There was a promo that used to run in which the announcer said, “Cutting through the bullshit.” But it was old-fashioned, over-the-air terrestrial radio, on which you cannot curse, so the word “bullshit” was bleeped. But we all knew what word was being bleeped, making you ask “why bleep it in the first place?”
That’s the weird reality in which we live.
Every day we’re bombarded by messages in our media that are increasingly focus group-tested and used to further the message of the big money behind it, often in surreptitious and deceptive ways.
I discussed this issue today with Joel Silberman as it relates to one of the most popular shows on Netflix these days, House of Cards.
Over at the Campaign for America’s Future, Richard “RJ” Eskow wrote about noticing a disturbing narrative in the Season 3 premiere of the popular show about unethical politicians (an oxymoron if ever I heard one)…
Frank’s a Democrat, like all Third Way members, and his rant is filled with exactly the kind of misinformation and manipulation that we’ve come to expect from that corporatist crowd. “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, every entitlement program that is sucking us dry,” says Underwood in his rant, “I want it on the table.”
“Sucking us dry”? That’s economic gibberish.
“We obviously have to get back to some basics,” Underwood says in his rant, “remind ourselves of some of the facts that are before us …” (emphasis ours.)
Underwood continues: “This (the number $32,781, displayed on a flip chart) is what the average senior gets in one year from entitlements …This money is a job we could be giving to a single mother or a student just out of school. Now at the moment, 44 cents of every tax dollar goes to pay for these programs. By 2030, it’ll be over half, 62 cents.”
“Entitlements are bankrupting us,” he concludes.
[Except] that they’re not. Social Security accounts for 24 percent of the federal budget, but it is forbidden by law from adding to the overall deficit. What’s more, its trust fund is currently holding $2.8 trillion dollars in reserves. The statement is meaningless.Eskow did his research, and found out that the misleading “centrist” (read Conserva-Dem) bullshit was the product of a bullshit propaganda group trying to perpetrate this fiction on a naive public.
But who knew that the show itself – not the characters, but the show – had a hidden agenda? It’s already taken on teachers. Now comes the anti-“entitlement” tirade from Frank Underwood in Episode One of the new season. Frank, despite his evil ways and means, has an ambitious dream, which is introduced during a lengthy scene in which he lectures his staff, and the audience, on some highly misleading “facts.”
How did that happen? How did the “AmericaWorks” fictional plot point come to be built on real-world lies?
Here’s a clue: Episode One’s credits list Jim Kessler as a consultant. Kessler is, as his IMDB biography notes, the co-founder of Third Way. That’s a Wall Street-funded, so-called “centrist” Democratic organization with a mission: to promote neoliberal economics and make the world safe (at least financially) for its wealthy patrons.
Third Way has consistently misrepresented the financial condition of Social Security, misdirected the public debate about Medicare, and generally promoted the socially liberal but fiscally conservative worldview of its patrons.
Kessler and co-founder Jon Cowan carefully tiptoed their way through the minefield of public opinion for years, pretending to be technocrats rather than de facto lobbyists for powerful interests. They finally lost their balance last year. When confronted with the rise of Elizabeth Warren and the populist wing of the Democratic Party, they lashed out at Sen. Warren with an intemperate Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Joel Silberman suggested the way to counter this blatant example of propaganda is to get Hollywood’s liberal TV community to create shows and characters who can help propel our message. Good luck to us.
As it is, we’re fighting against the bullshit on so many fronts. In the first hour of the show today, I spoke with Tom Butler, the editor of a beautiful new book, Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot. Through pictures, it addresses the issues stemming from overpopulation of the planet, its drain on our resources, and the necessity to do something about it now, before it’s too late. You can see (and share) images from the book and get more information, including about how to spread the word, at populationspeakout.org.
And on a sadly related note, the latest edition of the FloriDUH files is summed up in this segment of All In with Chris Hayes:
Tomorrow, Van Jones returns to the show to talk about a new bipartisan effort at prison reform, and some classic interviews from the past… radio or not!
