- The fashion industry plan “new” “exciting” “fashion” years in advance in a cynical manipulation of consumers (mostly women).
- The way the SNP have been allowed to go on at length about Brexit and referendum in Scotland seems to me to be some form of collusion not just by politicians but by the press.
- Is much of our “news” doubly fake: fake because it’s just opinion dressed as fact, but also fake in the sense it is not news at all, but instead cynical “news” planned days, weeks, months, even in some cases years in advance?
A while back I worked in a textile mill – and one day I was shown the colours that would be in fashion in summer – not the summer that was coming up in a few months, but the summer after that.
I learnt that the whole fashion industry would sit down years in advance and plan how to coerce the gullible public to throw away perfectly good clothes and buy a whole new wardrobe of “fashionable” items – which in reality was just the views of a lot of business people about what the public would be gullible enough to accept as “fashion”. And for that reason, the textile mill had to plan to start producing the colours that would be in fashion in several years time allowing the clothes manufacturers to start producing the clothes that would be in summer a very long time in advance of the point where the consumer was told the fashion was “new” and “trendy”.
Following Brexit, and particularly the way it has been covered in Scotland I’ve got to ask whether the news media all get together – in the same way as the fashion industry – and they too plan some kind of outline news agenda years in advance – not competitively as you’d expect them – but all chumming up to each other and planning how they will create “interest” out of nothing but hot air.
The thing that finally prompted me to write was this tweet:
Britain’s divorce ‘could become more COMPLICATED as ALL 27 EU parliaments may get to VOTE’ https://t.co/Oc9zjfBe07
— Cazawilnot.leave (@carole99897) April 26, 2017
For months I’ve been saying: “It took Canada 7 years to get a deal with the EU – the EU is incapable of coming to any agreement with the UK”. It didn’t occur to me that anyone needed telling that the 27 remaining EU members would need to agree – because after years of watching the EU and it’s deliberations, it was obvious they would have to agree.
So, why then is the express leading on the blatantly obvious? Bizarre – unless they were deliberately planning to have this story today and had manufactured it as “news”.
Similarly within days of the Brexit vote, I had worked out what the SNP could and couldn’t do in Scotland. They didn’t have the power to veto – so that would not happen, Spain would obviously veto any separate bid because of their own separatists. The SNP couldn’t call a referendum – but if they demanded one it would put May on the spot, Etc.
Yet, for months we’ve had story after story about “The SNP will be vetoing Brexit” or the “SNP on a tour of European states to get membership” and then miracle of miracles, the SNP trying to put May on the spot.
Any political commentator with even an ounce of sense, knew that it was all bluff. It was all presented as if the press had no idea that the SNP had no powers to block brexit etc. In other words, it seems pretty clear to me, the press were knowingly going along with a story they knew had no credibility and feeding it to the public as if the press themselves had no idea.
But if I knew the SNP were bluffing, the press would have known the SNP were bluffing, so, why didn’t the press (like I did) write this all up within a few days of Brexit? Why didn’t they tell the public the truth that the SNP could not veto Brexit etc., and we could all hear real news?
Perhaps the answer is because there isn’t much real news!
A similar thing happened with the massive increase in Tory support in Scotland. When a new poll came out I worked out what the vote would be constituency by constituency if there was a similar swing. The result was around 11 new Tory MPs. I quickly worked this out and if I could do it, then certainly the papers – even if they could not do it, they could find someone to do it. So on the day the poll was released the 11 Tory MPs was news. But several days after the poll, as this information actually came out, the predicted number of seats based on the poll was not news.
However, I’ve now watched for many days after the poll as the papers have been printing headlines about the number of Tories as if this were fresh news. It’s clear they’re just stringing it out! They’re just regurgitating the same news. And as anyone with any sense would know that the poll would predict the number of MPs – it is clear the papers planned the day they would run with the “news” about the number of MPs that the polls predict.
I’m starting to see that we are being fed a diet of fake news – not just the opinions of journalists dressed up as fact, but also apparent “breaking news” – that is being planned days, weeks, months, even I suspect in some cases, years in advance.
It’s not news at all – it’s old soggy lettuce dished up a gullible public with a “news dressing” to make it look fresh.
Hear! Hear!