This post was inspired by Steven D’s wonderful recent post I was a Stranger in a Strange Land. In it he describes his reaction when forcibly confronted by the TV-driven disinfo system of America after a long absence from its clutches.
Bread and Circuses.
Or in our case, Burger King and CNN.
He found it shocking.
Me too, only I have been there more regularly than has he. Been there, seen that.
Too MUCH of that.
I travel a lot. Fairly low level. Motel 6 style. The dues we pay to perform real art.
Motel 6 TV.
MAINSTREAM TV.
Bet on it.
Mass hypnosis.
Mass disinformation.
WMDs.
Weapons of Mass Delusion.
Bigger and better than ANY previous disinfo systems.
Harder to escape than Roman Catholic religious training at a young age.
Or Communist/Nazi training at a similar age.
Read on for more.
And remember…the mass media IS the enemy. The face of the enemy.
Its names…and faces…are legion.
NEWSTRIKE!!!
It is the ONLY way.
From the Gospel of Mark. Jesus meets one who is possessed. (All following emphases mine.)
5:2. And as he went out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the monuments a man with an unclean spirit,
5:3. Who had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man now could bind him, not even with chains.
5:4. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame him.
5:5. And he was always day and night in the monuments and in the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones.
5:6. And seeing Jesus afar off, he ran and adored him.
5:7. And crying with a loud voice, he said: What have I to do with thee, Jesus the Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God that thou torment me not.
5:8. For he said unto him: Go out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
5:9. And he asked him: What is thy name? And he saith to him: My name is Legion, for we are many.
And:
4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
4:7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
4:8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Now I am not pounding religion per se here…I believe that ALL successful religions are at their root attempts to make clear by the use of metaphor the vast workings of the universe on a scale small and simple enough to be understood by mankind in general.
And to me these two quotations above pertain directly to the situation that is at hand here.
“My name is Legion?“
We have thousands upon thousands of news outlets and cultural bridles/blinders…network series, movies, advertisements…that relentlessly hypnotize Americans into obedience to the norms set up by the corporate ruling class.
“Get thee behind me, Satan?”
” It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve?”
The answer?
NEWSTRIKE!!!
The ONLY way to put that devil behind you.
“Devil” you may say? Who…or what forces that could conveniently be summed up by the use of a metphorical Satan…do YOU think that they are serving?
More material for thought regarding the general hypnotic effect of the media on our minds? Even those of the best and brightest among us?
Read Mr. Chomsky.
THEY provide the context
Thus they control the thought.
HE knows.
On Iran, Iraq, the Democrats and Climate Change
An Interview with Noam Chomsky February 22, 2007
Some quotes. (Emphasis mine.):
They made a very substantial agreement in September 2005 in which North Korea agreed to eliminate its enrichment programs and nuclear development completely. In return the United States agreed to terminate the threats of attack and to begin moving towards the planning for the provision of a light water reactor, which had been promised under the framework agreement. But the Bush administration instantly undermined it. Right away, they canceled the international consortium that was planning for the light water reactor, which was a way of saying we’re not going to agree to this agreement. A couple of days later they started attacking the financial transactions of various banks. It was timed in such a way to make it clear that the United States was not going to move towards its commitment to improve relations. And of course it never withdrew the threats. So that was the end of the September 2005 agreement.
That one is now coming back, just in the last few days. The way it’s portrayed in the U.S. media is, as usual with the government’s party line, that North Korea is now perhaps a little more amenable to accept the September 2005 proposal. So there’s some optimism. If you go across the Atlantic, to the Financial Times, to review the same events they point out that an embattled Bush administration, it’s their phrase, needs some kind of victory, so maybe it’ll be willing to move towards diplomacy. It’s a little more accurate I think if you look at the background.
—snip—
Viewpoints and very accurate analysis that I GUARANTEE you will not hear on mass media outlets of ANY kind.
Chomsky: There are several issues in the case of Iran. One is simply that it is independent and independence is not tolerated. Sometimes it’s called successful defiance in the internal record. Take Cuba. A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it too. But the government won’t allow it. It’s attributed to the Florida vote but I don’t think that’s much of an explanation. I think it has to do with a feature of world affairs that is insufficiently appreciated. International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience otherwise the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders and it can spread to important places.
