Author: Fernando Buen Abad | internet@granma.cu
August 18, 2020 11:08:30 PM
Habits, customs, and traditions (so apparently untouchable in times of "normality") were "derailed" by the enormous force of the health crisis, until today, the largest in history, caused by capitalism. Weddings, birthdays, baptisms, funerals ... rites, processions, or inheritances to which else, were suspended, modified, or postponed under the designs of COVID-19 and all the paraphernalia unleashed by the irrationality of capitalism and its mass media.
Those who, embraced by its dogmas, vowed never to miss the rites of their choice, were left without their mass and without a homily. All the routines were upset. It tentatively "changed" the stream of morning stereotypes executed (sometimes proudly) by parents and children as they start the day and rush into the work or school day. Apparently "changed" the ritual of hygiene and dress, hairstyle, perfume, and greeting. It "changed", momentarily, the "rhythm" of the street, of transportation and of survival among swarms of cars, trains, and motorcycles. Smog and noise pollution "changed". So be it for a season. Has everything changed so that nothing changes?
Wherever there was quarantine, mandatory or voluntary, there were "changes" for likes and dislikes. The entire bourgeois cultural structure suffered an enormous shock. The monstrous routine, manufactured to standardize the exploitation of labor, with its packs of deceptions and daily brainwashing, was noticeably cracked. The stark grotesque of capitalism and its very few usurious owners were exposed. Like in the "Wizard of Oz." This explains the "infodemic" unleashed to mend the fissures of the system and prevent visibility of the transforming social subject. That he does not see the disaster (of which he is an unwitting accomplice) against himself. That the dispossession is not noticed and that it continues to look like progress. That is why they are urged "to return to normality."
Everything stated as invincible, stuttered shaken by the "virus" (of accidental or experimental origin, will we ever know?). Everything that they sold us as immovable was bowed in the sum of infections and deaths. The solid dissolves. The "great truths" of the establishment turned out to be the rubbish of technocrats who, where they swore there was a "lack of resources", magically appeared with cartloads of welfare. Subsidiary emergency state, before social "control", slips out of their hands and bourgeois "rule of law" disappears. Only the fear of contagion contained the masses. Everything else was laid bare. Again. And a "renewed" gale of fallacies was unleashed.
If, as they say, "the truth will set us free" ... it is understood why it is persecuted, disfigured, and prostituted so feverishly in the ideological dungeons of the oligarchies. The tactics and strategies of the media fallacies have been perfected and are mass-produced from the best disguised psychological warfare laboratories. Some are called "newscasts." And they lie to us, tomorrow afternoon and night, under the shelter, even, of companies and governments in "democratic" countries. You have to put an end to that.
The journalism that basks in the consequences and does not explain the causes is missing the truth.
Journalism lacks the truth superimposes its opinion on the evolution of the facts.
The journalism that aligns itself with the agendas of the powerful against the weak is lacking in truth.
Journalism that fattens slander to earn money and / or sympathies is missing the truth.
The journalism determined to flatter top interests and ignore the testimonies of the people is missing the truth.
The journalism that surrenders to "due obedience" in the face of editorial injustices is lacking in truth.
The journalism that puts capital above human beings is missing the truth.
The truth is missing the journalism that loses solidarity with the emancipatory struggles of the peoples.
The journalism that does not denounce the interests of the looting of natural resources of the peoples is missing the truth.
The journalism that is indifferent to the exploitation of workers throughout the world is missing the truth.
We are infected with streams of imprecise statements, with very poor support and close to slander, referring to the current situation in the world and the pandemic. The truth is subjected to an insane economic blockade, subjected to imperial ideological sanctions and demagogic hubbub in defense of bourgeois "freedom of expression." In the news of all kinds, they have manufactured colossal infamies, which do not envy the worst libels in Miami. No informative rigor polls acquired in right-wing sources and a "little bit" of superiority that seems to have forgotten the emergency situation to which humanity is being subjected due to capitalism. Does anyone doubt it?
This "war journalism", also a pandemic, must be repudiated. The clan of global monopolies is already preparing, hundreds of new fake news are in the oven. We will have them early with breakfast. It is very likely that news directors like usurpation and interference, wherever they may be, that they willfully help to deepen the imperial aggression against the human species and that they give a damn about respect for the sovereignty of the peoples and not intervene in the political life of each country, although they disguise it as "international news."
In the current phase of the pandemic (if anyone knows which one to warn) the "information" copies the formats of a press that does not do justice to the best journalistic traditions. On the contrary, it debases them. Let's not be accomplices. Perhaps not much can be done with lines of protest and denunciation, but much is done by not allowing silence to win. Not impunity. We must not accept oligarchic impudence when it exhibits dangerous fallacies as if they were treasured truths. We are the indicated, and indicated, to give a place to the complaint. Take it into account, comment on it, and share it. Banish historical vices and deficiencies in our modes and means of informative production. May silence not win us over.
