As we embark very earnestly now on their blatant attempt to recreate the 1930s, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to note recent attempts by the UK corporate government to stoke the fires of racism, stereotyping, and xenophobia in an attempt to distract the undereducated disenfranchised masses from the growing economic horror unravelling around them.
After thirty years of demolishing the education system, it's hardly surprising many in the UK today do not know their history well enough to know this scapegoating racist crap for what it is. The UK has been a multi-cultural, multi-racial society for half a century, a mongrel nation enriched by countless cultures over many centuries.
An act of political legerdemain, mass misdirection to blame a minority for the country's woes rather than the real culprits, the banksters who are leading us back to the future.
Stoke the fires. Unfurl the flags. Get ready for the Two Minutes' Hate. The economy is going down the tubes, and the government wants you to attack ANYONE except them. Time once again for a scapegoat...
Showing posts with label Anti-intellectualism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-intellectualism. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Friday, 16 January 2009
Life on Mars
Quite a remarkable event is transpiring in the British media today. Yesterday evening, a NASA press conference announced they had "probably" found life on Mars. In typical NASA speak, they refused to give qualitative confirmations, banging on about the need for verification, confirmation, more research, more evidence, but as everyone knows, the only way NASA will ever confirm life on Mars is if they actually have a little green guy in a bottle they can shake at the cameras of the world.
So, everyone with an ounce of sense and perception - and a knowledge of how the scientific process actively mitigates against definitive statements - understood yesterday's press conference to be saying: "We think we've found signs of life. We're not absolutely sure, but we're really excited, and we think all other Mars missions should now be dedicated to confirming our findings".
Epochal. World-changing. And completely ignored in the UK (and, indeed, global) media with the exception of The Sun. Not wanting to be a conspiracy theorist, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to ask: what the hell are the rest of you guys on? We've more than likely just found life on Mars, and you're banging on about Liverpool footballers and Foxy Knoxy's trial?
Congratulations, UK media. You have now achieved a state of permanent irrelevance. Life goes on elsewhere, apace, but not on your pages!
So, everyone with an ounce of sense and perception - and a knowledge of how the scientific process actively mitigates against definitive statements - understood yesterday's press conference to be saying: "We think we've found signs of life. We're not absolutely sure, but we're really excited, and we think all other Mars missions should now be dedicated to confirming our findings".
Epochal. World-changing. And completely ignored in the UK (and, indeed, global) media with the exception of The Sun. Not wanting to be a conspiracy theorist, Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to ask: what the hell are the rest of you guys on? We've more than likely just found life on Mars, and you're banging on about Liverpool footballers and Foxy Knoxy's trial?
Congratulations, UK media. You have now achieved a state of permanent irrelevance. Life goes on elsewhere, apace, but not on your pages!
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Rowan Williams: Media Stooge
The Archbishop of Canterbury has attempted to say something sensible about the status and future of Muslim culture in the UK. Unfortunately, he has said it publicly. About Muslims. Big mistake.
This entire issue is an excellent example of what's wrong with Britain at the moment, and why so much of Britain's government is being carried on behind closed doors. The new reality, it seems, is that whatever you want to do, just do it, but for God's sake don't try and talk about it.
Anyone who wishes to propose mature and serious debate about an issue in Britain has to have an army of spin doctors to couch it in terms which won't send the mass media off wetting themselves in a blind, hysterical frenzy and misrepresent the hell out of whatever was said. So people stop bothering. What *is* the point of bothering? What's the point of trying to talk about things, when the media will just tear you apart and splatter you all over their pages in their hysterical attempts to sell papers. It's what they do.
If it was necessary for the media to roll in the gutter p*ssing themselves and grovelling for our money in order to sell papers, they'd do it. It's nothing to do with news - it's the hysterical production of equally hysterical demand, nothing more. And our democracy has it as a terminal disease. The mass media is collaborating in screwing our country into the ground. Cui bono?
A lot of issues need discussing in modern Britain: global warming, joining the Euro, immigration, corporate corruption, decentralisation, and many, many more. But they won't be. They're perceived by the media as boring, stick-in-the-mud topics which require at least a small exercise of the grey matter to contribute to, and therefore f'all use in selling papers. And in our increasingly uneducated and asinine culture, it's so much easier for the media to scream their heads off with easy-to-swallow knee-jerk meaningless soundbites before tuning into wall-to-wall Eastenders and celebrity dancing / hiking / cooking / what-the-frack-ever programs than actually trying to get people to concentrate on an issue for more than five minutes. Which suits the shadowy backers of the shadowy government which *really* runs the show just fine.
