Posted by The Happy Tutor
Excellent article in the WSJ on blogging as journalism by Peggy Noonan. How about blogging as citizenship? Not being an authority/author/auctoritas, but just a citizen, talking with friends, trying to make sense of things in a sea of misinformation, disinformation, and spin? The whole implicit model, for the discussion of blogging and journalism seems to be producer/consumer. The consumers of news are producing news, as if they were bottling their own tomatoes. How well do bloggers produce the consumable disposable we call "journalism"? Are these bloggers up to professional standards? Or are they like college girls who do it for free? Maybe even better than the pros, depending? Big crisis. The reality is that some of us are neither producing nor consuming information in tasty bites. We do not aspire to be news whores, since we are whores in some other role already. We are, when we are on our own time, citizens determined to take back a tiny piece of the public square from the hirelings who within their organization matrix, managed as they are for peace and profit, have nothing to say about the way things are going in this country. Of course others of us are just trying to make a buck. I mean if the White House is buying journalists, why not put some bloggers on the payroll too? Look, I am a whore in Wealth Bondage too, but not 24/7. On Company Time, I do all comers, spanking the ass I kiss, as long as it pays, and calling it "professional," to make no distinction between parties or persons, as long as they are rich and fork over the money to Candidia. So, I am not pointing fingers, just saying. Around the Dumpster, we so-called citizens, tossed out like yesterday's newspaper, are talking, trying to figure out what is really really going on from the garbage they feed us.
The truth is usually buried, often on purpose, in a sack of shit filled and mislabeled, and sold as news by professional casters of news. Our job is to root around in the crap they write for hire for the half-digested evidence of what is really going on, the inexorable world-historical change from democracy in America to Wealth Bondage, billed as Freedom. News is new, what changes abruptly against a slowly changing or unchanging background of Wealth Bondage. Our most important job as citizen thinkers is to let the news sink into a singsong, and listen for the drone of the engines underneath it, the money engines, that push news, or war, or legislation, like any other product. We see news as symptom of a sick society, another pustule on the body politic. We link news, ads, sneakers, stock prices, political action, giving, court cases, and legislation into one clear picture, whose meaning is visible, a diagnosis, a prognosis, and a possible cure. News is when the screw is tightened another quarter turn. Wealth Bondage is the whole setup, including the Legislators, the Lobbyists, the Judiciary, the Secret Courts, the Guards, Special Renditions, the makers of the Thumbscrews, the advertiser for the news show, the newscaster's hair color and bust line, and the manners and mores that exclude discussion of the obscene and pervasive truth, that Wealth Bondage has achieved critical mass in our lifetimes and now brooks no resistance, likening even generosity and principled dissent to terror, unless cowed into submission. But, hey, that's not news. It the unspoken horror against which the news chatters endlessly on, between the ads for dog food, beer, and antipressants, as our political liberties slip away, and the politicians on the newscast call Wealth Bondage "Freedom," and the newscaster smiles inanely, playing the press releases and the government news reels, while pushing out her tits in the lavender blouse. Now back to the news.
The real news is that some of us are not fooled. We are not all asleep, aspiring to be Bullshit Journalists, chronicling "what's new" in a world gone to hell, in which deceit and oppression are not new. We are citizens. This is our country. A democracy, whether it is treason to say so or not. We speak up, despite the risks. We call it blogging. I would be ashamed to call myself a journalist. Those who are have, on balance, sold our country out, while smiling and simpering. That is the story. And they will not cover it. Only cover it up. Tomorrow it will be the same story. Nothing new. Not news.
The forces of change are gathering around the Dumpsters, learning how to think and talk about freedom. Change will come with relief, laughter, and with joy. A peaceful and exuberant reassertion of our rights and privileges as citizens. We are free to speak out, as long as we are on the lam, use assumed names, write in parables, and don't get caught up in the mill of secret injustice. Not as journalists - for the love of Christ - but as human beings, and as free citizens-to- be who as we come together are far more powerful than even, Candidia and all her marketers, politicians, speech writers, lobbyists, and journalists put together. Well, I don't mean it. I am just letting off steam. Won't do any good. I got to go back to work now. New bodies in from China, I have to pick, sort and pack the parts. The Hidden Hand, and all that. See you around the Dumpster this time tomorrow and we can go through the garbage together looking for news.
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