Demonizing Empathy; Glorifying Violence

I'd like to talk about "defining cultural moments". While these moments are felt to be significant by the attendees, they only become "defining" when passed through the cultural/media apparatus. Sometimes, an active "counter-culture" can save a moment from being trashed for history by the "official" version of events.

With today's media culture, everyone who wants to be is an "attendee" at various, mostly staged, cultural events. Also, because of the internet, everyone can be part of the media apparatus. So, we are at the dawn of a new age of how culture gets defined; and its a bloody war.

Below the fold, we follow this multi-front propaganda war.

arendt's diary :: :: The corporate media culture in America today glorifies violence and demonizes having empathy (Cf. Justice Sotomayor) for one's fellow human being. This mindset is the core theme that is being hammered into US citizens night and day in a classic "total immersion" propaganda campaign, where the target is bombarded with the same repetitive message from multiple directions in multiple forms.

In a moment, I will describe some of the fronts in this propaganda war. But, before that, readers should think about what KIND of defining cultural moment all this "deep sociological propaganda" is preparing the target population to accept.

We have just dug our way out of the rubble of the 911 propaganda war. We may have personally survived, but our democratic institutions are a pile of rubble - blown to dust by the Patriot Act, Signing Statments, a politicized DOJ, and many other attacks. The GOP may have lost the 2008 election; but it appears they still run Washington when it comes to violence.

For whatever reason, the cultural definition of Democrats as "weak" on protecting America has been successfully accomplished. For all intents and purposes, the corporate agenda for the US military will continue to have top priority and increased budgets.

With this victory, the corporate propaganda machine turns its attention from foreign policy (which is now "none of the public's business") to domestic policy. But, the same emphasis on violent domination is still there, stirring the pot, waiting for a "moment" to "define". Let's look at what is bubbling in this foul stew.

1. The Healthcare Front

The corporate media rush to interview bone-ignorant government-hating Medicare recipients who are scared that the underclass will steal their benefits. Meanwhile the media dismissed, without coverage, single payer advocates and sensible deconstructions of the rabid talking points against healthcare reform.

Here the violence is merely rhetorical, although, as always, it is directed against the horrible, can-do-no-good, government. The perpetrators of violence are delusional idiots, elderly white folks - useful idiots with which the corporate media can club the Congress.

2. The Permanent War Front

The corporate media are attempting to normalize military violence and de-normalize even daring to converse with one's enemies. Permanent war is presented as the normal state of affairs; and after eight years of futile demonstrations, there is very little sustained anti-war activity/events to even cover. Mission accomplished.

Like Iraq, Afghanistan/Pakistan is presented as business as usual - albeit our Afghani puppet, Karzai, is a misogynistic, drug-running creep. Like Iraq, there is no coherent purpose for this war, just the usual "five o'clock follies" reports of body counts, leaders killed, villages pacified, unfortunate collateral damage.

But, unlike Vietnam, the corporate reporters are now part of the "credibility gap" problem, not part of the solution. This time, the only adversarial relationship is with that part of the patriotic blogosphere not intimidated by the militaristic threats emanating from the right.

2.1 The GWOT Sub-Front

Once again, the GWOT is defined by violence We have show trials for derelicts punked by DHS stoolies into idiotic terror plots. But, it is also defined by a carefully revived racism. We have hysterical demonization of Moslems. This has spilled over into the truly insane "birther" nonsense directed at Obama - because of his race.

3. The Drug War/Underclass Front

Defining the problem as "war", not treatment (i.e., empathy for the victims), says it all. There is some progress on the Drug War front. The Obama administration has dropped the terminology; but that's just passive progress. Active progress is coming from a genuinely conservative pushback, by judges, police officers, and local politicians appalled by the human and financial costs of thirty years of mass incarceration. The pushback is being aided by the bankruptcy of state governments overburdened by the largest prison population on the planet. Pushback is also coming from farmers who want to grow hemp - this bill has many sponsors in Congress. (There has always been a leftwing push for legalization, but see "The Woodstock Front" below.)

The pushback is also coming from Latin America being fed up with being the battlefield for the US drug war and the victim of US-trained thug governments. The shambles in Mexico is kept out of the corporate propaganda news; but the vast corruption, private armies, kidnappings, death squads, and civil war there are a foretaste of what will happen in America.

The last thing the news corpse will emphasize is how the guns for the Mexican Drug Wars are bought in the US and easily smuggled to Mexico. Such reporting will not appear because it embarrasses and exposes the non-performance of the DHS and the ludicrous futility of the border fence.

4.The Gun Nut Front

When Black Panthers brandished guns, they were murdered in their beds. Now that a black man is president, manipulated, gun-toting nutcases are given a TV platform to spout their hatred, and their toxic backgrounds are whitewashed. (Kostric was formerly a seperationist and Arizona militia nut.) The corporate media emphasize the LEGALITY of tens of people carrying guns to a political rally, and merely note the escalation in numbers, calibers, and lethality of the weapons.

This tacit acceptance of gun-toting anywhere, anytime is really a glorification of violence. The subliminal message is that "real men carry guns and use them". Later the message will be: "No one could possibly have anticipated that..."

5. The Hollywood Front

Movies and TV are heavily weighted towards non-stop, cartoonish violence between mythic archetypes. There are guns, military hardware, scifi weapons, magical spells - a million ways to kill people. And the violence junkie moviegoers give points for creative, sadistic ways of maiming and killing people. Slow-motion violence is haute cuisine for these voyeurs.

Movies that explore characters and motivation have been increasingly lowered to the level of personal, romantic relationships - which are then demeaned as "chick flicks". Deep examination of real historical characters is at a low point. Normally, history is strip-mined for venues in which to stage violence.

The sexual stereotyping grows ever more extreme. Male actors sport stubble, tatoos, and shaved heads as they commit mass mayhem. Female actresses are "boys with tits" and collagen-injected lips - more than ever, they are the "babe of the week". They are sex objects (or sometimes part of the mass mayhem), or they are "moms". (The old "madonnas or whores" trope.) But only rarely are they depicted as fully human beings with a stake in politics, business, or leadership.

Last summer, it was rumored that the Hollywood studios demanded that no movies be made with themes from history. The rumor was that only comedies and mindless violence would be made, lest the public be awakened from its movie-induced stupor. Even as a rumor, it is part of the propaganda war.

6. The new "Woodstock Front"

Having destroyed or rolled back almost all of the socially-conscious (i.e., empathetic) programs of the 1960s and 70s (environmental protection, family planning, equal rights for women,...), the only target left standing is the whole generation that worked to make those programs happen.

I simply cannot believe the trashing going on over Woodstock. The propaganda talking points are: that the boomers are just a bunch of egomaniacs who should shut up; that the event itself is a pathetic thing for a generation to be proud of.

The real target of this smear campaign is what that "defiining cultural moment" stands for: too much empathy, too much non-violence, too much raw, honest, non-corporate musicianship, too much condoned drug use, too much sexual liberation, too much anti-war. The real target is that reality, rather than the corporate media, defined that moment.

In regards to the overarching pro-violence propaganda war, the Woodstock Front was opened to stomp the theme of empathy and love into the ground. It is to do this by fomenting inter-generational hatred. By making boomers feel they worked all their lives to be robbed, while making 20-somethings feel that boomers are just whining parasites. Mission on the way to being accomplished.

Continued>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/18/768875/-Demonizing-Empathy;-Glorifying-Violence

and it worked.