Views on Charity

It is an unremarkable November day, and a Facebook badge addresses me personally assuring me that ‘with my help’ we can fight back against the ebola virus. Other posts ‘celebrate’ the flourishing of follicles upon otherwise bald upper lips as part of ‘Movember’. In the mailbox are festive appeals from Barnardo's and the British Red Cross. On the walk to work I pass by smiling bucket-shakers for Children in Need and sellers of Royal British Legion poppies. Passing through a tube station I spot posters demanding that I ‘text FIGHT’ to join in the battle against cancer. In the news is a report of the latest resurrection of the Band Aid single.

This, I would venture to suggest, is but the tip of the leviathan iceberg that manifests itself in the waters of contemporary society. I use the term 'leviathan' intentionally, for it was the philosopher Thomas Hobbes who held the view, to which I find myself subscribing, that charity exists to lighten the burden of compassion of the wealthy man.

It is my contention that our current relationship with charity is indicative of more general socio-political developments; that it many instances it runs counter to our notion of a dignified, innovative, rational culture; and that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it could actually be a flawed and inefficient approach to tackling worthy causes.

I am fully aware of the polemical nature of such views, given that in the 21st century secular west, offering counter arguments to the charitable consensus is one of the last remaining taboos; standing firm amidst the rubble of past controversies to have been demolished by the liberal wrecking ball. Today, anyone who might dare speak against the overwhelming tide of 'good nature' encapsulated by charitable endeavours is branded a heretic, an obstinate contrarian, selfish for their own wants and thoughtless for those of the less fortunate. Put simply, to criticise is just bad social 'form'.

Given the saturating scale and nature of charity exposure, the pressure to think and act in unerringly positive approval, not to mention the scorn exerted by the faithful on the dissenting few, is evidence, in my view, of a form of benevolent totalitarianism (or if you want a terrible neologism, 'charitarianism'.)

According to government statistics, the 2013 annual income of the sector was £59.9bn. This is a huge 43% increase since 1999 when it was a mere £23bn, and what other area of the economy could boast such growth?!. The existance and expansion or a burgeoning charity sector works to build up an irrational submission to covert forms of authority, bombarding the ordinary man/woman with impulsions to act and not think too deeply about the substance or worth of those actions. In effect, it works to marginalise and coerce the ordinary man/woman into an apathy in which they meekly invest in necessary illusions.

One primary illusion is Rousseau's view that, '...it is contrary to natural right that a handful of men be glutted with superfluities while the starving multitude lacks necessities'. In principle of course, Rousseau is absolutely right, and it is this consensus that charity justifiably aims to derive gain from; however, it ignores the fact that society is structurally at odds with such a moral principle. Take the classical problem of homelessness and destitution...

Homelessness is an aberration in a wealthy nation, nonetheless it is one that is tacitly permitted to exist. This is because at a subliminal level the homeless serve to instil in us the sense that 'there but for the grace of god go I'. In a society predicated on order, obedience and everyone 'doing their bit', they are perhaps the most potent visual reminder of what awaits should you fail to fully comply and slip through the cracks in society's paving stones.

At a fundamental level, capitalism demands the existence of an underclass of poverty in order that people will accept wages set just high enough to avoid suffering the same fate, but with just enough insecurity to enshrine subservience. If the liminal reality of the homeless person's plight is disturbing and regrettable (which it surely is), the spectacle is most definitely an intrinsic and necessary tenet of a competitive and dynamic society. Not so much, as Albert Camus' protagonist in 'The Fall' describes as 'the oppression that the oppressed inflict on decent people', but as a deep psychological balm of reassurance that their continual obedience is justified. A homeless person slumped in a doorway is, on an imagistic level, the most powerful propaganda weapon in the benevolent state's arsenal.

Another critical illusion is the axiom that your charitable contributions make a tangible difference. This is not to denigrate or undermine the many good intentions of the individual who may well be altruistic in their actions. But it is an interesting social phenomenon to identify, that as, over the last 2 or 3 decades, people have become evermore discontented with political elites - membership falling, election turnout falling, ideology stagnating, apathy rising - the charity sector has grown exponentially.

I believe that as people have felt they have less influence over or stake in society they have had to alleviate a residual sense of alienation, hopelessness and insignificance through charitable means. In a 'polyarchy' (a system of elite decision-making and public ratification), people's democratic vote is essentially as meaningless as throwing change into a collection bucket or sponsoring someone to run a race.

Of course, it is a truism that whilst an individual's donation may be pointless, collectively it can make a difference. But here is where I think our approach to charity has become distorted by the adoption of neoliberal capitalism since Thatcher. No one in their sound mind would argue that we shouldn't provide funding for cancer treatments, or veterans of combat, or disabled children, or elderly care homes. So what does it say about a political establishment that has turned these and countless other worthy causes over to the public, relieving themselves of the burden of providing for them?

Governments, to all intents and purposes, have devolved their social responsibility to the charity sector and empower them to effectively tax people on the basis of their good will. Instead, governments use their tax revenues to fund the development of Trident and other nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers with no aircraft, illegal wars and subsidies to big business (namely, all the unpopular things that they know the public wouldn't donate money for).

