Friday, September 15, 2006

Ludicrous Diversions

Home made ‘Truth Seeker’ videos seem to be all the rage at the moment.

This is partly due to the proliferation of broadband but also, I suspect, a lot to do with people being fucked off with the mainstream media and its virtual abandonment of investigative journalism.

Flip on BBC’s Newsnight tonight, or any other night, and see if you can spot any independent journalism amongst all the regurgitated spin, misinformation and repackaged Video News Releases.

But don’t hold your breath whilst you’re doing it.

The Daddie, in terms of circulation anyway, of DIY Truth Seeker video mashups is Loose Change and its take on what happened on 9/11. Personally, I’m not that big a fan. It’s derivative and contains little, if any, original material and it’s so slickly put together I kind of doubt its true DIY cred. Someone coughed up a fair bit of money for its production and distribution and that sets off all sorts of alarm bells ringing in the old noggin.

I mention all of this because I’ve just watched a much more British example of the genre

Ludicrous Diversion – London Bombings Documentary


Which is much more like it.

It’s not badly put together but not as slick as Loose Change

I’ve only played Ludicrous Diversion through once and know biff all about its provenance but nevertheless I’d still recommend it as viable alternative way to spend half an hour rather than watching Newsnight.

Its good points are

  • It covers a fair selection of the salient causes for doubt about the Official Narrative of 7/7
  • Style-wise, it does a very passable impression of an Adam Curtis produced/ narrated documentary, which is always a good thing
  • Unlike the comparable Mind the Gap it doesn’t have ‘former’ intelligence operative David Shayler doing the voice over – once a spook always a spook, eh David?


(cough) Bullshit!


Its not so good points are

  • The producers of all these videos seem to think there’s some kind of prerequisite to rip off or mimick the soundtracks from John Carpenter horror flicks like Halloween or The Thing. Techno Menace appears to be the order of the day. I reckon the soundtrack from Lock Stock would sound a lot trendier
  • I’m not sure that there is very much in the way of a call to action. It’s all very well and good pointing out the inconsistencies of the day and how impotent we all are to do anything about it but what should we do about it. Which, as criticisms go, is pretty rich coming from me
  • There’s way too much in the way of hyperbole, non sequiturs and presentation of opinion as fact which leaves the video way open to a damned good Fisking. There's reference to the ‘murder’ of Jean Charles de Menezes for example. The JCdM business undoubtedly stinks to high heaven but is there evidence of murder? Why not use a term like ‘execution’, which has the same narrative sting but much less open to accusations of misrepresentation?

Preaching to the converted does have its attractions but if your presentation cannot stand up to robust criticism, and features sloppy language that an establishment-supporting pedant would cream his jeans over, it’s not going to win many new converts is it?

Whatever its weaknesses, Ludicrous Diversion is still better than my own attempt at a 7/7 Truth Video; if by virtue of no other fact that it has actually been made.

... and, unlike the output of the mainstream media which is just crafted for passive absorption, it might actually stimulate some critical thought.

No doubt I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and realise that Ludicrous Diversion is just a clever piece of MI5–produced spin and wish I’d never written this post at all.

Ah, the sweet, sweet caress of paranoia. How I love it so.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

useful information blog,very good content.

Bridget said...

Hi Stef

Saw your blog post and comment over on the Postman:

Postman Patel

It's interesting because the discussion that is taking place around what we can do and whether or not there should be a public inquiry is exactly what should be taking place over the blogosphere.

Was this the intention of the film-makers?

I do know who produced the film as I was invited to participate in the production, which I unfortunately failed to follow up.

My blog

Ludicrous Diversion asks the most important question though: What do we do?

The video ends with the most important points. We need a rational discussion of:

The very nature of democracy, the basis of government and the role of the media and police in our soicety today, an objective unbiased analysis of what occurred on 7th July must be made and a rational debate must be allowed to take place.

So, are we able to take up that challenge?

ziz said...

I say fuck the "nature of democracy, the basis of government and the role of the media and police in our soicety today..."

Let's try and find out exactly what happened to cause 7/7. OK LudDiv exposes inconsistencies, lies, etc., which are well known, well documented and deeply discussed.... and some grand work done - especially on the train times, bus maintenance etc.,

Lots of other things amateur sleuths can follow up, a simple one - the bus driver's strange post bus bang 7 mile Odyssey, or why was the bus and scene vacant after 7 minutes ? etc etc.,

The air of mystery surrounding LudDiv and their disinclination to publicly identify themselves only adds to the layers of fog - which they can dispel swiftly and easily.

Anyone got a rational, plausible explanation for their silence on the matter ? Lord Patel will be happily exposed as a madwoman for insisting on seeking their identity.

Of course, if the intention of the fillum was to get the 7/7 'ers bickering and falling out, they have succeeded.... not an unlikely goal of les disinformationsts.

Stef said...

@postman

when you said 'bicker' of course you meant to say 'engage in constructive discourse' ;)

Somre of the comments attached to the video on Google were quite amusing - I particularly enjoyed this one from a true disinfo artist

Oh God, more conspiracy theory videos. If we had an independent inquiry into tje 7/7 bombings all this hysterical nonsense wouldn't fly around the internet.
Conspiracy theorist - someone who disbelives everything they watch on the news but mysteriously believe everything they find on the internet.
Give me strength. I can see that this has upset someone who was there, I wouldn't go so far as to say it should be banned, though. Leave it & laugh.


Presumably that line impugining the veracity of Internet sourced videos doesn't appply to Bin Laden confession videos which are, obviously, all true

more anon...

Bridget said...

28000 odd views in 2 days ain't bad, and surely being viewed by those who have no idea about the lack of evidence.

I've spoken to people who think the video of the 'dummy' run on 28/6 is from the 7th.

Not everyone knows this stuff inside out like some of us here.

One theory is that if they were to 'reveal' themselves we'll have the old shoot the messenger routine.

On the other hand if it's any of the MI's, then this might just backfire on them.

'Viva la revolution' and if this helps wake a few up then all I can say is Well Done.