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THREE DAYS LATE AND FIVE DOLLARS SHORT
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BY WAY OF EXPLANATION
Some of yer old pal Jerky's more observant readers have been teasing me about the Daily Dirt's output failing to keep pace with the calendar. There are a number of reasons for this. As some of you may recall, until recently, the Dirt had been stripped of its "daily" status, reduced to publishing between two and three times a week. This went on for nearly a year, during which time I published fewer, but longer, Dirts. Two months ago, when my own, personal Powers That Be agreed to let me go back to a daily schedule, I was stoked.
But I was also rusty. Regardless, I vowed to work my way back up to five Dirts a week, and have succeeded in doing so. In fact, the month of May, 2005, was the first month for which I uploaded a Dirt for every day of the week! True, it took until June 3rd, which could potentially cause problems for future historians, who will no doubt be relying on the Dirt's misdated exegesis for their understanding of our fucked up times. Nevertheless, the archive is complete.
Another difficult thing about writing the Dirt -- perhaps the most difficult thing -- is maintaining an appropriately entertaining tone of bemused disgust, when my real feelings tend more towards shock, grief, horror and outrage. The ever widening chasm between the daily worsening calamity of the current global crisis and what the masochistic lickspittles of America's journalistic establishment are willing to admit is creating a cognitive dissonance powerful enough to air-condition all of Arizona in the middle of July. So you'd better make damn well sure you're grounded before sticking your fingers in there.
For we subject/observers, the task is made all the more difficult by the pervasive, numbing flow of disinformation, misinformation, propaganda and flat-out lies. Our intuitions have been rendered flabby by design, as junk food, junk culture and junk information are rammed down our throats in equal measure. There is no truth so obvious and clear that the Powers That Be aren't willing to challenge it with industry-financed sophistry. No longer content to manufacture consent, the ruling elite are now manufacturing reality; from the contemptuous cheerleading and sneering denial of Fox News, to the unlabeled propaganda of Karen Ryan, to the bought-and-paid-for "opinions" of Armstrong Williams and all the other recipients of misappropriated taxpayola.
Making matters worse, this new layer of filth floats atop an already power-subservient corporate media. The information stream is now so polluted that all who drink from it are risking their minds, their souls, their very lives. The evidence of this -- the hideous results of this dastardly despoilment -- is all around us. It is manifest in the cult-like irrationality of today's conservative movement spokespersons and adherents, and it is manifest in the lunatic lengths to which entrenched True Believers are willing to go in order to avoid having to face up to the obvious.
More on this tomorrow (i.e., two days ago).
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Yer old pal Jerky's Words of Wisdom #266:
Arguing with a fanatic is like doing pushups in quicksand.
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Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky:
jerkyleboeuf@gmail.com
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