In lockstep with the privatisation of industry, the state's abdication of its social responsibilities has left the charity sector to develop in a system solely defined by commercial imperatives and the dictates of the free market. Organisations of all stripe and agenda have become 'registered charities' to relieve them of the pressures of operating entirely through the drive for profit. In order for a company to subsist on the basis that isn't solely commercial, with shareholders demanding appeasement, their only option it seems is to apply for charitable status. So what does this mean for the sector?

What it means is that charity has been manipulated and encouraged to adapt itself to the laissez faire capitalist system of the economy as a whole. According to government statistics, of the £60bn annual revenue in 2013, £53bn went to charities with an income of £500,000 or more. This works out as 6% of the sector receiving 90% of the capital. Since it goes against most moral principles to make a value judgement on worthy causes, these figures demonstrate that the system in which the sector has been left to grow like ivy is flawed.

In this capitalist realm, charity has been forced to become commercialised, to the extent that ethical causes are offered as consumable goods to be plucked from the shelf and displayed with a pious sense of pride. In such a competitive market charities have to invest more and more labour hours, focus and money coming up with innovative new marketing strategies or advertising opportunities, or just thinking up gimmicks, as with the 'ice bucket challenge' earlier this year (what was it supposed to be raising awareness of? I guarantee the majority will have forgotten already...)

They have begun to be exposed for dubiously unethical decisions and practices; for instance, Comic Relief allowing funds to be invested in arms manufacturers and tobacco firms), and more recently, Save the Children deciding to honour Tony Blair with a major award.

The expansion of the charity sector runs in parallel with the shrinking of the state as it has surrendered evermore power and influence to the whims of the market. As it has done so, tax has become so lambasted that even the suggestion of a tax increase policy is considered electoral suicide. Instead, successive governments seek to proudly proclaim that they have slashed tax burdens for the public. As they have sought to drag down tax thresholds, all the while promoting the idea of a cohesive and inclusive society (Blair's 'Third Way', Cameron's 'Big Society', Miliband's 'Together'), they have encouraged and relied upon the charity sector to fill the void and collect all that additional tax revenue to allocate to worthy causes that government deems unworthy of investing in.

So how could we approach charity in a more sensible, honest and dignified way? The obvious thing would be for government to mandate on the basis that the public deems such causes to be worthy, and therefore to allocate funding accordingly. If as a society we agree that cancer treatment should be invested in, and support provided for war veterans, then that investment should be made instead of their respective charities having to rely on the varied good will of the population. How would this extra government funding be paid for though?

In this regard, we could do well to look to Islam. As one of the Five Pillars of Islamic law, zakat is the giving of 2.5% of one's savings to the poor and needy as part of tax. Therefore, everyone pays towards these causes based on accumulated wealth. Of course, should people wish to voluntarily allocate more of their income to causes personal to them they should be able and encouraged to do so; in Islam this is known as sadaqah.

Although not without its flaws in terms of management and allocation, in 2012 Islamic financial analysts estimated annual zakat spending at more than $200bn per year, far more than global humanitarian aid contributions. This was also borne out by polling into comparative individual contributions across British society in which Muslims came out ahead of Jewish, Protestants, Catholics and atheists by a considerable margin.

The Economist has mooted the policy idea of removing or reducing the state pension from those on higher rates of income, thereby relieving the pension burden and helping to reduce the nation's debt, 'for the top-fifth of pensioner households, who have an average private income of £65,000, the state pension pays for holidays and golf-club fees'.

Naturally, this would be an unpopular policy for those affected, but perhaps they should be encouraged to forego their pension by selecting a charity to support instead. Equally, there should be more emphasis placed on flexible working, with people incentivised into taking on voluntary roles or doing charitable work with tax credits. The more charity work you do (actually doing something rather than sitting in an office thinking up the next 'ice bucket challenge'), the more tax credits you would be entitled to.

Although making a public disclosure or spectacle of personal charity-giving is undignified, I don't doubt that many will have read this essay thinking 'just how much do you do for charity then?' The answer, regretfully, is not very much, although I hope this will change in the future. Each month I probably spend anywhere between £15 - 30 on second-hand books at the fabulously well-stocked Oxfam shop on Marylebone High Street. I'm confident that this gesture is negligible compared with many people, but I'm equally confident that it is probably a lot more than many others.

But really, it isn't the act of giving itself I take issue with at all, but instead the current 'spectacle' that the charity sector has been obliged to develop in order to compete in a free market economy. I feel that if we want to live in a civilised, compassionate and reasoned society, we could do far better in terms of how we incorporate charity into our lives without so much of the piety, commercialisation and lack of dignity together with an awareness of the intrinsic illusions that embody the benevolent totalitarianism of modern charity.

Views on McDonalds

Ah, where to begin with McDonalds? The anorexic fries perhaps? The succulent hamburger between soft buns, smeared with sweet sauce and two discarded discs of gherkin? The reassuring and secure familiarity that engulfs you like warm jets as you pull open the doors to another outpost of globalised corporatism?

Frankly no. Never a particularly frequent visitor to the hallowed halls of McDonalds, the red-and-yellow scales have long since dissolved from my eyes to reveal the raw and naked horror of an insidious behemoth that, in my view, perpetuates and exemplifies a great many of the worst tenets of modern civilisation.