If you look back at the record, what was the main reason for the U.S. attack on Vietnam? Independent development can be a virus that can infect others. That’s the way it’s been put, Kissinger in this case, referring to Allende in Chile. And with Cuba it’s explicit in the internal record. Arthur Schlesinger, presenting the report of the Latin American Study Group to incoming President Kennedy, wrote that the danger is the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, which has a lot of appeal to others in the same region that suffer from the same problems. Later internal documents charged Cuba with successful defiance of U.S. policies going back 150 years to the Monroe Doctrine — and that can’t be tolerated. So there’s kind of a state commitment to ensuring obedience.
Going back to Iran, it’s not only that it has substantial resources and that it’s part of the world’s major energy system but it also defied the United States. The United States, as we know, overthrew the parliamentary government, installed a brutal tyrant, was helping him develop nuclear power, in fact the very same programs that are now considered a threat were being sponsored by the U.S. government, by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kissinger, and others, in the 1970s, as long as the Shah was in power. But then the Iranians overthrew him, and they kept U.S. hostages for several hundred days. And the United States immediately turned to supporting Saddam Hussein and his war against Iran as a way of punishing Iran. The United States is going to continue to punish Iran because of its defiance. So that’s a separate factor.
And again, the will of the U.S. population and even US business is considered mostly irrelevant. Seventy five percent of the population here favors improving relations with Iran, instead of threats. But this is disregarded. We don’t have polls from the business world, but it’s pretty clear that the energy corporations would be quite happy to be given authorization to go back into Iran instead of leaving all that to their rivals. But the state won’t allow it. And it is setting up confrontations right now, very explicitly. Part of the reason is strategic, geo-political, economic, but part of the reason is the mafia complex. They have to be punished for disobeying us.
More on media cooperation:
Chomsky: Oh they’re there. There’s a constant stream of abuse and attack by the government and therefore the media, who are almost reflexively against Venezuela. For several reasons. Venezuela is independent. It’s diversifying its exports to a limited extent, instead of just being dependent on exports to the United States. And it’s initiating moves toward Latin American integration and independence. It’s what they call a Bolivarian alternative and the United States doesn’t like any of that.
This again is defiance of U.S. policies going back to the Monroe Doctrine. There’s now a standard interpretation of this trend in Latin America, another kind of party line. Latin America is all moving to the left, from Venezuela to Argentina with rare exceptions, but there’s a good left and a bad left. The good left is Garcia and Lula, and then there’s the bad left which is Chavez, Morales, maybe Correa. And that’s the split.
In order to maintain that position, it’s necessary to resort to some fancy footwork. For example, it’s necessary not to report the fact that when Lula was re-elected in October, his foreign trip and one of his first acts was to visit Caracas to support Chavez and his electoral campaign and to dedicate a joint Venezuelan-Brazilian project on the Orinoco River, to talk about new projects and so on. It’s necessary not to report the fact that a couple of weeks later in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which is the heart of the bad guys, there was a meeting of all South American leaders. There had been bad blood between Chavez and Garcia, but it was apparently patched up. They laid plans for pretty constructive South American integration, but that just doesn’t fit the U.S. agenda. So it wasn’t reported.
—snip—
You can’t mention Hezbollah in the U.S. media without putting in the context of “Iranian-supported Hezbollah.” That’s its name. Its name is Iranian-supported Hezbollah. It gets Iranian support. But you can mention Israel without saying US-supported Israel. So this is more tacit propaganda. The idea that Hezbollah is acting as an agent of Iran is very dubious. It’s not accepted by specialists on Iran or specialists on Hezbollah. But it’s the party line. Or sometimes you can put in Syria, i.e. “Syrian-supported Hezbollah,” but since Syria is of less interest now you have to emphasize Iranian support.
There is more.
LOTS more.
Read it.
Chomsky…a hard read, admittedly…is ALWAYS worth the effort.
ANYONE who survives the nightmare of the academic/industrial complex and can still accurately state the plain fact that the U.S. is simply using Mafia neighborhood tactics on a grand scale is worth your attention.
Bet on it.
AG
Let’s talk.
ANYTHING to separate ourselves from those damned screens!!!
AG
My wake up call came only as a result of an expat assignment. That was over ten years ago. Since then I have walked the earth as a man without a country. I like it when others see that same things I started to see years ago. Really try some of the “conspiracy” sites, true you have to filter out tons but for sure the viewpoints are there, hey, it’s better than head shaving and blonde bimbos on silicon.
http://www.globalresearch.ca
http://www.augustreview.com
http://www.projectcensored.org
I had an excellent media course in business school so I can even classify the ads into their specific propaganda categories!
