The TVs were on at the bar we ran to tonight. It was the annual lighting of the City Hall Christmas tree here in Philly, but tonight the event was interrupted by protestors. I know this because I was following on Twitter. Had I been watching TV, it would have been a different story.
I will have photos later -and perhaps the text of a phone call or two- but Philadelphia’s local media was live on the spot, and going to absurd lengths to ignore what was going on around them. It was truly bizarre: protestors chanting “No Justice No Peace” drowned out a kid singing “Silent Night”, while the bobblehead clowns from our local media yapped a lot about the ice skating rink while showing TONS of B-roll.
On another TV, “Christmas at Rockefeller Center” was airing. Same thing. No acknowledgement of the chaos in the streets, which as I write saw the Lincoln Tunnel shut down because of protests and swarms of angry people on the FDR Drive and the West Side Highway.
And I remembered how the media tried to ignore and suppress the Iraq War protests back in ’02 and ’03, and how complicit they were in what followed. It’s the same thing all over again… only this time I’m not sure how well it’s going to work. But the effort was fascinating. I largely believe Huxley was more accurate in predicting our future, but what i saw on my TV was nothing less than an Orwellian manipulation of the truth.