And so democracy dies. Not to the sound of tumultuous applause, but to indifference, and the frantic changing of channels...
...and the lighting of cigars, and satisfied smiles, in oak-panelled rooms far, far, from public view. Nemo custodiet ipsos custodes. And they like that just fine.
This entire issue is an excellent example of what's wrong with Britain at the moment, and why so much of Britain's government is being carried on behind closed doors. The new reality, it seems, is that whatever you want to do, just do it, but for God's sake don't try and talk about it.
Anyone who wishes to propose mature and serious debate about an issue in Britain has to have an army of spin doctors to couch it in terms which won't send the mass media off wetting themselves in a blind, hysterical frenzy and misrepresent the hell out of whatever was said. So people stop bothering. What *is* the point of bothering? What's the point of trying to talk about things, when the media will just tear you apart and splatter you all over their pages in their hysterical attempts to sell papers. It's what they do.
If it was necessary for the media to roll in the gutter p*ssing themselves and grovelling for our money in order to sell papers, they'd do it. It's nothing to do with news - it's the hysterical production of equally hysterical demand, nothing more. And our democracy has it as a terminal disease. The mass media is collaborating in screwing our country into the ground. Cui bono?
A lot of issues need discussing in modern Britain: global warming, joining the Euro, immigration, corporate corruption, decentralisation, and many, many more. But they won't be. They're perceived by the media as boring, stick-in-the-mud topics which require at least a small exercise of the grey matter to contribute to, and therefore f'all use in selling papers. And in our increasingly uneducated and asinine culture, it's so much easier for the media to scream their heads off with easy-to-swallow knee-jerk meaningless soundbites before tuning into wall-to-wall Eastenders and celebrity dancing / hiking / cooking / what-the-frack-ever programs than actually trying to get people to concentrate on an issue for more than five minutes. Which suits the shadowy backers of the shadowy government which *really* runs the show just fine.
And so democracy dies. Not to the sound of tumultuous applause, but to indifference, and the frantic changing of channels...
...and the lighting of cigars, and satisfied smiles, in oak-panelled rooms far, far, from public view. Nemo custodiet ipsos custodes. And they like that just fine.
Sunday, 13 January 2008
The Ethical Chicken Debate
Manuscripts Don't Burn has noticed an appalling amount of condescension, snobbery, and bitterness bandied around the media and blogosphere over the past week on the subject of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver's attempts to highlight the disgusting state of our battery-farmed chicken industry. Clearly there are some deep-seated issues here.
Manuscripts Don't Burn knows several people who live on the breadline and eat mostly processed food - tins, centrifugally-harvested burgers, chicken nuggets, fish fingers, etc, etc. To our knowledge little or no fresh food enters their diet. It seems that this is not untypical.
Given that for a £6 free-range chicken one can feed a family of four for 3 days (roast chicken, curry, sandwiches, soup, in that order), processed food is clearly the more expensive option. So poverty, at least, is not the reason. If anything, a lack of cooking know-how, of confidence in buying and feeding oneself, and a dependency mentality on advertising and the slop doled out in ready-meals and burgers seem to be at the root of the "burger and chips Happy Meal" obesity epidemic which is raging through the poorer sectors of the Anglo-Saxon Empire. To poor to eat? Hardly.
From the price point of view, eating real food is not exclusive or beyond the reach of "poor" people. So Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to humbly request the Blogosphere to please drop this faux "guilt trip" that it's beyond the reach of those terribly hard-up poor people and start helping people get educated about the provenance and consequences of our badly screwed up food industry. The whole idea of "well, we have to have cheap and crappy food available so the poor can afford it" attitude is offensive.
Ban battery chickens. Most of all, ban the gross profiteering the supermarket middleman extort from the chicken farmers, who receive an average of 7 pence on a £2.50 battery chicken, and, yes, we can all suddenly afford to eat meat produced in a decent environment.
And stop the class-ridden snobbery, Britain, for God's sake.
Manuscripts Don't Burn knows several people who live on the breadline and eat mostly processed food - tins, centrifugally-harvested burgers, chicken nuggets, fish fingers, etc, etc. To our knowledge little or no fresh food enters their diet. It seems that this is not untypical.