Yup.
Exposure to a less hypnotized sopciety can certainly rip those blinders right off, can’t it?
AG
Another reminder of what a good education I got from grade school. We did a section on propoganda and advertising. They had us study comercials to classify the type of propoganda used. I don’t remember many of the terms, but it still does make me more aware of its existence.
I LOVE the biblical references to highlight what our mass media is doing to us. That is the beauty of religon and literature. It can be used to explain eternal themes of human nature again and again.
So what do you think the odds are this time that South America can finally break the yoke and create a true, sustainable Bolivarian alternative?
Odds?
Pretty good, in a limited sense.
Almost the entire Third World is in uprising on one level or another, and as a result the U.S. has too few fingers to plug the various leaks in the economic imperialist dikes that it has built to stem the angry tide of the 90% of the earth’s people who presently enjoy about 10% of its goods and profits.
The Islamic world, the nascent tech powers like China and India, the whole of South/Central/Caribbean America in some sense…only poor, fucked Africa is not at present in a position to fight at any of the many levels on which this uprising is being waged.
Most of Europe is going to sit this dance out, as well.
Japan too.
So it’s the primarily the U.S against all of Asia, all of the rest of the Americas and all of Islam. And don’t forget Kleptocratic Russia.
Pretty bad odds.
Yup.
Why do I say “in a limited sense” regarding a unified South America? Besides the sheer vastness of its interior?
The only thing holding apart a truly unified Southern American hemisphere is the grinding poverty that keeps a majority of its citizens in a state of near-emergency most of the time. Too busy competing on the garbage dump of capitalism to unify for real.
But as Castro has proven…THAT can be overcome as well.
Overcome by a representative government…representative of the majority of the people, the poor, no matter HOW it is chosen and maintained…that educates, feeds and cares for its citizens to the best of its ability, no matter how lacking that care may be compared to the bloated lifsetyles of the overdeveloped nations. (I mean…there are underdeveloped nations, right? Another trick of the media. Why does no one mention OVERdevelopment?)
And that is precisely what Chavez, Morales and others are doing. Emulating Cuba on a larger scale.
No wonder the domino theorists are so upset.
They’ve been right all along. If of course it is possible to be “right” concerning tactics while being totally wrong strategically.
Tactically…they said that independent powers of ANY kind would spread if they were successful, and they must be opposed and beaten. Thus Vietnam, thus the war in the Middle East, and thus the whole of American foreign policy for 50+ years.
But strategically they have been wrong, wrong wrong. Because you CANNOT impose an ongoing interdiction of independence on that level with the limited troops and power available to the U.S. Not without nukes you can’t, and nukes would open up a whole ‘NOTHER can of wormholes. Thus failure after failure, and thus the multiplying holes in the dike that are showing up now.
A United States of South America?
I think not.
Not for a long while if ever.
The various cultures are too different.
More like a loose confederation.
But SOMETHING is on the way.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
I’m not so much interested in political unification in South America I am in a certain kind of socioeconomic cohesion and intellectual ferment that seems to be brewing. And you answered it!
I watched the Motorcycle Diaries a couple of years ago when it came out with a former girlfriend. It was a last minute, spur of the moment kind of thing.
And I’ve been walking around for the last two years thinking that there’s been a serious case of arrested development in South America for the last 30 years. And That Chavez has actually popped the cork on South American economic determination and intellectual revolution.
And the chickens are finally coming home to roost. Your analogy of dikes spurting and bursting not only in South America but all over the “underdeveloped world” crystalizes it for me.
The U.S. doesn’t have the resources and manpower to apply hard power and stem the tide like they did in the fifties and sixties.
And we’ve frittered away our soft power, while China tours the Pacific coast of South America and all of Africa underwriting loans and building infrastructure.
And the rest of the world sees our democracy for what it has become; a Gramscian Hegemony of the monied and their courtiers.
You wrote an earlier diary about Cuba and Castro that got a lot of heat here. I thought it was extremely penetrating and insightful. Because what’s always fascinated me about Cuba is the number of doctors they educate and export. That’s intellectual capital baby!
