atw: Re: OT: Culture / soap box

Arnold,
I don't disagree that much of the news media have become at best timid puppets and at worst money whores (e.g., Fox News) to the fascist neo-con regime that currently has a strangle hold on the USofA. I wish it were that simple to extend a boney finger in one direction and label the news as "The Problem".
However, in that the current mindset of ignorance, fear and nationalism has permeated socially transmitted behavior patterns, beliefs, institutions, as well as other products of human work and thought and, in that these patterns, traits, and products can be considered to be the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population (e.g., American culture), I would say that I am pretty safe in calling it a cultural phenomenon.
It is apparent in the witch-hunt mentality of the rising fundamentalist cult that misrepresents itself as Christianity.
It is reflected in the gladiator style of entertainment that aggressively pits people against each other for the sake of the almighty buck and encourages a Lord of the Flies outlook that it has the audacity to call "reality".
It has become imbedded in abusive attitudes that are repackaged and sold as "family values".

It is embarrassingly revealing that more than 60% of the American population still ardently believes that there is a connection between Iran and 911, and who also believe the neo-con propaganda that professes that the regime does not torture prisoners, while it attempts to be made legally exempt from Geneva conventions and all the while boldly refuses to comply with federal orders to release evidence of the Bush/Chaney/Rove Gulag.

This is a society where robber baron corporations are pulling the strings, and robbing us blind at every level, from fraud and new/improved ways to steal pensions, to exploiting the work force and then indoctrinating the punters into thinking that it is fun and entertaining to see people getting fired.
It is a society where the average punter is seeing dwindling resources, yet is encouraged to go into debt as a mega-consumer. Who has the time and energy after treading water up to their nose all day to do more than plop down mindless in front of the boob tube? And how far abroad can you go on a shrinking paycheck and 1-2 weeks of vacation, (if you even get a vacation in a predominantly "contract" work force). I earn much less now then I did six years ago and I'm not alone. You can't expand your horizons if you have neither the time or the funds to go further than the backyard.

We will see the middle class disappear altogether when those policies that protect people (tort law) and created the middle class (the post war new deal) are bad-mouthed into extinction as we are willingly brainwashed into letting the federalists eradicate those hard won protections.

So rather than become blindly complacent, I will continue to wave a hand in the air and raise a voice in protest. I am "We the People" and I refuse to rollover and play dead or fall in line behind the glittering package of neuro-programming strategies and the simplistic one-liner media spin that fascism employs to hi-jack my country.
I make the time to be politically active because I believe that one person CAN make a difference. I support Air America Radio and boycott Fox News and the entire Fox network.

On a side note, what's with that Aussie media mogul, Rupert Murdock, anyway? I realize that brilliance does not preclude greedy self-interest, but can the bloke not see that the regime from which he takes his marching orders is not only contributing to the destruction of America, but having a world-wide impact as well? And while his USA media (Fox network) represents the far right neo-cons, I am told his media represents the lefties down under. How does that work? IS it just a case of sniffing out the money, like some bastardly immoral hound dog, and to hell with the consequences?
MHT

At 09:20 AM 11/28/2005, you wrote:
[Andrea Tappe] <snip> And probably no one would notice - the current American culture is designed to keep us deaf, dumb, stupid, in a chronic state of panic and isolated from the rest of the world.
MHT[Andrea Tappe] </snip>

This has nothing to do with American culture. It is the news media. Stop listening to the news and you will gain peace of mind. News junkies worry needlessly over things they cannot change.

Arnold Howard

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