[Media-watch] a nuff is a nuff is...

[YvonneMarshall]

Dear List-Members,

THE FOLLOWING IS A DRUNKEN RANT, CONTAINS NO LINKS TO INFORMATIVE SITES, IS UNEDITED AND MAY (no, it does - Ed) CONTAIN LANGUAGE SOME FIND OFFENSIVE !  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED !!

If today's shenanigans (Foreign Affairs Select Committe Report , Gilligan/Campbell-related cobblers etc etc) are not enough to convince folk here (in Scotland, where we happen, by kismet, to be) that the ball is well and truly on the slates then I don't know what else has to happen before 'ordinary', 'decent' folk walk out of their jobs, tear their clothing off and starting rolling about, uncontrollably wailing that the end is well and truly nigh.

These conniving, calculating bastards, posing as politicians, correspondents, pundits or whatever-other title they can think of to justify one another's existence are telling us, all of us, that Iraq was invaded, it's civilians slaughtered in their thousands, because, at least in part, the 'evidence' used to justify the genocide was, to 'the best of their knowledge', right at the time of going to press. 

That's it. 

And that really, if I might ventiure so bold, that really is enough. 

Prime Minister Blair stood before the Commons and told our MPs and us - all poor wee pathetic 'us' who couldn't have known no better -  with a straight-face, that a document which was 90% plagiarised (i.e. STOLEN), crudely amended and more than a decade out-of-date was 'intelligence' i.e. the PRIME MINISTER, who happens to be a barrister, got up on his trotters and vouched for the authenticity of a document whose origin he had no awareness of ?

Eh ??!!

And then, for the delictation of all, I give you...Mister Jack Straw, all cock-a-hoop, testosterone bolstered,  who claims that the findings exonerate the Govt and sternly ( well, as sternly as a man called 'Straw' can) warns the BBC to issue an apology. Campbell claims the findings exonerate him and warns everyone, including Blair, to fuck off.  The BBC refuses to apologise to anyone and runs a reminder that Mastermind is about to be relaunched. Meanwhile, civilians in Iraq are sweltering in their own filth, watching their children die as they remember the 'good old days' when Saddam was in charge.

Please, please, please, list-members, whoever you are and whatever you do as your 'day' job, don't let this obscenity go unchallenged - this small mailing-list is, in the scheme of things, nothing. It means nothing at all unless you use it to voice your disgust at what is happening. You don't have to have some witty acerbic comment to make, you don't have to have established some illuminating on-line link that the rest of us can chase-up. All you have to do is say that you are, in whatever capacity, utterly sick and tired of being lied to day-in and day-out.

I am a fiction writer. It's not a lucrative living. I make most of my income writing porno novels. It's not enough to keep us away from having to claim State Benefits. No matter - the simple writing of these short messages to media-watch, letters of encouragement to other writers on-line who are trying their best to fight the mass-media complacency here and overseas, particularly in the US - this is the writing that really matters and has the potential to make a difference.  Doesn't matter if it's spelled correctly, doesn't matter if there's a poetic dynamic to the language, doesn't matter if it's written, as this is, with seven pints of cider in one's belly.

Write down your anger and disgust and send it to someone, get it out of your system and know in yourself that you've at least tried to make your voice heard despite the huge forces which prevent it from being aired mainstream. Do it. Do it now. Maybe just drop a line to an old friend, see how s/he feels about it all, cause sure as fate, you'll probably find out that we all feel pretty much the same.

I mentioned I'm a fiction writer. Yeah, and there's plenty of us about these days, trying to do smart new columns for the papers, thinking up the next 'big idea' that'll grab the Beeb high-heid yins or maybe - imagine it !! - the next 'Harry Potter' ?!. 

But there's a great and serious work to be done, one that will never be written and never be read - a great novel which collates the feelings of those many thousands, nay milions of folk whose 'stream of consciousness' will end at a very specific point  i.e that moment when the bomb does finally go off in their area. 

Me and Yvonne have two beautiful children (incidentally, does anyone have children who are not 'beautiful'?) and ever since Sep 11th I've had nightmares about that final fraction of a second when perhaps, just perhaps, I'll realise that it's finally happened and we're about to become part of a radioactive cloud-dust that will circle the Earth for eternity. I clasp my missus and weans close to me, hoping that maybe, just maybe, by some freak of physics, we'll survive. 

Nae chance.

There's a certain selfish romance about that notion, but I'd much prefer that my loved ones get the chance to die a 'natural' death, having long-left me and this honking generation of liars well behind them. That's why I'm pished and still up way past my bedtime and begging you to ask all your friends and pals to start making a noise about these bastards who are running things - they are cowards, and cowards cannot face a real fight.

So, please, fight them.

Warm regards to all,

Ian Brotherhood
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