And what do we export? Coke, Pepsi and Anna Nicole Smith.
Listen.
Real growth happens at the tip.
Of a blade of grass OR humankind.
As above, so below.
It was our turn for almost a century. The U.S. drove the politics and culture of the world from the close of WW I until WELL into the ’80s.
Now…and you can see it in the Hispanic cultures of the US if you know how to look…that growth is happening in South/Central/Caribbean America.
And in China/S. Korea/India and the Pacific Rim.
Watch.
It’s their turn in the barrel.
Europe understands this and has pretty much settled back to enjoy…and protect…its riches.
The U.S. and Russia…two ex-superpowers who have lost it, two heavyweights who fought each other one too many times…still think they have a shot. But they do not. They have already gone to fat; they have lost their edge. Both have become different versions of the same form of government. Klepotocracy. Government by theft.
Can we recover?
Heavyweights sometimes do.
But only the ones with good hearts.
Are we George Foreman or Mike Tyson?
Have we repented like George, reconstructed ourselves as a human being no matter HOW brutal we have been in our youth, or are we on a drug tear that will eventually take us ALL the way down?
Want an answer?
Look at Iraq.
You be the judge.
Which one do YOU think would fit in better in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo?
On either side of the razor wire?
Yup.
AG
Awesome! I like George, but I fear we’ve become a nation of Mike Tysons-esp. in our leadership.
About 10 years ago I worked with a number of Europeans in a very international, multicultural firm. What amazed me was their laid back attitude combined with multiple language skills (like 3 per person at a minimum) layered on top of their sharp incisive intellects.
My daughter has an exchange student from Italy in her Latin class. The student is fluent in Italian, Spanish and English and reads and speaks Latin. Europe is very well positoned to just sit back and watch the show.
Kinda like mixed martial arts. The two battered heavyweights boxers of Russia and the U.S. circling each other warily while China prepares to take out the winner using Kung fu or Tai Chi (or perhaps even Akido or Judo if they’re willing to borrow)
Meanwhile Europe watches, laughs and counts their money.
Have you heard that the major education institutions in France are setting up a Paris School of Economics to compete with Harvard and LSE? They believe alternatives to the dominant anglo-american economic orthodoxy needs a voice and they’re willing to put in place the public investment needed to make it happen.
The times they are a-changin. Just not in the US, except perhaps in our Hispanic and Latino cultures. I suspect that that is where the renewing force in American culture and politics will come from.
IF, we can get out from under the oligarchs and kleptocrats.
are you proposing:
–Enforced Standards of Journalistic behavior??
–Standards to be set by whom??
–Enforced by whom??
–Much more competition in news reporting?
–How is this brought about??
–Other implementation questions and ideas??
I agree with all you say, but what SPECIFIC alternatives are we looking for.
I am recommending…for a start, at least…breaking the media.
Literally.
Breaking its hold on the American mind by whatever means available.
Peaceful means. Not because I am a pacifist…I am not…but because any OTHER approach would be amplified and turned against the movement by the very media it wished to destroy.
Hit them where they live.
In the pocketbook.
Hit them where they poll.
By the numbers.
Every TV that is not turned on is another mind freed for at least that amount of time, and more importantly, another potential dollar or two dollars or two thousand or two million denied to the ratings guys.
They are a BUSINESS, the media. A corporate set of interlocking businesses. Bottom line, short term oriented. They follow the dictates…spoken OR unspoken…of the government because they stand to lose money if they do not. They have to make their nut…show a profit…every quarter. Or the execs lose their jobs. Except of course for the CIA/Intel meddling, which is much more insidious and therefore less able to be directly combatted.
I cannot get more specific than that, because I have not seen much if any general understanding even among the so-called elite…the bloggers…regarding this idea.
It cannot be done by 10 or 20 people.
It must be done by thousands.
So far…the usual blog inertia.
On to the next topic and “What’s on the news tonite, Honey?”
Three years and counting since I first mentioned this on dKos.
No groundswell.
Just bannings.
So it goes.
AG
Chomsky isn’t always worth the effort. His writing in Rethinking Camelot is pretty awful. He basically calls Schlesinger and everyone else in the Kennedy adminstration liars for saying that Kennedy was planning to pull us out of Vietnam.
No one is always worth the effort, Lisa.
But he gets close to the top of the pack.
That early part?
About the mafia mentality?
