Flag Pin Fascists

Quoting from the scriptures
With patriotic tears
We got the same old men
With the same old fears
Standing at attention
Wrapped in stars and stripes
They hear the phantom drummers
And the nonexistent pipes

-Don Henley, If Dirt Were Dollars

You have to give it to the Republicans, at least they are always consistent when it comes to sliming away with scurrilous charges questioning the patriotism of any who dare to question their extremist power grab. The latest season of the flag pin lapel frenzy is on again, the caterwauling of the conservatives (I use this term very loosely here because true conservatives abhor the fascists who have hijacked their good name) is being jacked up in combination with the ever present Muslim bashing, fear mongering and soon to be rolled out most kick ass clubs in the bag – Al Qaeda, 9/11 and the fantasy collaboration of Democrats with those insidious enemies of all that we love and hold dear here in ‘The Homeland’.

The flag pin thing really rubs me raw for some reason as though putting some ridiculous little metal symbol (likely made in China anyway) on your clothing somehow makes you more American than others, it’s as superficial and dishonest as all of those idiotic yellow ribbon magnets that used to adorn the backs of gas sucking SUV’s before the actual costs of Republican wars of aggression made them too expensive for the average American to drive so now they sit in the garages of over-mortgaged, over-priced McMansions.

The reich wing screeching is now reaching an ear splitting pitch over the failure of Barack Obama to display his ‘patriotism’ by wearing that crappy little pin that belongs more appropriately in a historical context in some European countries where symbols were of the utmost of importance – post Weimar Germany comes immediately to mind as does Communist Russia or for a more international flavor Maoist China. Despite their standard propaganda the modern day Republican Party actually cribs a good deal of their tactics from various authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

Coming in the aftermath of the manufactured outrage over Michelle Obama’s statement that was somehow twisted into her not being proud to be an American (personally speaking I am ashamed to be one right now for obvious reasons but I will leave that for another time) and the Clinton dirt diggers leaking of that oh so Islamic picture of Mr. Obama to the Drudge Report (now a bipartisan dumping ground for fascist filth) the keening of the chickenhawks over his lack of that shitty little pin is offering up a glimpse at exactly the divisive, scorched Earth campaign that the cult of the dung encrusted elephant is going to be running once again as November nears. The porcine propagandist, grand master Karl Rove himself was out pimping the red meat fake patriotism on FOX last week:

Rove: "Look, with all due respect, he is a very left-wing Democrat. He came out of a very radical background in organizing. His record in the Senate is the most liberal, according to the 'National Journal.' He has been a conventional far-left Democrat. And we ought to recognize that. As a result, he has these associations and these people he has been comfortable being with who are not in mainstream America. Look, after 9/11, when he said true patriotism did not consist of wearing a lapel pin - - an American flag lapel pin on your lapel, but instead speaking out on the issues, he was basically, with the back of his hand, being very dismissive to millions of Americans who thought it was a patriotic act to put a flag pin on their lapel."

Colmes: "Does he lack patriotism because he does not wear a lapel pan? Is he basically saying, patriotism isn't about a pin? That is his point of view."

Rove: "Alan, I didn't say that. What he said was that people -- he was implicating that people who did wear a flag on the lapel were not true patriots. My point is not -- in America, you get to decide whether you want to wear a flag lapel pin or not. What he did though was say, it was true patriotism to speak out on the issue, not to wear a flag lapel pen. He was the one questioning the patriotism of people with flags on their lapels."

Colmes: "I didn't get that from what he said. What I got --"

Rove: "Read the statement carefully. He said, true patriotism -- quote, true patriotism consisted of speaking out on the issues, not wearing a flag lapel pin."

Colmes: "He wasn't questioning people who wore it. He was questioning the war."

Rove: "No, he was questioning the patriotism of those who did put a flag on their lapel. Admit it. I'm not questioning his patriotism. But he certainly questioned the patriotism of millions of people who felt the simple gesture of putting the flag on their lapel was a patriotic act, and it was."

