endgame

this is the end

1/ An event 2/ The People 3/ Institutions and industries 4/ Words 5/ Worlds

The West is the Best 

The public space in times of neoliberal induced uncertainty

And how writers festivals might just save us 

Subjective Bias #2

The Happy Song!

I was at the gym early this morning making awkward sweaty grunting noises on the cross trainer watching some sort of breakfast television program that was talking about peoples favourite happy songs.

Well, mine is 'The Great Song of Indifference'. Fond memories of long ago at the Foundry Arms Hotel on a Friday night. 

I don't mind if you go
I don't mind if you take it slow
I don't mind if you say yes or no
I don't mind at all

I don't care if you live or die
Couldn't care less if you laugh or cry
I don't mind if you crash or fly
I don't mind at all

I don't mind if you come or go
I don't mind if you say no
Couldn't care less baby let it flow
'Cause I don't care at all

Na na na, ...

I don't care if you sink or swim
Lock me out or let me in
Where I'm going or where I've been
I don't mind at all

I don't mind if the government falls
Implements more futile laws
I don't care if the nation stalls
And I don't care at all

I don't care if they tear down trees
I don't feel the hotter breeze
Sink in dust in dying sees
And I don't care at all

Na na na , ...

I don't mind if culture crumbles
I don't mind if religion stumbles
I can't hear the speakers mumble
And I don't mind at all

I don't care if the Third World fries
It's hotter there I'm not surprised
Baby I can watch whole nations die
And I don't care at all

I don't mind I don't mind I don't mind I don't mind
I don't mind I don't mind
I don't mind at all

Na na na , ...

I don't mind about people's fears
Authority no longer hears
Send a social engineer
And I don't mind at all

Read more: Bob Geldof - The Great Song Of Indifference Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

Save the world and just Say No to Facebook!

Roy Greenslade has an article on the Facebookisation of news that appears on the Guardian. 'Why Facebook is public enemy number one for newspapers, and journalism.' 

Deeply concerning stuff. 

It does confirm my overall distrust of 'social media'. 

The following is from Greenslade's article. 

It has always been the case from the dawn of media that the controllers of news outlets - newspapers, TV and radio, online - make choices about what to publish and, more significantly, what not to publish. So is there a real need to be especially concerned about Facebook?

Yes, writes the Guardian’s Jemima Kiss in the latest issue of the British Journalism Review. In her article, “A giant that may eat us”, she contends that the world’s leading social media site is exerting both an “increasing domination of internet advertising revenue and control of a significant part of a critical distribution platform.”

And further

Users “willingly pour endless personal information about themselves into Facebook” and that enables the site “to sell targeted advertising around them.” 

So what? 

Before cynics shout about that not being a bad thing (while digital optimists assert that independent, and therefore better, journalism will arise in its place), think of the perils we face without a collective of organised, skilled journalists working for organisations large enough to hold power to account.

The Facebookisation of news has the potential to destabilise democracy by, first, controlling what we read and, second, by destroying the outlets that provide that material.  

Yup. Reason enough to stay away from Facebook. 

The funny things that distract me

Distraction. 

The problem with the internet is it just opens up a vast and endless opportunities to be distracted. 

One thing links to another and time just disappears. 

I was checking the Twitter feed of a news service which led me to an artticle by Michael Mann titled 'Michael Mann's Hotlist of the 9 Most Prominent Climate Deniers'. 

Not surprisingly Rupert Murdoch is listed and unsurprisingly it says this.

Fox News has constructed an alternate universe in which the laws of physics no longer apply; the greenhouse effect is a myth and climate change is a hoax... 

I am not sure how it happened but some time later I found myself on Source Watch and was reading this about Murdoch and the Iraq War.

In March 2003, Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Murdoch backed Bush government plans to invade Iraq. "We worry about what people think about us too much in this country. We have an inferiority complex, it seems," he said.
"I think what's important is that the world respects us, much more important than they love us ... There is going to be collateral damage. And if you really want to be brutal about it, better we get it done now than spread it over months," he said.  

And then later I'm on Counter Punch reading 'Rupert Murdoch and the Israeli Genie'  where author Michael Dickinson is asking of Rupert Murdoch

Don’t you want people to learn that you are part-owner of an Israeli-American company which has landed a shale oil exploration and production license covering 238 square miles in the Judean Hills and on occupied Syrian land, even though this is plainly illegal under international law?

