We are standing on the periphery of an
abyss containing an infinity of dead ends.

I was foolish once to think information
could save the human race; that social media could cut through,
bypass the bullshit and bias of the billionaire-owned media. I know
we desperately need electoral reform in the U.K., but electoral
reform will not happen without a general, swelling consensus within
the simplistic mind of the masses – that morose blob of
unthinking and uncaring selfishness. Public consensus will not happen
without the backing of the billionaire-owned press.

So we are fucked. No meaningful
electoral reform will be backed by the established powers so we are
forever caught in a cyclical system that diminishes the rights of the
individual and embellishes the might of the corporate.

I have written it before and I will
write it again:

People naturally accept
what the mainstream media say as natural.

Any fleeting glance at psychological
studies confirms that. Humans have a tendency to look more fondly
upon the familiar; words are often accepted uncritically by the
brain; we have confirmation bias. All it takes is for the people to
be bombarded with an overwhelmingly biased narrative. As Jonathan
cook says “It’s
not the Sun wot won it, it’s the entire corporate media
industry.” The problem we face is many people trust too
easily the corporate media and they accept what they publish
uncritically. For many people their understanding of what is normal,
what is natural is spoon fed to them by malign, imperialistic,
opportunistic established powers.

This election has demonstrated that. If
the Tory party cannot increase their votes (they didn't) our
corporate rulers will do everything they can to trash the opposition.
The left were foolish to believe the system isn't rigged against us.
We were stupid to have hope, to hope things could change, could be
better. We were foolish to think the established powers wouldn't
abandon electoral rules, like
they have done in the past, and the media wouldn't abandoned any
pretence of impartiality, like
the BBC has done many times. This election showed illegal
posters placed next to polling stations, an online campaign of lies,
as well as the ongoing antisemitism
smear campaign against the Labour Party which saw Labour
denounced for it's below-than-national-average amount of
antisemitism, which took up more screen time and news pages than the
plight of millions of people living in poverty in the U.K.

People don't read complex things and as
Craig Murray points out right-leaning
voters are less educated. Coming from a region north of the A406
I feel I can safely criticise the simpletons from the north of
England and the Midland. Nothing epitomises these people to me more
than morose individuals the T.V. news channels get to speak on their
vox pops (albeit many of these vox pops are held all over the UK –
yet not one of them offers any political insight).

I know too well the kind of uncritical
acceptance many people have for the mainstream narrative, who see
people with counter voices as trouble makers or foolish; and with the
media narrative steadily shifting right many people too easily
unwittingly succumb to its pull. These are people who take their
political leanings from the bloke at work who bothers to read rabidly
right wing newspapers, or they get their political fill glancing at
the newspaper headlines on their way past to pay for their petrol.
Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I don't care.

I saw a post from Another Angry Voice
suggesting that the left should formulate counter-slogans akin to
'Get Brexit done' then repeat them endlessly so the message cuts
through. This was in essence confirmed by a comment in a Novara media
video stating that when political talk gets complicated, people tend
not to listen; only simple slogan cut through.

But simple slogans won't work either.
Many of the people you need to convince put too much trust in
newspapers. They are too far raped by the established orthodoxy. They
too easily accept newspaper narratives as 'normal' and anything else
is propaganda or crazy talk; and with the B.B.C. increasingly
dropping its impartiality facade, more and more the right wing
narrative is seen as normal.

These are people who might not see
counter narratives in social media posts. Not everyone is active
online and many of the left leaning posts are caught in algorithmic
echo chambers. To reach those people, you need to reach them through
the old media: newspapers and T.V., so the only way to reach those
people is through the backing of the obscenely wealthy people who own
and control those outlets, who will tell those people what to believe
and who to vote for.

As this
article on propaganda explains there are many techniques at work
influencing people's thinking. P.R. companies make millions and
millions per year. We live in disinformation age and it is not the
quality of argument that counts but the established powers closing
ranks to push the disinformation. It is about how much money you can
put into it to make it effective. The disinformation warriors are now
coming
after left leaning publications to silence the counter narrative for
good. With each shift to the right, our rights are diminished and
the wealthy increase their wealth. With each moment the established
powers increase their power over every aspect of our lives.

As much as we might kid ourselves, a
counter narrative is useless without the money and power-influences
behind it that the right wing narratives have. We can quibble over
which technique is the most effective but with a populace perpetually
gaslighted what can you do to make them see sense?

My morbid sadism wants to see how bad
things will get with our increasingly fascist government; but I do
not want to see the suffering that will inevitably come with it.
There will be no I-told-you-so moment however. With the corporate
media on their side, those who voted for this, who are complicit in
this, will never realise they are to blame. Not unless the newspapers
tell them they are.

Over and out for now, guys!

xxx

Whatever happened to the #ToryElectionFraud investigation?

Ongoing investigations into Conservative spending at 2015 general election could still unsettle government

^{Martin Belam (The Guardian)}