“I HAVE, LIKE ALL OF US, THE FEAR THAT THIS WILL NOT END.” (Marta Temido - ministra da saúde de Portugal)
We all feel that in these times a degree of great uncertainty invades us in our lives, it is a reality that we cannot, nor can we stop thinking about. But none of this can surprise us! The reality is that in these times we are increasingly intoxicated by another “pandemic virus”, the one that Mr. Trump, and now his partners and successors that are out there, everywhere, including “wizards in the press and in politics ”, where everyone is an“ expert ”in health and is the true injector of the virus - pseudo-neoliberalism - when postulating that" there is no such thing as society ... "? Nothing that scares us !!! ” The good ones I always saw passing / In the world serious torments; And to amaze me more / The bad ones I always saw swimming / In a sea of contentments. (Luis de Camões)
In our country, as in the whole world, we are facing a war as complicated as the one with an almost invisible virus as an enemy, but with devastating effects on the lives of the people affected by it, and so it would be natural for everyone to concentrate their forces on the its combat, relying on science and scientists and on the leadership of those who fight and govern us, to overcome this new storms, which we must and must overcome. “After a stormy storm, a night shadow and a hissing wind, the morning brings serene clarity, hope of port and rescue. You can't be patient with anyone who does what you don't do. Who does not know art, does not esteem it. ”(Luís de Camões)
In these times, and not only now in the “time of confinement” it is unfortunate as the whole press is focused on what appears to be negative and devalues the very positive that is happening. Every day, we saw with a certain astonishment, the commitment of the “so-called journalists” to make us immerse ourselves in the play they interpret in various movements (danger, disaster, apocalypse tragedy), in a bet on the details to which they give unjustified emphasis, as if the sins of the “smart kids” always ready to take advantage of the peculiarities of the situations to reap the best benefit from them, it is certain that they leave us obtuse, anesthetized, irritated or terrified, according to our degree of permeability and “media literacy”, as they say today, but they do not fail to “directly or indirectly leave the fault of all this” to those who govern us, not recognizing that we all contribute, with our actions and omissions, to this catastrophe that oppresses us and fight. The reality, in which no serious and honest person can dispute that the current pandemic situation, has been accompanied by "a pandemic of false news". Now, against this “pandemic of false news, there is a vaccine - called a critical spirit.” The Portuguese child is excessively alive, intelligent and imaginative. In general, we, the Portuguese, only started to be idiots - when we reached the age of reason. We all have a little bit of genius in small children. ”(José Maria Eça de Queirós)
We do not deny the seriousness of this pandemic, we must realize that the more this obese journalism and with the blindness of the enumeration applies to show less it shows, the more images it provides us the more vision confiscates us, the more it wants to convince us that it touches reality and the truth mostly produces fiction and lies. This journalism of sameness - of the same facts, of the same people and of the same tone - which enacts through the redundancy an illusion of wholeness, puts us before an enigma: journalists do it by genuine conviction, by conviction induced through a coercive mechanism , or without any conviction, but as pragmatic employees? We would learn something useful and more in-depth if they were willing to talk about their profession and the circumstances in which they work other than to sing hymns and celebrate the successes of the institution that employs them. John Maynard Keynes once said of his peers: "Economists are at the wheel of our society, but they should be in the back seat". It is fair and reasonable to think that Keynes was right in 1946, when he made that statement, and continues to be right today. The credits go to him if we say more or less the same of those who are behind the wheel of this journalism that is served to us daily on television (and I haven't even mentioned the newspapers where the vast majority of buyers stopped doing it). And finally, I feel like saying that between the dismay of some and the anguish of others, we risk our lives in the perception of how much we still have to build. Because as they say "Life goes on". And it continues to demand from everyone creativity, resilience and emotional stability to reinvent ourselves every moment, even from home. "Nothing in life has zero risk!" “I know that I am nothing and that I may never have everything. Apart from that, I have all the world's dreams in me. ”(Fernando Pessoa)