Mr. Rove, the man largely responsible for the ongoing exploitation of the 9/11 victims for political gain and the body count from the illegal wars that he acted to sell for the sake of the ‘permanent Republican majority’ (it sounds so much like the Thousand Year Reich that it is eerie but then again Rove has copied Goebbels at every opportunity) continues to rise exponentially is like a bad case of genital Herpes, he just won’t go away. Well if the Democrats had anything even remotely resembling a spine Rove needs to be rebutted with two little inconvenient truths that will never rear their heads even outside the FOX ministry of propaganda studios and they are:

1: Sticking feathers up one’s ass no more makes one a chicken than wearing a flag lapel pin makes one a patriot. (In Rove’s case a gerbil is likely a more desirable object but only speculation on my part because all of those White House logs detailing the visits of one Jeff Gannon have disappeared down the memory hole:

and

2: The great misconception that the flag pin somehow is representative of 9/11 is total horseshit, actually the Republicans who defended arch criminal Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate hearings wore them too. Republicans love to have fun with little thingies like that as is evident from all of those thoroughly tasteless purple band aids that adorned lapels to mock John Kerry during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

It is of little surprise that such criticism comes from chickenhawks and armchair patriots who never had the guts to serve, with the exception of John McCain (a self-admitted “baby killer” and “war criminal”) none of those who are braying the loudest about Obama’s lack of that silly assed little flag lapel pin ever even bothered to put on a uniform in service to their country. As a military veteran myself I find this sort of rhetoric deeply offensive, almost approaching the level of revulsion and contempt that I have for those whose real idea of supporting the troops is sitting on their asses in front of the television and pumping their fists like they were cheering for a goddamned football game while the body bags continue to come home containing the remnants of what used to be our finest young men and women who were blown to kingdom come for the freedom of dittoheads to remain snake mean and willfully ignorant.

They are the ones who are shouting the loudest for others to die in foreign lands, they are the ones waving the flag the most vigorously while undermining all that it is supposed to stand for. They are the armchair patriots, and they are being used by fifth columnists who really do hate us for our freedoms. The insistence of the most vile of all, the Republican party, a group that has come to symbolize the darkest of all American traits to 'wave the bloody flag' and tar all others as disloyal and treasonous is a low point in our nation's history.

Of course being a Democrat he is by that very association deemed `unpatriotic' and a `coward' in using the dastardly labeling of Rove and the rest of the unscrupulous and yellow thugs who control the government, the media, the courts and by extension are the operators of the message machine that spits out the hateful swill that motivates the most reactionary and ignorant segments of the populace who represent their base. This anti-American political party could never carry the torch were it not for their deception and demagoguery in playing to the most base and vile instincts of the perennially angry. Like any good purveyor of tyranny enabling double speak and race baiting, they have a little something for everybody.

Festering resentment towards women? Welcome to the party.

Hate Arabs, Mexicans and Blacks? Step right in.
Do you fear those that want to kill us because they hate us for our freedoms? Worry not.

Think that the liberals are destroying the country? We do too.
Interested in killing em all and letting God sort em out later? Yesssss.

Are you on God's side? Hallelujah, so are we.
Do you think Muslims are terrorists and agents of evil? That's why WE are going to kill them.

Do you want to defeat the homosexual agenda? We are on your side and God is too.

The Constitution? It's just a goddamned piece of paper, we have our flag pins!

The Republicans have made hay out of their twisted exploitation of the phony patriotism tactic and they only continue to piss on the graves of every American serviceman who ever gave his life for this country with their exaltation of fascism swaddled in the stars and stripes. Give me reality, not some whacko fantasy about who is more patriotic than the rest. To use the words of George Bernard Shaw “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to other countries because you were born in it”. I am conducting a trivia contest as to which 1930’s nation was the one where patriotism and the worship of the almighty state were exalted above all else.

A nice little patriotic swastika adorned lapel pin is the prize to the lucky winner.

