Reality Transplant – The Media: Orwell-land, Disposable Truths, The Ladder of Status, and the GREAT SUCK UPward

The Puppet Strings – The Media: Dandified Little Pups, The Corporate Feast, and What They’ve Succeeded in Getting Us to Forget

Culture War, Class War, Chapter Eleven: Reality Transplant, The Media

Dandified Little Pups: The Media, Status, and the Great Suck UP

Dandified Little Pups

The Puppet Strings (The Media)

But the Republicans had their help; believe me they had their help. Ok, so who helped them? Well, like I was saying… The first thing is you have politicians with the Big Lie, and they’re repeating it endlessly. And that persistence is so extremely effective and comprehensive.

Lying Down on the Thinking Job…or…Thinking Is Down on the Lying Job

The next thing is the paid pundits. You would think a pundit’s job would require more than the exposure to facts and the time allotted for that, but also some time for thoughtful consideration and analysis of those facts. Isn’t part of their job to think? Don’t they have that duty, and get that privilege, unlike a lot of people, who might be working two jobs and taking care of the kids and such and so don’t have time to ponder anything? But these are pundits who are supposed to give opinions. And you would think that their salaries includes time both to be on TV and also to study issues and to think about them. But why is it then that they are so complicit, even cooperative?

Everybody Has One … Except Those Paid To

Backing up, being handsomely paid to do so, you’d think TV commentators and pundits would bring some thoughtful consideration and analysis to the issues. You would think they would have some understanding and therefore conclusions and therefore opinion on these issues, for isn’t that what they as pundits are required to have? They’re called pundits, they are opinion-makers, they are opinion havers.

Everybody Needs a Little Understanding…

Perhaps we can understand their complacency and complicity by considering their situation. They are immersed in this barrage of irrationalities that is coming out constantly from the Republicans over all kinds of airways, radio, TV, what have you.

And don’t forget a pundit’s job requires they take it in; they can’t just tune out; they have to be on top of these things. They have to be on top of what people are saying, including and perhaps especially the Republicans.

How Long Could You Maintain Your Sanity If…?

So perhaps they’re more brainwashed than others. Perhaps they are since they hear the lies more than the rest of us. I don’t know. That’s a kind way of saying that they didn’t do their job, too, though…the one about seeking out the the truth behind the barrage of lies, if they still remember it.

I need also point out that they’re working for huge corporations, virtually all of them these days. Only on the internet is there the possibility of unbiased thought. And we know who owns the corporations…it ain’t me or you or the average jane. So I don’t think it accidental they’re unlikely to speak for us.

The Ladder of Status

So whose view is being rained upon us by these storm-clouds of “obvious truths”?

The Great Suck UPward

Well, there’s a tendency, like I said, going right down the line: The wishes of the upper echelons are sycophantically served by those just below them. For those a step down are repelled by the idea of losing their lives of moneyed comfort and becoming, god forbid, like the “unwashed” below. They also, like everyone, have a craving to be “liked” and approved of by someone above.

Take my word for it, this jonesing is something in each of us, even those of very high status. It is an urge we all carry forward from our earliest experiences of life. So even those sitting smugly above us are cravingly desirous of the approval of those above them. And so it goes right down the ladder of status. Those of each level sucking up pathetically to those above them while patronizing those just below.

Dandified Little Pups

And at one of those levels are the pundits and journalists. You have to remember that they, also, from a certain perspective, can be seen as the pathetic little boys and girls they are, still wanting daddy’s approval. They don’t have a clue that they are coming across as smiling tail-wagging pets eager to please in the foppish performance of their cultivated tricks.

Dancing to a Long Ago Tune

So I’m not sure, but maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why the pundits shy from the cool light of truth. Maybe it’s part of it. Maybe they can’t see it because they are become one with it, not seeing the forest for the trees. Maybe it’s that they’re dancing to a long ago tune, accepting approving smiles as payment for their jig.

Or maybe it’s some of both… and perhaps something more? Who knows? What matters is they were not doing their job, as we see now.

The Corporate Feast: When You’re Feeling Pissed On, They’d Like You Thinking It’s Really Money Raining Down.

