What anyone reading this will wonder is what the purpose of my text is, why am I writing this, and why is my blog page called ironic sincerity, and why is the title damnation? I am writing this because I, like every single asshole on the internet who writes a blog, feels that I have things to say that are in some way better or more important than the things that others have to say. We all, as human beings, in our nature feel that we have a right to be heard, it is a basis of democracy that we have freedom of speech and it is safeguarded by legal protection. It is a step further than this to argue that you have more than a right to be heard, but a reason to be heard. I feel that the reason I deserve to be heard is that the world as it currently operates, is in total and utter chaos. All that holds the world together is coercion and fear, taking over from religion. We are controlled by the media, who tell us not just how to feel, but what to DO. The majority of media outlets are scare-mongering leeches and we only have ourselves to blame.
Every day that you pick up a copy of the News of the World, or the Daily Mail, or the Daily Express, or The Sun, you are committing a sin to humanity. These media outlets don't respect you. Over time they have changed you. It used to be that the United Kingdom was a great nation, and that people were smart, and not cruel, and not violent, and didn't riot on the streets, and didn't bring up children who are cruel and violent, and didn't evade tax, and did have respect for one another. A lot has changed in the last fifty years, and the media can be blamed for speeding up the deterioration of society. It all started when these scandal papers started reporting scandals, and glorifying their news, and searching out new scandals, and trying to embarrass and trying to ruin, and eventually they began to try and create these problems by reporting on stories that were barely worth reporting, but just by reporting and reporting them they create a media circus that they then report on! The whole process is circular, and the media now create hype, create problems, create panic, create fear, drive this fear into your heart, and force you to be a follower of this. And of course you'll follow it, because if you don't you fear that you'll succumb to all the harm that the paper says you will.
So the media are to blame? Not completely. The media now control the way that any person with a position of responsibility acts. It is horrible to watch a publicity stunt, yet they happen every day everywhere. That is why I have called this blog ironic sincerity, because every day we watch the news and we watch sincere people describing what good things they are doing, or defending the bad things they have done to the media, and then the media interpret their actions and mould our opinions on whether we should forgive, forget, agree, disagree, love or hate. Every day the sincerity of a person talking to the media is ironic. Ironic in the sense that they are being sincere for a reason, and this reason is by no means always likely to be one of winning popularity, it is more likely to be an attempt to shift their fear on to somebody else, to shift the blame that the media squares on them to something else, desperately seeking to survive. The reason that the title is Damnation, is twofold. Firstly, I liked the wordplay of Damnation and Damn Nation, and secondly, a lot of what I say is pointing out issues I have, without necessarily providing a remedy, so I may be being a bit of a scrooge, but I don't feel the need to come up with half-ass remedies for things which I don't have the expertise to engage in, so being a scrooge and only damning things is better than trying to be a twat know-it-all when I by no means know it all, or even know-it-most, or even perhaps know-it-more-than-average.
The media does much that is good. My life is enriched by the great work of the BBC, The Guardian, The Observer and the Times. The media have single-handedly held the Government to account when Parliament cannot. Forget the Freedom of Information Act, we have the power of the media, and the media know all and will report all. Anything for a buck.
What I desire is a return to the days in which the media fulfilled this role of reporting, discovering, and holding accountable politicians. I wish that politicians were honest, reliable, trustworthy and respectful, but to be honest, nobody knows what they are anymore because they all have had to shape themselves in to an image which the media will be happy to portray to us all, as the media have the power to win them their seat or lose them their seat. It is a worrying place that we are in right now.
So what do I hope to achieve and what is the plan from here on in?
I would like to be a politician in the future. In two years I should begin working as a lawyer, and hopefully this is a job I will cherish for not just years, but decades. If this isn't the case, or if I am lucky enough to reach 40 and still feel that I can make a difference and want to make a difference then it could be something I could do. If I was ever to become a politician it would be in my home state of Northern Ireland.
Currently I vote for the SDLP in Northern Ireland and would align myself with many of their general aims. They are a party sunken in the mire of Northern Irish politics, finding themselves squeezed in, desperate for a new 'niche', desperate for a purpose, desperate for an edge. Sinn Fein have captured the nationalist voice. The DUP represent the majority of Unionists. The UUP have a new aura of life through their alliance with the Tories. The TUV have emerged as a more hardline version of the DUP. The SDLP stand firm as the voice of the middle class nationalist, but as Sinn Fein target the middle classes more and more, the role of the SDLP diminishes. What is amazing about this picture is that it is incomprehensibly and insanely skewed. No other country suffers from the same problem that exists in Northern Irish politics. The problem is that of policy. Northern Irish citizens barely care about the policies of the parties, but care only about what the ideology of the party is and what they generally 'represent'.
THE CITIZENS OF NORTHERN IRELAND SUFFER FROM THIS MYTH. THEY HAVE BEEN BROUGHT UP ON A DIET OF PARTITION, RELIGIOUS DIVISION, HATRED, AND POLITICAL SPIN.
WHAT IS NEEDED IS A PARTY THAT RESPECTS THE CITIZENS OF NORTHERN IRELAND BY PUTTING POLICY TO THE FORE. PARTIES ARE IDENTIFIED BY WHAT THEY WANT TO HAPPEN TO NORTHERN IRELAND IN TERMS OF ITS STATUS AS PART OF THE UK OR PART OF THE ISLAND OF IRELAND, NOT BY WHAT THEY WANT TO DO TO NORTHERN IRELAND.
