Hearing the gunshots and taps on Memorial Day reminds me of how sad and unnecessary all this killing and dying is. And it really seems like the majority of people are really not even thinking about our "noble" wars (any of them), or the dead, or how backwards it is for anyone to even except for a second the premises upon which we fight.
Oh well. Barbeque away, America!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
"Perception Management"
Here is an excellent article by Robert Parry from Consortium News:
How the US Press Lost its Way
You can track the arc of modern American journalism from its apex at the Pentagon Papers and Watergate curving downward to Iran-Contra before the nadir of Bush’s war in Iraq.
You can track the arc of modern American journalism from its apex at the Pentagon Papers and Watergate curving downward to Iran-Contra before the nadir of Bush’s war in Iraq.
Some Fur
Fair rats. They will be a staple of this here blog.
Huey is on the left and Roxy is on the right. They are mine.
Huey is on the left and Roxy is on the right. They are mine.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Post-historical Brainwashing
I thought of something yesterday. I've been reading about contemporary world history lately. What has happened in the world since WWII was not talked about extensively in high school or college. I'm not done with college, but for my degree (environmental science), I don't have to take any more history classes. My "History After 1865" class ended with the events that ended World War II. I have an incomplete college education, but a lot of people don't have any. So how do they think about current world events in perspective, (if they do), and who/what gives these things meanings out of historical context?
Ignorance or understanding of history after around 1945 is widespread here in the U.S. and it's probably due to our failing education system and the different media that fills in the gaps. News and politics do not make a lot of sense in absence of their historical context without sensationalisation and lots of added meaning.
I think a lot of people lack a deep understanding of what goes on in this country and in the world because of this ignorance of the past. And a lot of people really just do not care about politics, which is so backwards, because it is so interconnected to all aspects of life (the economy, human health, our environment).
Politics make a lot of people uncomfortable and the story of our past after World War II is very much included in the category of "politics" because the events of our recent past to future and their implications are disputed. There is a very loose agreement on what these times meant for America, for globalization and for capitalism.
After WWII we were thrown into this "post-history" sort of era. The mainstream media has largely taken over the role of judging and interpreting events for the people in this country. It has taken charge of recording and distributing to mass amounts of people the narratives of our society and times.
When you start digging for information this becomes clearer, and also the extent to which the media has been complicit in molding constructs in the minds of people that logically support the bullshit it continues to feed to us every day at Primetime.
This is brainwashing, but in a different sense. The slate is not wiped clean, but existing logical structures built upon. But when people work their way backwards, often in an attempt to make sense of the confusing worldview being pushed on all of us, these structures begin to come down.
Once you understand the real events of the last half century or so, or even further back, there is little logical support for many of the narratives or their implications that are spouted so often, like that the one percent are "job creators", not Robber Barons; that free market capitalism goes hand in hand with free and successful societies; or that NATO's neo-imperial wars abroad are good for the people of the countries they are waged upon.
Sadly though, these are narratives that are still widely accepted by people in the U.S. I'm not going to right out say that it is because these people are ignorant about history and misled because the television supplies them with their only source of news, but it is a big factor, and there are other factors in the equation too.
Noam Chomsky calls it "manufacturing consent." I call it a lower grade version of brainwashing, because it really is shocking when people fight against their own interests and rights instead of for them.
Ignorance or understanding of history after around 1945 is widespread here in the U.S. and it's probably due to our failing education system and the different media that fills in the gaps. News and politics do not make a lot of sense in absence of their historical context without sensationalisation and lots of added meaning.
I think a lot of people lack a deep understanding of what goes on in this country and in the world because of this ignorance of the past. And a lot of people really just do not care about politics, which is so backwards, because it is so interconnected to all aspects of life (the economy, human health, our environment).
Politics make a lot of people uncomfortable and the story of our past after World War II is very much included in the category of "politics" because the events of our recent past to future and their implications are disputed. There is a very loose agreement on what these times meant for America, for globalization and for capitalism.
After WWII we were thrown into this "post-history" sort of era. The mainstream media has largely taken over the role of judging and interpreting events for the people in this country. It has taken charge of recording and distributing to mass amounts of people the narratives of our society and times.
When you start digging for information this becomes clearer, and also the extent to which the media has been complicit in molding constructs in the minds of people that logically support the bullshit it continues to feed to us every day at Primetime.
This is brainwashing, but in a different sense. The slate is not wiped clean, but existing logical structures built upon. But when people work their way backwards, often in an attempt to make sense of the confusing worldview being pushed on all of us, these structures begin to come down.
Once you understand the real events of the last half century or so, or even further back, there is little logical support for many of the narratives or their implications that are spouted so often, like that the one percent are "job creators", not Robber Barons; that free market capitalism goes hand in hand with free and successful societies; or that NATO's neo-imperial wars abroad are good for the people of the countries they are waged upon.
Sadly though, these are narratives that are still widely accepted by people in the U.S. I'm not going to right out say that it is because these people are ignorant about history and misled because the television supplies them with their only source of news, but it is a big factor, and there are other factors in the equation too.
Noam Chomsky calls it "manufacturing consent." I call it a lower grade version of brainwashing, because it really is shocking when people fight against their own interests and rights instead of for them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)