The Entertainment Media Effect on Mood

Last night, after supper, I settled in to watch TV. First an interesting documentary on Bob Dylon listening to lyrics of his songs and his opinions on life, where I was impressed with the words, and heard the voice of a prophet more than a folk singer - but them folk singers are modern prophets by accident or design.

Then I watched a crime drama called Grace. It started out well and I was taken in by the beauty of the actors and their apparent "integrity". It was a very professional production but what chilled my heart was the absolute cynicism of all the major characters, other than the cops who were trying to find the missing man.

SPOILER ALERT! A woman (who is stunningly beautiful) reports her fiancé is missing and their wedding is scheduled in the next week. She is frantically worried and upset. The main character, DS Roy Grace, sets out to find the man along with another cop. 

The backdrop:  a newspaper has written a scathing report on Grace because he has visited psychics.  He is portrayed as a flake. His chief threatens to fire him because  in her view, this shames the whole department, however he has one chance to keep his job - find the missing man.

Scene open to a group of men on a stag mission for the would-be groom. They are drunk and loud. They drive to a park using a stolen car. The groom is blindfolded, carried to an open casket in a grave. They throw the man inside, put the lid on and nail it down. Is this supposed to be a prank? The groom inside panics and struggles to breath until a small hole is drilled to let air in. 

The party friends get back in the car  and drive off.

Grace goes back to division to try and find out more informations so the groom can be found. There are a couple more visits from the bride-to-be, desperate, frantically demanding the cops find him. There is a small team now. And the chief, notably a woman among men, criticizes the team and demands that they find the missing man, or they lose their jobs. The chief shows no compassion, concern or support for anyone, just get the job done and close the case.

In all scenes we are confronted with anger, fear and greed. There is no sign of empathy or compassion. It's all about winning. Everyone is aggressive and nasty while the program reveals other brutal characters: another man is shown cutting off the finger of the groom. 

Also every one in the script is interested only in themselves. A world of fast cars, money, anger, brutality in short scenes.

The program was about an hour and a half and with each revelation my stomach gets harder. I know it's a TV show that will keep viewers watching. There is no human soul, only apartments, homes, sculptured gardens, offices, fast moving vehicles and good looking actors.

I am so filled with rage in my gut but I decide to watch it to the end. I  wondered why since I knew of this kind of plot.

There are wars happening where ordinary people are being systematically killed in a bid for more power whose people are imprisoned for expressing their opinion. The daily news is a list of victims and killers. Our news-world has been silenced when efforts are made to humanize structures of government.

"Geopolitical tensions and international conflicts may be tragic for those caught up in conflagrations such as in Ukraine — but advantageous for those seeking to legitimize expanding military and security budgets and open up new opportunities for capitalist profit-making in the face of chronic stagnation and social discontent." Truthout/Global Capitalism Has Become Dependent On War Making to Sustain Itself?

Oh and the big reveal is the whole plot was designed by the bride-to-be. Is this programming another attempt to appease hegemonic capitalism?

Must love and life be trashed so thoroughly for capitalism to survive? Must we all see living creatures as evil? Or if not all life, must the feminine be seen as manipulative?

Where does entertainment end and propaganda begin?

Mother's Day Proclamation for Peace by Julia Ward Howe

 

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!… We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” ~Julia Ward Howe, 1870  

https://peacealliance.org/history-of-mothers-day-as-a-day-of-peace-julia-ward-howe/

How to Win

Hold yourself to yourself

care for those who need care

no matter what violence rules the media pages

be aware but don't let it become you

think of the people who helped you survive

and who gave you emotional support during difficult times

use words only to be kind and help heal this planet 

battered by egos who have lost their own self esteem

be gentle with yourself

be gentle and generous with those you love

surround yourself with groups, people, actions 

who make you feel good in the deepest part of you

After you die your ego will disappear 

and your possessions

will be a problem for others to take care of 

The first thing you possess is yourself

Take care of it.