Richard and Maurice McDonald established their first restaurant in 1948 with a revolutionary new schema of how food production could be streamlined and automated, setting in motion the 'fast food phenonemon'. This was predicated on slimming down the menu and accoutrements (plates, cutlery, etc.), increasing the speed, slashing prices and maximising sales volume. As Eric Schlosser wrote in 'Fast Food Nation', by increasing the division of labour between workers and thereby dissolving the requisite skill-set, 'for the first time the guiding principles of a factory assembly line were applied to a commercial kitchen'.

The meteorite rise of McDonald's, as well as other fast food chains, occured in lock-step with the nationwide development of state-funded highways that, as car ownership accelerated, overtook the pre-eminence of private-invested railways. It was the 1950s, America was booming, people were freed as never before from the logistics of their geography to explore their country by automobile, cruising along the ultra-modern highways that quickly became punctuated with the drive-in fast food diners.

Geopolitical developments, however, meant that this interstate car-centric business model had to expand into new market terrains. The Arab oil shortages in the early 1970s had a ripple effect on fast food shares and, for the first time, they began to rush for the cover of the cities; a manic stapling of Golden Arches across the urban upholstery.

The unharnessed monopolisation by McDonalds could almost be seen as the 20th century manifestation of the American pioneer; Ronald McDonald as the modern heir to the Rockefellers and Samuel Andrews of yesteryear, who planted their flags across the map during the 'Gold Rush'. That same conquering spirit has come to fuel the American individualist culture, and the popular myths of the 'land of opportunity' and the 'pursuit of happiness'; intoxicating drugs with which the populace are constitutionally medicated.

Of course today, with McDonald's imperial outposts planted in around 120 countries, they have come to represent a place without geography, a place with zero identifiable markers tethering it to a particular physical location. Beijing, Berlin, Boston, Buenos Aires - all and any indigenous characteristics bleached clean to leave a sterilised spectacle, an oddly alluring territory of homogeneity and dislocation. Much more than it aims to sell Big Macs, McDonalds is exporting the 'American Dream' across the globe as a commodity in its own right.

This is crystallised by Reinhold Wagnheitner's theory of 'coca-colonization', and more specifically by the sociologist George Ritzer's theory of the 'McDonaldization of society'.

Ritzer sought to demonstrate the paradigm shift in Max Weber's concept of rationalisation whereby societal traditions, values and emotions as behavioural motivators are replaced with rational, calculated ones. Despite, or because of, the attainment of maximal efficiency being the central driver, the negative implications are a tendency towards ambivalence or dehumanisation. For Ritzer, the late-20th century adoption of fast food characteristics throughout society were manifested through the components of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.

I became acutely aware of this phenomenon in terms of my own behavioural impulses, earlier this year when visiting Moscow for work. After several days I was wandering the tumultuous streets one evening, frustrated and demoralised by my lack of opportunity or ability to really get a grip on the city's geography. It was proving too rigid, too imposing and too vast; I felt like every effort I made to break out of the touristic ghetto of my hotel, Red Square and the Kremlin area, was scuppered by the waves of disorientation and geo-cultural malaise pushing me back against my will.

Searching for somewhere half-decent to try some Russian food, I became increasingly dispirited and eventually the pangs of hunger vetoed my erstwhile sensibilities to propel me, almost unconsciously, into the glowing familiarity of a McDonalds restaurant. As I sat there slurping my Coke, noshing my limp fries and chomping through my soggy burger, I realised the terrible symbolism of what I had been reduced to.

For here was the clearest evidence of America's cultural victory over Russia. Forget the moon landings, this was proof, to me at least, of the Cold War being won by Western supremacy. The fact that I, engendered with perhaps more than my fair share of healthy cynacism, felt subconsciously that I had to resort to the comfortable numbness of a McDonalds was testament to my own Americanised conditioning; lured in whilst on Russian soil because Russia itself had proved too overwhelming for me. Against my better judgement, I needed the reassuring palliative of American corporate-cultural hegemony, even when in the bosom of the 'enemy'.

A few months later I watched the documentary 'McLibel' and read 'Fast Food Nation', and two more damning indictments on McDonalds' social impact would be near impossible to find. 'McLibel' relays the story of the two British activists David Morris and Helen Steel.

The two were accused of distributing libelous smears in an agitprop leaflet 'What's Wrong with McDonalds?', which made a series of claims against the chain - exploitation of workers, manipulative marketing aimed at children, destruction of the environment, encouraging unhealthy lifestyles, and so on. Whereas other parties had previously buckled under the intense pressure of McDonalds' litigation might, Morris and Steel heroically battled against them, without entitlement to legal aid, for 10 years in what became the longest civil trial in British legal history.

One of the main points on which the pair were found to have not been libellous were McDonalds' exploiting of its workforce, and in examining the development of their practices it reveals the truly insidious influence big business continues to impose upon governments.

In 1972, Ray Kroc - the 'master salesman' behind McDonalds - donated $250,000 to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. At the time, the fast food industry was lobbying Congress to pass new legislation that, in an unprecedented move for the industry, would allow employers to pay 16 and 17 year olds' wages 20% lower than the minimum wage. As the biggest employer of under-18 staff, they were nothing but self-serving in their lobbying for a young persons' pay cut. Deglutinously passed through Congress, this legislation became known, appropriately enough, as 'the McDonalds bill'.