The Corporate Feast

The Corporate Feast

So I saw over time this slow, steady stream of pundits and journalists adopting Republican mantra as obvious facts. And that was very sad. Like I was saying before about the special interests…Democrats are accused of having special interests of their own. It is often heard that unions are a special interest, that education is a special interest.

“Persons R Us. Corporations R Not.”

And even though Democrats would say, but, you know, doesn’t everybody get the benefit from education? I never heard the pundits or the moderator say, “Well, that’s true, and, Mr. Republican, what do you have to say to that? What do you mean, ‘special interest’? You’re promoting the coal companies. Are the coal companies benefiting everybody? By your trying to get them profits, trying to create tax breaks for them, is that going to benefit the people…in any way?”

When You’re Feeling Pissed On, They’d Like You Thinking It’s Really Money Coming Down.

I’ll get to that later, but obviously, you can try to make a case that somehow money to corporations will benefit ordinary people, but it’s easier and more honest to show how it is actually at their expense. So the payoffs to the corporate hogs are hardly indirect contributions to the common weal.

Shall we review recent events and remember the gluttonous corporate profits, with their CEOs sitting down to enjoy hundred million dollar banquets? Bonuses, paychecks, jets and yachts to feast on. Even the stockholders only receive crumbs from that table.

CEO with Fifty Cookies to Tea Party Bloke with One: “That Union Guy Wants Some of Your Cookie.”

And with all their girth, getting hundred-million-dollar “at-a-boys,” you see them giving money away? With all these people having problems, and having foreclosures and everything, do you see them giving money away? I mean…no.

So anyway, the pundits and journalists are seen adopting the Republican mantra as obvious facts and as unnecessary to ponder or question as if…well, probably they couldn’t help it after a while of continual, coordinated, and irritating repetition, I don’t know…so not “as if,” it is clear they rolled over.

Disposable Truth, Reality Transplants

It was as if these pundits hearing so many gop lies—tax and spend Democrats and such—had undergone a reality transplant. Somehow they disposed of their knowing that it was the Republicans who tripled, nearly quadrupled the National Debt under Reagan-Bush.

GeorgeOrwell-land – Fun New Capitalist Theme Park!

The truth that it was Bush the W who doubled the Debt mysteriously ended up in the trash.

Smoke and lies around tax and spend

We’re in such bad economic shape now because of these Republican spendthrifts. Yet there would be the pundits repeating, even after Reagan-Bush and the recession they caused, “it’s the tax-and-spend Democrats.” America’s “thinkers” would forget that Clinton had balanced the budget for the first time in decades during his terms. They would not remember that those supposed “tax and spend” Democrats left to the Republicans who stole back the presidency in 2000 a surplus, which they promptly handed over to the rich.

I recall how during the Nineties, tax and fiscal policy was so carefully managed by Clinton’s administration. It was touch-and-go maneuvering out of the fiscal ditch; few people thought they could do it. How could anyone, let alone Democrats, balance a budge let alone reverse the huge National Debt at that time? But with Robert Reich at the wheel they did.

So what happened? Just as soon as the Republicans enter the White House, they issue a tax cut for the rich. The surplus was no more. Wow! And, still, pundits didn’t saying anything. People didn’t say anything.

Disposable Truths

How do you explain this barrage of historical malfeasance? How do you explain this lack of reaction to obvious wrongness, unfairness? It’s supposed to be a country of, by, and for the people. And most folks still think it is, even despite all the evidence of their eyes.

Maybe Americans cannot learn from, even remember, recent history because their perceptions and memories are not validated around them. If on the media their feelings are not confirmed, folks are going to doubt themselves; they’re going to be confused.

Disposable Truth: What They’ve Succeeded in Getting Us to Forget

What They’ve Succeeded in Getting Us to Forget – Disposable Truth:

Reality Transplant, The Media

Are They So Immersed in Republican Culture?

Why commentators would be so easily forgetful and then complicit is the question. We were wondering if perhaps it is the continual bombardment of untruth they are under. In such a setting, required to stay immersed in Republican culture so much more than the rest of us, maybe they would find it nearly impossible to be as questioning and confrontational as would be required if they were to truly do their job in helping to clarify events.