And then the next paragraph makes me go a-ha!

Should not FOX News and Murdoch-owned news outlets disclose this hot story to their millions of viewers and readers? Should they not be made aware that the Murdoch-owned news outlets which generally support U.S. military action against Syria, do not inform their viewers and readers that the bossman has a vested interest in war and the overthrow of the Assad government in Damascus in order to further Genie’s oil exploration efforts in occupied Syria? 

And this is happening while I am being further distracted by coverage of Australia's prime-minister, Malcolm Turnbull, telling the United Nations how wonderful Australia's asylum seeker policy is. (Malcolm Turnbull tells world leaders to follow Australia's asylum policies)

And where is it that many of those who are held in Australia's off-shore detention centres are from again? 

Grizzly Jason!

Maybe there's a world where we don't have to run...

Grizzly Adams died the other week. 

I found myself wondering if Grizzly Adams would make sense to today's tech savvy and pop-culture sophisticated youngsters. 

Anyway, I think my daydreams of just vanishing to somewhere 'natural' and simply occupying my time with critters and cloud watching probably springs from watching The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams as a child. 

I guess when that is combined with The Muppets I developed a taste for the fantastic early on. 

Two articles I read today that made me think

Guardian Australia - If Australia had its current refugee policy in 1939, we wouldn't be alive today


International New York Times - Would you hide a Jew from the Nazis? - 

As today’s leaders gather for their summit sessions, they should remember that history eventually sides with those who help refugees, not with those who vilify them.

Nicholas Kristof from I-NYT does some good stuff. See his profile here. 

'Haven't you heard it's a battle of words'

they just don't make them like orson anymore. war of the wolds and citizen kane before he was 30. worlds and words and manipulation and fear and believing what you want to believe. and convincing yourself to believe fear.

and now some music from pink floyd

Us And Them Lyrics

Us and them
And after all we're only ordinary men.
Me and you
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.

'Forward' he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
The general is sat and the lines on the map
Move from side to side.

Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down
And in the end it's only round and round. And round.

'Haven't you heard it's a battle of words'
The poster bearer cried.
'Listen son' said the man with the gun,
'There's room for you inside.'

"Well I mean, they're gonna kill ya, so like, if you give 'em a quick sh...short, sharp shock, they don't do it again. Dig it? I mean he got off light, 'cause I coulda given 'im a thrashin' but I only hit him once. It's only the difference between right and wrong innit? I mean good manners don't cost nothing do they, eh?"

Down and out 
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about. 
With, without. 
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about? 

Out of the way, it's a busy day 
I've got things on my mind. 
For want of the price of tea and a slice 
The old man died.

Songwriters: ROGER WATERS, RICK WRIGHT

Us And Them lyrics © T.R.O. INC.

International New York Times - Museums Embrace the Unfamiliar

Museums Embrace the Unfamiliar

The curator’s job sounds relatively simple: just surprise us. Show us something we haven’t seen before, or lately, or in such depth, or with such clarity. Try to avoid the predictable and familiar, the market-approved or academically sanctioned, or what other curators have already done. Try to step outside your museum’s comfort zone or carefully manicured institutional persona with something eccentric, an intuitive leap. After all, there is plenty of art out there.

Okay, why have I posted this?  

I am mulling over ideas on how people choose ignorance. That people choose conformity and that people choose division. 

I am thinking that people choose not to be curious and that they choose to hold ill-informed judgments and that they choose predictability over spontaneity and that they long for the bland over the fabulous. 

The flamboyant never stands a chance against the dreary.

I am growing contemptuous of people who choose not to extend themselves and not to challenge themselves and instead choose the safety and comfort of just blending into the bigotry that casually surrounds them. 

And what does any of this have to do with Pauline Hanson? 

Initially I was one of those that explained Hanson in Australia and Trump in America as simply being the consequences of the failures of neoliberalism. 

I am now quietly backing away from my original thinking. Or at least I am starting to view the situation with a bit more differentiation. 

With regards to Hanson she is not overly removed from the sentiments one regularly hears in public places in central Victoria. While her support is dominantly in her home state of Queensland she has admirers throughout Australia. The people that I encounter who express support for Hanson are not people who have been left behind by the economy but rather people with a degree of lifestyle comfort and overall prosperity. 