As well as this, the fast food industry - with McDonalds' hand firmly on the tiller - have successfully resisted measures for the improvement of hygiene and safety standards, and have systematically fostered the 'deskillation' of their workforce, by designing kitchen technology and dividing labour to the point whereby high-turnover jobs can be filled quickly, cheaply and with zero training required. By prohibiting their workforce from joining or establishing union bodies, collective representation is impeded and conditions are perpetuated. As the sociologist Ester Reiter has pointed out, 'the trait most valued in fast food workers is obedience'.

Faced with a projective vomitting of bad publicity around the turn of the millenium, with the McLibel trial and films such as 'Supersize Me', McDonalds underwent a major rebranding overhaul. Ronald was all-but-retired and there was more of an emphasis on 'McSalads' and other 'healthier' options. Where once the decor was typically gaudy Americana, nowadays the outlets are the epitome of bland; all browns, beiges and faux-wood panelling, as though there has been the conscious decision to manoeuvre themselves from exhibitionism to inconspicuousness.

In any case, being a 'McDonalds country' might not actually be a bad thing according to Thomas Friedman's 'Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention'. In 1999, he observed that '...no two countries that both had McDonalds had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonalds'. This is supported by the notion that when a country has developed economically to the point at which it has a middle class prosperous enough to support a McDonalds network, then it has too much to lose to engage in unnecessary foriegn wars.

(However, this theory has required some elasticated interpretation since 1999, what with conflicts involved 'McDonalds countries' including Pakistan and India, Russia and Georgia, and most recently, Russia and Ukraine.)

All being said though, McDonalds has faced some tough truths in recent years. Fast food workers in America have successfully campaigned for an increase in their minimum wage and for their right to participate collectively in unions, which could set in motion a new and transformative epoch for the exploited services industry workforce.

Perhaps other countries could follow the lead of Bolivia, from where McDonalds were forced to pull out in 2013 citing a struggle to maintain profitability. As President Morales said, "they are not interested in the health of human beings, only in their earnings and corporate profits."

As for me, I have decided to maintain a personal boycott against McDonalds for the foreseeable future, whilst still relying on their toilet facilities whilst out on walking trips. Indeed, I will struggle to separate McDonalds from the Chapman Brothers' epic 'Hell' tableaus, in which children's figurines of Ronald McDonald and the Ham-Burglar are frozen in a danse macabre with Hitler and Nazi skeletons around teeming snowdrifts of rotting corpses piled up beneath the golden arches proclaiming 'over 99 billion served'.

BOOK REVIEW - 'Manufacturing Consent' by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

Every so often you read a book that bowls so many strikes down the lane of conventional wisdom that you wish you could commit the whole thing to memory, ready to quote in full sentences at whim like a Shakespearean actor. 'Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media', the masterful 1988 study into the American mainstream media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is one such book.

The main bowling pin of conventional wisdom to be knocked down is that the west (predominantly America and the UK) live with a free press that takes as its moral responsibility the crusade for truth and justice, rigorously holding the powers-that-be to account.

Shorn of any overtly ideological superfluage colouring the examination, the book relies on a skilful, meticulous dissection of the facts and evidence, peeling away the flabby layers of bias and hypocrisy in an effort at substantiating their 'propaganda model', to which they attribute the widespread media consensus formulated by powerful dogmatic elites. As they view it, propaganda is to the democratic society what the bludgeon is to the totalitarian state.


The Propaganda Model:

The 'propaganda model' is comprised of five filtration methods:
1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner worth and profit orientation of the dominant mass media firms
2) advertising as the primary income source of the mass media
3) the over-reliance of the media on information provided by government, business and 'approved experts'
4) 'flak agencies' (i.e. negative responding, withdrawing of funds, legal threats) as a means of disciplining media that steps outside the permitted spectrum of debate
5) 'anti-communism' as a national religion and control mechanism.

By fixing these rigid filtrations, the criteria of potentially 'newsworthy' stories and possible range of discussion is narrowed to a defined scope as determined by the interests of the elite and the business/advertising firms that fund them.


The death of the working class press

For a start, the book examines the punitive taxes and regulations that were placed upon alternative press firms in the 19th century that were seen as inflaming public opinion. Where these measures largely failed, the early 20th century 'industrialisation of the press' (a la 'Citizen Kane') triumphed and the major family-owned institutions that were able to finance such expansions of their news empires rapidly crushed any smaller-scale rivals out of the market.

They make the salient point that the post-WW2 social democratic press in the UK (Daily Herald, News Chronicle, Sunday Citizen) commanded a comparatively robust, loyal and healthy readership and yet during the 1960s these were strangled into extinction by a lack of advertising revenue that instead favoured the pro-establishment papers, The Times, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, etc. (It is interesting to make the connection between this decline in media representation of working class interests and the fortunes of the Labour Party throughout the same period.)


'Worthy' and 'unworthy' victims

The book moves on to discuss the dichotomy present between the media's handling of 'worthy' and 'unworthy' victims; or as they explain the policy - 'concentrating on the victims of enemy powers and forgetting about the victims of friends'.

