Sat in front of the TV, isolated as a household, moaning about the usual
rubbish on all channels, wondering how they charge over £100 licence fee for THIS,
and why everyone complains but nothing ever changes (is this the fifth or
sixth time they've shown Only Fools and Horses?) . Just watched the news, and
ever asked yourself why those two (newsreaders always come in pairs now, don't
they) spend more time laughing and giggling, than actually telling you WHY a
certain event has happened? Or, can't watch TV because you've been isolated in
your car, just made another 2,000 yards up the M.1 in the last 45 minutes,
wondering if your individual call to the cones hotline ever really did any good. Or
maybe just shopped in a supermarket, isolated in a crowd of five thousand
also doing exactly the same thing in your local Wal-Tescburysway - asking why
they only ever have five flavours of ice cream (vanilla, chocloate, strawberry,
toffee, peppermint, surely there must be more possible flavours than that),
but wondering if your little note in the comments book did any good.
Then think of the following quote from 'Deterring Democracy' (Noam Chomsky,
Vintage Press, 1991, pp.369-370). "One of [government's] targets is the stupid
and ignorant masses. They must be kept that way, diverted with emotionally
potent oversimplifications, marginalised, and isolated. Ideally, each person
should be alone in front of the televison screen watching sports, soap operas, or
comedies, deprived or organisational structures that permit individuals
lacking resources to discover what they think and beleive in intercation with
others, to formulate their own concerns and programmes, and to act to realise them.
They can then be permitted, even encouraged, to ratify the decisions of their
betters in periodic elections. The rascal multitude are the proper targets of
the mass media anbd a public education system geared to obedience and training
in needed skills, inclusing the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on
timely occasions" (Queen's Speech, anyone?).
There is another quote I am trying to source, maybe more appropriate for the
ghost of Christmas Future, when a few privatised power grids have failed and
the coal shed's empty.
"One man gathering firewood is pathetic. Ten thousand men gathering firewood
can overthrow a city". Anyone know where this is from?
Happy hols everyone,
Hillary Shaw
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT
www.fooddeserts.org
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