Thursday 28 June 2007

WHY THE INCREASE IN BIASED NEWS REPORTING IS BENEFICIAL

Before funking off out of office, Tony Blair decided to have a go at the press - referring to them, Plato stylee, as a "feral beast". The gist of his rant is that mainstream news outlets are becoming increasingly commentary - as opposed to news - based, as a result of the fierce competition they face with the growing popularity of blogs. Blair's concern lay with how hard it was making life for him and other politicians - it can be pretty inconvenient when you're trying to cover up the fact that your government took bribes willy nilly, what with all that cash for honours business.

However, certain mofos are more worried about the whole affair for better reasons - the idea of having
no reliable news source - that we are losing the facts and are being served only opinion. Certainly it's true that most mainstream news outlets are losing their validity in an attempt to maintain reader numbers - but is this reason to be worried? Will the news become pure propaganda in order to survive?

The answer is no:
news outlets have always been biased thanks to economic reasons - eg Rupert Murdoch wants papers that attract all members of society so that he can advertise to them (left thinkers, right thinkers, centrists, the middle aged, teenagers) so he ensures he owns a newspaper/media outlet for each target market. All newspapers which contain adverts sell you as their product - not news - and they sell you to those who wish to advertise. The real product on sale is an audience with your stimulated brain. This means that news and accurate reporting is merely a secondary priority - maintaining a regular audience of people belonging to a certain school of thought is the real priority, and so the paper will purposely twist current events to appeal to these people, and twist events in a way that harm their advertisers as little as possible.

As these sources are already biased,
by making them recognisably propaganda, bloggers are actually improving the situation. Considering that one news outlet - the BBC - will always remain, and take efforts to remain , relatively unbiased, due to the fact that their revenue comes not from advertising, but near compulsory TV licenses that the majority of the UK pay for, we are not losing our source of 'pure' news, but shining a torch on it.

As all the other news providers battle for sales, the BBC will remain as it is -
and be noticeably more trustworthy to the general population.

I have no illusions as to the natural biases held by the BBC - the ones based purely on a reporter or establishment's sense of right and wrong and other vested interests (eg any story the BBC run around their funding) - but these biases are present in all news reporting, there is no way to avoid it. What makes the BBC preferable is that
it is not a slave to advertising agencies. The biases the BBC do hold are nothing in comparison to what other news corporations hold and will hold.

Although we may now watch the old media turn into a propaganda machine, we should not stop blogging to avoid this:
as long as the BBC remains impartial, we are purifying the world's news.

Tuesday 12 June 2007

WHY RELIGION IS AN ABUSE

In a strange display of undoing progress and socially backwards movement, religion is making a comeback into State influence.

Most notably so in America, with George Bush winning elections by waving a Bible, and justifying war by saying God told him to do it. But, religion has also impacted British politics to a certain degree recently, with Tony Blair saying God will be the one judging him on Iraq - not the electorate, apparently. 'God' appears to be a bit of a get out of jail free card right now, which gets me a bit worried.

Religion is an abuse.

People are voting out of religion. George Bush quotes a Bible passage and masses of Americans support him blindly - they don't care about his policies, they just assume that they'll line up with Christian beliefs. The ridiculous thing is that they actually don't - Bush is using religion as a means of control - killing in the name of a man that preached peace and understanding. He has distorted religion to fit his agenda. Religion has always been distorted to suit what the authority wants - Israel is 'the promised land', Jihad earns you a place in heaven, the slaves had to obey because of the teachings of Jesus.

All religion is is a tool for authority figures to use to rally support, and keep people in line. Treason is a sin - the oppressed workers who make an attempt to revolt will go to Hell. Theft is a sin - even when a man is starving, he can't steal a handful of grapes.

Religion is also used as a tool to kill opposing ideologies - and changes constantly, from culture to culture - in the '50s Jesus hated communism - where in the Bible does it say that? It wasn't Jesus that hated communism - it was the authority. The authority attached Jesus's name to their ideologies, knowing thousands of people would then be forced to agree with them, for fear of going to Hell. Every time a politician invokes God, he is telling people that they will go to Hell if they disobey him.

All religion is a means of control.

The highest authorities constantly manipulate religion to assert their own authority - all religious people from the top down have been tricked, tricked in to believing in a system that keeps them under control out of fear (you will go to Hell if you break my ideology), and tricked into upholding and legitimising a system that keeps them under control out of fear (people join the clergy and people try and increase Church attendance in their neighbourhood).

Religion was born out of both ignorance and a desire for power in certain people - religion came before science, as an explanation for what people did not know. People are not naturally rational beings - it has taken thousands of years of progress to get to the point where we are today, with proper scientific methods of developing beliefs and obtaining knowledge. Religion was created in a time where people could be easily fooled- and ironically, one of the reasons people believe in mainstream religion today is that it has been around for so long - as opposed to religions like Scientology, which are widely dismissed as nonsense. Scientology is no more unreliable then any other religion.

Religion not only is a means of control, but has inherently harmful factors that benefit no one, such as an opposal to the use of condoms in Africa, where AIDS is plaguing the population. This is not a manipulation of religion - merely the destructive power of people following groundless, outdated law that was written for a different culture by desert mystics.

Obviously, apart from these few factors, and the fact that religion tricks people into believing falsities, religion is not bad in itself - it is whether those manipulating it are good or bad that makes the difference. Religion can be used to manipulate people into doing many virtuous things, such as charity - as shown by organisations such as Christian Aid.

However, although pragmatically religion can be used to do beneficial things, ideologically, the idea of lieing to and threatening people with images of Hell and burning bodies to do this, when there are alternative, more respectful ways at hand, is unacceptable for me. Religion is an abuse, and all those who believe are with the victims.

Friday 8 June 2007

AGE BASED EXCLUSION AND INSTANT JUSTICE

A few weeks ago a sign appeared by the door of my regular pub, reading "The Prince Albert is now over 21s on Friday and Saturday nights by order of the Police".

Mother.
Fucker.

I've tried phoning several numbers to find out why this was done and what legislation was used to do it - and got no useful response from any of them. I have now invoked the Freedom of Information Act and am waiting for a response. But to be honest, the information I'll get (if I do get it) will be irrelevant. There is no excuse for a blanket ban on a section of society.

Age based exclusion is just as wrong as racism.

The reason racism is wrong (immoral) is because it targets, excludes and victimises people based on matters out of their control (their race). Racism is mistaken because the fact that certain members of an ethnicity commit crimes does not mean all members will. Racism (in the justice system) punishes the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. All of the faults of racism apply to ageism, which is exactly what this method of policing is.

Instant justice also takes away the rights we deserve as people - there is no chance of defence while your sentence is quickly formulated and little or no method of appeal. These punishments are often low key and slip by unseen.

Instant justice is also normally used to favour the comfort of the middle-aged middle-class over all other groups in society - this is not creating justice, but shifting the problem to weaker, more voiceless parts of society - in this case the young, and a very small minority (only the drinkers of the Prince Albert between the ages 18 and 21 are affected - there is very little chance that this minority will ever become big enough to be heard - forcing them to remain in the repression of tyranny of the majority). This problem-shifting and class favouritism is a crime in itself and should be halted immediately.

I have come to the conclusion that the police force either don't understand why racism is wrong - or they would not act on ageism - or they don't care that racism is wrong, only avoiding it to avoid bad press. They have now found a form of discrimination that does not attract masses of media attention and are now using it to maintain their approval level among the parts of society that matter to them - the middle aged middle and upper classes.