If you look back at the record, what was the main reason for the U.S. attack on Vietnam? Independent development can be a virus that can infect others. That’s the way it’s been put, Kissinger in this case, referring to Allende in Chile. And with Cuba it’s explicit in the internal record. Arthur Schlesinger, presenting the report of the Latin American Study Group to incoming President Kennedy, wrote that the danger is the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into your own hands, which has a lot of appeal to others in the same region that suffer from the same problems. Later internal documents charged Cuba with successful defiance of U.S. policies going back 150 years to the Monroe Doctrine — and that can’t be tolerated. So there’s kind of a state commitment to ensuring obedience.
Now that would be immediately understood in a discussion with any fairly intelligent person who has experienced life on the street. A bunch of musicians w/whom I play? Sitting around at the bar on a break? It would almost not have to be said.
But to hear that kind of sense from an academic?
Revlutionary!!!
It immediately confers a certain weight to the idea that is simply not there when said…in other ways…by someone like 138th St. Papo, Vinnie the Dealer or myself.
The vast, sleeping, deluded middle class? They simply DO NOT KNOW THIS TRUTH ABOUT SO-CALLED REALPOLITIK. It is just gang warfare on its highest level.
And when an MIT prof says this shit?
At least SOME people hear it who might not.
So it goes.
He is an ally.
Occasionally wrong, but most often…for 40+ years that I know about…on the right side of things.
He makes street sense using academic language.
Nice.
AG
Bear in mind that Chomsky works at CENIS, long ago exposed as a CIA front in academia. I’m just saying. Strange times make for strange bedfellows. Chomsky has been right on re many topics. But he’s so far off on the Kennedy assassination I have to wonder if that’s the price he pays to be able to say all the rest.
(CENIS being the Center for International Studies at MIT)
on the Kennedy assassination?
Lisa:
President Kennedy was murdered 43 years ago.
Suggesting sinister motives for Chomsky in getting the “facts” about the assassination “wrong” makes you sound a bit loopy, to be perfectly honest.
Isn’t it just possible that Chomsky disagrees with your theories because, well…he honestly disagrees?
And let’s say that Chomsky IS wrong. Isn’t Noam Chomsky allowed to look at the same evidence you do, and draw a wrong conclusion? No one is infallible.
Let us examine your scenario for just a moment.
CHOMSKY’S SHADOWY CIA SPYMASTER: Noam, you can write as many forceful, articulate, insightful critiques of the way corporate-owned media have infected the public’s mind with propaganda as you want, but the Kennedy assassination is OFF-LIMITS. Understand? We have to continue the coverup at all costs.
CHOMSKY: Damn straight. Because if I ever wrote an article in The Nation about what REALLY happened, it’d topple the government and change the whole of history.
Lisa, do you really think that if Chomsky got on board with your theories regarding the Kennedy assassination, that it would make one bit of difference? Most people have never heard of Chomsky, and that’s a fact. Chomsky is not exactly a rock star with the general public, although well-known in intellectual crowds. The notion that Chomsky is being deliberately “handled” by the CIA and that his analysis of the Kennedy administration (on Vietnam and the rest) is “the price he pays to be able to say all the rest.” is jaw-dropping, because it assumes:
Pardon me if I don’t accept either of those assumptions. (And I do hope you don’t think that I am a CIA mole on Booman Tribune.)
Another way to make sure you’re the biggest guy on the block is making sure everybody else looks bad. This is how Malcolm X (in ’64) describes how Israel does that:
They cripple the bird’s wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they.”
Perfect.
AG
If Arthur can turn all of his long comments into diaries, I should be able to copy this nice comment of mine from Steven D’s front page post over here–
To the best of my knowledge, nobody has done a really satisfying deep explanation of why the American media has gotten so corrupted in just the last 15 years. It’s easy to blame it on evil corporations and media consolidation.
But it must also involve reciprocal blame on the part of the masses.
Television IS, after all, a fiercely “market driven” business.
There are serious attempts to present real news, such as 60 Minutes, Bill Moyers, Charlie Rose, and so forth. If that’s what people really wanted, we’d have a lot more of that.
I tend to think that Americans are going the way of many imperial peoples, corrupted by wealth and the glorification of wealth, corrupted by victory and the glorification of victory, fatally weakened by the nation’s very strengths.