Given that for a £6 free-range chicken one can feed a family of four for 3 days (roast chicken, curry, sandwiches, soup, in that order), processed food is clearly the more expensive option. So poverty, at least, is not the reason. If anything, a lack of cooking know-how, of confidence in buying and feeding oneself, and a dependency mentality on advertising and the slop doled out in ready-meals and burgers seem to be at the root of the "burger and chips Happy Meal" obesity epidemic which is raging through the poorer sectors of the Anglo-Saxon Empire. To poor to eat? Hardly.
From the price point of view, eating real food is not exclusive or beyond the reach of "poor" people. So Manuscripts Don't Burn would like to humbly request the Blogosphere to please drop this faux "guilt trip" that it's beyond the reach of those terribly hard-up poor people and start helping people get educated about the provenance and consequences of our badly screwed up food industry. The whole idea of "well, we have to have cheap and crappy food available so the poor can afford it" attitude is offensive.
Ban battery chickens. Most of all, ban the gross profiteering the supermarket middleman extort from the chicken farmers, who receive an average of 7 pence on a £2.50 battery chicken, and, yes, we can all suddenly afford to eat meat produced in a decent environment.
And stop the class-ridden snobbery, Britain, for God's sake.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
Simone de Beauvoir: The Job is Never Done
Today marks a hundred years since the birth of Simone de Beauvoir, philosopher and probably the most influential feminist of the last century. Her book "The Second Sex" was indeed a seminal book: it has been banned, vilified, and heralded as the harbinger of a brave new world. The fact that so much of it seems like common sense today shows just how influential it has been.
Nowadays, reading "The Second Sex" can seem a little dated, and writers like Camille Paglia and Joanna Russ can pack a bit more punch. But, as Manuscripts Don't Burn looks around at our society today, on January 9th 2008, at the reformation of the Spice Girls sexually-oppressive "Girl Power" and the constant inculcating refrain everywhere in our society of youth, beauty, mindlessness and celebrity heralded as the One True Goal which every woman should aim for, we realise that the messages of The Second Sex still need to be repeated, loud and clear, on a daily basis.
But we live in an age where culture is defined by lowest common denominator economic figures - even philosophies have to sell well, and compete with pop music, soap opera, and the cult of mindless celebrity - where accessibility and pithy soundbites rule. Philosophies have to serve the state and conclude capitalism to be the best of all possible worlds, or be so empty, vacuous, and populist that they couldn't possibly do any harm apart from keeping philosophy students busy in our increasingly vacuous academies of business, marketing and media studies.
Paradoxically the Anglo-Saxon Empire is coming to resemble the Soviet Union in an uncanny fashion. The State has a very definite ideology, in which the media and education systems collude by excluding any alternative discourse, or at best relegating it to the lunatic fringe. Even the battleground of language is largely harnessed by the system towards reinforcing the dominant ideology, and everyone must have their state-sanctioned papers (ie be deemed "economically viable") before their work can be propagated. Living here in France, where intellectualism is not derided, and where people do not aggressively sing praises to their own ignorance to near-universal acclaim, Manuscripts Don't Burn does wonder how much further the dumbing down of the UK and US can go. "And now, Karl Marx, your starter for ten: who won the FA cup in...?"
Thank heavens, for the time being at least, for the internet, where alternative discourse remains alive and well. Small wonder the Powers That Be want to present it as such a terrible threat. One wonders what de Beauvoir would have made of it.
Nowadays, reading "The Second Sex" can seem a little dated, and writers like Camille Paglia and Joanna Russ can pack a bit more punch. But, as Manuscripts Don't Burn looks around at our society today, on January 9th 2008, at the reformation of the Spice Girls sexually-oppressive "Girl Power" and the constant inculcating refrain everywhere in our society of youth, beauty, mindlessness and celebrity heralded as the One True Goal which every woman should aim for, we realise that the messages of The Second Sex still need to be repeated, loud and clear, on a daily basis.
But we live in an age where culture is defined by lowest common denominator economic figures - even philosophies have to sell well, and compete with pop music, soap opera, and the cult of mindless celebrity - where accessibility and pithy soundbites rule. Philosophies have to serve the state and conclude capitalism to be the best of all possible worlds, or be so empty, vacuous, and populist that they couldn't possibly do any harm apart from keeping philosophy students busy in our increasingly vacuous academies of business, marketing and media studies.