The next thing is your family and friends 

although you can't control them, care for them.

Truthout: Giroux - Nonstop Corporate News on Ukraine

 

The U.S. public is being fed continuous nonstop images of technologically sophisticated weapons being used in Ukraine — in effect this appears to function as a sort of advertisement for the weapons industry, coupled with the sensational presentation of gratuitous violence. Within this militarized aesthetic, operating in the service of permanent war, as cultural critic Rustom Bharucha writes, “there is an echo of the pornographic in maximizing the pleasure of violence.” The corporate media are thus rendering war as riveting, emotional and free from demanding intellectual complexities since it emerges out of an either/or view of good and evil. 

Henry Giroux https://truthout.org/articles/nonstop-corporate-news-on-ukraine-is-fueling-support-for-unchecked-us-militarism/? Truthout

They’re going to hear from me.

 

This title is a line in Leonard Cohen's "Anthem". Today I am thinking about the meaning and wisdom in  this song.

As well as the music being sublime the words are a gift to someone like me who keeps questioning and searching for ways to respond to the changing health of our society.

When I wake to the sound of birds singing I am reminded of other voices within this choir of sentient observers. 

Yes they have a message for me - the sun has risen and yesterday is gone. It's a new day - it will not be the same as the day before.

Wars are fought again, the holy dove is snatched away and never free. Why that is I can't say, it makes me sad, I grieve, but there are things I can do.

I ring the bells by supporting the fragile hearts of kin and neighbour.

The crack in everything brings new ideas until I die. However the promise of new birth and new marriage lasts only a few years. For example the marriage of ego and conscience requires effort.

The singer cannot join the march to kill, to carry weapons. Yes I know the idea of living in peace keeps collapsing into jeers even though our world would be better if we had worked out how to live in peace. More than a statement of belief it is a reminder that we have work to do.

Their prayers said out loud defy their values and their actions. Anger builds every generation and every century. My rage sits in my belly like burning coal.

But I will not be silent, not complacent. I am not on side with the strategists who design war. I do not want war, not the philosophical rationalization for killing which is irrational.

The question of what I would do if someone pointed a loaded gun at me or one of my loved ones is not relevant. Wars are planned and invested in. I cannot control the gunman who hasn't yet visited. All I know is that violence creates mental illness.

This is the crack in everything, the blast that tells me a new habit must be found if I am to survive. If this planet is to survive.

The parts do not give us the sum.  We find the drum and our thoughts shall march until we die. Because new hearts to love take me back to caring. We are all refugees in systems created by scheming conceit and the worship of power.

I shall keep writing, ringing the bells that will crack because there is a crack even where I cannot see it. As long as I can I shall write, speak, sing and love.

Thank you Leonard Cohen for creating this song.

Song of the Murderer

 

After the great destruction when everything

is dead as rock, and the great warrior

can brag “I DID THIS! THIS! WAS MY DOING

NO ONE ELSE WILL KNOW EXCEPT ME”

He shall fly away to another planet

to build a monument there “ALL MY CHILDREN

AND ALL THEIR CHILDREN

AND THEIR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN

SHALL KNOW I AM THE PROGENITOR

OF ALL EXISTING LIFE!”

You may wonder how

without the egg for his seed

but you must remember

the ego does not always require

truth or science.

I Am Hate

 

I conquered the world

killed off the dinosaurs

Neantherthals

the Hobits, the Asians

the Indo-Europeans

I silenced women

burned them at the stake

I owned the uterus

displayed breasts on a plate

killed the spirit

crushed the dreams

the artists and flutists

I took in the worship

claimed it for myself

cut out tongues 

murdered babies and children

silenced the dawn when I starved the world

of trees and leaves and flowers

when I flooded the fields with oil

built banks with no money

everything destroyed in jealousy

only I shall be worshipped

it has taken millions of years

to achieve and now everything belongs 

to me!

