The sounds of silence and the persistence of time

Anything that defies my sense of reason has, since the posting of a translation of Gianfranco Sanguinetti’s near-faultless On Terrorism and the State article, been dormant. There are several reasons for this. One is that of an absence of time to do justice to the abundance of subjects about which to write, rant, and endeavour to provide some “value-add” for regular readers and countless other people who land here searching the Internet for their version of 'my sense'. Another reason for the silence results from being occupied with one or two other projects that have been demanding inordinate amounts of time and attention, that continue to be works in progress and that, while progressing steadily, appear yet to have no end, despite extremely positive results in the smaller battles that comprise the greater war.

This part routine, part self-imposed, blog dormancy is also due to there existing little left to say about the state of the world in which we live that hasn’t already been covered by Sanguinetti’s pamphlet, or in some other form on this blog. Re-application of Sanguinetti’s words to the particular intersection of time and space of anyone in the continuum of now requires no more than a modicum of ingenuity combined with sufficient understanding of the history of humanity to inspire a personalised and updated reinterpretation of the work, using no more than minor amendments to the names of people, places and things. (See also Athenaeum’s excellent treatise on the subject which is long overdue a response of some sort from yours truly, for which, Athenaeum, apologies.) The various writings on this blog (which enters its fifth year of existence at 10:39am tomorrow morning) cover the yearly cycle of perennial news stories since the blog’s inception as the news stories loop around again, this time requiring even less ingenuity to adapt and render transparent. Barely any of the nouns have changed.

Perennial, cyclic, looping news. Round and round it goes. Where it stops, rather than “nobody knows”, most people can now place a more educated guess than ever before and be more likely to be right in their assumption than at any point ever before in history. Pandora’s box of historical untruths, mythical fallacies and blatant falsehoods that must be maintained and perpetuated at all costs has, after nigh-on two millennia of ongoing suppression, had a large dose of TATP taken to it, hastily prepared from the most base of instructions on the Internet, including a set of A-level chemistry revision notes, chapatti flour, and a dash of hair lotion – a 100% guaranteed non-explosive mix of ingredients which, while sufficient to earn multiple convictions and extended life sentences for young Muslim men at the greatest pleasure of Her Majesty, is, somehow, inadequate to make a charge of conspiracy to cause explosions to stick in the case of the 21/7 bombers with no bombs where -- despite causing no explosions, having no explosives, having no intention to cause any explosions, and having no possible way of murdering anyone -- in the timeless, anachronistic and ongoing case of Regina Vs. the sub-human under-classes not bestowed with the divine right of (the poppy crowns of) kings, convictions and lifelong sentences, like alleged suicide bombers themselves, can be manufactured out of the blue.

Perennial, cyclic, looping news. A repeated meme, a nuance, a nuisance. It requires little from its consumers other than the ability to forget everything that went before it, anything that was ever said, or known, as well as anything that McCann possibly be known about anything, together with a dedication to the deaf, dumb and blind acceptance of whatever reality the hologram generator in the corner of the room conjures for you today. This requirement for complete submission to absolute vacuity has long been amply filled by those who have neither the time nor the inclination, nor the wit nor wisdom, to contemplate anything other than that which the Corporo-fascist Statist media wishes to present.

Since the advent of the Internet, however, and the mushrooming availability of information – both good and bad, sometimes referred to as the “information revolution” -- this paradigm is changing exponentially more rapidly than the tiny minority of legislators, ban-ers, and suppressors of information in the dominator culture of physical and metaphysical capitalist imperialism could conceive in their worst nightmares. The war is on. It’s a never-ending war of terror and it is being waged on truth, on information, on knowledge, on knowing and, more importantly, on people.

It is often said that the first casualty of war is truth (and journalism), yet this presupposes that truth is somehow a feature of life without war. In the long war, truth from official and semi-official organs has been prohibited. Journalists merely regurgitate State-issued edicts in sensationalist, idiot-friendly form with barely an acknowledgement of history or context. Empty-headed posturing, backed by the new, now-normalised 24x7 barbarity of a gangster State near you, becomes the order of the day, courtesy of the cult of celebrity, sheen and spin where the personal is the political, and where class politics is not even a dim and distant memory as, for at least a generation, it was never even known to exist. In times such as these it becomes increasingly difficult to swallow and digest the posturings of traditional mainstream commentators or the so-called 'left' and ‘radical’ journalists because you know precisely where they're going to start, where they're going to end and every point they'll visit in between. The same applies to the ‘centre’, ‘right-wing’, and ‘libertarian’ writers and there are rarely any examples, if any, of writers and journalists whose criticism and challenging of authority ever ends up anywhere other than within the two goalposts that have been strategically placed for everyone to aim at. Challenge the symptoms, not the cause. The song remains the same.

Whenever this dire State of Affairs is reached at any point in history, truth, journalism, and more importantly, radical journalism that genuinely challenges the status quo – like Magicicada – goes underground for a while in order to ensure its survival. For some years none of these attributes are perceptible in anything. Little makes much sense, everything is disconnected from everything else and everyone is aware that something isn’t quite right with the myriad of pictures being painted by the Red, White and Blue branded hologram generators that manufacture a world that bears little resemblance to the daily reality of those who elect to bathe in the myopic, miasmic, Murdochian light of the hologram's version of 'reality'.

The information revolution happened and is continuing to happen and humanity is outgrowing the archaic, anachronistic and illegitimate institutions of authority and control by which it has for too long been oppressed. The little legitimacy possessed by the oppressors and their propagandists has been removed through a combination of their own actions and an ever more rapid evolution of the collective consciousness of the oppressed audience. The emperor never did have any clothes, still doesn't, and everybody knows it. The spectacle is no longer spectacular.

The reign of the knowledgeable white, middle-class commentator has ended. The audience is now standing on the shoulders of all the political, intellectual, philosophical and scientific giants that have gone before them. The knowledge and wisdom handed down through the ages is now part of humanity’s consciousness – it is indexed, cross-referenced, and searchable, and all you need is access to a device such as the electronic wonder of gadgetry that facilitated your reading of this piece. The Chomskies, Cockburns, Monbiots et al, and their equivalents in the blog world -- where everyone is a winner -- are all now only as good as whatever they last served up, which, if not up to scratch, chisels away at whatever reputation might once have been. Insult the intelligence of your audience and you’re unlikely to get a second chance. Avoid the crux of the issue and the same applies.

Each and every fact, idea, and meme put out is now verifiable or refutable by anyone that cares to conduct some basic research of their own. This, with a finality as never before is, for an ever growing number of people, pulling back the curtain on the long established system to reveal not a wise and benevolent wizard, but a wizened and frail old man trying for all the world to persuade the slightly bewildered onlookers that they should pay the wizened old man no mind. As with all illusions, distraction, diversion and misdirection only work for so long.

Ride a tube train to CMYK superstardom, wear the badge of perpetual victimhood with a greater sense of pride than Vietnam War veterans might be advised to take in their Purple Heart by a Tavistock Institute counsellor. Click here to lock someone up on an affronted whim because you don't like what they say. Click here to defend freedom of speech and convince yourself that nobody notices the blatant hypocrisy and doublethink required to simultaneously maintain both positions. Click here to save Iraqi collaborators that helped kill 1.2 million (that’s 1,200,000, count ‘em) of their fellow countrymen and worry not about the morality or politics of aiding and abetting war criminals.

Collateral damage. Rough justice. Logical fallacy. Intellectual dishonesty.

Basta!

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