Paradoxically the Anglo-Saxon Empire is coming to resemble the Soviet Union in an uncanny fashion. The State has a very definite ideology, in which the media and education systems collude by excluding any alternative discourse, or at best relegating it to the lunatic fringe. Even the battleground of language is largely harnessed by the system towards reinforcing the dominant ideology, and everyone must have their state-sanctioned papers (ie be deemed "economically viable") before their work can be propagated. Living here in France, where intellectualism is not derided, and where people do not aggressively sing praises to their own ignorance to near-universal acclaim, Manuscripts Don't Burn does wonder how much further the dumbing down of the UK and US can go. "And now, Karl Marx, your starter for ten: who won the FA cup in...?"
Thank heavens, for the time being at least, for the internet, where alternative discourse remains alive and well. Small wonder the Powers That Be want to present it as such a terrible threat. One wonders what de Beauvoir would have made of it.
Wednesday, 2 January 2008
Teach the Children to Kill
Over the past weekend Manuscripts Don't Burn has been assaulted by yet another of those "we-can't-believe-we're-having-this-conversation" moments. This time, the issue at hand is whether it's a good idea to allow primary school children to play with toy guns (and other weapons) in school...
Hurrah for common sense at last! Manuscripts Don't Burn thinks guns in school is a great idea, especially for boys. If we can only get toy ones, then fair enough, but we think also that under proper supervision boys at primary school should also be given training with real guns, and small caliber ordnance where appropriate, and introduced to blood sports at as young an age as possible.
Additionally, elementary boxing courses and lessons in self-defense should be introduced to playschool and pre-school classes (obviously with some of the less sportsmanlike elements, such as gouging and gas attacks, taken out to protect young minds), together with marching practise, perhaps with some of our much underused retired military drill instructors, to instil a sense of camaraderie amongst the very young boys. Likewise, boisterous singing and enforced communal showers could be used to open up some of the shyer boys, and prevent them growing up into sexual deviants.
Finally, regular manhunts of one of the smaller, faster boys (this could be someone elected from amongst the boys, as an example of the benefits of the democratic approach) could be introduced to the school curriculum with only a minimal increase in medical expenses.
Taken together, all of these stirring activities could also be presented as a focus for support activities undertaken by the gels, specifically cheering from the sidelines, cooking celebratory cakes, and sewing up wounds. Gels could also be encouraged to make banners, and to vote for their favourite boy, to inculcate a spirit of decent competition amongst the lads.
It's a violent world out there, and we need to teach our children to be violent as early as possible, otherwise they will be unable to fully take part in our rich society and enjoy the unending cycle of fear and loathing, violence and oppression of which we are all so proud.
Excellent debate. Well done everyone. As you were.
Hurrah for common sense at last! Manuscripts Don't Burn thinks guns in school is a great idea, especially for boys. If we can only get toy ones, then fair enough, but we think also that under proper supervision boys at primary school should also be given training with real guns, and small caliber ordnance where appropriate, and introduced to blood sports at as young an age as possible.
Additionally, elementary boxing courses and lessons in self-defense should be introduced to playschool and pre-school classes (obviously with some of the less sportsmanlike elements, such as gouging and gas attacks, taken out to protect young minds), together with marching practise, perhaps with some of our much underused retired military drill instructors, to instil a sense of camaraderie amongst the very young boys. Likewise, boisterous singing and enforced communal showers could be used to open up some of the shyer boys, and prevent them growing up into sexual deviants.
Finally, regular manhunts of one of the smaller, faster boys (this could be someone elected from amongst the boys, as an example of the benefits of the democratic approach) could be introduced to the school curriculum with only a minimal increase in medical expenses.
Taken together, all of these stirring activities could also be presented as a focus for support activities undertaken by the gels, specifically cheering from the sidelines, cooking celebratory cakes, and sewing up wounds. Gels could also be encouraged to make banners, and to vote for their favourite boy, to inculcate a spirit of decent competition amongst the lads.
It's a violent world out there, and we need to teach our children to be violent as early as possible, otherwise they will be unable to fully take part in our rich society and enjoy the unending cycle of fear and loathing, violence and oppression of which we are all so proud.
Excellent debate. Well done everyone. As you were.
Thursday, 20 December 2007
Pole Dancing for Little Girls...
The Guardian today is sat with a very po-faced and contemplative look on its face, trying desperately to work out how it could possibly be that Toy'R'Us could have made such a shocking mistake as to put a "Pole Dancing Kit" in the Toy Section for little girls.