The Petraeus Dog and Pony Show

With King George’s shameless proclamation last night that things have improved so much in Iraq that he can start bringing some troops back home(just like a pickpocket giving you ten bucks as a gift after lifting your wallet) Petraeus Week is now in the books. The “Surge” has received due credit as a heaven sent panacea for the blood soaked debacle in the desert and the PNAC plans for regional conquest (or as loony Ledeen likes to call it “creative destruction” are back on track. Even Osama bin Laden made yet another of those amazingly serendipitous appearances that always happen to occur just when the Bush-Cheney junta needs to pull a bogeyman out of the hat although skeptics are wondering just how the big spooky was able to get ahold of O.J.’s fake beard. Of course ‘The Juice’ could probably use it himself right about now given the coming 24/7 media feeding frenzy over an alleged hotel room theft that will knock every relevant event out of the next few news cycles. The sixth anniversary of 9/11 came and went and was amazingly subdued compared to the vast orgy of right wing demagoguery and bombast used to exploit the victims in the past and other than the few memorials the day’s biggest event was the congressional testimony of ‘Potemkin’ Petraeus. Now, perhaps I am being overly cynical but there just may be a coincidence in scheduling the sales pitch on that particular day to once more time shore up the big lie that Iraq is somehow related to 9/11. Hell, I know that I’m a cynic but I have nothing on the rotten bastards who actually run the circus.

It has been a thoroughly disgraceful week that exemplifies how America has come to rot, our institutions infected with the terminal disease of systemic corruption, rampant perversion and raw hubris of Republican rule. The bin Laden video was just so over the top that it allowed what alcoholics often refer to as a ‘moment of clarity’ on just how far down the rabbit hole that we have gone since 9/11. The neocon’s on call fiend has actually managed to get younger since his last really big appearance when he endorsed the Bush-Cheney ticket mere days before the 2004 election. Of course much of idiot nation that is already flying low with broken radar in an all encompassing fog of TV torpor buys this bag of horse manure lock, stock and smoking barrel like the good little fearful lemmings that they are supposed to be.

The hew and cry of the Republicans and their fifth columnist media shills screaming like the big authoritarian piss babies that they are over Move On’s General Betray Us ad is par for the course for the red team to whom decorum and rules are of no consequence when they don't apply to their own tactics. The American Il Duce, Rudy Giuliani even deviated from his pathological ghoulish exploitations of 9/11 long enough to shriek with indignity that Hillary Rodham Clinton had smeared General Petraeus and attempted to tie her to Move On’s blasphemy of America’s newest military hero. The schoolyard bully mentality of a party of punks who go running to tattle to the teacher when they can’t keep the game sufficiently rigged in their favor makes the utter failure of the Democrats to fight back even more infuriating. The irony is that they would enjoy approval ratings much higher than inflamed hemorrhoids if they would embrace their base and Move On whose message is far more in line with the wishes of the American people than the crap shoveled out by the elitist filth and their pocket media. Another of this week’s big lies is that the centrist (aka Reagan Republican) Democrats who are denounced as though they were the second coming of Karl Marx are not nearly as outspoken about illegal wars as paleocons like Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts and most libertarians. Some of the most withering criticism of Petraeus, a PR flack with political ambitions masquerading as a soldier who was once described by his superior as an “ass kissing little chickenshit” and the off the chain criminal conduct of an administration run amok comes from the principled right who have been marginalized by the neocons. In fact two of the most outspoken blogs/websites against the Bush regime’s reign of terror are libertarian: Lew Rockwell and the outstanding Antiwar.com but they don’t get the establishment’s panties in a wad for the obvious reasons that the entire bogus left-right paradigm that pits us all against each other with sideshow ‘issues’ would be threatened and the sham democracy corporate status quo must be protected at all costs. There is a natural alliance with these people who are equally fed up Americans just waiting to bloom and any seriously minded politicians who sincerely are for reform would be foolish not to reach out.
The Dems are of course posturing and puffing about getting tough on Bush and Iraq and even threatening to block Alberto Gonzales’ likely replacement in rabid Republican ideologue Ted Olson but it’s all just window dressing and only suckers continue to fall for the same con over and over. By now we all know exactly what happens next with these feckless toadies, they just roll over and cave with nary a whimiper. Maybe they should just take Bobby Knight’s infamous advice that “if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it" rather than to continue insult our intelligence with meaningless rhetoric. While the charlatans are seeking capitulation and compromise American troops and dollars will continue to be fed into the meat grinder that is Iraq. Iran will also likely soon be attacked much to the delight of a certain highly influential special interest group that gives marching orders to the Dems (and that for the sake of argument shall remain nameless) and the Bush crime family will be free to continue their disembowelment of the constitution for another year and a half. It says one hell of a lot about the Democratic leadersheep when even the fucking John Birch Society is more of an advocate for the restoration of civil liberties than the Pelosi-Hoyer-Reid triad.

