, deliberate or otherwise, surrounding definitions of democracy in capitalist societies. Democratic intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, are relentlessly misrepresented in their defense of social democratic ideology, despite the commitment to raise a lamp and shine some light into the darkness, which is not ahead of us but in the here and now. Some Western journalists have portrayed social democracy as a form of either socialism or communism, adding to the confusion within Western ideological and political debates. If a political ideology is open to interpretation, then political ideologies are the godless extensions of religious dogma, and in a capitalist free-market state, the definition of a political ideology is limited to the parameters of the dominant economic forces, which influence government policy making. These economic forces navigate the corporate mass media that frames discussion, influencing and manipulating public opinion to the benefit of the state, the free market, and neoliberal economic agendas. Mass media always follows a corporate imperative, filtered to assure conformity to the interests and needs of an elite private sector. Media networks that don’t tow the line are pushed aside in favour of those that support the corporate ‘social purpose’ (Chomsky 1990). Transnational media operates within the limits of a market-driven satellite news oligopoly. The spectacle of distant violence and suffering sells, hence it is prioritised and produced to suit the demands and tastes of a Western audience, while serving shadowy private interests (Chouliaraki 2008).
The Twin towers & disaster capitalism
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad” Chayefsky 1976
Since the events of September 11 2001, political violence has touched every Western nation to some degree. Aired and viewed in real time on screens and portable devices, 9/11 was mediated, analysed and officially concluded, despite valid questions from professional observers, who raised their concerns about the physical events of 9/11 (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth 2016). Humanity has been collectively traumatised by a series of shocks, imparted with precision by transnational media (Chouliaraki 2008). Between shocks, we return to our daily lives, our families, our careers and our pursuits as if nothing has changed. We ask few questions and receive fewer answers, while obediently following the edicts of our governments that are being hijacked by devolving neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism seeks nothing less than the transfer of all public goods and services to the private sector, undermining the significant social and economic achievements of capitalist societies like Australia (Chomsky 2015). The post 9/11 period accelerated the global spread of neoliberal principles, using Naomi Klein’s term disaster capitalism with resistance, and viewed as an obstruction to progress (Klein 2007). Symbolically our electricity (power) is all but privatised and we are expected to buy into neoliberal free-market philosophy, complacently entrusting our health services, our educational institutions and our social security into the hands of a corporate sector, which packages its booty with slick advertising campaigns and media propaganda. Western governments continue to play the terrorist card as a political ace. It’s a transparent system, yet populations dutifully adopt a robotic conformity, wearing corporatocracy like a snug suit because they cannot see the details.
Le cirque de 9/11
“You’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell” Chayefsky 1976
Hiram Johnson said in 1917 that the first casualty in war is truth (Bagdikian 2004). Rumours of war cause social, hence economic panic and a proliferation of propaganda at a time when people need accurate and balanced information, but is this what governments and media deliver? The ‘War on Drugs’ rolled out the red carpet for the War on Terror, which then graduated to the Global War on Terror (GWOT). In what amounts to a class war with the global rich lording it over the global poor, one has to take pause at the power of these terminologies and of the role that mass media plays as vehicles for western propaganda. (Nohrstedt & Ottosen 2008) This kind of rhetoric was a bit of a joke when it first appeared; nevertheless it has become embedded in the mainstream political vernacular.
After the events of September 11 the western world was rocked by an event rarely experienced in a western nation; all of us witnessed the epic drama unfold live via satellite. We may never know the whole truth behind this event however western governments have been riding the wave of an emerging fear culture ever since. I.F. Stone once explained to a group of ‘green’ journalists, that when covering politics the first thing to consider is that all governments lie (Bagdikian 2004). I remember experiencing an instinctive distrust during 9/11 media coverage. it hit me in my stomach – knowing that this would be used as the motivation for an invasion of Iraq. It was inevitable and everyone knew it. Media networks covered 9/11 like a bizarre sports event, repeating segments over and over to an international western audience that was dumb struck, horrified, yet too afraid to switch off their televisions. It was reality TV at its finest and marked the global shift from ‘risk society to threat society’ (Nohrstedt & Ottosen 2008). Rather than a breaking news event, it was an historical narrative complete with denunciative moral agency and promises of revenge (Chouliaraki 2008). The US Government had the whole world’s attention and they worked it like a circus, with its media ringmasters directing our gaze to wherever it was required.