Just because the world is here for everyone

" We have a truth crisis all right. But it is much deeper and wider than we care to admit. Perhaps the biggest lie of all is that the crisis is confined to the Kremlin’s falsehoods and the far right’s conspiracy theories. On the contrary, it is systemic and almost universal." George Monbiot https://www.monbiot.com/2022/04/03/organised-lying/

And I live on this planet, in this civilization, I have friendships and family who live here, so I would like to add my own perceptions.

The labelling and organizing of people could do with being updated. It's well known that some of us are called, Canadian, white, female, young, old, rich and poor. However, I have observed different people who deserve to be recognized, that I hope will help us move away from hegemonic abuses.

Russia is a big country and powerful too, but I don't think it gives the ruler the right to wipe out the people of other countries. Neither do I think it's right for America to choose the side they want and the side to bomb, torture and destroy. I don't think war is just. It always punishes the vulnerable, unarmed people who did not choose to go to war.

It seems that war is a way to kill off the poor, the women and children, the people who don't have a big stake in the outcome beyond their survival.

It's not justice that is on trial in war, it's power. The children and infants in Ukraine are traumatized while they have no defences. Surely we can see that war only benefits the powerful, the offices that are looking for more money, weapons, status in war is leverage to rule. The number of dead bodies laying on the ground rotting is a win for those who think this planet is here for their aggrandizement, their place in history, their seat on the council.

This is the way governments have been run since the establishment of patriarchy. There's peace for awhile, then it slips to wealth and power. The fights within each territory take power away from the arts, public health and justice as it becomes less human and more monstrous, as the most powerful are celebrated and the most invisible become the battered.

Human civilizations throughout centuries of suffering and glorification have imprisoned those at the bottom, while worshipping those at the top. The trauma we all feel when there is so much suffering creates the habit to cause even more pain.

Now our "leaders" can't find the way to protect the planet. Several dystopian scenarios in literature and film have given us ideas of just how bad things can get. Now some people believe there is no hope for the future. It's too late. Humanity is one big sick puppy. Amen.

This belief alone will make the children sick. Kindness, love, celebration, art, music are trumped by computer games where the goal is to find the single winner. 

Cruelty is not the natural way, it's the way of elitism that seeks to train its young to be hardened, brutal and ignorant of itself.

Nihilism is the ghost of despair, the offspring of war, the defeat of an overwhelmed spirit.

Just listening to the Current report on sexual violence during war and using rape as a weapon. Now I feel an urge to emphasize emotional wellness and how the mind is raped to the extent that feelings are the first to be made illegal in hyper-masculine situations. How the soldiers are puppetized on the battle field. How war becomes THE WAR against the feminine aspect of life including life itself. Nature, trees, plants, birds, pigs and cows are all objects of hate. 

The reason for war is not just a chosen enemy but systems at risk of losing their power by humans becoming aware of their sensitivity and realizing the only way they can control the world is by torturing life to death.

Predator & Prey

 

Predator & Prey

Naivete, idealism, preach me

to think and think too much

the question

is there ever an end to the cruelty

of those who insist

we are civilized?

13 bodies on a stretch

of Ukraine claiming victory

crushing children by rubble

that once was a home

and builders turned into killers

curbing the gay part of humanity

a nature that loves others

as much or more

than itself

the self unknown slathered

with jingles as if we are the predator

and prey.

Fear and Anger

Fear and Anger

Is there a second to inhale and exhale

between the threat and the attack?

Is there a thought between

empathy and hope

us and them

today and tomorrow

life and death

fire and water?

Which death would you prefer

drowning or burning

at what point would you cease to be

human?

What makes you feel vulnerable

your mind or your heart?

Who started the arms race

the king or the crocodile

whose hunger was a constant threat?

Why do I waste words on the past

when the present urgently

asks me to do something?

Because I always thought

a problem can be solved

and will be solved

in death or love?

I just happen to prefer love.