Are you angry? Are you afraid? Do your fingers ache for the sensation of wrapping around that gilt-edged pitchfork lying in the garden? Does the prospect of stepping outside your door fill you with dread?

If you are not living in a perpetual state of fear and loathing, then clearly you do not read the news often enough. Not that there is anything there in particular that should make you feel that way, but certainly that is the message that the media services are trying to deliver to you.

The latest hilarious episode of this attempted erosion of the cognitive tuition of the masses is yet more bright and bold headlines thrust at us on the subject of 'avian flu'. The merest 159,000 turkeys have been slaughtered to safeguard the public from a terrible and unstoppable plague. A plague that is, that cannot pass between humans, can only be contracted by humans in quite exceptional circumstances, and for which a tried and tested vaccine is readily available.

But for all these facts, the nonsense is sprayed all over the news nonetheless as though in an effort to make otherwise potentially rational individuals quiver in fear and sit on their knees waving their hands in the air in a demonstration of reverance towards the government that has so ably defended us from the impending apocalypse.

The problem is that an increasingly significant percentage of the population are beginning to view such doom-mongering with a sizable brow of cynicism. While this may seem sensible from the perspective of ignoring the stream of half-truths and ill-informities being poured onto our open minds, the point is that someday something of importance may happen that will require us to stand and take action. I am increasingly concerned that when this event occurs, and when the media of this country urge us into action, we will all be very much of the opinion that they have cried wolf just once too often.

The irony is that the media will then lay the blame for whatever resulting tragedy occurs on the apathy of the masses. If that doesn't start the alarm bells ringing, I pity you.

0 message(s) of denial

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