The Bin Laden/ Hussein adjustment & Weapons of Mass Deception
“You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here.” Chayefsky 1976
Who can forget the sudden rhetorical switch from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein in the immediate post 9/11 period…yeah, I remember that switcheroo. I brought it up often in conversation but no one seemed to fully grasp the implications. Sure, I understand, people were in shock, and exposed to successive shocks ever since, so this glaring inconsistency has been lost in the din, forgotten. Osama Bin Laden was conveniently dropped from the mainstream media landscape and Hussein was spliced in as his understudy – no one talked about it much, if at all. bin Laden was eventually snuffed, but the ‘Axis of Evil’ agenda shifted public attention from one enemy to another, as documented in global news trends covering a pre and post 9/11 world. As the US and her allies prepared the public for war, leaders simply manoeuvred their rhetoric through the media (Althaus & Largio 2004).
I could have tuned out and taken solace in the thought that nothing would ever sneak up on me again. I could face reality with resignation and move on, but I looked back and turned to stone. I still joined the march against the invasion of Iraq. Howard ignored us, enamoured as he was of George W. who juiced him up for the upcoming Free Trade Agreement. Murdoch’s journalists dutifully underplayed the numbers, but I was there – a lot of us were. However, the justification for war was sealed a long time before we reached the streets and I think we knew it.
There was no self-critical reflection by journalists, when it finally emerged that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. The media became Weapons of Mass Deception (Nohrstedt & Ottosen 2008). Hussein was conveniently hung and that was that.
Symbolic annihilation of the non-western ‘other’
“There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars” Chayefsky 1976
In a socio-political sense, the non-Western other is only real while being discussed. The moment a designated ‘other’ is dropped from media discourse they cease to exist. It’s the forward thrust of political narcissism and a convenient distraction from the realities of war, which has stalked the Middle Eastern oil fields like the many-faced god and his faceless assassins (Game of Thrones, 2016). Western powers can invade the villainous Orient without contrition and with impunity under the banner of democracy and they beam these heroic efforts live via satellite through the amphitheatre of western media. We can access the horror through the Internet on multiple devices 24/7 as we rely on easy access to news media to assure us the threat is contained. The heroes and defenders of western democracy have always been our American heroes, who protect us from the perils of the non-western other. We can go to sleep safely knowing that all is well as long as our protector is out there, stationed in the vast Australian desert, carefully tending its garden of missiles.
The people, distracted, will always be divided
“I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” Chayefsky 1976
Social media is both the opportunity to unite and a labyrinth of distraction. Castells bubbles with optimism on the potential of social media networks for social change; for shaping a brave new 21st century (Castells 2015). As a public space we’re still awestruck by the grandeur of cyberspace with its transnational media and social networks. However from where I’m standing, favour increasingly leans toward the corporate interests of the companies that own them; companies that profile each user as a consumer and political punter. Facebook and Google have direct access to vast amounts of data, akin to having a crystal ball that can predict the future. Predictive analytics (Software & Solutions 2016) reveal collective trends across social, political and economic spectrums. Anyone who has the money and power to access and mine the data can prepare well in advance to stem the flow of an inconvenient social movement. They can divert attention, manipulate opinion and cut it off at the pass. It remains to be seen what kind of social change the World Wide Web will enable before I stop feeling like a fat juicy fly.
Australia has a complacent, manageable population with a vulnerable indigenous community. Most of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, with either colonial or post-war histories, and the majority of us are disinterested in politics beyond the few weeks of pre election madness that lead to an election, and our personal investment in the promises that come with this cyclical ritual. However we have a compulsory voting system with 78% enrolled (& 93 % of those voted in the 2013 election; IDEA 2016). The rest of the time we disengage from the political process and it shows. The rise of armchair activism aka ‘Clicktivism’ is one telltale sign of a dying democracy. More people claim to know that the emperor is stark naked yet only a fraction turn up at public protests – less if it’s raining. One could be forgiven for believing we’ve fallen into the clutches of a sociopathic, corporate ruling class (Chomsky 2001). In Australia, Democracy can still parade the streets but only after applying for permission to protest. The naked emperor has been pirouetting openly for quite a while.