Manuscripts Don't Burn says - "Hey, Guardian, leave the Daily Mail alone! What's it ever done to you!"
If our society can't sexualise little girls, how on earth are we going to encourage the paedophiles, who the media can then hound, lock up and write endless sensationalist prurience about to sell more copies of the Daily Mail?
It's just business. And a bloody good business too. So what if it screws up a load of kids whilst doing it - as long as it makes a huge pile of filthy lucre, then it's okay, isn't it? That's what untrammeled, unregulated capitalism's about. As the bloke in the pub said, "It's a free country, innit?"
Fear and loathing sells papers, and allows the increase in security and control measures so beloved of our current establishment. In order to have fear and loathing, you need to have enemies - scapegoats, if you will. And, these days, paedophiles are the perfectly groomed targets of the 21st century baying mob witch-hunts which impoverished and frustrated mobs need to use to blow off steam when it all gets a bit much.
But the really clever bit of mind-f*ck in this entire process, which Goebbels himself would have been over the moon with pride about, is interpellating the sexualisation of young children into mainstream culture. That creates a constant, unresolvable tension - "Paedophiles are terrible criminals and must be killed, yet my seven-year old daughter must look sexy".
No wonder when the Ministry of Murdoch and Extortion want to sell a few extras to "rent-a-mob", people queue up to point fingers at ... well, at almost anyone you tell them too, really. As long as it's not them.
Briliant. Probably one of the best since the old "She's a Slimcea Girl / Go On Spoil Yourself, Real Cream" and "Girl Power / Look Like a Slag for the Guys" attempts to unhinge the female population in the 80s and 90s.
Somebody should instigate a "Joseph Goebbels Award for Marketing Brilliance".
Manuscripts Don't Burn says - "Hey, Guardian, leave the Daily Mail alone! What's it ever done to you!"
If our society can't sexualise little girls, how on earth are we going to encourage the paedophiles, who the media can then hound, lock up and write endless sensationalist prurience about to sell more copies of the Daily Mail?
It's just business. And a bloody good business too. So what if it screws up a load of kids whilst doing it - as long as it makes a huge pile of filthy lucre, then it's okay, isn't it? That's what untrammeled, unregulated capitalism's about. As the bloke in the pub said, "It's a free country, innit?"
Fear and loathing sells papers, and allows the increase in security and control measures so beloved of our current establishment. In order to have fear and loathing, you need to have enemies - scapegoats, if you will. And, these days, paedophiles are the perfectly groomed targets of the 21st century baying mob witch-hunts which impoverished and frustrated mobs need to use to blow off steam when it all gets a bit much.
But the really clever bit of mind-f*ck in this entire process, which Goebbels himself would have been over the moon with pride about, is interpellating the sexualisation of young children into mainstream culture. That creates a constant, unresolvable tension - "Paedophiles are terrible criminals and must be killed, yet my seven-year old daughter must look sexy".
No wonder when the Ministry of Murdoch and Extortion want to sell a few extras to "rent-a-mob", people queue up to point fingers at ... well, at almost anyone you tell them too, really. As long as it's not them.
Briliant. Probably one of the best since the old "She's a Slimcea Girl / Go On Spoil Yourself, Real Cream" and "Girl Power / Look Like a Slag for the Guys" attempts to unhinge the female population in the 80s and 90s.
Somebody should instigate a "Joseph Goebbels Award for Marketing Brilliance".
Friday, 7 December 2007
Isn't Pope Benedict Great?
You gotta dig it. Benny's declared he's gonna start dishing out plenary indulgences next.
Now, I'm as much a fan of God as everyone else here...
... but - indulgences?
C'mon, Benny! You're avin a larf!
All together now (get those hunchbacks at the back singing in tune... and The Women Taken In Adultery - a bit more
wailing please):
"When a coin in the coffer riiiiiings,
A soul from purgatory springs."
Man, you gotta feel that Martin Luther vibe. Yeah!
Now, I'm as much a fan of God as everyone else here...
... but - indulgences?
C'mon, Benny! You're avin a larf!
All together now (get those hunchbacks at the back singing in tune... and The Women Taken In Adultery - a bit more
wailing please):
"When a coin in the coffer riiiiiings,
A soul from purgatory springs."
Man, you gotta feel that Martin Luther vibe. Yeah!
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