Admittedly my personal experience is extremely limited, but I suspect that much of what Hanson says is actually closer to the norm, in particularly in regional Australia, of what is believed than some would like to admit. 

Sadly, Hanson is not that removed from what the typical Liberal, National, or even conservative Labor voter may hold as viewpoints. 

Explaining "Hanson" - I use the surname as representing something beyond the particular individual - is now best left to the social researchers and documentary makers and journalists who immerse themselves in the story. 

Fair enough, but what is the point you are trying to make? 


This week Pauline Hanson stood up in Australia's senate and made claims that contained untruths and outright lies. 

And for some people that holds some sort of strange attraction. They can willfully look beyond any evidence that runs clearly against what they hold as opinion. 

How on earth do you counteract that? 

I am not sure but I am growing tired of lazy and stupid people. And people who not only won't embrace the unfamiliar but who won't even consider it. 

And now it's time to play word Bingo!

okay, i confess, I am a marxist... (source here)

They're only words


Celebrity culture
Imperialism
Neoliberalism
Public space
Post truth
The death of expertise
The planned assassination of the expert
Tabloid media
Post modernism
Structuralism / Post structuralism
Journalism
The future of journalism
The obligation of the conscientious writer
The limitations of a deliberately deadshit section of society
Manipulation
Propaganda
False balance

The importance of literacy
The importance of talking about reading 
The importance of talking about writing

brainstorm #34 - the post truth dystopia

Opening: Random observations

The International New York Times is quite a useful publication. In fact, I made the comment to somebody earlier in the year that I thought if the I-NYT ever decided to establish business in a sizeable way in Australia that it would put a lot of pressure on News Ltd and Fairfax - organisations already struggling. 

My casual remark may have held some unintended prescience. Amanda Meade, media correspondent with Guardian Australia, reported a few weeks back that Fairfax was entering into some sort of arrangement with I-NYT. It will be interesting to see what comes of it. (Hopefully something good!)

The world is getting freaky. Alliances need to be made and strengthened and solidarity against a "neo-fascism" - for want of a better term - needs to be planned. 

Why do I say this?

The I-NYT is running an article this morning titled "Donald Trump's Anything Goes Campaign Sets An Alarming Precedent"

Trump is shifting the boundaries of what is acceptable in the pursuit of political power.

In part the article observes:

He seemed untroubled in using an ostensible campaign event just a few blocks from the White House to openly promote his personal commercial interests 52 days before the election.

In fact, this past week offered a vivid illustration of how little regard Mr. Trump has for the long-held expectations of America’s leaders. He is not only breaking the country’s political norms, he and his campaign aides are now all but mocking them.

Besides using his campaign as a platform to make money on a new hotel, Mr. Trump leveled an untrue assertion that Hillary Clinton had been the first to claim Mr. Obama was born abroad. He also boasted about his healthon the show of a daytime television celebrity while releasing just his testosterone levels and a few other details about his well-being.

And this 

Routine falsehoods, unfounded claims and inflammatory language have long been staples of Mr. Trump’s anything-goes campaign. But as the polls tighten and November nears, his behavior, and the implications for the country should he become president, are alarming veteran political observers — and leaving them deeply worried about the precedent being set, regardless of who wins the White House.

“It’s frightening,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota. “Our politics, because of him, is descending to the level of a third-world country. There’s just nothing beneath him. And I don’t know why we would think he would change if he became president. That’s what’s really scary.” 

Given that corporate America and the apparatus of state has done so much to interfere in "third world countries" it should perhaps not seem strange that America - and its project of disestablishment and manipulation of chaos - has now turned on itself with a weirdness and ugliness it has normally exported. What goes around comes around. The circle becomes complete. And the tension becomes unbearable. (Or, as Yeats said, "The centre can't hold") 

But why do I say this? 

Hmmm... I am not sure. I am wanting to say something about the importance of the public space, the public forum, that stands as a place of integrity and of reason in the face of 'stuff' like Trumpism. 