Bearing witness
“Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer” Chayefsky 1976
My friend came to Australia from Bosnia as a refugee. He works hard to pay his mortgage and run a thriving business. He came with nothing from a war that left him with a multitude of questions. Why did UN peacekeepers disarm the Bosnians, put them all in one place and then leave them to be massacred? World governments knew it was happening. There were clear verified reports coming out of Bosnia through embedded Western journalists, yet no one saved them (Crossette 1999). As my friend explained, they waited, but nobody came. When his 21-year-old cousin was raped, mortally stabbed and left to die in the boot of her car, they couldn’t help her because snipers took aim at anyone who tried. The family began covert preparations to move their remaining youth to Italy. The eventual autopsy showed that she had lived for days, dying just metres from her family in the boot of her car. It is one story among thousands, however it’s my friend’s story that brought the reality of war up close and personal.
I searched for online footage of the Bosnian genocide and scoured the Internet for balanced media reports and footage, not because I thought I could change anything, or to satisfy morbid curiosity. I was bearing witness for my friend.
We the Victorious
“No matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he’s going to win.” Chayefsky 1976
The ancient ruins of blood sport arenas, sacrificial temples and amphitheatres dot our globe. Bloodlust is part of our entertainment histories. These days the West fights its wars on foreign soil and continues to perfect military technologies that can destroy the planet in a day. For the West, the line between reality and fiction is blurred and the bloody horror of war is sanitised. Therefore the viewer is spared the full shock that precipitates action and transformation (Chouliaraki 2008). The horror is only partially revealed; made palatable for consumption through privatised networks. Violence and the threat of violence, disaster and the threat of disaster, poverty and the threat of poverty, are hidden beneath the spectacle. The Western psyche is hijacked by well-crafted rhetorical tales of suffering and doom, with the promise that the heroic West will do its utmost to stop disaster from reaching our shores (Borchers, 2013). After all, we’re the victorious West. We consume distant suffering like vampires. Our mainstream news media goes into a competitive frenzy over every latest disaster, lingering on every detail. If a network can’t report anything new, it picks over the carcass and endlessly speculates chat-show style (Thussu, 2003). In Australia we get a well-monitored feast or black-out famine. A gratuitous glut, or nothing at all. Produced as infotainment, it’s filtered, sanitised, sensationalised and de-contextualised, in order to reduce demand on the emotional and cognitive capacities of a western audience (Chouliaraki 2008).
Wanted: Western audiences – dead or alive
“This is not a psychotic episode. This is a cleansing moment of clarity. I’m imbued, Max.” Chayefsky 1976
One of the primary contributory effects of Western media is the distorted perception an audience forms of a villainous non-western other (Kamalipour 2004). I’ve caught myself with the same perception. I exorcise this demon by careful self-observation, by paying close attention to my thoughts and reactions to local and transnational news reports. I ask questions. I don’t assume what I read or hear is truth. Nevertheless I have a dead spot, which is only resurrected by the realisation that I have it, although the alternative isn’t much better as compassion turns to empathy, empathy turns to grief, and grief to despair. The Western cultural perspective is etched into my consciousness. It’s my operating system. I have learned to enjoy a good war epic because actors are playing the roles of the heroes and villains. I can rest in my imaginary place of indifference, and lose myself through the willing suspension of disbelief.
Epilogue: The devil hides in the detail
“We want a prophet, not a curmudgeon…He should do more apocalyptic doom.” Chayefsky 1976
From the banks of the river, a crocodilian humanoid grins from its leafy shadows. The hush-hush of water lapping at the hull, lulls the passengers into a deep sleep. No one on the boat can see the camouflaged reptilian grinning knowingly from the riverbank. And the closer I look the wider it grins. I awake in my bed with the eyes of that creature burned into my memory.
But it’s just a dream set in the dusk of a mental landscape, with me on a long wooden boat, seated on a bench at the stern. When I notice the creature, I turn to see if anyone else can see it, but no. All I find are the glassy faraway stares looking straight ahead. The devil’s in the detail. My fellow passengers are not aware of each other. They’re alone in the crowd, mesmerised by the forward thrust of this damned vessel.
©
Benighted © 
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