So in Hungary yesterday thousands of people attacked the state TV station because it broadcast lies by the Hungarian Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, Bush has been PROVEN a liar about five hundred times over and Americans do nothing whatsoever to U.S. state TV.
Do nothing except of course turn it on and eat junk food while being hypnotized into eating MORE junk food.
Of the mind, soul AND body.
What the FUCK is wrong with us?
NEWSTRIKE!!!
MEDIASTRIKE!!!
VAYA!!!
And…wake the fuck up.
The rest of the world is.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
P.S. “BRIIIIIINGGGGG!!!!!”
Hear that?
It’s the NAM alarm clock.
The Non-Aligned Nations. Also known as the Third World. As in “Third World War.”
Wake the fuck up.
They are BRINGING it!!!
Sooner than you could possibly imagine.
“UH OH, Luke!!! Them injuns got repeating rifles now!!!”
It’s Station WTFU, on the air once again.
WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!
Sorry to disturb your rest.
Tips, recs, flames…
As you wish.
And as you must.
Later…
AG
I heard that story last night on BBC and had essentially the same thought. Hungarians are going nuts because their leader lied to them. We take it all in stride.
Of course, there is more to the story. The Hungarians were also upset about proposed austerity measures. Sad to say, we will probably keep on eating our junk food, watching junk entertainment, and believing junk news until some of this mess has a personal impact on our lives. There seemed to be great agitation about gas prices and almost none about the erosion of our civil liberties because it hasn’t impacted most of our daily lives yet. I don’t mean this as a justification only an observation.
Sad, but…
Yup.
AG
There’s definitely more to the story. Can I recommend this diary by IdiotSavant in European Tribune and the discussion which follows it.
Skimmed that thread.
Basic assumption…it is “right-wing extremists” who are doing the rioting.
Basic mistake in that assumption…that “right-wing” is ALWAYS wrong, and “left-wing” is always right.
Next basic mistake?
That there even IS such a thing as left or right wing.
I WOULD BE JUST AS HAPPY if the so-called “conservatives” in this country burned down fucking NBC headquarters.
The white working class that makes up the vast majority of the so-called “right wing” of America is getting just as ripped off as every OTHER class.
You got yer liars and hustlers on BOTH sides.
I would have been in the streets against so-called “Communist” Stalin just as fast as I would have been there against so-called “right wing” Hitler.
You got yer controllers and you got yer controlled.
The controlled eventually have to stand up and say “NO!!!”.
LOUD!!!
VAYA!!!
AG.
It’s not only an assumption – DoDo who wrote about it is actually there in Hungary.
But whatever…
Like I said…basic assumption.
“Basic fact” if you want to pick nits.
Like I make the basic assumption that people can read when I write something.
My point is not that the actual “fact” is wrong.
It is that the ideas STEMMING from that fact…the presuppositions, as it were…are not necessarily accurate.
They are not necessarily INACCURATE, either.
The whole meme of “left is correct, right is not” is full of shit, as far as I am concerned. As is its right-wing reverse. And when a government lies…even though we are just SO world-weary and wise here (From the thread that is being discussed: “Name a single democracy where the government in power DIDN’T do that. Lie to win? Standard practice everywhere.”)…then I am overjoyed that it is getting its ass handed to it. And even MORE overjoyed that the ass-handing is focusing in on the media.
I do not much care WHO is in the streets.
In Ken Kesey’s novel “Sometimes a Great Notion”, one character make the observation that “If it farts, it’s alive.”
Well, if it fights it’s alive, too. And where there is life, there is hope.
Would that it were so here.
These fearsome skinheads and football hooligans?
That’s just shorthand for what is the equivalent of “white working class” people here in America.
OOOOOO!!!!
SCAAAAARY!!!
Go read Joe Bageant. Or his immediate predecessor Jimmy Breslin. Both of whom write about exactly these people. From a position of understanding, not automatic animus.
If they are “stupid”, these people, it is because they have been LIED stupid.
Lied into a near coma here in the U.S.
Uneducated.
Diseducated.
MISeducated.
And when they arise…watch OUT!!!
The Dems have ignored these people for 40+ years. The left blogoshpere continues to automatically demonize them every chance it gets.
