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| Arthur Streeton |
Conspiracy theories abounded. The masses became the targets, husbanded by military craftsman.
The remnant whites were corralled onto the housing estates and sprayed with pesticide, the so-called "ice epidemic".
The lieutenants paraded in their faux uniforms, their chests puffed out with self-importance, the illusions of power the assignment gave them.
Blunders, as always in this clandestine world, went unpunished.
No reason, when the job was done, not to blunder on to the next fiasco. It was all government funding. There was no consequence for failure.
The mortals and the divines moved from one surveillance stream to another. Their interests, survival, sometimes colluded, briefly.
Old Alex, after a lifetime as a journalist, followed the grotesque levels of manipulation of the mainstream media. There was no way it could have collapsed in integrity and foresight so quickly, except through the deliberate dumbing down of entire populations.
Nobody questioned anymore the country's slowly collapsing standards of living. The moronic nature of public discourse. The outlandish military adventurism, The tens of thousands dead.
The Vietnam era was long vanquished.
There were no protests at the dying poor, or for those killed by Australian bombs in the far-off Middle East.
He watched the rise of the so-called "alt-right" in the alternative media of podcasts and relatively cheap video broadcasts. Rebel Media.
He watched the refugee sceptics, the climate sceptics, those who doubted the lunar feminist pogroms, the war sceptics. Anyone who doubted the government narrative. Who knew that it had all become a lie.
That the left, once the symbol of progressive compassion, had descended into a totalitarian movement.
Those who preached diversity had become the most intolerant of all.
Old Alex knew his activities were reported back to the left-leaning outlet for whom he occasionally did assignments.
Any breath of someone who questioned the global warming hysteria, or unalloyed good of mass migration, was anathema to them. He followed the strands. They thought he didn't know.
Humans were a profoundly stupid, profoundly deluded species. Easily altered. Ultimately malleable. It was remarkable they had survived this long.
The media had become entirely manipulated; and those who thought they held the levers of power would do their best to destroy any sign of independent thought.
Ironically, perhaps, in the march of group think that characterised the era, slagging off Donald Trump had become a signal of intellectual superiority.
God save us all.
If you only tell one side of the story, your credibility collapses. People distrust you. They turn off.
And thus, in the wider world with which he was fascinated, the media itself, obsessed as it was by celebrities and click-bait and its assigned task of dumbing down the population, lost all credibility. Leaving the government the only source of information.
The flaw in their theory was that the government had lied so often to so many people, that it, too, had lost credibility. At the same time as destroying its traditional means of communicating with the public, the media.
And so they stumbled forward into a revolt.
There were only pockets of resistance left.
Military imagery abounded.
The operatives, foot soldiers, had thought, and told their bosses thus, that they had won the battle. That opponents to the zeitgeist, the prevailing orthodoxy, had been intimidated into compliance. All would be well. They would achieve their aim, an entirely controlled population.
Not found in nature. Harry Potter. Those who preached magic must be banned.
Incompetent surveillance was worse than no surveillance at all. There were sweetheart deals between the agencies and the media companies. They spied on journalists as if they were the enemy, a threat to the nation. To hegemony.
Because ideas were a threat to the prevailing orthodoxy, to which they were slaves.
"My hands are tied," said one frustrated Watcher on the Watch.
The agencies reported their version of events, filmed by ignorance, illiteracy and malice.
The media became an instrument in power. Not as, at least in theory or fantasy, a fourth column which spoke truth to power.
And journalists, independent minded journalists, had in a twinkling become a threat to that power. And therefore Enemies of the State.
It was a farce. The surveillance produced a demoralised stream banked by rabbit holes. For all that you got from someone who knew they were under surveillance was yet more information on how people behave when they know they are under surveillance. Entirely useless data.
"Lock him up," they could whisper to themselves. "Throw away the key."
Or: "I could put a bullet through his brain."
A lazy bullet which would solve that particularly annoying problem. And make the young soldier a strutting hero, for a day.
They were so young. They would never escape their own limited natures. He ran a finger across their throats, almost with fondness, they were so cute, these fleshly worms.
And stepped behind the veil.
THE BIGGER STORY:
President Trump: Well, actually I just called for a total ban on Syria and from many different countries from where there is terror, and extreme vetting for everyone else – and somebody told me yesterday that close to 2,000 people are coming who are really probably troublesome. And I am saying, boy that will make us look awfully bad. Here I am calling for a ban where I am not letting anybody in and we take 2,000 people. Really it looks like 2,000 people that Australia does not want and I do not blame you by the way, but the United States has become like a dumping ground.
Look at what has happened in Germany. Look at what is happening in these countries. These people are crazy to let this happen. I spoke to Merkel today, and believe me, she wishes she did not do it. Germany is a mess because of what happened.
Prime Minister Turnbull: So you have the wording in the Executive Order that enables the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State to admit people on a case by case basis in order to conform with an existing agreement. I do believe that you will never find a better friend to the United States than Australia. I say this to you sincerely that it is in the mutual interest of the United States to say, "yes, we can conform with that deal - we are not obliged to take anybody we do not want, we will go through extreme vetting" and that way you are seen to show the respect that a trusted ally wants and deserves. We will then hold up our end of the bargain by taking in our country 31 [inaudible] that you need to move on from.
You want to know all Trump has to do to understand how badly we’ve lost in Afghanistan? Get the Air Force to carry him over there and fly along the route from Kabul to Kandahar, or Kabul to Jalalabad, and have a look at the roads.
It sounds weird, doesn’t it? Saying the whole thing boils down to roads? But roads are absolutely essential to any functioning country. You’ve got to be able to get from one place to another without dying . . .
I’ve got an idea. Congress appropriates all those tax dollars of ours we’re wasting in Afghanistan. How about flying all 535 members of Congress and the Senate over to Kabul and giving them each a scooter and a full tank of gas and a couple of gallons of water and turn them loose...
Let ‘em have an up close look at a country that looks for mile after mile like it hasn’t recovered from a nuclear holocaust... Let ‘em stop and have a word or two with some locals and hear how much they love the way we’ve gone about solving their problems with drones, smart bombs and M240 machine gun bullets. Let ‘em choke on the desert dust and the smoke from charcoal stoves and the pollen of a kazillion billion trillion poppies. And let ‘em try — the whole congressional mob of them — let ‘em try to find a single outlet outside of Kabul to charge their goddamn cell phones. Just one.
We have no business remaining there for one more minute.
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