… once again, the deal has been cut … and the words of Neil Postman come true again,
I continually return to, and am becoming more haunted by, this quote from Neil Postman, “How often does it occur that information provided you on morning radio or television, or in the morning newspaper, causes you to alter your plans for the day, or to take some action you would not otherwise have taken, or provides insight into some problem you are required to solve? For most of us, news of the weather will sometimes have consequences; for investors, news of the stock market; perhaps an occasional story about crime will do it, if by chance it occurred near where you live or involved someone you know. But most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action…You may get a sense of what this means by asking yourself another series of questions: What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime and unemployment? What are your plans for preserving the environment or reducing the risk of nuclear war? What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of the Baha’is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do nothing about them. You may, of course, cast a ballot for someone who claims to have some plans, as well as the power to act. But this you can do only once every two or four years by giving one hour of your time, hardly a satisfying means of expressing the broad range of opinions you hold. Voting, we might even say, is the next to last refuge of the politically impotent. The last refuge is, of course, giving your opinion to a pollster, who will get a version of it through a desiccated question, and then will submerge it in a Niagara of similar opinions, and convert them into—what else?—another piece of news. Thus, we have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.”
…or possibly, as we have been admonished to do so before (post 8+1, 10 +1), we can simply go shopping.
“Down in the Mall” by Warren Zevon from the album Transverse City inspired interestingly enough by Zevon’s reading of William Gibson.
Trudeau must show strength or the CCP will replace him.
@shirleyforall
Yes, they would replace him. This whole blockade & the inevitable result was easily predictable.
@Scarmoge
Interesting quote. Unfortunately true… Until people get so desperate, well, I’ve already said it a dozen times, so, will let it rest.
Sorrows would gladly do that for them and replace him with the current finance/deputy PM ukranatzee Chrystia Freeland whose grampy ran a pro natzee newspaper during ww2. He was rewarded by safe passage to Canada.