Well…they are MY PEOPLE. Yeah, a lot of them are dumber than shit. A lot of EVERYBODY is dumber than shit. Rich, poor, middle class. Educated, un-/dis-/mis-educated. But immediately lumping people who look like this:
into a neo-Nazi movement? (And that is the main thrust of the poster DoDo’s replies on this thread, although quite skilfully understated. [28 replies out of 55, so far. Busy little poster, HE is.])
Nope.
I’m outta here.
AG
People think I’m nuts because I don’t watch mainstream tv anymore. Not even ‘whose line is it anyways’ because even the commercials make me sick.
I have a tv for hockey games and so that I can view my movies. I think it’s been over 2 months since I saw “regular” news station.
I get my news via the blogs and Mother Jones… and while I’m running errands, I listen to KBOO raido.. a community station that is very progressive and airs Democracy Now.
For the most part – this country is lazy and uncaring. They know more about American Idol than they do about America. I am beyond ashamed at what this country has tolerated.
GOOD ON YOU!!!
Now…infect some MORE people with the anti-virus.
One mind at a time.
AG
I do watch some of the clips on Crooks and Liars but otherwise I get news from print and online.
Spread the word!!!
AG
There used to be a site called Liberal Torrents where you could get torrent files (for fast downloads) of The Daily Show, Countdown and a whole bunch of stuff like that. They made the mistake of getting popular, they got kicked off their free hosting site for using up too much bandwidth and never came back. Which is a shame, because it can be tough to find progressive video and audio content.
I will admit to watching a few programs. Stargate SG-1 (and its spinoff Stargate Atlantis), Mythbusters, KO/Daily Show/Colbert when I can, occasional baseball games, a couple of shows on Animal Planet that I watch with my granddaughter and a couple others.
The list is really, really short, though, and I have a TiVo which programs itself when it boots to turn one of the buttons into a 30-second skip. This means that unless I’m watching a live stream (like a baseball game in real time), I never have to watch a single commercial other than just to be able to know that they’re over and the program has started again. Sometimes I’ll even start the baseball game late enough that I can skip the commercials anyway. I don’t need to know that the Mariners already lost the game 20 minutes ago. Another advantage of using the TiVo: If I downrate a speech by His Nibs, TiVo (and the networks) adds that into their stats. If I record KO but don’t watch it, they know I recorded it. They don’t know I didn’t watch — just that the TV was tuned to MSNBC at that time of night. That boosts his ratings. (I can also completely program out Fox News and ABC so they don’t even show up in the listings.)
Some chuzzlewit at Time/Warner (I think it was) says that’s “stealing” because there’s a “contract with the viewer” that in return for free programming, the viewer has to watch the ads. That’s BS. Advertisers pay for ads with the expectation that there will be people watching, but I never signed anything that said I was going to watch their commercials. I honestly don’t give a damn if I ever see another commercial again. I don’t buy 90% of what they’re trying to sell me. Why should I watch a Buick or Budweiser commercial when I neither drive nor drink?
I am doing my best to teach my granddaughter to skip commercials too, and to not believe everything she sees on TV.
As for news, I can’t remember the last time I watched a news program on TV. If I did, it was local to see whether they would identify the big black plume of smoke that looked like it was coming from about a mile away (or something similar). I couldn’t tell you who the anchors on the news shows are any more. And frankly, I don’t care. I get the news I need here and on various web sites (including several outside the country).
Trouble is, there aren’t very many of me.
“Trouble is, there aren’t very many of me.”
One mind at a time.
TELL people.
Every chance you get.
In a conversation about…about almost anything, since 98% of what Americans talk about is canned, predigested TV pap.
TELL people when youi hear the pap running out of their mouths.
Yes, you’ll lose some “friends.”
The “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” thing?
Yup.
Friends don’t let friends think stupid, either.
DUI.
Dithering Under the Influence.
Make ’em take a pap-ometer.
Give them a thinkalyzer test.
“STEP AWAY FROM THE TV WITH YOUR BRAINS IN THE AIR!!!”
Yup.
Later…
AG
Don’t bother me, I’m too busy watching HSN. Please pass the remote.