Manifesting Political Destiny?

“You know, if you were to take everything in the UK’s right-wing media at face value, then you’d think that we were living in some kind of third world Hell hole, with a collapsing economy, crumbling infrastructure, and drug-ravaged cities overrun by violent, mostly foreign, criminals,” ponders media analyst Leo Fracetti at the launch of his new book, Manifesting Media, which makes the startling claim that Britain’s media is actually trying to somehow manifest into reality the dystopian vision of the country they peddle to the public on a daily basis.  “Either that, or you’d think that we were living in some kind of police state, with your right to hurl racist insults in the name of free speech, being severely curtailed by a dictatorial government led by the reincarnation of Josef Stalin!” Step outside of your front door however, Fracetti points out, and everything looks very different.  In fact, he claims, it all looks much the same as it has for the past few decades.  “People aren’t being murdered in their beds on an hourly basis, women aren’t being raped in broad daylight in shopping centres by foreign infidels and people aren’t offering you drugs on every street corner,” he notes.  “Hospitals, courts, schools etc still function, buses and trains still run (albeit usually late, but what’s new?) and the bins are still collected (except maybe in Birmingham, where the council is apparently still in dispute with its own refuse collectors).  Certainly, prices are up, (but inflation is historically something of a national institution in the UK), much of the public sector is badly underfunded, but still functions, crimes still occur and the police are as ineffective as ever, but none of this is indicative of the sort of end-of-civilisation scenario painted by the press.”

Most of what currently ails Britain is the result of government policies – primarily the economic mismanagement of fourteen years of Tory governments and the disaster of Brexit, which has undermined the UK’s economy, Fracetti argues.  “Of course, if there was still a Tory government in office, all of these things could be happening, but the right-wing media wouldn’t be framing it the same way.,” he opines. “No, it would all be the fault of the victims, be they the unemployed, the poor, immigrants, single mothers, the disabled, or whoever, not the government.  But as we have a Labour government in office, it is instead all evidence of an impending apocalypse brought about by the government’s determination to punish the Daily Mail reading middle classes by flooding the country with murderous immigrants, cutting public services and turning the police into the Gestapo, unreasonably expecting them to enforce the law, particularly traffic law and public order laws, regardless of whether you are middle class or not!”

Consequently, day in, day out, the press print hysterical headlines along the lines of ‘Asylum seekers ate my Granny’ or ‘My daughter was raped by a coke crazed one-legged transsexual benefits claimant wearing a turban’, seemingly in the hope that if they keep imposing their false vision of the state of the UK on the public then they can actually force its physical manifestation.  “They hope to be able to create a false perception in the minds of the public that this is the Britain that really exists,” Fracetti insists. “Their belief is that if a sufficient number of people believe that it exists, then it they will, in effect, will this reality into existence, with the hope than once it manifests, people will blame the government and vote Tory or even Reform. Then, once they have an extreme right-wing government in power, the media magnates will have their outlets reverse course and start promoting an idyllic paradise for their readers, listeners and viewers to manifest, in order to hide the ugly reality of a crypto-fascist regime.”

But what can be done to counter this propaganda war aimed at creating sort of new reality which will have people running into the arms of Nigel Farage for protection, (although why anyone would think that some drunken old racist could protect them from armies of homicidal foreign brigands is a mystery)? “Obviously, it’s pointless trying to create an alternative, competing, vision via the media, with most of the press in the hands of wealthy right-wing bastards,” muses Fracetti. “You just wouldn’t be able to reach a large enough body of the population in order to manifest a different reality that would be able to neutralise the apocalyptic right-wing vision.” One political commentator believes that the government might already have put in motion a radical response in order to manifest a more favourable reality.

“Over the past few weeks, a significant number of Tibetan Buddhist monks have been seen arriving in the UK via official RAF flights,” notes Stan Gubby, Parliamentary Correspondent for the Daily Norks. “There have also been reports of some form of rhythmic chanting being heard coming from Number Ten Downing Street, alongside rumours of Tibetan monks being seen going in through the back door in dead of night!” Speculation is rife that the monks are from a remote monastery in Tibet where they have mastered the ability, through intense mental training to, through meditation, manifest Tulpas – unreal beings who have the appearance and substance of real humans.  “Apparently, the idea is that if they can individually do that, then surely, en masse, they could manifest a whole new reality,” explains the journalist. “But, just to make out sure, they are also getting them to train groups of Labour staffers in the meditation technique, so that they can reinforce the projection of this new reality.” The government isn’t planning to create this reality in all of its detail, claims Gubby, instead creating a thought form version of it so powerful, that it could supplant the Daily Mail inspired version from the public’s minds.  It wouldn’t even have to be some kind of projection of a false paradise, senior ministers apparently believe, just a powerful projection of how things really are.  “OK, I know it all sounds utterly fantastical,” concedes Gubby. “But Hell, we’re living in an age where Donald Trump is US President, imposing fascism on his country and trying to buy or steal Greenland, so, to be frank, anything must be possible!”