Though I own a TV, I have it for watching movies. I never really watched
TV very much and still do not. I went quite a few years without
watching. In the aftermath of 9/11 I began watching again, but with the
inquisitve attitude of an anthropologist. What fascinates me most are the
talk shows like Maury and the court shows and the reality shows and of
course the 30 minute infomercials. But what also fascinates me of course is
the propaganda aspect: how the networks are trying to rewrite everyone's
hard drive, so-to-speak, while rewriting history and reality itself (what
reality?).

And what's particularly ironic is that brain-dead Americans are drawing (get this) a parallel between reality TV and war coverage. Uh, excuse me? That has to be one of the most absurdly STUPID things I've heard as of late. And I've heard quite a bit of stupidity lately.

At first I too was disgusted by the swarm of propaganda and its rat-faced lies. I still am, but the shock of it all has worn
off for me. Rationally I knew it was indeed the case, but still to see it
in action is definitely repulsive. But instead of being repulsed I have
tried to accept it as some sort of mirror: it has made me want to come
half-way in my own art and writing, knowing that so much of the audience,
after years of watching this brain-eraser stuff, has nothing left between
their two ears except a basic receptivity to shock.

To be honest, this particular flavor of pro-Military/anti-Terror propaganda been happening for almost 25 years. It started happening
right at the beginning of the Reagan era, when the mass media launched a
campaign to make war acceptable to the masses again. The media did so by
trying to explain to america that "we should never let another Vietnam
happen again." But what THEY meant was not that we should have no more wars
or Americanled atrocities. Oh no. They meant that 1) America needs more
wars & 2) America shouldn't LOSE wars and 3) America lost because America
wasn't tough enough, America was too liberal, America was smoking too much
pot, etc. So it began a campaign that dwelled on suppositions about how
horrible anti-war protesters were to Vietnam vets (which is where the whole
"support your troops" rhetoric began--and it's blisteringly stupid). And that begat people like Rush
Limbaugh in the late 80s as the campaign spread to AM radio.

In viewing American propaganda you are bearing witness to the produce of 22 years of hard labor. You must understand,
foremost, how deeply the American media is penetrated by the CIA and other
spooky interests. And how long such penetration has been in place. And how
much it's grown since the masses of America wanted to shut down the CIA
after the Vietnam War (remember Gary Hart? his fame rests in his anti-CIA
interests from the mid 70s).

Stories For Boys
-----------------
Geo Bush I inherited the CIA and addressed this "perception problem" with a
three-fold approach: 1) make "plausible deniability" the mantra of every
operation 2) re-establish COINTELPRO-style operations, but more covertly,
more "grass-roots", and of course within the CIA as opposed to the FBI and
3) reinvigorate media penetration passively and actively: journalists,
anchors, producers, editors. CIA domestic activity exploded with Bush's
attempts to rescue the CIA from demise. But Carter nearly fucked all that
up when Stansfield Turner just about fired all the old boys. Fortunately,
the Glory that Was The CIA was restored and amplified once ReaganBush
occupied the White House. Well, then Bush tried to put a bullet in Reagan,
but that didn't work, and he realized he'd have to wait his turn. Which
worked out better for that child-molesting Nazi in the long run.



It could be reasonably argued that the American media was always this way, and that the
period between 1967 and 1977 was an aberration, an aberration in the direction of liberalism,
for the American media. It goes without saying (but I just have to say it, how STUPID people sound when they talk about the "liberal" media. Such a statement shows the speaker has no grasp of the meaning of hir own vocabulary.