So I wake up this morning and go to BT to see if anyone’s dropped a bomb on Detroit or Baghdad yet, and here’s this great article by philinmaine called Exposed in RS: One of the men behind the throne, it’s something about one of the insider info hustlers who REALLY “make the news” as we know it today.
And in a comment, one of the things that Janet Strange said is “I feel like we’re actually living in one of [George Orwell’s] dystopian visions.”
Which got me started better than a good cup of coffee.
Read on for more.
Janet, Orwell was a primitive cartoonist compared to what is going on now. The depth, breadth and success of the efforts to control the population of the (information technology) developed world by the quite deliberate spread of disinformation is beyond belief. That’s why I tried to float that NEWSTRIKE!!! idea on dKos. The success of those control efforts…even in terms of their penetration into the minds of the so-called “enlightened” left…is huge.
And they are ALREADY hard at work on the blogs.
BET on it.
They may be dumb…but they ain’t STUPID.
What we are witnessing now in the media is not a 180 degree reversal from the support of BushCo’s policies to an opposition position, no matter HOW it might seem on the surface. It is pure disinformation being put out by the very same interests that called for the Iraq War in the first place. The war has done its job, at least to the degree that they feel that it is possible for it to do under the circumstances. Any further efforts (overt efforts, anyway) would be bad for business. So now it is time to retrench until the NEXT emergency. Draw back into the heavily fortified military threat centers that surround “our” oil and let our hired native dogs and covert ops take care of things for a while.
While the heat goes down at home.
Knock a buck off of gas prices.
Distract the homefront with some feelgood shit.
BUT THE SAME PEOPLE ARE STILL IN POWER.
And I DON”T mean Semi-President Butch.
People like Bob Woodward and Larry King are still drooling their hypno-pap into the earholes of the great majority of the American people…sleeple, not sheeple…and even if a frontman or two like Woodward is exposed for what he is and thus necessarily sent out to pasture, there is a depth chart literally hundreds deep of second and third and fourth stringers who would LOVE to do his job.
Hey…this is the BIG LEAGUES, right?
It is ALL about control of information, and the only way to protect ourselves from this control system is to simply take the earphones off and start listening…CRITICALLY listening…to what is really happening around us.
Once a sufficient number of us do this…on the left, for starters…then perhaps we can break this advertising-driven system wide open.
It’s our only chance, really.
Hype-free or die.
That’s our only choice.
Because people like Rendon WILL use the astoundingly efficient info-technology of the present and near future to completely control the direction of this country if we do not wake the fuck up to what they are about. And they are so line-level crude, these people, that they will eventually end us up in some kind of WMD war.
BET on it.
The depth of their efforts…and the almost absolute anonymity in which they take place, the total lack of accountability for these people…is beyond belief. They work behind the scenes, and all that WE see are the results.
Hundreds of talking heads, all mouthing the same disinfo.
“Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
“Go to war; DON’T go to war. Vote for Bush; Bush is BAD.”
WHATEVER the message of the day.
“Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.”
TURN IT THE FUCK OFF!!!
“Step AWAY from the TV, with your brains in the air!!!”
Sleeple, not sheeple.
AG
P.S. While I am at it…since when did John Murtha become one of the good guys? These are the politicians who got us into this mess in the first place.
Too little, WAY too late.
He is a behind-the-scenes shill for the military-industrial complex Ike warned us about. He even ADMITS it.
I am a little short of time today, so I cannot find the direct quote on the net, but he said something in an interview recently about himself and his preferred method of operation that is very similar to this quote from NPR.
“A decorated Vietnam War veteran — one who has spent more than three decades on Capitol Hill as a behind-the-scenes power broker — his thoughts and pronouncements on military matters and defense policy are respected on both sides of the aisle.”
“…a behind-the-scenes power broker…”
Let’s get real here.
HE IS THE VOICE OF THE GENERALS.
Why do you think that Butch and Company backed off of the shrill denunciations of Murtha with which they first reacted? (Besides their usual poll-driven act, of course.)
BECAUSE HE IS THE GENERALS SAYING “THAT’S IT, BRO’. WE THROUGH TAKIN’ YOUR ORDERS IF YOU DON’T BACK OFF. Remember Dealy Plaza and Watergate…”
A word to the wise coward is usually sufficient, if said loud enough and by the right people.