I agree with Chalmers Johnson. I think it’s too late to save American democracy. I foresee very great destruction in the United States within a few years. And the American people will NEVER look inward for the cause. They will ALWAYS blame some demonized external foe, some demonized internal faction.
I think it was in Bush’s first year that there was legislation passed that allowed for corporations to own multimedia in the same geographic area.
I also recall something about the number of corporate owned media going from 20 corporations in the 70s(?) to 5 corporations currently owning all US media.
Sorry for the vague details.
I do not excuse the people of the U.S. for media habits and choices. I wonder whether the people of the U.S. were more vulnerable to the directives of television programming and commercials because there was this societal melting pot myth – how does one define being an “American?” Check what it says on the tv, both programming and commercials.
Notice how corporations, through their ads, have flags and patriotism attached to their name, logo, and sales message. Notice the “rebel” or “individualist” theme that saturates vehicle commercials. And stuff not pitched directly through ads gets “airtime” in the programs themselves.
Arminius – I have watched (with ever growing horror) tv take a place in people’s homes and lives, from an occasional “treat” on an evening to a constant presence and “companion” with the tv on all the time. And tvs keep showing up in more and more places – doctors offices, waiting rooms of all kinds, in vehicles for goodness sakes! It is scary.
That’s very interesting. Maybe media corruption has gone so far in America simply because here is where television got started and is most entrenched.
My wife and I have one TV. We like weather alarmism, an occasional movie, and some mindless cable while we eat. I also watch quite a bit of C-SPAN. That’s about it. I probably average about 20 or 30 minutes of TV a day. But we have friends who have TVs in every room. At my wingnut father’s place, the TV is on ALL THE TIME, usually on Fox.
Be an individual! Drive a Hummer! Be an asshole!
I really don’t know. I love Arthur’s term “mass hypnosis.” It really is some kind of mass brainwashing experiment. It might be unfair to blame to people. I don’t know.
Here, in England and in Japan.
Why?
Damned if I know.
Maybe the English language opens one up to hypnosis.
And Japan because it was forcibly “Americanized” during the occupation.
Just guessin’…
Not even CLOSE anywhere else that I have been in the world.
And where have I NOT been?
Australia + New Zealand.
That’s about it.
AG
Believe me, AG, we’ve seen an insidious growth in TV watching here as well. I’ve been staggered at the number of people I meet who admit to watching ‘Today’-style morning programs. Can you believe anyone would drag themselves out of bed to watch TV first thing in the morning?
We’ve got our fill of junk TV ‘reality’ programmes where desperados humiliate themselves in the hope of becoming famous and wealthy. And investigative reporting extends to paying an ex-Qantas flight attendant to detail her story about bonking Ralph Fiennes in the aircraft toilet at 30,000 feet.
At least we have the public radio and TV networks run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service. Australians place a lot of store in the independence and reliability of the ABC’s news in particular. The right-wing Howard Government has been gradually bringing them to heel, but even with changes of directors and management it’s taking time to crush the independent journalistic culture.
I agree with Chalmers Johnson. I think it’s too late to save American democracy. I foresee very great destruction in the United States within a few years. And the American people will NEVER look inward for the cause. They will ALWAYS blame some demonized external foe, some demonized internal faction.
I tend to agree with you here.
About the corruption brought about by power.
BUT…you also must understand that this corruption has been hastened by the continual barrage of hypno-media, just the same as rot sets in faster in a warm, humid climate.
Nor I am not sure that your stated prophecy is yet cast in stone.
We have maybe one chance left to rekindle the American spirit.
The IMMIGRANT American spirit.
The working-class American spirit.
The one that is remembered by first and second and third generation ethnics like myself. taught to us by our parents and grandparents. And those whose families lived here for centuries but stayed on the land.
Stayed on the good foot.
By those who experienced the teaching of people who lived through the pre-civil rights era on the wrong end of the gun.
By almost the entire Hispanic population.
By a young generation looking for salvation from the grey flannel/yuppie/I want mine with ice cream on top and I want it now generations that preceded them.
By women who are sick of being second-class citizens.
This is the reason for Obama’s astounding success so far. That and his undeniable political talent. He is hooking into this societal/cultural undertow.
Will he get there?
We shall see.
I give him about 11 to 3 now. Three weeks ago…more like 15 to 1. Pretty good progress.
Is he “for real”?
Is ANY politician?