Besides, they know these Republican mouthpieces socially; they play golf, have drinks with them, and more in their off hours. Of course these media types want to be seen as civil people, too. So they don’t want to say, on their TV program, “Aw, c’mon. That’s bullshit, man!” They’re not going to say that. They might think it’s bullshit, but they’re not going to tell us!

Are You Reeling in the Years?

And it’s going to keep the American people confused. If the obvious lies of the right-wing politicians and propagandists are not pointed out by the reporters who are questioning them, well then you only have the Democrats to counter these untruths.

And if these pundits are also saying that the Democrats and the Republicans are equally the same and that all politicos are corrupt and such, well, after a while, when you hear that enough, you’re not going to have really any basis for discerning the truth. You’re not going to be seeing what’s actually been going on over the years.

What They’ve Succeeded in Getting Us to Forget

In the last century, Democrats were responsible for the most influential and most popular public policy developments: they brought in social security, medicare; they supported the unions and minimum wage measures that boosted the lifestyles of the American worker. So consider the right wing and media achievement in getting Americans to forget all that? Wow.

Narrative for the New History … Why That’s One Dumb Republican!

We even had one Republican, Steve Austria, who not long ago found himself in the spotlight. He was an elected Congressional representative…god only knows how that happened. He was talking on economic policy. He was changing history to fit his argument, which they do, you know.

But this guy really believed it! He was saying how it was Roosevelt who caused the Great Depression! He actually maintained it was Roosevelt who was in power when the Great Depression hit. He said the Depression was caused by tax and spend.

No, it was Hoover. Monetary policy favoring the rich caused and kept the Great Depression going; tax and spend, e.g., social security, is what got us out of, not into, the ditch. All this is part of history that is practically—except for you, Steve–common knowledge. There were what were called Hoover, not Roosevelt,camps full of the poor unemployed. Wow.

Dogma for the New Religion. “Obvious truths” from On High

How did people become so dumb all of a sudden? Anyway, I think a lot of it has to do with these things being repeated over and over again until people think they’re true. And it’s unnecessary to ponder or question them.

It seems as if the pundits felt this way after a while, to the point that when the Republican or conservative would say her or his talking point, it was almost as if that frequently heard statement was gospel. Seeing the media’s response, you would think that drivel had been carried down from Mount Sinai, engraved on a stone tablet. It didn’t have to be reasoned about; it was given down from “on high.” Over and over and over again.

Smoke and Lies Around Unions. Truth Taken Out at the Knees – Unions Are the New Rich Fat Cats.

So the lie, the mantram, the notion at one time in my life, was nonexistent. At another time, quite the opposite, it was all pervasive.

At one time folks believed that unions represented working people like themselves, more than anything else. At the later time and now, the exact opposite of the truth–that union workers are the wealthy and their leaders are now the fat cats, to hear people tell it.

The Truth—Unions Represent Otherwise Powerless Workers.

But well, of course it was the original view that was true: It is the American worker who is represented by unions, for they carry their voices.

The Republican line, the lie, that unions are entities equally as small and distinct from our society of people as are corporations, and are therefore “special,” and that what is good for unions is bad for people, for ordinary citizens, somehow given Frankensteinian life, jolted large and menacing by incessant repetition into zombified minds, blotting out the truth like a monster would the sun, and terrorizing, so they run away and fight, the very folks that now muddied truth would lift up.

Continue with Culture War, Class War, Chapter Twelve: Only The Game Remains

Return to Culture War, Class War, Chapter Ten: Erosion of Reason, Self-Confidence

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The Rise and Fall of “Obvious Truths,” Part Two
an Audio Reading by SillyMickel Adzema

Here is an audio of the author’s impassioned reading of this part. Though it is of the first, unedited and unpolished version, and it does not contain all the detail of its current form below, it does capture the flavor of it all. I offer it here for your listening pleasure. For the reading of this part, “The Rise and Fall of ‘Obvious Truths,’ Part Two,” click on the link to the audio site above or click the link to the audio player below.

http://cdn.hark.com/swfs/player_fb.swf?pid=dhvsqlbnjl
The Rise and Fall of Obvious Truths, Part 2. by SillyMickel Adzema

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Continue with Culture War, Class War, Chapter Twelve: Only The Game Remains

Return to Culture War, Class War, Chapter Ten: Erosion of Reason, Self-Confidence

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