Hitchens once told a joke about Noam Chomsky that his dentist told him he had a problem with teethgrinding. Chomsky couldn't understand it, so he was monitored during his sleep. Still no teethgrinding. Chomsky couldn't understand it until one day his wife noticed, that he was grinding his teeth exactly 20 minutes every day, when he was reading the New York Times.
The last days I've been feeling the same way, whenever i read about the Greek and to some extent the French elections. Each and every Danish establishment newspaper I've read had the same angle on it. Some were moderate about it and some just said it straight out.
They all claimed that there was a democratic problem in Greece because people were fleeing from the "moderate" parties and to the extremes. Mostly to the left but some also to the far right giving 21 seats in parliament to the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party. A story that received a lot of attention but that is far from the most important one. The most important being that the voters abandoned the pro austerity/pro Merkel parties because the budget cuts had been tearing the country to pieces. It's like a recipe for disaster and exactly the wrong way of going about solving the economic problems.
The main stream press all had the same attitude towards this. That democracy in Greece was broken and that the voters had better regain their mental balance and seek back towards the centre. Some of the more right leaning papers even said that the same was true for France.
This is of course obvious nonsense and contempt for democracy. What the Greek election really shows, is that their democracy is not as broken as the American for instance, and is capable of bringing systemic change when necessary.
Frankly I'm disgusted by the so called journalism of the main stream press. You could argue that it's not really surprising and I'd have to agree with that, but this show of disrespect for democracy and sucking up to the people interested in keeping status quo is truly amazing.
Hopefully this is just the first of many countries searching for an alternative route to repair the immense structural damage and solve the problems that globalised capitalism is causing
I see global capitalism/economics as a separate but very inter-related issue.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, Loved the post and agree wholeheartedly about media and democracy. Dang shame really. *sigh*
Most people probably grind and clench their teeth from time to time. Occasional teeth grinding, medically called bruxism, does not usually cause harm, but when teeth grinding occurs on a regular basis the teeth can be damaged and other oral health complications can arise. There are nowadays great dental solutions avaliable to stop your teeth grinding problem. Many patients visit India to get their dental treatment done because of the amazing services offered at the Indian dental clinics. They have also shared in their reviews how great and comfortable experience they had there.
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