The elitist mentality of our beltway kings and queens was on full display during the Petraeus love fest. Not only did the entrenched establishment Democrat from the Show Me State Ike Skelton neglect to swear in the four star suck-o-matic for his testimony (Ray McGovern was ousted for bringing this up) but he was reportedly overheard referring to protesters as “assholes” This is the prevailing attitude by the Washington elitists to whom the First Amendment is just another annoying inconvenience. The real asshole is the entire stinking toxic waste dump inside the beltway and the rotten to the core gaggle solons who reside there. They are thoroughly vile, cowardly, corrupt and could give a rat’s ass about either the constitution or the people that they are at least in theory supposed to serve. Given the disgraceful conduct of this new Congress who were given a mandate for change it is long past time to stick an enema nozzle into the festering asshole that is the nation’s capitol and give the bulb a good hard squeeze.

The total failure to end this damned war or prevent the next one as well as the reluctance of any of the presidential candidates to take an aggressive antiwar, pro-worker stance shows why there is so much crossover appeal for a guy like Ron Paul who despite his problematic stance on other issues will END THE WAR. Americans are overwhelmingly against this crap, the illegal wars, the widespread looting, the plague of offshoring, the importation of low wage labor to take jobs that can’t be offshored, the subprime fiasco, unaffordable health care, a creeping police state and all the rest of the indignities of the past six and a half years and they want change.Sadly to this point the Democratic leadersheep and their inept strategists have been loathe to offer up anything other than fascism lite and that just isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Seig Heil Santa and Talking Jesus

In a recent interesting story that I ran across on Der Spiegel Online entitled Is Santa Claus a Nazi? regarding the German public outcry over miniature statues of Old Saint Nick that appeared to be giving the infamous straight armed salute that was a national requirement to show loyalty to the regime during the darkest days of the reign of Adolf Hitler. It was as much a necessity for patriotic citizens as those little flag lapel pins that so adorned the collars and lapels of Republicans seeking to show a similar style of national worship in the run up to the Iraq war and to espouse their undying loyalty to their own strong daddy leader while elevating themselves in their own minds and their groupthink to some sort of superior citizen status. Anyway, for some dark reason I found in this story not only a sardonic humor but also a contrast between two cultures that despite the years separating them have similar characteristics.

According to Der Spiegel:

Christmas shoppers in Germany are horrified. Across the country, models of Santa Claus in shop windows appear to be giving the Nazi salute. Some chains have already removed them from the shelves.


If Santa Claus were to move away from the North Pole to one of the more populated parts of the world, what political party would he support? His "peace on Earth" message might indicate a left-of-center stance. But what about his Big Brother ("He knows when you've been sleeping. He knows when you're awake) tendencies? Sounds a lot like the Republicans in the United States these days.


Or maybe he's a fascist? That, at least, is what a report in the Thursday issue of the tabloid Bild seems to indicate. Germans shopping for Christmas trinkets have been shocked recently to discover row upon row of Santa Clauses looking to all the world as if they are giving the Hitler salute -- right arm, straight as an arrow, raised skyward. Never mind that St. Nick is carrying a bag of toys and wearing a silly red hat complete with a white pom-pom. Shoppers were sure -- these Santas were Nazis.

You just have to love that line about Republicans, one thing about Germans is that they can smell a fascist movement across an ocean. So intense has been the damnation of history that for millions the first image that pops into their minds whenever even hearing the word 'Germany' is of course Hitler so it is only logical that any sort of reminder of the ghastly past be managed lest it provide a spark that could potentially fuel the Neo-Nazi movement that exists in the shadows of Europe and which would more likely be more akin to Hitler Lite than the real thing but the apprehension of the Germans in not waking sleeping dogs is understandable if not admirable.

fter the initial uproar a country that is far more aware of the dangers of shadowy totalitarian movements than ours the ‘Hitler Santas' were destroyed. Such a shame, they would have made such nice gifts for the Bushist youth, perhaps a few will still be floating around out on E Bay for that Republican hell child who has everything. Maybe Sean Hannity can even score one for his spoiled little rat bastard to go along with that much obsessed over Playstation 3. I haven’t seen Hannity get so hot over anything other than fisting as the PS3. Especially in his running down of John Edwards for trying to procure one for his own kid, perhaps Sean is yet another of the repressed latent homosexuals who run rampant in the GOP these days and maybe what he really wants is to be fisted by Edwards….but hell, I am not a psychoanalyst but only one who is cognizant to the many studies that find that the most homophobic of all are really raging closet queens projecting their self loathing outward to others.

