A Scramble for Gravitas
“We could sit around here all day, talking, passing resolutions, making clever speeches...”
Quite. Every time you stand up you risk being decapitated by another brick been thrown from one opinion leader camp to another, and as London settles down after the attacks more and more people believe they, uniquely, have the angle on the terror threat. So we need to throw a few bricks ourselves, and it may result in falling victim to the same crimes of which we accuse others. This will be kept to a minimum, but without bending the rules here all we would gain from this exercise is an entry for an encyclopaedia.
Many people who are throwing the bricks take their reasoning from whatever favourite bucket of shit that person has been relentlessly stirring for years. In some cases it is for political capital...see George Galloway for details.
The US media’s right wing, of course, has more bricks in its hands than anyone. Today the Guardian reports how the US media have reacted with deep self-regard, claiming that the US is at threat from London’s supposed laxity towards immigration. They call the city Londonistan, a term that sounds like it is covered with the filthy fingerprints of Richard Littlejohn. The blurring here between people from a different religion and extremist terrorists is a twisted thing to behold. Meanwhile, Littlejohn himself throws up his hands and continues to call for all darkies to be boiled alive like wot their ancestors did to the brave pioneering white man back in the year fourteen piggledy-honk.
But to hell with those people; it is in their nature to gibber and quack like elderly ducks. They are idiots and do not know better.
Other people should know better and it is this group we will focus on. This group is ignoring everything else in a gleeful rush to snort their derision at how the media reacted to the events. And they now stare at a spreadsheet on their computers and tot up the points they scored against their imagined enemies, because this is the total that matters, not the death count or other such little numbers.
The bombs went off just six days ago, whereas the criticism from many quarters has inferred that the media has been wallowing in overreaction, speculation and page-filling for months. There has been exhaustive analysis on everything from the future of terrorism in England to the role of webloggers in the aftermath...all within those six days. It is describing the tower from the inside without ever having been out the door. Some of it is just media-on-media wankery; and perhaps this is exactly the kind of getting back to normal sense of “business as usual” we should be striving for... But most newspapers have kept it factual and this has been helped by the speed in which the police investigation has progressed. It is a problem of perspective; the time since the bombs has stretched into a perceived infinity, and the information, analysis and reaction contained within that time has been overwhelming. Single comments made on the day itself are highlighted and seen through the same snide lens as reflections made after days of consideration. This is ridiculous and the perfect example of hindsight smugness.
The coverage has not been perfect by any means; just as we would expect. A fog of darkness now hangs over the columnists of many newspapers; the sheer weight of newsprint involved here has tipped the scales from pride to self-congratulatory nonsense. The scramble for gravitas has been deafening at times. At first, the pride and defiance of being a Londoner was a necessary thing to express. This was essential to restore the self-confidence of the city. But many writers took it too far, not adding to our understanding over the event but simply competing to have the last word, to make the cleverest speech. Every time a conclusion was reached, it was smugly brushed to one side by someone who wanted to get people nodding in awed agreement at their ability to beat others to the real heart of the matter.
One of the big criticisms was that the pride expressed explicitly or implicitly states that other cities may have reacted in a different manner. Furthermore, people in other cities, such as Baghdad, have to survive this kind of shit every day. These things are true to some extent but ignore the point and goals of the actions involved. People were not reacting with positive self-reflection as a cunning tactic to show up Johnny Madrid or Johnny Muslim. The bombs genuinely caused chaos and panic, and the implications go beyond the fifty deaths and several hundred injuries. The mistake is to mix up hypocrisy of compassion – where it only matters when your own countrymen are killed – with the emotional and physical bond that ties a city together. Some comments were hysterical and ridiculous but what the fuck do you expect when, an hour previously, fifty innocent people were blown to bits a mile from where you are working?
Of course, a sober and objective examination of how we can improve our reaction (not our opinion) to such an event is always welcome, from emergency service training to timely information dissemination in the aftermath. Masturbatory clever speeches on the other hand do not help. Yes, we are lucky to live in a country that allows free speech, blah blah blah... but do not expect a round of fucking applause for your half-arsed efforts. And that includes me.
