Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The newspaper that cried wolf

Quote of the day, from the Beeb's Magazine:

The Daily Mail, with its stock-in-trade warning of going to hell in a hand-cart, seems slightly flummoxed by the fact that we are actually going to hell in a hand-cart.

Ha ha. Yes: for what seems like forever, the Mail has been scaring the living shit out of its readers by telling them that doom and Apocalypse is coming because of:

- political correctness
- Brown people, esp Muslims
- The Left
- Labour
- Robber McClown
- seemingly benign food which GIVES YOU CANCER
- the British Broadcasting Corporation
- health and safety regulations
- fortnightly bin collections
- the internet (except dailymail.co.uk, though you're NOT allowed to link there or they'll get all crying and tell on you and stuff) esp Facebook/Bebo
- young people
- single parents esp women
- asteroids
- secret Bible Code runes that predicted the end of the world
- Nostradamus
- rape victims, most of whom have probably made made it all up
- poor people, esp those on benefits
- jobsworths
- red tape
- anyone who works for the evil machinery of the State
- compassion
- empathy
- fairness

etc. At the same time as this, they have offered comfort that the following things will stop the end of the world and make everyone happy:

- the free market
- conservative values
- huge companies doing everything they want
- staying married to someone you hate because you're married to them
- eating food that PREVENTS CANCER
- being able to dump everything you want, whenever you want
- pulling your socks up and just getting on with it
- callousness
- misanthropy
- selfishness

So you can almost imagine the non-synchromesh gear-crunching that's gone on over the past few days at Mail Towers, given that the free market appears not to have worked tremendously sparklingly, that the solution proposed by the most right-wing government in post-war history looks a bit like socialism, that selfishness is suddenly a bad thing... but beyond all that, it really is a big deal. For once, there really is something to panic about. For once, as opposed to all those other times when it's cried wolf, when the Mail says we're all in trouble, we actually are in trouble.

And yet... who can believe them? They've told us to worry about the Hadron experiment, about Nostradamus, about MMR (though they failed to mention that this week when they ran a story about Andrew Wakefield and pretended it was his article in the Lancet, rather than scaremongering bullshit in the tabloids and elsewhere, that caused the panic over immunisation), about the introduction of the minimum wage, about all sorts of complete bollocks that has turned out to be, well what do you know, complete bollocks. So the Mail says it's Meltdown? Shrug your shoulders and say "So what? It'll all be fine. Just the silly Mail, trying to frighten us again with its nonsense ghost stories."

What I find most exciting (and genuinely scary) is that no-one knows what the fuck is going on. Oh, there are those who pretend they have a handle on it, but they're just pissing in the wind like the rest of us. No-one's got a fucking clue. The experts have been wrong. The amateurs have been wrong. We've all been wrong. The Republican right and the Democrat left have joined forces to vote down a package of measures that no-one seems to be able to agree on and no-one seems to like, the announcement of which (with no detail whatsoever) somehow made everything all right, the vetoing of which (it's called democracy) somehow made everything all wrong again. Everything is in a shoddy, bloody mess. It's a nonsense.

Where can we turn in the midst of all this? Who knows the answers to those tricky questions? Who can cut through the economic uncertainty and provide us with moments of clarity? Well, not Mailite messageboard commenters, that's a fucking given - but this time they're panicking like a blinded spinning Dalek, scattering their fire every which way they can... which is why I present a selection of gems for a bit of light relief.

Obama is full of his own congratulations. He is all me me me me. Look out America.
- Arturo, Loughborough, 28/9/2008 19:48

What?

Nero fiddles while Rome Burns, as the saying goes.Britain wants to Breaak with America and become full members of the EU.and stop siting on the fence
- Mike, Cyprus, 28/9/2008 21:18

Do you see what I mean? They're all over the shop!

so the brains who can bleed the country dry and line their pockets with silver the like of which ordinary people can only dreamabout, bring the world to its knees and then get bailed out. what a disgrace in every way.
- ivan cohen, Florida USA, 29/9/2008 3:54

Why that's dangerous talk Ivan, but... I don't find myself disagreeing with you.

There does not seem to be any consideration of the social repercussions of all of this, there also does not seem to have been any study of what would happen if the bailout did not happen..........life would go on for sure and maybe in better way. Greed has ruined all of our economies.
- Quentin Thorpe, Nottingham UK, 29/9/2008 8:53

Crikey! What's going on? Are people suddenly getting fed up with greed? About two weeks ago you'd be condemned as a leftie troublemaker living in cloud cuckoo land for saying stuff like this... now, even on the Mail messageboards, it's finding a louder and louder voice.

This is the end of America and the dollar and the birth of a no 'check and balances' one world government
Welcome to serfdom slaves
- John, London, 29/9/2008 9:47

There's always one who has to over-egg the pudding though. I don't think it's quite that bad. Is it?

What an irony the USA has become more communist then China or Russia with its centralised economy.
- John Cohen, York, Uk, 29/9/2008 10:29

Pffft!

I've got an idea. Sell all the financiers mansions, boats, cars, jewellery etc and lend it out as mortgages.
Crime or banking (is it the same thing?) doesn't pay. You must be joking!
- rob, derby, 29/9/2008 12:38

How dare thoughts like this be expressed! And yet - they're not in the minority, these voices against greed. Look at these Mail readers - callous? Heartless? Selfish? No. Where on earth has this sudden contempt towards greed come from?