The destruction of the seig heil Santas shows that the German culture is very cognizant and vigilant of any signs that could lead to the reemergence of the Nazi hate machine that destroyed Europe and murdered millions in it’s black wake. The Germans have a reason to be ashamed of their blood soaked recent history and their transformation into a nation of Der Fuhrer’s hateful automatons and while it may seem trivial to outsiders that Germans see a threat of the reemergence of the cult of Nazism that always lurks beneath the surface in something as seemingly harmless as the Santa statues it nonetheless illustrates the fear of a people who have seen the horrors of unaccountable mass movements. Americans should pay heed to this and draw their own conclusions regarding the revisionist history behind the Christian Reconstructionism movement as well as the white supremacy and hatred of Hispanics and fear of Muslims that breeds like virulent germs in petri dishes and is preached by the vilest of Republican demagogues and the propagandists on hate radio.

Much weeping and gnashing of the teeth accompanied the recent news that the Marine Reserves Toys For Tots Christmas toy drive turned down the donation of 4,000 talking Jesus dolls because of GASP religious sensitivity towards potentially sending the doll to a non-Christian child. The very concept that true Americans would be anything BUT Christian is a widely held view in post 9/11 Amerika and the rejection of the dolls created a firestorm of biblical proportions that led to the Toys For Tots program caving in and reversing of the initial decision after the likely deluge of activists and operatives engaging in the standard economic terrorism in the form of targeted boycotts and harassment. The entire Jesus Doll imbroglio smacks of the religious totalitarianism that at least in my opinion is potentially every bit as dangerous of German National Socialism in that it distorts religion to use as a control mechanism, a bludgeon and a cloak of legitimacy for marginal views and holds millions in its sway.

The bible (already a controversial book as far as its historical accuracy due to hundreds of years of revisions and reinterpretations) is cherry picked by theocratic minded scholars and policy makers and every chapter and verse has the potential for spin. For example I once was sent a 'bible' that had nifty little explanations next to every admonition of Christ towards the evils of wealth, power and his damned liberal insistence of caring for the poor and downtrodden, the one that sticks out to me was the ludicrous explanation that Jesus' warning that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven was reinterpreted to mean that the so called 'eye of the needle' was local slang for the narrow gate to Jerusalem.

The Jesus industry thrives in America despite the transformation of the prince of peace into the avenger of Timothy LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ multi-million copy selling ‘Left Behind’ series that has in and of itself become a cottage industry with spin offs like versions of the repulsively anti-biblical, ultra-violent pulp trash for children as well as video games that encourage violence. The extreme right indoctrinate their youth to be both ignorant of reality (home schooling) and as most bizarrely revealed in the movie Jesus Camp little warriors for God. The kids are programmed by the cult to the extent that they are even featured in camouflage at some points begging the question of what exactly is the agenda behind such mind control and brainwashing at such an early age and what is the end game especially when considering the militia factor and the Christian aspects of the extreme right.

This is a very long and complex topic that I will explore at some point but not today. For now I would recommend David Byrne’s short essay American Madrassas for good comments on the subject. Incidentally, the particular ‘Kids On Fire’ indoctrination center featured in the movie will be closing due to outrageous on screen behavior such as speaking in tongues, being threatened with damnation and having the children appear to ‘worship’ a cardboard figure of George W. Bush as well as the embarrassment of several scenes with the now disgraced Pastor Ted Haggard who preached fire and brimstone from his Colorado Springs megachurch while snorting meth and having sex with homosexual prostitutes. The center portrayed in Jesus Camp is not the only one either, many similar compounds exist in America but since the operators are predominantly white and ‘Christian’ they merit no scrutiny from the Department Of Homeland Security.