I finally checked back and listened to Monday’s podcast last night. I’m a Netflix subscriber…for now….but, I don’t watch enough TV to have taken an interest in this House of Cards show. From the description of the theme – likely an attempt to soften liberals up for getting used to living without social security, medicare etc.,
I’m wondering if this latest piece of drivel is just part of the chain of Hollywood’s return to making pro-government propaganda, that sort of went off-track in the 60’s and 70’s, with antiwar and even anticapitalist themed major motion pictures.
A recent piece I read somewhere about the shift back to making propaganda in Hollywood, identified Top Gun and the less viewed Firefox, as the return to pro-war brainwashing movies that could not have been made without the full cooperation and aid from the Air Force and other U.S. military and defense establishment.
On TV, the first time I saw an episode of 24…after getting nagged by friends and co-workers to watch it, it seemed blatantly obvious that Jack Bauer was just a flimsy, undistinguished ploy to put a human face on justifications of the use of torture and human rights violations. And then there were the other shows and movies featuring terrorist-caused disasters requiring militarized police to combat on the home front.
It seems like almost all major movie and TV entertainment today (even realityTV shows) seem to have agendas besides money and ad revenues. House of Cards would only be the latest of at least a 30 year trend in broadcast entertainment.
The other story – overpopulation and ecological overshoot, with Tom Butler, was somewhat of a disappointment for me. Because I am familiar with the basics of the story, and I was waiting for Butler to put some substance on his message…beginning with: what is the maximum sustainable human population for this planet?
That’s not a question that has an easy answer to go with it certainly. Butler did explain that ‘how we are living’ or the size of our individual ecological footprint is an important part of that calculation, and the reason why human population and our economic activity has to be applied to make that calculation.
I wish he had presented a few numbers….I didn’t notice any. Because if the appeal from the Population Media Center is towards a middle-of-the-road American liberal audience, there doesn’t seem to be a straight line between how dire the situation is for us as a species and what supporters of the main environmental movements have been willing to sacrifice so far. First thing that has to go is the international banking and corporate cartels, that are setting up the trading regimes that rewrite laws to place corporate profits and desires ahead of environment, labour and health&safety laws. As well, the push for open trading and against economic localization has added to carbon footprint based on added transport requirements alone. But, all the factors of capitalism that set up economies that have to grow in order to function, all have to go as well!
None of the credible sustainable population estimates I’ve read in the last 10 years, which factor in the fact that we are, and have been in a situation of ecological overshoot for decades, if not centuries, make estimates of more than 2 billion for maximum human population size….such as here at Population Matters: http://www.populationmatters.org/making-case/points/optimum-populations/
A UN report made for the FAO about 10 years ago, estimated that the total world population was already using almost 40% of the world’s total arable land surface at the time. That is the primary reason why we are in a situation that biologists are converging on in agreement as the “Sixth Mass Extinction” in Earth’s history of life.
Taken in context of overfishing/acidification of the oceans, the cities, roads, farms and pasture lands keep growing in size to house and feed a growing population, which because of our stupid capitalist economic system, also demands exponential growth in itself. So, where does that leave the sea creatures as well as those on land? Crowded into increasingly smaller niches, where large animals die off because their ranges are too limited to live sustainably, while even smaller creatures like birds, reptiles, amphibians and even insect species are dying off for reasons that are often less clear, but likely related to the toxifying effects we have had on our living spaces as well as those in the vanishing wilderness areas.
When I looked at the websites supporting the book, I found them (like the book apparently based on reviews) too full of pictures, too light on information content. It sort of reminds me of Al Gore’s initiative back when his movie and celebrity were still a hot commodity – all flash/ little substance! The problem is that, focusing attention on making a big media splash, is a strategy that doesn’t inform the public about what they should be doing and telling their leaders they want.
In the larger focus, this is the issue that is of supreme importance, and makes all other concerns trivial by comparison. Because, everything else we do and achieve is in vain, if we can’t make the changes necessary to ensure the survival of our children and grandchildren…along with the diversity of the biosphere we depend on for survivial. Ecology trumps all else, and should override economic and political decisions that we fight for and want our governments to make.
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