He’s riding a wave. A wave for which he is particularly well suited. If elected, he will STILL have to triangulate. It’s just that his hypoteneuse will be far less cumbersome than Hillary’s.
Meanwhile…every regression of the media drumbeat will help.
We’ve got one more chance.
Injure the media even 10% and our odds are 10% better.
Races are won by much LESS than 10%.
Shall we just give up?
Not me.
NEWSTRIKE!!!
It’s the only practical way that I can see for me to help.
So I’m flogging it.
We shall see…
AG
I’ve been a real optimist nearly all of my life, despite many tragedies such as suicides of my mother and brother. But that was knocked out of me by the attack of Iraq and the subsequent train of horrors of the Bush regime. I really don’t have any hope that the United States will correct itself this time. I think we’re on a steady slide into barbarism. I think the country is likely to be broken up.
But it’s good to read some optimistic thoughts. Hope you’re right.
I have predicted the breakup of the U.S. as well.
Into:
Northeast/North Great Lakes. Multi-racial, multi-cultural. Very wealthy, very highly developed. Whyt would it even WANT to be connected with most of thre rest on the inner US?
Southeast. (Also multi-racial, but much less developed industurially and technically.)
The South (Including 1/3 of Texas) Still the South, no matter WHICH way you cut it.
The Plains States (From another 1/3 of Texas through Arkansas all the way up to to Idaho.) The last of the white man’s world. Bush country. In more ways than one. Yee HAW!!! People of color leaving like the Okies from the Dust Bowl.
The Southwest (A mostly Hispanic version thereof. Including the remaining 1/3rd of Texas. And San Diego.)
The Paciific (Maybe north of LA if LA goes with the Southwest. MULTI-multi-racial AND multi-cultural. STRONG connection with Asia.)
It could happen.
What goes up, must come down.
And what gets too big must get smaller again.
The law of the universe.
We shall see.
YUM!!!
We have ALL been born into interesting times!!!
AG
of Television.
This in answer to your question. There may be no short answer. Gerry Mander’s book is a long volume, and it is not easily summarized. So I, perhaps absurdly, abstract a few points.
In the last half of the 20th century the media has learned how to use TV to hypnotize and then control. The bitter truth is that the American people have been quite complicit. All the same, they are being conned and abused. As in any addictive process, once the addiction has taken hold, the initial voluntary actions no longer matter–the addiction itself comes to set the agenda and determine behaviour.
The prospects for recovery are poor. In cases of alcoholism and major drug addiction, it is extremely rare for recovery to be sought before a serious crash has occurred. Sometimes it takes more than one. Sometimes only the sure knowledge of ensuing death is enough to motivate recovery. Sometimes, even that is not enough and recovery never happens. I will be deeply surprised if Americans seek to recover from their delusions before the country is destroyed. Of course we keep hoping, and trying to find a way to avoid the worst, but really, it is just unlikely.
The media cannot be reformed. They will never “get it”–although, as during Watergate, it will sometimes be useful for them to pretend to. It is their job to lie and deceive. They know their job. They are doing it well.
Of course, there used to be something called news. What happened to it? Three things: Advertising, consolidation, and organized money. You can try to do news, but you cannot make money. The (ostensibly) free market is in fact an administered, oligapolistic market, so there is no niche for entrepreneurs who would wish to do such an esoteric, unprofitable thing. If they were to start to succeed, big money would either take them over or shut them down, and we return to where we started–the media. We are already in the Dark Ages: For those of the future, the lies of our present era have already eliminated our time from their history. The history that will be written will be from the perspective of the outside, and sparce. There will certainly be physical facts–perhaps dramatic ones–and those will be included.
Brilliant comment!
Thank you.
Yup.
Every woird.
Now…how do we get that info out to the general public again?
W/out the use of TV?
UH oh!!!
Catch 22.
AG
I read this book in high school and skimmed through it again just before becoming a mother. This book changed my life.
TV has become the new drug of choice for copping out. A therapist told me that when my alcoholic husband and I were getting counseling. She said it after a remark I made about trying to get my husband to stop drinking I said if I could get him away from the TV also we could start having a real marriage. She said TV was just as much to blame for relationship problems as any drug out there.
That blew me away. I was very aware of the dumbing down mind blindness part of TV watching but had never equated it with ‘addiction’.
The sad part is I think it’s too late for the damage to be undone.