Now as far as the graven image and false idol thing let's not even go there regarding the controversial Jesus Dolls but I am curious as to what they say and whether it is in fact biblically correct. I suppose that it all depends on which Jesus that you happen to believe in, Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus of George Bush. If it is the latter, also known as Republican Jesus/Left Behind Jesus a pushing of the voice button would likely bring forth the following homilies:

Kill the Queers

Keep On Bombing Brown Babies

Screw the Poor and Downtrodden

Mammon is God

Personally I would rather my kids play 'Gears Of War' or any other snuff style 'shooter' game, at least they're up front about the exploitative primal allure of violence and don't have to conceal it behind flags and crosses.

TV Evil: Through The Glass Darkly

TV EVIL

"I am gross and perverted, I am obsessed and deranged, I have existed for years but very little has changed, I am the tool of the government and industry too for I was destined to rule and regulate you…I’m the slime oozing out of your tv set"

-Frank Zappa from 'I Am The Slime'

"In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line."

-Earling Carrothers ‘Jim’ Garrison

"We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You even think like the tube. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion."

-Howard Beale

As with all other things, television can be used for either good or evil depending on the intentions of those who control it. Karl Marx once said that religion was the opium of the people, he was only partially right, had he possessed the alleged ability of Nostradamus to glimpse into the future he would see that religion as powerful as it may be as an ‘opiate’ could be blown away by an innovation of technology that was still nearly a century away, a medium with the potential to become the ultimate societal drug, one far more powerful than any other: television aka, the electronic crack pipe

…..oooooh daddy, give me a hit of that e-crack!

Television has in the course of the last fifty years become such a potent force of the infinite possibilities of mass mind control and public manipulation that there is no way that the government could possibly ignore it as a tool to either suppress ideas and dissent or to manufacture consent and compliance as well as to destroy the will and the intellect of the people. It has been used by both corporate and government forces, by the former to sell an illusion that generates consumerism and by the latter to domesticate or otherwise distract, it is used by institutionalized religion to spread a militant fundamentalist version of Christianity. The television explosion has been accompanied by directly proportional explosions of mental health problems, violence, debt and most importantly of all, ignorance.

The CIA has always been obsessed with mental manipulation and used LSD in crude, early experiments with mind control but eventually found it to be unreliable. Acid you see would always eventually wear off, leaving the subject wrecked, confused and at times rendered mentally ill as a result of being ‘dosed’. LSD is indeed a very potent drug, it effects each individual differently and consequently each individual would not necessarily have a consistent reaction each time that the drug was administered. I experimented with this drug on occasion in my younger days and can personally attest to the unpredictability of the effects that ranged from euphoric king of the world confidence and insight to manic laughter and enhanced sensual perceptive capabilities to a horrible paranoid depressiveness where every demon from your past would surface to rip a hole in your mind at the very time that your consciousness was in its most vulnerable state, often leaving me mentally wrecked for days at a time and suffering debilitating flashes of guilt and insecurity…and this was only at very small dosages, nothing like that of which that the government regularly dosed subjects with during experiments, most often unwittingly so that a test subject could be observed while the subjects unraveled and at times went insane.

There is a whole history of this that the public is not necessarily aware of, the project was known as MK ULTRA, one of those that was actually leaked or otherwise declassified among other acronyms and those interested can find accounts of this particular testing online at several locations and this one is a good jumping off point as any.

But I digress…

The acid is the ticket to either a great or a really bad trip at the time that it is effective and in the bloodstream but it does eventually work its way out of your system whereas the constant stimulation of the brain by television has no limit. There is no recovery from the effects of the endless assault of advertising and public relations experts, only reinforcement. Television has provided a medium for mass marketing for big business ever since its inception, these people have been imbedding ideas in our minds from the earliest days of the development of our cognitive abilities, if you think that this is paranoia just ponder the marketing strategy of a corporation like McDonalds which directs a large amount of it’s advertising towards children to take advantage of the ‘nag factor’ where the children pester their parents into visiting the local Mickey D’s for the family friendly atmosphere, enclosed play area and movie tie ins. When I was a kid there were the characters Mayor McCheese, Big Mac, The Hamburgler and the Grimmace among others that were ubiquitous on Saturday mornings, the only time for kids to get a full load of cartoons prior to cable television. McDonalds is but one example of how television is used to create an image in the minds of the youngest and most impressionable in society in order to create lifetime customers. This is a marketing model that was immediately seized on by the public relations industry and the government, both of which were fully aware of its power and potential to mold minds.