Bet on it.
The military cravenly allowed BushCo to maneuver us into this position, and now they are EQUALLY cravenly (and cynically as well) maneuvering us out of it. Hell, war ITSELF may be hell, but until you lose big time war is GOOD for their business.
It IS their business.
(And we have NOT “lost” in Iraq…remember, only 2000 casualties in Iraq/Afghanistan/The Blood For Oil War as opposed to 58,226+ in Vietnam. That’s…how many bodies per barrel, again? “Acceptable casualties” say the Generals/Oil Execs. “Gotta break some eggs to get enough fuel to cook an omelette.” Plus…there has been money to be made. For lots of people.)
So instead of all this fuss about how great John Murtha is…let’s ask why he (and almost every OTHER so-called “opposition” pol as well) was so dumb as to not be able to see how plainly the entire runup to the war was a simple hype job.
Right out front for anyone with the eyes to see it.
Plain as day.
He’s no “hero”.
He’s just another fat schmuck pol with his marching orders firmly in hand and a good grasp on his constituency.
Let’s get real here.
WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!
P.P.S. AND…this Rendon creature…and all the OTHER little Rendons who have not yet been outed…is the reason that we should not be satisfied with taking down even so big an info-fish as Karl Rove if that lovely event were to actually come to pass.
There’s more than one fish in the sea, and THESE fish have got TEETH.
Info-teeth.
“OUCH!!!”
“That HURTS!!!”
Just don’t swim in barracuda infested waters.
“Step AWAY from the TV, with your brains in the air!!!”
Old vaudeville routine:
Patient-“Doc, it hoits when I do DIS!!! (Raising his arm above his head.)
Doc-“Don’t DO dat!!!”
Yup,
“Step AWAY from the TV…”
Yup.
Recs, ratings. comments…???
AG
“Wake up! and turn off the TV” seems simplistic. i turned mine off a long time ago. More or less. Watched an interesting Nova the other day about Newton while I was cleaning house. A few shows on PBS from time to time – P.O.V. sometimes has interesting stuff. I do have TiVo – it collects things and when I need to do some house cleaning I sometimes look for what it’s collected and watch one or two while I do. But the idiot box at my house literally gathers dust being off for weeks at a time. Can’t do radio either. Even music radio – can’t handle the commercials.
“News”? TV “shows.” Never. Can’t stand the anger and despair it generates. Because I see it pretty much the way you do – meet the new boss, same as the old boss . . . . Propaganda, propaganda, manipulate the thinking of the masses.
“People” to those who really run the show are just robotic consumers that must be programmed to buy ever more useless stuff. Oh, and go kill and die in endless wars. Journalists? Some seem to be part of the in crowd that actually, consciously, orchestrates this. Most, I think are just tools, easily used by manipulating their egos, greed, etc.
But I don’t see much hope of a critical mass of people turning off their TVs – and not just in America, but everywhere on this planet. The industrialized countries have been there almost as long as we have, of course (look at what is happening in Australia, for example), but more and more in the underdeveloped world too. It’s too addictive.
What really makes me despair is that the only large force I see claiming to counter the consumer mentality is fundamentalism – not just Christian, here, but again, worldwide. And they are using the same media propaganda tools, so it’s not much different in the end – just what they are selling looks even more dangerous to me. I think. Hard to say what’s worse, some days.
I don’t think Orwell was a “primitive cartoonist,” btw. I think he had a lot of insight into human nature. What I don’t really understand is his reported optimism. (Can’t remember where I read that and can’t find a link.)
See my current sig line. It is in front of our noses, but it is also a constant struggle to see it. I just don’t have a lot of hope that a critical mass of the seven billion or so will see it. This sounds elitist – like I think I’m smarter or more insightful that most, but I don’t really think so. I’m just affluent enough to have a computer and have enough time to use it. Most people on our planet don’t have that luxury. You or I writing on a blog “Turn off your TVs!” isn’t going to do it.
What shocked me about the Rendon article was not that this was happening – I never doubted that. It was that Rendon and his enablers are so open and unapologetic about it. They can tell us to our faces what they are doing and still be confident that they can keep on doing it.