Quite. Every time you stand up you risk being decapitated by another brick been thrown from one opinion leader camp to another, and as London settles down after the attacks more and more people believe they, uniquely, have the angle on the terror threat. So we need to throw a few bricks ourselves, and it may result in falling victim to the same crimes of which we accuse others. This will be kept to a minimum, but without bending the rules here all we would gain from this exercise is an entry for an encyclopaedia.
Many people who are throwing the bricks take their reasoning from whatever favourite bucket of shit that person has been relentlessly stirring for years. In some cases it is for political capital...see George Galloway for details.
The US media’s right wing, of course, has more bricks in its hands than anyone. Today the Guardian reports how the US media have reacted with deep self-regard, claiming that the US is at threat from London’s supposed laxity towards immigration. They call the city Londonistan, a term that sounds like it is covered with the filthy fingerprints of Richard Littlejohn. The blurring here between people from a different religion and extremist terrorists is a twisted thing to behold. Meanwhile, Littlejohn himself throws up his hands and continues to call for all darkies to be boiled alive like wot their ancestors did to the brave pioneering white man back in the year fourteen piggledy-honk.
But to hell with those people; it is in their nature to gibber and quack like elderly ducks. They are idiots and do not know better.
Other people should know better and it is this group we will focus on. This group is ignoring everything else in a gleeful rush to snort their derision at how the media reacted to the events. And they now stare at a spreadsheet on their computers and tot up the points they scored against their imagined enemies, because this is the total that matters, not the death count or other such little numbers.
The bombs went off just six days ago, whereas the criticism from many quarters has inferred that the media has been wallowing in overreaction, speculation and page-filling for months. There has been exhaustive analysis on everything from the future of terrorism in England to the role of webloggers in the aftermath...all within those six days. It is describing the tower from the inside without ever having been out the door. Some of it is just media-on-media wankery; and perhaps this is exactly the kind of getting back to normal sense of “business as usual” we should be striving for... But most newspapers have kept it factual and this has been helped by the speed in which the police investigation has progressed. It is a problem of perspective; the time since the bombs has stretched into a perceived infinity, and the information, analysis and reaction contained within that time has been overwhelming. Single comments made on the day itself are highlighted and seen through the same snide lens as reflections made after days of consideration. This is ridiculous and the perfect example of hindsight smugness.
The coverage has not been perfect by any means; just as we would expect. A fog of darkness now hangs over the columnists of many newspapers; the sheer weight of newsprint involved here has tipped the scales from pride to self-congratulatory nonsense. The scramble for gravitas has been deafening at times. At first, the pride and defiance of being a Londoner was a necessary thing to express. This was essential to restore the self-confidence of the city. But many writers took it too far, not adding to our understanding over the event but simply competing to have the last word, to make the cleverest speech. Every time a conclusion was reached, it was smugly brushed to one side by someone who wanted to get people nodding in awed agreement at their ability to beat others to the real heart of the matter.
One of the big criticisms was that the pride expressed explicitly or implicitly states that other cities may have reacted in a different manner. Furthermore, people in other cities, such as Baghdad, have to survive this kind of shit every day. These things are true to some extent but ignore the point and goals of the actions involved. People were not reacting with positive self-reflection as a cunning tactic to show up Johnny Madrid or Johnny Muslim. The bombs genuinely caused chaos and panic, and the implications go beyond the fifty deaths and several hundred injuries. The mistake is to mix up hypocrisy of compassion – where it only matters when your own countrymen are killed – with the emotional and physical bond that ties a city together. Some comments were hysterical and ridiculous but what the fuck do you expect when, an hour previously, fifty innocent people were blown to bits a mile from where you are working?
Of course, a sober and objective examination of how we can improve our reaction (not our opinion) to such an event is always welcome, from emergency service training to timely information dissemination in the aftermath. Masturbatory clever speeches on the other hand do not help. Yes, we are lucky to live in a country that allows free speech, blah blah blah... but do not expect a round of fucking applause for your half-arsed efforts. And that includes me.
posted by Jamie at 4:29 PM
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