Hang on though:

Oh dear, Brown was just about to take all the credit if the bail out- was successful, after all he ripped right in to Bush and told him straight, didn't he?
- GordonBennett, Bristol UK, 29/9/2008 19:24

Hooray! A bit of anti-McBottler bollocks! Well, it had been five minutes.

'The party is over for Wall Street High Flyers', the party is over for everyone, we've all used credit to spend like crazy.
It's going to be a long hard winter.
Still Gordon will make sure the Public Sector is alright, so we can go to hospital and send our kids to school the trouble is we (in the Private Sector)won't have jobs to pay our mortgages or to pay our bills or our Council tax, or to fund the tax credits that so many in the Country rely on.
- Martin, Reading, UK, 29/9/2008 19:35

Yes, that's right. Two per cent pay rises are fucking brilliant, aren't they?

Is it just me that thinks there are a lot of Republicans on the Senate making a killing out of this maket turmoil? 5% up one day, then 5% down the next as this deal is on one day then off the next.
I think the Mail should do a bit of digging, to see who has bought what, and when over the last week.
- Frank Wenzie, Preston, England, 29/9/2008 19:58

Frank, I love you, but you appear to be asking the Mail to do investigative journalism rather than snorting about some woman off the telly's cellulite. You'll be lucky!

As a working class person these big profits didnt come my way, and now the big losses wont either, let the badly run banks and institutions with diabolical business modules collapse, they deserve nothing more.
- paul b, wales, 29/9/2008 20:08

Class war on the Mail website? Bloody hell. Maybe the comments policy has shifted again; or maybe the overwhelming view on this subject is what these people are saying.

To those who blame the loan of money to low income mortgagees for this crisis, I point out that unfairly low wages for a proportion of the workforce are indispensible to the capitalist system, and the cost of saving the banks greatly exceeds that of supplanting unfairly low wages with a wage that would make home ownership feasible; the cost of the bail out also greatly exceeds that of providing the life saving medication that ''NICE'' witholds.
- Ramsey Pattison, grays, essex., 29/9/2008 20:09

Stunning. But don't worry, lunacy fans, there's some madness ahoy:

The Rat Race is Over
The Rats have WON
- Jon, UK, 29/9/2008 20:27

Cheers Jon.

It's a finacial Titanic!!!
- M Hanstock, Warwickshire, 29/9/2008 20:28

Oh, so close. Bad luck, M. Four words and you got one of them wrong. Easy mistake to make, mind.

Let the banks fail. Let the investors lose their money.
Far too long the US has been in the business of saving those who make stupid decisions. A good recession is just what the country needs to bring things back to normal. All a bail out would have done was postpone the inevitible. Thank goodness it was an election year so that some of the members actually listened to the folks they represent.
- Smokey, USA, 29/9/2008 21:14

Ah, there we are, the misanthropy returns, just directed at bankers rather than people on the dole. I knew it was there, lurking under the surface. And here we have an example of one of those brave, charming souls who really believes - really believes - that 'the market' will sort itself out.

Government did the right thing, staying out of the economy. It will fix itself. Don't you think the government has handed enough money out already? Its disgusting that the government has gotten involved anyway. If the first bail out had not been handed out, or better yet not even metioned, we would not be in the current situation. We would have not paid these crooks in congress anymore money to ponder on this ridiculous bill. Where is the government going to be when I need a bail out... Some companies will prevail and others will not, its survival of the fittest. I would love to see some of the larger more corrupt companies fail so smaller more ethical companies can fill in the slots. Think about it, where is all that buiness going to go that went to the big companies that fail, its going to the small companies that filled the void. I plead with my fellow americans and congress, do not pass the next proposal, better yet, dont propose anything.
- David, Omaha USA, 29/9/2008 21:57

I love faith in the markets. I think it's even more wonderful than faith in god. Because god doesn't constantly provide you with evidence that he doesn't exist, whereas the markets provide constant and consistent evidence that they don't work if they're left alone.

The American right are evil, this proves it.
- David, Southampton, 29/9/2008 22:50

Ha ha. Even I don't believe that!

Does anyone posting on here really know the details of this bill?
- Ursula, Raleigh, USA, 30/9/2008 4:23

Hmm. Fair point.

DOT.COM BOOM/BUST
- richard, brighton, england, 30/9/2008 9:26

What?

I have predicted this fiasco for four years or more.
My friends and family are sick to death of my dire warnings of impending doom.
The labour policy of allowing unfettered borrowing and speculation.
Wall streets insatiable greed.
Bravo Labour well done Gormless.
Wrecked it all.
Experts?? Bah!
- rick, newcastle UK, 30/9/2008 9:59

What?

"as shares plummeted 777 points" More like 666.
- Alistair Hillier, Sandbanks UK, 30/9/2008 11:04

Ha ha. Magical. Yes, I'm sure there's a lot to worry about if you live in Sandbanks.

Anyway, there we are. You don't learn a great deal from the Mail's comments, except that there's a lot more anger towards politicians and the market than you might expect, towards the right as well as the centre-right (supposedly Stalinist) New Labour.

Oh yes. And there are some batshit insane people out there - but we all knew that already.

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