"My father, he was Orange and me mother, she was green" -TraditionalI couldn't let St. Paddy's Day go by without a nod to some of the Isle's recent history. Northern Ireland's violent past was, like many police actions (wars), all at once the news of the world even as images from Belfast were being supressed.
On a side note, I find it an unfortunate literary coincidence that the term "assonance" -- the alliterative rhyming of words based on their sharing the same vowel and/or consonant sounds -- makes Belfast and Beirut ideal poetic companions.
The first Police album I ever purchased -- yes, a vinyl album -- was 1981's "Ghost in the Machine". Despite the first single released in the United Kingdom, Invisible Sun, reaching number 2 on the charts, the BBC banned the video because of its subject matter -- the depiction of the conflict in Northern Ireland -- demonstrating another sad instance of the media acting as government's propaganda arm to choke the release of information.
Here's the video.
2 comments:
Interesting that you ponder "media acting as government´s propaganda arm", especially with the current situation in Tibet. Oooops, only five letters. Am I out of context here?
If we jump back a bit in time we remember the promises of all the big media (CNN, FOX, BBC etc...) on the coverage of the situation in Dafur, Sudan. They promised us continuous address and coverage of the human castatrophe going on there - the worst genocide since WWII. However, as the Janjaweed (radical Islamic) militia pushed their carnage, rape and pillaging into the countryside (out of view of western media), the victims were forgotten. No pics of blood, guts and torture mean less viewers. Advertisers don´t like less viewers, and media doesn´t like less money from advertisers.
I´d be willing to bet that the British government put the tag of immenent domain on almost every photograph or film that came out of N.Eire during that civil war, and only released what made them look good, and brought them cash.
On the other hand, Star Trek Epsiode 52, Season 2, Patterns of Force is STILL forbidden here in Germany. You can´t purchase a copy here, have it shipped in from another country nor broadcast it. Believe it or not, it´s never been shown here! You may, however, purchase the German version of Time/Life books WWII, the SS, Hitler´s War Machine and a bevy of other money making collections. Go figure.
You're right. Your comment about Darfur goes back to what I said in my previous post "Here's Mud In Your I" about it no longer being a breaking story. Although it's an ongoing crisis, there's really nothing new to report so it's unlikely to attract new viewers and subsequently customers for the advertisers.
Post a Comment