By comparing the media coverage - both qualitative and quantitative - of, for example, the murder of a Polish priest in an enemy Communist state with the numerous political/religious assassinations in El Salvador and Guatemala (two client states of the US), it becomes clear that the former is deemed 'worthy' of emotive, empathetic and highly moral coverage, whilst the latter are 'unworthy' and hence are not.

The insouciant contradictions run through the media's coverage of 1980s Latin America like a stick of Blackpool rock. Regarding the nature of the coverage given to elections, if the US has a firm stake in maintaining the status quo in a region (as it did in El Salvador and Guatemala) then it will employ the propaganda model to present the elections as a noble 'struggle for democracy' and aim to legitimise as far as possible the end result. This will be true regardless of the authoritarian terror campaign inflicted by the US-sponsored power structures on their own civilians in the form of brutal assassinations, extreme censorship and coercion.

On the other hand, if the US fails to be able to exert such a domineering influence, as in the case of Nicaragua where they were desperately trying to oppose the left wing Sandinistas who enjoyed the majority of popular support, then the model does everything it can to portray the election as farcical, of minor concern, undemocratic and the electorate as being oppressed and coerced into voting.


The Propaganda Model and the Vietnam War

Where the book is most revelatory, for this reader at least, is in the demolition of much of the propaganda surrounding the Indochina wars, making it appear in retrospect as flimsy as a cardboard box in the rain.

The conventional wisdom surrounding Vietnam holds as sacrosanct that the aggressively liberal forces of the cavalier media turned against the military mission, in so doing succeeding in turning the tide of public opinion against the war and hence influencing America's ultimate defeat. Conservative elites have long contended that the negative repercussions revealed an out-of-control adversarial media that was hell-bent on undermining democratic institutions and betraying the efforts of the American military fighting for the freedoms of the South Vietnamese against the tyranny of the Viet Cong.

In fact, as Herman and Chomsky demonstrate through a forensic examination of the media at the time, the vast extent of the coverage conformed to the propaganda model, skewed in favour of the government's agenda, distorted or otherwise ignored inconvenient truths, and maintained a constant bias against reporting the realities facing the beleaguered South Vietnamese and the refugees.

The spectrum of reporting was narrowed to exclude any contextual analysis of the build-up of the war, stemming from the US failure to adhere to the 1954 Geneva Accords, Kennedy's deployment of the first wave of troops, to the horrendous 'carpet bombing' strategy inflicted upon Laos as well as the area of South Vietnam that America was supposed to be emancipating. In these and other atrocities such as the My Lai massacre, America was, by their own definition, responsible for war crimes as part of their 'pacification process' that received scant media attention.

It was only after the 1968 Tet Offensive, when business elites and officials in Washington began to turn against the war themselves, and when the overwhelming view was one of pessimism, that the media, in lockstep with public opinion, began to respond in kind. Herman and Chomsky expertly compare the coverage to that of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan to demonstrate the undeniable 'anti-communist' bias when reporting on 'immoral' interventions perpetrated by enemy states.

The Propaganda Model and the Cambodian genocide

Where the book has generated the most vilification from those who have misread it, either wilfully or ignorantly, is on the subject of Cambodia. Opponents have claimed that the book 'denies' the extent of the Cambodian genocide throughout the 1970s and makes apologies for Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The book plangently does nothing of the sort.

It investigates how the media coverage underwent a marked transition as the conflict progressed; beginning with the veil of silence that was drawn over the US' secret bombing campaign beginning in 1969. This was a process of systematic destruction that devastated the lives of countless peasant communities that relied on the land for their survival. This then transmutated into widespread coverage of the carnage facing the country, depicting the millions of Cambodians as being repressed and brutalised by an evil Communist regime that only had as its aim the achievement of a socialist idyll at whatever the human cost.

Herman and Chomsky cite examples of greatly exaggerated numbers of the dead in news reports that were relied upon without reliable evidence and often after sources had retracted the figures. All the while, the media neglected to cover simultaneous atrocities occurring in East Timor with anywhere near the same rigour, primarily because - as with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Indonesia - the brutal oppressive regimes involved in slaughtering their own people were sponsored and sustained by America.


The Propaganda Model and the Watergate scandal

By the time it gets to the concluding chapter of the book you can sense the authors limbering up for a victory lap as they comprehensively dismantle that shining beacon of a crusading and vigorously independent media: the Watergate scandal of 1973.

As egregious as the Nixon administration was in its actions; the aggrieved party were the Democrats, an equally elitist establishment that represented and were supported by large tranches of the business community. It was essentially one branch of America's power system defending itself against another.

Whereas at the same time, as the serendipity of history would have it, reports were coming to light revealing the FBI's covert operations infiltrating and disrupting fringe groups, socialist organisations, trade unions, the Black Panther and Women's Liberation movements, amongst many others in what came to be known as COINTELPRO. The fact that such nefarious acts were inflicted on less powerful (or worthy) victims is shown by the way the media almost unilaterally turned a blind eye to it in favour of Watergate.



For a masterful example of Chomsky's calm, reasoned yet irreparable shattering of illusions and conventional 'groupthink', just watch his interview with Andrew Marr (from the 9:50 mark), where he makes Marr look like little more than a petulant sixth-former floundering way out of his depth.

Marr - "how can you know that I'm self-censoring?"

