For better or for worse Twitter as a whole is the world's premier vending place for news networks. Here merchants both benign and those of deceit ply their trade. Here headlines either leave trailing blazes across the sky clear for all to see or are dimly lit sparkles that go off almost as quickly as they went on. Invisible to most. Independent media to regime stenographers infantry men leading the charge. Each piece put out a mortar shell, some missiles, most bullets and others flares. Like any war, single rifle shots are insignificant unless fired by the whole battalion. Mortar shells more effective as they are used to devastating effect and their impact craters are often visible for miles.
Newsroom editors and producers the dieticians whose miracle diets keep us fat and lazy but more importantly placated. Rotund consumers in a Walled E-garden who abandoned the gravity of reason in favour of an interstellar exodus in pursuit of the comfort of ideology mixed in with lies and half truths. Truth and objectivity present such a potent mixture that when introduced into the system they happen to be a shock to the senses. The more I find out about the world around me the more I realise that for the most part much of what I thought to be true was a mix of propaganda, lies and half-truths. The war in Iraq, the war in Syria, the failed 20 year nation buidling hoax in Afghanistan. Forever shameful parts of our history. How much of the anarchy that ensued and the current conflicts could have been prevented if we had an honest media?
I often vascillate between lobbing blame at the general populace and members of the media with the crises we face on multiple fronts. On one hand, people love to hate. Slander, libel and propaganda have found a thriving market because it seems they are embraced wholeheartedly by significant segments of the global populace. On the other, media houses reporting truthfully, fairly and objectively will shine a light on those wiling to embrace lies on behalf of an agenda. This being said, the side with power is the media. They have the floodlights and if they so choose can shine a bright light on all that's wrong with the world. I started writing because those who bathed me in light didn't do so from powerful sources. Often, it was the occasional flare that went up in darkness and illuminated all around it. Occassional flare after flare illuminating more and more of the darkness around us.
I hope that each piece put out by those outside the mainstream means of production is a silver bullet. In limited supply but thoroughly effective. Cottage industry conscripts conscripted into a war with no end in sight. A war in which those who were meant to be leading the charge circled back and around us. Forcing many into a ring of intellectual death, self dishonesty and apathy.
Image credit: OpenClipart-Vectors
