"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools" ⁓ MacBeth
When things like the Manchester bomb attack happen, there is an immediate outpouring of articles, reports, broadcasts, and memes. Some of them are informative, many of them are repetitive and redundant, others just irritating and infuriating. It is also noticeable that many of them are attempting to tell you what to think and feel in a case where Common Sense and natural emotion would be your best guide.
One thing that struck me, listening to the BBC Radio 5's late night coverage of the aftermath of the bombing, was how similar the tone was to Radio Moscow broadcasts in the 1980s, which I remember from my childhood. Both had the same cheery emptiness of people following a script, or more accurately rigid guidelines that had been drummed into them again and again and again.
It is always clear what any state or corporate broadcaster wants you to think, because the same little set phrases or snippets of "information" repeatedly crop up. That night the memo had clearly been sent out to foreground "positive and sensitive kebabism" as much as possible. Long before the BBC was prepared to admit officially that this was an attack by a Muslim, this was a tacit admission by them that the terrorist act was seen as Islamic in nature.
Apart from my general impression I remember two things in particular. One was a "meme" about Muslim taxi drivers giving people free lifts home. I'm not sure how important or true this was, but clearly it served the BBC's agenda to bang on about it endlessly, although I found it rather sinister. The other thing I remember was a clearly emotionally upset Muslim man who was worried about his daughter, who had gone to Ariana Grande's concert. His name was Imran, a well-enough-known Muslim name for the effect intended, namely to remind everyone, including the "slow kids" at the back of the class, that Muslims let their young daughters go to THOT concerts too and that "we're all in the same boat, aren't we?"
On the less politically correct side we have people like Paul Joseph Watson, Katie Hopkins, Tommy Robinson, etc., writing, tweeting, and podcasting in a somewhat shrill manner about how it is "finally time" to get angry blah, blah, blah. There is a shrill tone of “we can't take this anymore” and of being at the end of our collective tether.
In a sense this is just as disingenuous as the other side. Why? Because we all know we are not on the cusp of the Great Uprising against the evils of mass immigration, Islamification, and multiculturalism.
In fact, these two tendencies—the calming "we are all one" tendency and the "we've finally crossed the line" tendency—could be said to be working together. One works to calm and confuse the gullible and angry, while the other allows those who can't be calmed to impotently vent their anger and general "wokeness" in the endless blind spaces, echo chambers, and distorting mirrors of the Internet. Time and a splurge of angry memes is a great healer.
Over on Aryan Skynet Hipster Racist perceptively writes:
People are angry and maybe even slightly more people are angry this time than last time, and, who knows, maybe some of them might even stay angrier for slightly longer—although maybe some who where angry on previous occasions might just feel dulled and jaded this time.
The reality is we are nowhere near doing anything about this problem. Essentially, we will have to wait for things to get a lot harder, a lot more dysfunctional, and a lot more economically fucked-up. Only then will there be a chance of the mass rape of 1400 English girls in Rotherham or the blowing up of kids at a THOT concert in Manchester being the catalyst of the change we need. Until then, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat...
One thing that struck me, listening to the BBC Radio 5's late night coverage of the aftermath of the bombing, was how similar the tone was to Radio Moscow broadcasts in the 1980s, which I remember from my childhood. Both had the same cheery emptiness of people following a script, or more accurately rigid guidelines that had been drummed into them again and again and again.
It is always clear what any state or corporate broadcaster wants you to think, because the same little set phrases or snippets of "information" repeatedly crop up. That night the memo had clearly been sent out to foreground "positive and sensitive kebabism" as much as possible. Long before the BBC was prepared to admit officially that this was an attack by a Muslim, this was a tacit admission by them that the terrorist act was seen as Islamic in nature.
On the less politically correct side we have people like Paul Joseph Watson, Katie Hopkins, Tommy Robinson, etc., writing, tweeting, and podcasting in a somewhat shrill manner about how it is "finally time" to get angry blah, blah, blah. There is a shrill tone of “we can't take this anymore” and of being at the end of our collective tether.
In a sense this is just as disingenuous as the other side. Why? Because we all know we are not on the cusp of the Great Uprising against the evils of mass immigration, Islamification, and multiculturalism.
In fact, these two tendencies—the calming "we are all one" tendency and the "we've finally crossed the line" tendency—could be said to be working together. One works to calm and confuse the gullible and angry, while the other allows those who can't be calmed to impotently vent their anger and general "wokeness" in the endless blind spaces, echo chambers, and distorting mirrors of the Internet. Time and a splurge of angry memes is a great healer.
Over on Aryan Skynet Hipster Racist perceptively writes:
"The goal of 'ISIS' is to force Europeans to ethnically cleanse Muslims from Europe.But just as Islamic terrorism fails to achieve Islamic goals, so the same could be said for all the anti-Islamic anger that is now washing around the interwebs in the wake of Arianageddon. "No more Manchesters! No more Bataclans! No more Nices!" ...well, at least not until the next time.
Muslims gained nothing from any terrorist attack from 9/11 on. Every terrorist attack hurt the Muslim diaspora. There were no strategic goals realized – even Bin Laden’s stated goal of getting US troops out of Saudi Arabia was never really achieved.
The West is the world’s preeminent military power, the Muslim world is barely above third world level and is third world level in many places. All the 'ISIS' and 'Al Qaeda' terrorism has done is to give a pretext for Western intervention into the Muslim world, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Libya to Syria.
Without Muslim terrorism, Europe would have slowly been taken over by Muslims simply via immigration and birth rates...Apparently the goal of 'ISIS' and 'Al Qaeda' is to unite America and Europe against Muslims everywhere and to goad them into 'bombing them, killing their leaders, and converting them to Christianity' as Ann Coulter said."
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| Go back to sleep. |
The reality is we are nowhere near doing anything about this problem. Essentially, we will have to wait for things to get a lot harder, a lot more dysfunctional, and a lot more economically fucked-up. Only then will there be a chance of the mass rape of 1400 English girls in Rotherham or the blowing up of kids at a THOT concert in Manchester being the catalyst of the change we need. Until then, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat...