It is certain that elements within the government immediately realized the mind controlling potential of television just as big business realized that the new medium could be harnessed for advertising and commercial purposes so did the power brokers realize that it could be similarly utilized to manufacture consent, a term coined by Noam Chomsky, a great social critic who is sadly confined to the fringes of the alternative media in this country.

The coming of the 1980’s, Ronald Reagan (product as president) and emerging technologies that would be able to prolong the mental assault 24/7 the American public slowly began to accept televised illusions as real life, revisionist historical entertainment as fact, the glorification of wealth over all else as attainable and realistic and the myth of Rambo as a realistic personification of American foreign policy. I do not have enough time or space to look at this topic here so as to do it justice. The 1980’s saw the spread of corporate nationalist propaganda delivered over hundreds of channels, each appealing to a particular segmentation of a populace too mired in the pathetic quality of the daily grind of their boring and irrelevant lives. Now whenever they needed a fix, the ability to click the little button on the black remote and to be transported into a different world, a world of escape from the drudgery, a world where they could collectively bond with role models test marketed to appeal to their particular fancies, to be politically socialized by talking heads spewing radical ideologies, unencumbered by the Fairness Doctrine which was repealed under Reagan and which would forever change their way of thinking as well as to demonize what had been the real America prior to January 20 1981. They were given everything and anything in order to keep them tuned in so that the propagandists could keep the stimulation applied, the indoctrination process could continue uninterrupted, the herd could be brought to order and shepherded in directions that were desirable to their masters.

Television in itself is a relatively new invention, having only gained mass exposure in the past half century or so but if you want to approximate a time when the demarcation line between fantasy and reality in American life began to become defined it would definitely be in the early 1980’s with the explosion in the satellite and cable television industries. This is the time that it became possible to pump 100+ channels of violence, filth, political opinion, anyone can get rich quick scheme infomercials, lurid sexual innuendo and whatever other flotsam and jetsam of the human spirit that could be mined for profit into millions of homes throughout the country. The rise of both the radical religious right as well as the rise of the political reactionary right can both be traced to the rise in the availability of cable television and how those movements were able to use the technology to brainwash the masses.

Thus began the dumbing down:

Children became more violent and dysfunctional.

Freak shows like Morton Downey and Jerry Springer drew mass audiences while pandering to deviates who would see their sorry lives displayed for public amusement.

Today more people vote on cheese talent shows like American Idol than in most elections.

Television also creates insecurity and mental illness, viewers of too much television are often unable to make the differentiation between fantasy and reality, look at the rise in school shootings and generally deviant violent behavior. They live vicariously through the imagery designed to sell them caricatures of a lifestyle that they in turn believe that must be lived up to in order to be ‘normal’. The barrage of imagery as well as its calculated usage to influence the psyche by those whose craft is manipulation has a devastating effect on Americans. The inability to detach oneself from television worlds breeds violence, insecurity, greed and other such undesirable behavior. This is especially true for children who are very impressionable, there are highly paid marketing firms who specialize in trying to get the products and or ideas of those who pay them seared into the minds of kids from the earliest age possible in order to create lifetime customers. Is this evil? If not outright evil it is certainly devoid of any sort of decent ethical principle but then again isn’t this exactly the sort of deviant behavior that unchecked capitalism is intended to produce?

Will there be a time when television fantasy, physical reality and dreams become indistinguishable to some? Is that time already here? The psychological dependence on television to create identity and loyalty should be a national shame. Generations that have been born into the cable television era have become more violent, more superficial, more unquestioning and most importantly, far dumber than those who were their predecessors.

The rise to power of the evil regime of Hitler was borne on the wings of massive public rallies, fantastic gatherings steeped in the power of nationalism, symbolism, fire, resentment and demagogic ravings of destiny. The most famous of the state sponsored bacchanalia being the 1934 Nuremberg rally, meticulously choreographed and captured on film by Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will would become the benchmark for all German propaganda. The national madness of the German people can be seen in these rallies and films, the unraveling and descent of a sophisticated society into primal and pure evil was facilitated by them.

With television there is no need for mass rallies, the demagoguery and imagery can be delivered directly into your very own living room.

ooh daddy….give me a hit of that e-crack...ain’t never comin’ back!

THINK FOR YOURSELVES!