Thursday 7 July 2011

You Should Be Ashamed


In free elections you get the politicians you deserve. With a free press you get the papers you deserve.
Here at Great Men headquarters we have often shaken a weary head at the truly pathetic nonsense put out by middle age fear mongers at the Daily Mail, but recent revelations about the News of the World have been staggering and disgusting and a little bit unbelievable. My initial reaction to hearing of it being closed down was the same as most - good riddance and how-about that horrid bloody woman too... but is that really all that should happen?
The NOTW used to have 8 million readers, currently 2 Million. That’s a lot of people handing over hard earned cash to stare voyeuristically over the bedroom antics of footballers, the choreographed despair of war widows and some dozy bird from Braintree’s nipples. It isn’t the only one; virtually all of the red tops carry variations on this theme. Magazines such as Heat and OK seem to consist of nothing other than the same photo of female “celebrities” being derided as being too fat or too thin depending on whether they have a new part in a TV show. And these things fly off the shelves.
The highest rated TV programmes are either watching ordinary people do odd vainglorious things in order to become celebrities or celebrities doing odd vainglorious things to appear ordinary.
We lap it up every day. We love it. We are not innocent. We are to blame. We should be ashamed.
I heard the Lesser Milliband describe the closure of NOTW was due to “people power”. It was our power that created the desire and opportunity to sell other peoples tawdry secrets to us. We should be ashamed.
What is to be done? Our time alive is precious and short. Let’s use it with care and dedication. The world is a wonderful place full of wonderful people. Put the newspaper down. Switch off the TV. Go to the pub, a friend’s house, the park. Pick up a book, start a band, save for that trip you always meant to go on.
Stop giving your time and money to the smut hounds and celebrity no-marks and spend it on yourself. It’ll be awesome I promise.

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