UKRAINE & RUSSIA: WESTERN MEDIA TALKING HEADS & THEIR TOTAL IRRELEVANCY

First posted 13th June 2022.

If headless chickens could cluck I imagine they would sound very much like western media commentators today on the subjects of Russia and Ukraine and would have just as much influence on Farmer Ivan who runs the farm. I.e. None.

The chattering classes of the western world are in full-throated high gear with no end of hot air to expend on these subjects. All to no avail. Russia pays no mind to them whatsoever and it is becoming increasingly clear that they are exhibiting the very thing Shakespeare wrote about in his play, ‘Macbeth’.

‘Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’

Yet the twenty-four hour news cycle must be filled and Ukraine is without question the big issue. Therefore the hot air must be expended and hours of vacuous talk must fill the airwaves. Each minute element of disinformation and spin must be spun further with endless convoluted views expressed, always and ever avoiding historical facts and reporting of reality.

The most vital factor across all western mainstream networks is the constant use of pejorative terms in reference to Russia and a constant flow also of sympathy and support for Ukraine. Facts are of little assistance, it’s the interpretation of them or the use of invented “facts” that comprise the entirety of the enterprise.

Incredible volumes of hot air drift this way and that, some shot out with chest-thumping vigour, others inserted into the collective atmosphere with a snide knife-like semi-intellectualism. Chomsky’s riposte to Andrew Marr of the BBC comes glaringly into view, that those you see and hear so much on your television are there because their views and world view fit. Even those very nice-looking, clearly very intelligent historians… hand-picked because they are a ‘safe pair of hands’ or ‘frontal lobes’ to sit before the camera and add to the general delusion being displayed on both Russia and Ukraine.

It’s a case of ‘All The News That Fits’ of course and in corporate media with well-heeled, conservative owners or with state media with other owners keen to see the “right” narratives broadcast or printed, it becomes very clear what fits… and what doesn’t.

In our modern times talking heads rule. The previous era of highly visible celebrity has bequeathed its influence to these nodding dogs who sit in our TV windscreens. Their influence comes through that visibility that grants them status in a world blinded by the visual. Blinded to almost all else. What appears on television MUST be true, mustn’t it?

Headline surfers abound. A quick fix of “news” tonight provides all the opinions necessary for tomorrow. To read too much text is tiring in this age and it is thought boring, tedious or pointless. How much better to stare goggle-eyed at the box of opinions in your living room or laptop screen and imbibe what’s ‘really going on’ with ease. In a world of stress why would you need an additional portion by looking deeper?

And so it goes. Endless chattering on the woeful this, the terrible that and always the poor Ukraine and the awful Russians. Round and round in an interminable circle of group-thought and belief-bubble agreement that the delusional construct they have created is the only reality. And in one sense they are right, it is the only reality they will ever see. No truth can penetrate such a closed circle.

And they can chatter about it all day and night long. While Russia demonstrates a new hard reality quite outside of their ken and understanding. And, when enough of the above occurs… the chattering will suddenly stop. To be immediately followed of course by renewed chattering about... ‘the NEXT big thing’.