Day 75. I'm sick and tired of hearing things from uptight short sighted narrow minded hypocrites. (16/3/19)

I started writing about Christchurch. I can't. It's impossible. It's too much. I can't express my opinions on this, can't express my absolute revulsion and utter disgust at the actions of one right wing extremist moron.

The subject is too big, too alien, too incomprehensible. I can't fathom how any soul can carry so much hate that they would deliberately cause the violent deaths of innocent men, women and children  purely for their religious beliefs.

I can't see any way that we improve this world.

But we need to.

And we need to start by trying to find a way to stop the messages of hate being allowed into society by our mainstream media in what they would claim is the 'name of balance' but is in reality the search for sales, for clicks, for advertising revenue.

To soundtrack this, because I need music while I write, I chose my own radio show from 3 years ago, the 'Mad As Hell' episode of 'Songs They Never Play' (I'm not linking it here because that would be crass). I chose it because I knew that every song that I put on that show said then exactly what I need to here now.

John Lennon - Gimme Some Truth

I start the show by saying that I'm sick of the right wing media printing and broadcasting messages that are designed to do nothing but pit us against each other, to make us hate our fellow man, to try and convince us that we should distrust and detest those with whom we happen to be sharing this small piece of rock in an approximately infinite universe for the short bloody time that we're all here.

I said that then. And it refuses to date. In fact, it gets worse.

We ask what radicalises those who carry out terror attacks. And when those carrying out the attacks are of a different skin colour or creed to those that own and run our right wing papers, those papers, those channels, those commentators, are quick to point out their chosen targets.

These papers/channels/commentators look at a religion that builds on peace, highlight extremist views, claims that those minority extremists are representative of the views of a billion and that we should distrust an entire religion.

Hint for you here: the Ku Klux Klan are, by their definitions, christians.

Not by mine, they're not.

Radical Islam no more represents Islam as a whole than Ian Paisley represented the Protestant church that I was brought up in.

The message we're being fed isn't about religion. It's about power. And it's about power staying where power has generally stayed. In the hands of the rich. In the hands of the right. In the hands of those who want nothing mote than money and power.

And they're always on the right.

So when a right wing extremist kills a serving Labour MP, it's not a political act of terror, it's a mentally ill lone wolf. A quiet man, a loner.

When a right wing terrorist writes a manifesto citing the current, appalling, criminal, racist, bigot in charge of the United States of America as a symbol of white supremacy we are confronted with the pages of the Daily Mail leading with questions about what could possibly have caused a formerly 'angelic toddler' to become radical whilst travelling after losing his father.

They attempt to invite sympathy for a man who slaughtered 49 innocent people while at their prayers.

They disgust me. I presume they disgust you as well. I hope they disgust you as well.

These papers, these individuals are a blight to our society. They invite aggression. They provoke and promote murder.

And then pretend they have no part in it.

They are 'merely reporting the news, reflecting the views and interests of their readers'. They have created the views of their readers with decades of lies, spite and bile. They trade on mistrust and suspicion to benefit their owners and shareholders. They create, and then profit from, the misery of those who are unable to have a voice.

And at the same time they give credence to the voices of those who should never be allowed access to an audience in order to spread their hate filled views.

As the old journalistic adage, now long ignored, has it: "If one person says it's raining and another says it isn't, your job is not to present both sides, your job is to stick your head out of the fucking window."

There are too few journalists willing to stick their heads out of the fucking window and too many willing to give airspace to racists in order to hook viewers on 'wacky, zany, individuals'. Controversy is more interesting than truth.

And we need to call out these people:

Tommy Robinson (man of the people with a  £1m house and a £10k Rolex, only uses his real name for his many court appearances. Racist.)

Nigel Farage (man of the people with a private education, a history in merchant banking and an MEP pension that he will happily take despite never having done a productive day's work in that post)

Katie Hopkins. Scum.

Julia Hartley-Brewer. The posh Lidl own label Katie Hopkins.

The Daily Mail

The Express

The Telegraph.

The s*n. Obviously.

The bookers bringing in UKIP members and tory councillors pretending to be ordinary members of the public for BBC Question Time

Sky News

Theresa May - who sent out vans telling 'immigrants' to 'Go Home' in a throwback to old school 70s style racism

Boris Johnson - for every time he opens his upper class, bigoted, privileged mouth. He exists only to offend in a manner guaranteed to push his own brand.

Paul Joseph Watson - an alt right idiot so thick that he uses a Pink Floyd cover as his bio despite the fact that every single member of that band would despise his politics. The right; lacking self awareness since the dawn of time.

Donald Trump. A racist, a bigot, a misogynist, a misanthrope. A piece of dirt. A man who described an incident that saw an actual Nazi kill somebody with a car as 'having good people on all sides'.

That, in the middle of what is currently absolute fury, is an incomplete list of all those whose allegiance only to shock value and the spread of hatred means that they have blood on their hands, however much they may try and escape blame. They incite and inflame the worst in their bigoted followers and then stand back pleading innocence on their own behalf.

An incomplete list of people and institutions that the world would be a better place without.

We need to make the world a better place.

But it might be too late.