Chomsky - "I'm sure you're not self-censoring, I'm sure you believe everything you're saying. What I'm saying is that if you believed anything different, you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting..."


The Propaganda Model today

In terms of how relevant the propaganda model is in 2014, the principles and practices exposed would seem to have scarcely deviated since 1988.

The prevailing notion of promoting an 'anti-communist' line could be said to have been replaced by the 'War on Terror' and 'Islamophobia'; although increasingly, Putin's Russia is being portrayed as the de facto international villain once again. And indeed, it is easy to see the new 'flak agencies' being online trolls who try to denigrate, harass and silence anyone who, on certain issues, dares depart from the standard plain of thought.

The recent Leveson Inquiry exposed a press that had undeniably stepped over the line of moral decency, and yet the overarching tendency to view the failing as cause to impose further subordination to suit the perceived needs of the government was, and remains, a misguided response. As the writers state, 'we do not accept the view that freedom of expression must be defended in instrumental terms, by virtue of its contribution to some higher good; rather it is a value in itself.'

Besides this, what real relevance does the propaganda model hold for the internet age, where traditional news is in slow decline and 'citizen journalism' across a limitless horizon of outlets can thrive seemingly released from the exigencies of powerful media moguls? The days of Lord Copper in Evelyn Waugh's 'Scoop' could surely be said to be increasingly numbered?

The potential for an expansive spectrum of news to thrive and for the public to be enlightened and informed as a result is clearly tangible. And yet, the sheer scale of disparate and conflicting information could prove to be abrasive to the sensibilities of the individual who may choose to limit him/herself to a proven and credible source in which they believe they can place trust. In which case the song remains much the same, except for the cacophony of background noise vying for attention.

The desire for an arbiter of sound information will necessarily prevail. Chomsky himself has addressed the implications of the internet on the propaganda model, affirming his belief that access to information is not enough if the framework of understanding is lacking in scope or veracity.

Overall, 'Manufacturing Consent' is a superb exposé of the self-serving, hypocritical and fallible news media and one that will forever shape your approach and response to it. As John Milton says, quoted as the book's epigraph, 'those who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness.'

SHORT STORY - The Silent Treatment

From the warm haven of silence, Henry’s mind began to be prised open by the crowbar of consciousness as though bailiffs were intent on breaking through his slumberous citadel to wrench him from sleep. Gradually, the aural pressures of the external world began to widen the cracks until involuntarily he surrendered himself to waking. His apartment being situated on the fringe of a major road junction, the tumult of traffic oscillated in a sine wave of sound that failed ever to be tempered by the rising and falling of the hours.

For Henry, the steady carousel of noise served as a cradle that massaged him to sleep and provided the reassuring blanket draped around the shoulders of his reality. Unlike many, Henry did not resent this intrusion from his anaemic dreams, he seldom clung to his pillow trying to squeeze out a few more minutes of repose; in fact he rather relished it and the work that hauled him from bed.

Granted, as an Information Marketing Facilitator for a data harvesting organisation, he rarely felt intellectually stimulated or creatively challenged; these discrepancies were offset by the fact of his proximity to colleagues on which he thrived. Although not on particularly friendly terms with any of them, the sense that he was one constituent part among many that engineered the robust apparatus was satisfaction enough.

As he submitted himself to the scrum of bodies moving through the passageways leading beneath the junction towards the underground station, out of habit he surveyed the ash-grey sky to marvel at the regiment of high rises that thrust upwards into its belly, a new recruit seemingly being added to their ranks almost by the week. Very often, digital projection of the completed structures would shimmer in the empty air like ghosts; premonitions of the physical forms soon to fill the space. It never failed to give Henry the impression of a truly dynamic city reaching ever forwards, renewing itself almost organically with scarcely any evidence of human coalition.

Henry was still speculating on the invigorating pace of the city as a stimulant to one’s own progression through time, as he crossed the platform and boarded his regular 7:24 tube heading four stops north towards his office building. He sat down and sighed in harmony with the train moving away from the station; becoming shrink-wrapped by the symphony of motion, the clunk and grind of wheels on rails, the squeal as brakes were applied and eased, the low panting and wheezing of subterranean infrastructure flexing and tensing its muscles as they unfolded across the city.

Underscoring this and pitched at an almost ultrasonic level, Henry recognised the white noise burble and tingle of the train passengers locked into the digital ether that susurrated through their forebrains, rifling off scattergun messages and consuming swathes of information with the minimal expended effort of basking sharks allowing plankton to float into their gaping mouths.

Henry began to ponder the minor tasks allotted for him to complete upon arriving at work. He had put off completing a strategic sample review the day before and knew he would be required to exert some extra energy later in the day to be able to complete to the deadline. Not that he much minded; a working day without some pressure to corral you on was unfulfilling and tedious. He looked about him at the crush of people heading in to the city, predominantly middle-ranking data engineers and exponents just like him, each one’s eyes flickering in alternate directions to the whims of their informational overlays. No one ever speaks on the tube.

Despite this being so, the sense of community to be experienced on these brief journeys foisted together was something Henry valued; the notion that they were bound together to a homogenous end point serving as a simplification of the progression of life itself to a place where the atomisation of individuals would be dissolved away into an inevitably unifying collective. Like most, Henry contemplated his impending death enthusiastically, almost as a hobby of sorts, seeing it as a necessary arbiter to steady his mind against the ceaseless streams of ephemeral information that burst and died so many firework displays.

