Turn On, Tune In, Be Dumb

Recently I received an Email with a complaint about an article I wrote (The Fourth Coup De tat) in which I drew a parallel about a Christian charity relief organization and the CIA. Specifically he took offense at my labeling them as right wing and went on to imply that children might starve and the third world would suffer because of my slanderous statements. It reminded me of the UFO report in the sixties where a woman called the police to report seeing a UFO when the policeman asked her how she knew it was a UFO she remarked, “Because it says UFO right on the side.”

The truth is not usually that obvious, in Vietnam when the CIA under the title of the Phoenix program used assassination and murder to influence Vietnamese public opinion they didn’t wear shirts that said assassin on them. Like wise Co Intel program that was used in this country it defeats the entire effort to discredit those who disagree with the government if you know it’s the government behind it all. In the 1980’s The Readers Digest admitted to allowing the CIA to plant anti communist articles in their magazine. Does that make the Digest a right wing organization? Or more to the point merely journalistically disingenuous publication. Call it patriotism call it what you like the cover of the magazine said digest of recent publications and it wasn’t, it was acting as a front group to disseminate government propaganda.

Now twenty years later the age of infotainment is upon us until watching the news is like watching the clouds you might learn something but it’s not likely and if you do it’s quite by accident. Catching part of an hour long news cast from Chicago they did a story about a man wanted in connection with a stabbing an then the story morphed into and episode of Americas Most Wanted naming three or four other men also wanted by the police with no connection to the original story. The chances that someone might run across one of the individuals among Chicago’s millions are about the same as throwing a rock into the Grand Canyon and hitting a bird on the way down.

Not infotainment propagandatainment, whether overt or covert the media has become a diseased carcass unfit to bring into the home. Like Tass or Pravda in the Soviet era the media’s role now is to obscure the truth to cloud it’s implications and to praise the parties five year plan as Orwell rolls in his grave. A recent story lauding UN efforts to reduce infant mortality compared the rates between the United States and Africa and praised the American system but buried in the text was the shocking disparity between the US and Japan and even worse the disparity between the US and Scandinavia. Compared to Scandinavia American women are giving birth in truck stop men’s rooms but lets just stick to those poor Africans shall we?

Like the X files the truth is out there you just have to dig for it for example, the economy is supposed to be doing great but what is being advertised on TV? Pharmaceuticals Ab minders, car insurance, whiskey, work at home scams, debt relief programs, credit score programs, Real Estate scams and car ads that hide the price in the small print if they tell you the price at all, you can lease it at a low low rate but don’t ask the price

You see? They can control the program quite easily but the advertisements are a different story and give themselves away.

They can tell the big lies about Americas economic engine and about the war on terror but when the station break comes they offer, “Do you want to join the world of law enforcement? You can start today training for the fast paced world of prison guard or security officer!” That’s right America! Dare to dream big! Or the need for medical transcriptionist grows or what we called in reality based America a file clerk. Those are the growth fields in Americas sputtering economic engine.

Consumer spending amounts for 70% of Americas GDP! Turn that sock inside out for a second that means only 30% of GDP is actual production over and above what we need to survive. Milk butter and bread does not an economic engine make yet production is judged by value added. Ford or GM manufacture an automobile and make ten K on it that is production but in the new numbers game a Wal-Mart employee selling imported Chinese goods is considered production as well and is measured just the same as goods actually manufactured. The profit Wal-Mart earns taking a box off a ship and putting it on a shelf is considered productivity yet they produced nothing!

The horrendous humbug machine has grown quiet about the sub prime mortgage crisis out of fear of killing a Real Estate market already comatose and in intensive care. Anyone seen any Century 21 commercials lately? New home sales fell at the highest rate in twenty years yet lost in the media muck is that April is considered the turn around month when sales customarily begin to go up not down. The sub prime market grew from 6% to almost 20% of the mortgage market in ten years would you call that a sign of economic growth? If you were a mortgage broker as the pool of qualified buyers shrinks what else can you do to stay in business but to lend to the less qualified straining our robust economic engine.

I saved the best for last the topping on the cake as it were. No more are you an Army of one! No more can be all that you can be! The latest Army commercials instruct interested recruits on how to break the news to their parents! What an awesome revelation in honesty you mean their parents might not approve? What’s not to approve about patriotic service? The administration can spin it the antics in Arabia all it wants but when it comes down to advertising for recruits they must get real. But their honesty makes me wonder how far can they go?

The recruit sits nervously at the table then begins, Mom Dad I know you wanted me to go to Harvard but I, I, I”

“What is it son?”

“Well Dad I’m”

“Oh my God he’s gay! Our son’s gay!”

“Shut up Martha! Let him finish! Are you on drugs son is that it?”

“I want to join the Army Dad!”

“Are you sure Son? I know a guy that could get you some drugs and your mother knows some people whose son is gay maybe she could introduce you to him!”