Tag: television

I see things in wholes and in parts at the same time. We are each part of the Kollective Krazy of this time. Tea Baggers are examples of millions of Mad Hatter Tea Parties. We are not in the realm of reason — Marx would never have foreseen that Lewis Carroll would be the great thinker of our age.

Since WWI there has been a conscious and concerted attempt to control the minds of the American people. To rule in a democracy requires that minds be controlled and programmed–there is no alternative. Naturally, that is what has happened.  We are so used to it we normally don’t see it. We have to get out of our normal consciousness to see it–I think most of us here know this from having a long experience of being on the outside looking in.

I believe there is no hope at all for anything resembling the ideal view of a Constitutional Democracy ever flourishing in the USA. That period is over never to return. I suggest we adjust to that reality and try to build something relatively sane for our family and friends. I think life will go on but we have to get rid of the hope that anything can stop the march towards the clearly discernable neo-feudal order. There is simply no force in society that can help us at this time. American intellectuals and progressives have given up on integrity, reason and courage and are as much corrupted by konsumer kulture as the Tea Baggers — perhaps even more so.

After a decade-long slide into semi-irrelevance, it’s now being announced that the major television broadcast networks are considering leaving behind the “free TV/advertiser supported” business model in order to turn themselves into something more closely resembling a cable operation; the idea being that they could create a second revenue stream from the same “subscriber fees” that are paid by cable and satellite operators to all the other channels those operators carry.

This has become necessary, according to the networks, partly because the market has become so fragmented…which, naturally, is cable’s fault-and presumably the fault of the disloyal viewer, as well.

Another reason driving the change is related to the desire of the networks to have a source of revenue that’s more reliable in times of economic downturn, when advertisers often try to husband scarce resources by cutting back on all their expenses, particularly advertising dollars.

Will this new change in the business model reverse the fortunes of the networks?

Is it possible that the networks are simply poor business managers?

And what about…Krystal Carey?

Tune in for the rest of the story-and we’ll find out.

Wow, what a sendoff for Tennent!  He saved the universe from The Master, and also booted the Time Lords from existence, since they would have done anything to continue to exist.  This new series, like the new Star Trek, is a reboot.

I prefer the original timelines, but I also understand that to keep viewers, the story much change to be current.  But it does not mean that the original timeline has to chance.  Please keep with me to agree that I, Translator, should be the next Doctor in the series.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

Aldous Huxley

I have long found Chris Hedges to be a beacon of morality in the belly of the beast that is post 9/11 fascist America. His book War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning is a superbly written, uncompromising look at the horrors of war seen through the eyes of a man who has been there, Hedges served as a war correspondent in some of the most vicious and senseless slaughtering sprees of the late Twentieth Century. His sheer courage in coming out in the early days of the Bushreich and denouncing war during a commencement address at Rockford College when the phony War on Terror was just ramping up during which he was jeered by the audience, his microphone cut off and he was run like a rabid dog from the campus, later his employer, the so-called liberal New York Times stabbed him in the back. Hedges went on to write what I consider to be a definitive expose of the authoritarian Christian Right entitled American Fascists and contributes weekly columns to the fine website Truthdig. As a fan, it was only natural that I would pick up his latest scathing condemnation of the dumb, foul rottenness that is America in terminal decline and while uneven it delivers like a baseball bat to the head. We truly are living in the existential Hell that is the Empire of Illusion.

The Current Media System favors the Representation of Corporate Interests by our Politicians.

Since the Media Airtime costs so much, Politicians generally have little choice but to give Corporate Speech an Audience, in order to get Elected. … Helloooo Corporate Lobbyists!

Click to Enlarge Flowchart A

In his farewell address to the nation after spending 8 years as president, in 1961 Eisenhower warns of a growing danger.

Eisenhower on the Military Industrial Complex



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Why would a respected President, set the sights so high, for his successors, and for America, as the dawn of the Television Age, blazed its path, towards an unknown Future?  

June 29, 2008

The Media Project

WAMC, Northeast Public Radio

318 Central Avenue

Albany, New York 12206

Dear Alan, Ira, Elisa and Rex:

This evening, again, the subject of Blogs came up during your show, the Media Project.  And, to nobody’s particular surprise, the usual, superficial analysis was quickly dispensed: bloggers are not journalists, blogs have no quality control, blogs are too quick, blogs have no restraints, blogs by anonymous writers are irresponsible, blogs don’t gather news, some blogs print “horrible” things. I’ve come to expect this.

The fact is that there are millions of blogs.  For political and cultural analysis these come in two main types: group blogs (e.g., daily Kos in left Blogistan) and individual blogs.  Individual blogs, like newspapers, radio, and TV, have enormous variations in intelligence and quality.  Some are absolutely brilliant; others, unreadable.  But both kinds of blogs are extremely democratic: anybody with access to a computer can be a writer and express an opinion or an analysis or spread a story.  Anybody with a comment about a story is free to post it.  Yoanni Sanchez, a prizewinning Cuban blogger, uses the computer at the local library.  One doesn’t need money to be a blogger.  Only time and desire.  Bloggers who are no good remain unread and eventually give up.  Bloggers who have something to say are ultimately recognized and build a readership.

Originally posted on ePluribus Media.

The inability to hold those accountable for crimes committed with regard to Iraq — illegal detainment, torture, murder — is a major loophole that must be closed.  Redefining “torture” to exclude certain activities and calling those activities “enhanced interrogation techniques” doesn’t change what it is, nor does it alleviate the guilt or responsibility of those who have assisted and participated in it.

The biggest concern of the White House and the Republicans in Congress — and, indeed, at large — is that the public will finally reject their waffling and dissembly and ultimately hold them all accountable for what evil they have wrought.

They are right to be concerned.