His shuffling gaze paused on a girl sat diagonally across from him; her blonde fringe, inwardly mouth and ever so slightly upturned nose, the distinguishing features of a pleasant but not especially attractive face. As he scanned her face for some ambiguous signifier, she turned and met his eyes in a catalysing instance of connectivity that, in its intensity and suddenness, seemed to relegate all the attendant disunion and fragmentation of his life to the borderlands of concern. In the stare that was held for perhaps only a smattering of seconds, he felt the dissociative quiddity of human relations dissolving into irrelevancy.

For some reason, today his determination appeared to be imbued with a sturdier and more profound resolve, but just at the point where he was convinced that against his better judgement he was about to try and say something to her, she rose from her seat and made her way to the doors opening onto the waiting station. He sat back and relaxed his tensing muscles, at once relieved that the decision to break the void had been removed from his remit, and yet disheartened by this failure. This gave way to the sense of paranoia that she had somehow telepathically discerned his burgeoning intent and sought to remove herself from the situation, avoiding any awkward contact that might possibly have been alchemised from the silence.

On her empty seat he saw she had left a possession of some kind. Before being cognisant of his own motives, he rose from his sedentary pose, snatched it up and leapt from the carriage before the doors sealed the passengers in. He was so preoccupied scouring the platform for her direction that it wasn’t until he was leapfrogging the exit steps that he glanced at what it was he had liberated from its forgotten fate. An old paperback book, he hadn’t seen one for a long while. The cover was scored with stress lines and tainted by fading, but he could still make out the title – ‘Confessions of an English Opium Eater’ by Thomas de Quincey.

Perhaps this was some kind of clue she had bestowed on him, imbued with an ambiguous significance the meaning of which was as archaic as the artefact. Either way he wrestled his way through the people encroaching in silent waves onto the station entrance and began jogging as he spotted the girl’s blonde hair a little way ahead of him up the street.

Catching up with her, the surplus adrenaline that had thrust him first from his seat and then out of the station in this, he conceded to himself, a bizarre pursuit, sluiced through his characteristic restraint and he reached out a hand to lightly grasp her arm. She stopped in her tracks as though pre-empting his approach and pivoted around to face him with a vacant expression that gave nothing of her displeasure at having the sanctuary of her own purpose breached so brusquely by a complete stranger.

Slightly flustered from the energetic trail he had blazed to reach the girl, for a moment or two Henry could only gesture vaguely at the book clutched in one hand as though he were a politician gesticulating with his speech notes. Then he was able to blurt out some words, “Sorry about this, you left your book… you left your book on the tube just now…”

As his words registered, the girl’s ambivalence bled away into an expression of shock and dismay, as though he were a long-lost acquaintance suddenly returned before her. She began to back away from Henry, eyes engorged with alarm, her pursued shut mouth exuding a startled “mnhh … mnhh … mnhh”.

Baffled by this reaction, Henry tried to close the void that had been opened by her retreat, but his protestations to the effect of “I just wanted to give you think back. What’s the matter?! Don’t be scared!”, only served to enflame her aggravation and she set off away from him at a fraught pace, looking back in disgust once, and then twice, before being immersed in the pedestrian traffic.

Overcome with confusion as to the nature of her reaction, Henry decided he could do little more than trudge on in the direction of his workplace. Perhaps, he thought, she had been caught in a moment of online saturation in which her web filters became temporarily paralyzed by the sudden focus on physical reality that brought on some kind of fracturing imbalance.

As Henry approached the entrance to his office building, he remained in a state of bewildered despondency at the morning’s events. He couldn’t help pondering over the girl’s guttural monosyllabic moaning when he had tried remonstrating with her, and kept flickering through the yellowed and stiff pages of the paperback as though the words within might offer forth some measure of elucidation.

Passing colleagues in the main foyer, he nodded in mutual vague acknowledgement, the gravitational forces of compulsion bobbing their heads in accordance with the laws of etiquette, and took the elevator to his office on the third floor. Open-plan and spacious, with an arrangement of red-cushioned seats shipwrecked in a cove of deep blue carpet, the office was already at full capacity Henry noted as he shuffled as inconspicuously as possible (a futile gesture since his late arrival was automatically noted) to his work terminal. As he locked into the network and fired up his personal settings, he found his mind skittering nervously over perceived oddities.

The tinnitus of the air-conditioning system appeared to be accentuated in his mind, as though the vents and flues were grinding and whirring their way into the back of his skull like a slow bolt gun in an abattoir. Try as he might, he couldn’t help but sweep around the recesses of his temporality in an attempt to isolate the uncertain itch that plagued him. A couple of his colleagues strolled past his terminal one behind the other, whilst a middle-aged woman stood at a water fountain with a detached expression as she raised the paper cone to her sunken mouth. A younger man approached and hovered by the fountain beside her as she finished drinking, her head titled back but eyes focussed forwards on him, before she smiled awkwardly and moved away from obstructing the fountain.

