Consumerism keeps us diverted, while the corporate news media, the 1% sheepdog, herds us towards fearing the most vulnerable rather than the rich.

It's the end of February, and winter should still have its fingernails dug deep into the weather. This year, it doesn't. Outside my apartment's living room window that looks out onto a school playing field, female students kick a soccer ball around in gym clothes because its 15 degrees above Celsius outside rather than 15 below.

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Soon, it will rain, and it will fall like a warm April rain onto moist ground where green shoots of daffodils are already present. That's fucked up weather for the eastern shores of Lake Ontario. I don't welcome balmy weather in February because it is as ominous as frogs falling from the skies. When it happens again, at this time, next year, nobody will blink an eye and believe it was ever thus.

Accepting what shouldn't be acceptable has much to do with neoliberalism because it is very good at acclimatising us to what should not be normal. Consumerism keeps us diverted, while the corporate news media, the 1% sheepdog, herds us towards fearing the most vulnerable rather than the rich and believing with just a little more personal drive, we can have the life of the well-paid.

When we get too anxious about things- like climate change, we are assured by our governments everything will sort itself out through recycling, electric vehicles and improvements in technology. Essentially, our anxieties are gas lit because pessimism is bad for the stock market.
What governments refuse to discuss- is ending the 1%'s need for perpetual growth because wealth is power, and changing the dynamics of civilisation from capitalism to socialism for the 21st century eliminates their control over society. But we shouldn't expect the political class to bite the hand that feeds them and that comrades aren't us but the entitled.

As the messenger for neoliberalism is primarily corporate news media platforms- my sympathy for many journalists let go from hedge fund conglomerates is akin to when I hear someone lost their job at a factory that makes Dum, Dum bullets.

It doesn't mean there aren't good journalists in corporate news media because there are many. Journalists are like anyone else who works in the corporate world; their pay and advancement are dependent on making a product that benefits the 1%. With jobs hard to come by and kids who need braces, few can afford to take inspiration from the Bowie song Heroes and stick their necks out to save democracy. For either mainstream politicians or journalists- there haven't been many finest hours since COVID came into our reality. There's a take the money and run theme to our era. Like the weather, everything became untethered from established and healthy norms, and corporate journalism has much to answer for delivering humanity to this Gethsemane of fascism.

The idea that if only corporate journalism had more journalists democracy would be safer is like thinking the problem with Big Tobacco was it didn't have enough employees.

It's not because there are fewer journalists and thus fewer eyes to check for mistakes that have led to the rise of right-wing anti-truth politics. It's because the corporate owners of the news media want that to happen and either loudly or subtly nudged society to desire the jackboot by pushing for bigger military and police budgets or more border controls to stop "illegals" stealing our benefits.

It's all deliberate manufacturing of consent which pushes society further down the rabbit hole of authoritarianism. It leaves me gobsmacked that mainstream journalism spins war propaganda that is more insidious than what was created during WWI or the Hitler years. The public is supposed to digest as reasonable that Ukraine's armed forces have only lost 31k troops whilst Russia's army left upwards of nearly 1/2 a million dead on the battlefield. If the ratio of dead were that divergent, our side would have long ago won this war and Ukraine's trenches would not now be manned by 42-year-old middle age working-class men who need the work.

 Governments don't want us to know the sheer carnage that has occurred to young "working class" Ukrainians- sacrificed for a war that can only conclude through diplomacy. Putin is fucking evil, but we are not much better if we are willing to fight him to the last Ukrainian young man for a neoliberal concept of democracy that is more about consumer choice for those with dough rather than the freedom to live unshackled from oppression whether it be political, ideological or economic.

Thanks for reading and supporting my substack. It’s an SOS because the end of the month approaches and I am short on rent with only 36 hours to go. I have discounted subscriptions as well if you subscribe through this post. Your support keeps me housed and also allows me to preserve the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith. A yearly subscriptions will cover much of next month’s rent. Your subscriptions are so important to my personal survival because like so many others who struggle to keep afloat, my survival is a precarious daily undertaking. The fight to keep going was made worse- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities which makes life more difficult to combat in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John.

PS the first 25k words of the Green & Pleasant Land will be up tomorrow. I was going to do it today, but I have to walk 2 hours there and back to see a cheap dentist. So thought better wait until tomorrow.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash