Among most people is not solely their fault. People crave and require information to make informed decisions about their daily lives and to learn what other people are doing in a global society. These are things that are no longer in a small circle, although in every case it's 'monkey see, monkey do.'
I am going to try to find his book, The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress. I believe this to be the case, although perhaps not int he way he will describe it. The media at one time made an attempt to inform the public in order to meet their duty as keeping an informed to confront the problems, both public and private. This is why they have traditionally enjoyed great privilege in investigating matters that impact all of us to the extent that human life, health and freedom are at danger.
Media, mainly televised media, has been and remains the greatest educational tool ever invented, its power increased by the use of psychological means through fast moving images, sound and availability. Many of us fought to keep the public airways, but the privatization of spectrums of broadcast and the creation of the cable news networks was expected to divert attention from traditional news program formats. Thus they created CSPAN to meet that need among subscribers. Then the corporations that profit from warfare and stealing the commons took over and dictated the content.
They have been the ones who created the celebrity culture on television, first by cutting the budgets of more legitimate newsroom staff, then by contracting with entertainment and then what were once called the vice companies to sell their products. It's all been merged into one big sewer that feeds the lowest common denominator of human beings, knowing full well as they do that all imagery, but especially moving images with sound, carries far more emotive power than print or words.
I consider the purchasing of the public airways to be the most powerful tool of fascism as it has enabled all of the others. I am old enough to remember when the celebrity news was relegated to soft programs or those that actually were about them. The reason they are reporting this instead of the news, is obvious. They have a vested interest in the companies that will make money off a fascistic state, and we are hiding if we don't think there is profit there. Look at every contract that is signed for this and that boondoggle from the private sector that steals the commons.
People have been vaccinated against protesting what is happening by either being uninformed, misinformed or giving up on news media altogether. Then they seek other forms of information, go CT or join weird groups to try to make sense of it all. But by that time the owners of media have accomplished their goal, to take the eyes of the masses off what they are doing every single day. I remember the celebrity news nonstop on the cable news network on the days that tens of thousands of Americans took the time to protest in the streets over the Iraq war.
The more intense the celebrity and single human interest story coverage on any given day, and it proves what some media critics have said years ago. They are there not to inform you but to keep you busy while the real business of stealing and changing the world under our feet goes full tilt ahead. So be wary of the media. Here's a video from Hedges last year, why they are doing this although I don't agree with all the slant. I was unsurprised to find Hedges as having come to the same conclusions I did years ago:
Another longer interview of Hedges I found by the same search parameters on youtube, is of him on the Alex Jones Show. I don't agree with the total negative spin but in such cases, because this can become another media circus itself.
Most people do pick and choose when it comes to CT and Chris Hedges. None of his fans endorse his views against the porn industry where he makes a powerful case that liberals are MIA on a business that reflect the worst in human rights abuse and exploitation.
N/T
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