It was this apparently innocuous and blasé interaction that suddenly froze Henry’s attention on the crux of his abstract confusion. No one, so far over the course of that morning, had said a word to anyone else. It was quite clear to him now that he thought back over the day. Whilst it wasn’t extraordinary to not witness conversation on the tube, given that most endure it as a container vessel to tunnel through their own silent introspections, there had been no one on the street or in the office talking. No organic vocalisation had been sounded amongst the haze of inorganic murmuration.

Now that his attention was attuned to this aberration, there was nothing he could do expect register it in incremental degrees of alarm. He disengaged himself from his work station and began striding along the cleavage between terminals, throwing stares from left to right at each silent inhabitant that sat alone within, cocooned like grubs inside their host.

As he reached the perimeter wall of the office he skirted back around, by now his agitation levels were winched upwards at a steadily steepening incline. In so doing of course, his fraught and uneasy demeanour had begun to arouse some attention, and as he hurried past his colleagues began to break off from their data duties to follow him past, almost trying to pin him against the wall with their intriguing stares, some rising from their seats as though ready to restrain him were it become necessary.

He was soon at the front of the office again, and made for the water fountain where a male colleague stood fumbling with the spout, quite clearly eager not be become singled out by this frantic miscreant. Upon reaching him, Henry grabbed him firmly by the arm causing his water cone to spill to the carpet.

“What’s the matter with everyone? Can’t you speak? Huh?!”

The man’s casual concern at Henry’s approach broadened into shock at his words, and he recoiled away as though his arm had been charged by Henry’s grip.

Panic now firing in shoots around his nervous system, Henry staggered to the staircase and plunged down them, uncertain of anything except seeking some kind of explanation for this nightmarish development. He barrelled past several startled colleagues on his way down who shrivelled back against walls and into alcoves to be clear of his path.

And then he was out on the street again, the stentorian sound of traffic and infrastructure engulfing him at once like a riptide current. He opened his eyes from having clenched them closed with momentary relief at being outside, and spotted across the street the blonde girl from the tube pointing with an accusatory zeal at him for the benefit of two dark-suited men each with thick black-framed glasses.

Something in the manner of her behaviour seemed to impel Henry to run from the men, but it was too late, they were already halfway across the road towards him, cars yielding to let them pass.

When they reached him, both clasped a hand on his arms with the grip only attributable to authority; it belied a multitude of similar interceptions, an expertise of constraint and coercion. Their faces too were almost identical, pallid and wrinkled, their mouths pulled taut in scowls like knots of rope. The girl approached with tentative steps behind them.

“What’s happening? Who are you people? Why will no one speak to me?!” he cried out in desperation.

At his outburst, pedestrians moved away wide past them in an exaggerated berth, and the girl suddenly became animated, staring at him fixedly as though condemning him for some perceived assault on her person.

Her slightly inverted mouth began to open very slowly and as she drew nearer to Henry he could see the full horror of her condition. Her jaw began to hang down as though detached and inside her mouth he could see the scar tissue and raw cavity where a tongue should have lain. It was like staring into a horrendous wound, the mottled grey hollow revealing the rows of teeth roots sunk tight into tender gums.

Wrenching his eyes away, he looked up into the faces of his two mysterious captors and was horrified to see the same reptilian cleft mouths hanging open to reveal the severed frenulum left like a thick ridge on the valley floor of their mouths. He began to thrash wildly, unable to break free from their anchored grip, and as they began to move him away towards a waiting vehicle, he threw back his head to propel his manic screams into the suffocating noise of the sky.

Culture - October

Reading:

Charlotte Bronte - 'Jane Eyre'
Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky - 'Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media' (non-fiction)
Will Self - 'Junk Mail' (non-fiction)


Watching:

'Frontier(s)' (Xavier Gens)
'McLibel' (documentary) (Franny Armstrong & Ken Loach)
'Gone Girl' (David Fincher) (at Ritzy Picturehouse, Brixton)
'Taken'
'This Is Where I Leave You' (Shawn Levy) (at Odeon West End, London)
'Shivers' (David Cronenberg)
'La Grande Illusion' (Jean Renoir)
'The Red and the White' (Miklós Jancsó)(at Calder Theatre Bookshop)

BFI London Film Festival 2014:
'Macondo' (Sudabeh Mortezai) (at Odeon Covent Garden)
'X + Y' (Morgan Matthews) (at Odeon Covent Garden)
'A Girl Walks Home At Night Alone' (Ana Lily Amirpour) (at Odeon Covent Garden)
'Gente de Bien' (Franco Lolli) (at Odeon Covent Garden)
'The Town That Dreaded Sundown' (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon) (at Vue Leicester Square)


Listening:

Jon Hopkins - 'Opalescent'
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross - 'Gone Girl' (OST)
Dearly Beloved - 'Enduro'
Royal Blood - 'Royal Blood'
Wooden Arms - 'Tide'
Brian Eno - 'Ambient 4 - On Land'
The Amazing Snakeheads - 'Amphetamine Ballads'


In attendance:

Covent Garden Comedy Club
'Antenora' (at Etcetera Theatre, Camden)
Dearly Beloved (at Windmill, Brixton)
Wooden Arms (at Old St. Pancras Church)
The Amazing Snakeheads (at Electric Ballroom, Camden)


Exhibitions:

'Witches and Wicked Bodies' - British Museum
Tracy Emin - 'The Last Great Adventure Is You' (at White Cube, Bermondsey)