Blog posts

1/ The Fifth Estate: part 1 - http://writerinactionjason.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/the-fifth-estate-part-1.html


2/ Nationalism: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly - http://writerinactionjason.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/nationalism-good-bad-and-ugly.html

3/ Mike Carlton - http://writerinactionjason.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/mike-carlton_34.html

4/ snapshot #2 - Being There - http://writerinactionjason.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/snapshot-2-being-there.html

5/ The Indira Naidoo Express - http://writerinactionjason.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/the-indira-naidoo-express.html is best read in conjunction with Indira Naidoo is #1 on my to do list - http://writerinactionjason.blogspot.com.au/2016/08/indira-naidoo-is-1-on-my-to-do-list.html


Sessions I Attended: 

Friday 12/08/2016 - 09:30 - TMtS Opening Session
Friday 12/08/2016 - 14:45 - Indira Naidoo
Friday 12/08/2016 - 16:00 - Peter Singer

Saturday 13/08/2016 - 11:30 - Mike Carlton
Saturday 13/08/2016 - 16:30 - Nationalism: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Saturday 13/08/2016 - 17:45 - The Fifth Estate

Sunday 14/08/2016 - 09:30 - Kerry O'Brien
Sunday 14/08/2016 - 10:45 - Anne Summers
Sunday 14/08/2016 - 12:00 - Sarah Ferguson with Max Gillies
Sunday 14/08/2016 - 13:30 - Hugh Mackay

The Public Space

Just a brief note to the earlier post on marriage equality.

Writers Festivals and the public space. Ideas and discussion. Tolerance and acceptance - see Hannah Arendt 'The Origins of Totalitarianism' regarding the distinctions she makes between tolerance and hospitality.

Why is it that people who want to "privatise" every goddamn thing are the same people who want to impose their "values" on what remains of the public space?

The democratic state that should be free from the whims and fancy of religious institutions becomes a contested space for the capitalists playing at being christians. (The feudalists playing at being democrats?) (The buffoons playing at being mature?)

Control and domination, fear and submission. Authority and insecurity, mastery and powerlessness.

Is that all not just a bit childish? A bit like the behaviour that is learned in play grounds?

What is at stake here?

What is the Public Space? Why is it important? What is its history? What is its future? Can democracy ever be realised? Equality?

Are we just waiting for Rupert to croak it?

I am in a reflective mood.

The rain has only just stopped. It rained all night. It has been a wet start to Spring.

Australia's federal parliament grinds on. I'm not sure how representative it is. It seems to be held hostage to a bunch of radical thugs - they call themselves Conservatives - but they're more like spoiled bullies. Ignorant people who don't seem to understand that democracy is more than mob rule or majoritarian fancy. There are principles that inform democracy. Human rights and equality should be right up there.

I am not directly affected by the marriage equality debate. It doesn't directly change anything about my life one way or the other. As a heterosexual male it's not personally high on my agenda, but there is something about the fundamental decency of a society that claims to value emancipation, liberty and freedom that is important.

I tend to agree with Mike Carlton but wonder if the plebiscite is a gimmick to avert the collapse of the Liberal Party as much as it is a tactic to facilitate the destruction of the Liberal Party. 

Is this the final revenge for the Abbottistas? Unwilling to go forth and start their own Conservative wonder-party, Rupert Murdoch's sock-puppets instead choose to destroy the Liberal Party...

It is true Turnbull has not just been a disappointment but remarkably gutless and clueless. 

The marriage equality plebiscite is fast becoming an extremely unpleasant albatross round Turnbull's neck. It makes no sense to be holding one and one suspects that deep down Turnbull would prefer not to. If that is the case Turnbull is creating a whole lot of bad karma for himself and that sort of in-congruence can only ever cause a person harm. 

What is it about a Monday that makes you sigh?

Mondays are bad but not really bad enough to be used as an excuse to shoot people.

Most people usually just suck up the boredom and melancholy of a Monday with some sort of self deluding optimism.

But behind the jingly jangly happy hippy boppy pop of the Mamas & Papas is an american gothic brooding...

 Monday Monday, can't trust that day

 Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way

Mondays are just a tool of capitalist oppression! Robbing you of time and grinding you into conformity!

And as T-Bone Walker observed Tuesdays are just as bad. Wednesdays worse. And Thursday all so sad.

Sometimes it is better to just ignore Monday and go gardening - or stamp collecting or whatever your thing thing is - Say No to Monday!