"One fundamental goal of any well-conceived indoctrination program is to direct attention elsewhere, away from effective power, its roots, and the disguises it assumes."
-- One might suspect that this is the function of celebrities
other than the President of the Galaxy, as well --
"It is said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Eternal vigilance, though, may be too much to ask. The 21st century’s entertaining diversions leave little time for guarding one’s liberty."
" 'PR, marketing and advertising is hand in glove with information now', said Nancy Snow, a professor of communications at Cal State Fullerton and the author of Information War. 'We don't let the facts get in the way of a good narrative'.
Snow said that celebrity scandal has become entertainment and that, for a majority of the American public, entertainment is more important than simple things like facts and justice."
"When the war on an idea is framed in a way that it's the United States versus a boogeyman (Bin Laden, Hussein), a "war on terror" is something that people can easily wrap their heads around. Rather than carefully explain what it means to be "at war" against an undefined concept, it's easier for Bush to just get behind a podium and taunt the evildoers like he's a pro wrestler. ...Emphasis is -- you guessed it -- mine -- ed. (The italics are in the original.)
The worst thing about the way that Bush has been framing the debate is that liberals have been falling into this trap again and again. ...
Saddam's gone, but terrorism isn't going to go away. As the terrorist attacks continue, the Democratic message needs to be that George Bush doesn't understand terrorism. His fixation on Saddam Hussein was a detriment to the war on terror. Not only did they spend too much time obsessively searching for one man and his fictional WMD's, but they took time and money away from the fight against the Islamic Fundamentalists who attacked us on 9/11 (of which Saddam isn't a part). Sure this is a victory in a broad sense, but don't ever forget that this has nothing to do with terrorism or 9/11."
"Saddam needs to be given stature so that Bush as conqueror will also appear to have stature. Saddamania and Wrestlemania use the same marketing tactic: make the villain fabulous so the hero is super heroic. When Bush talks about Saddam he drips with disgust and disdain. His ability to be moved by Saddam’s evil implies that he is the champion not only of the Iraqi people but also of all things good in the world.
It’s easy to join the fever pitch of the fight. It’s not unlike watching a cock fight. You can find yourself rooting for one bird over the other but the nagging question is what am I doing watching and investing in it in the first place?
Bush creates a primitive tug. He prefers you would be ashamed that you would question any tactic that would cause the desired result of bringing down the villain. To Bush, questioning how and who wanted the sociopath to become what he was is as irrelevant as the UN. Bush deals with symptoms not conditions. He sees evil as a proper noun. ...
Saddamania is red hot. His billing is as preemptive as the war itself. The cover of Newsweek and Time bumped Howard Dean and Jesus Christ respectively for the image of the homeless dictator. Like Bush and company those venerable publications know what sells."
"Members of the House Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications spent more than two hours grilling Karmazin, who again apologized for the show that ended with singer Justin Timberlake tearing off part of Jackson's top and exposing her (anatomy) to 90 million viewers. ...
The halftime show drew more than 200,000 complaints to the Federal Communications Commission."
"Let no one say that Osama isn't a thoroughly modern man. His timing was TV perfect. He has, as they might say in Hollywood, a golden gut and the purest instincts of a network programmer. And he's an incredible ham -- or at least a man willing to change roles as well as costumes as the opportunity arises. In this video, to judge from the transcript, he's abandoned the role of Islamic true believer (and of course mass murderer) to take up the bloodless role of rational critic. As a friend of mine said, he's joined the Capital Gang -- or is it the Peshawar Gang? Osama as pundit. ...
Calm as he appears, he might as well be a global shock jock. ... What a bizarre way to complete a three-year cycle of global madness. This single figure off in the middle of nowhere has once again managed, like the Wizard of Oz, to magnify himself until he fills every screen in sight and drives events, as he has for three years. ...
As we edge up to this presidential election, we can only say: What a tawdry spectacle is our world."
"Every time one of these (non-) stories comes up ... when it’s finally over I think, what a relief, now we can get back to real news. But we never do. When one of these big league nonstories ends, they just call up a new one from the minors... and off they go with another round of breathless reporting. Anything to not have to actually report actual news. ...You know how you occasionally see something labelled a damning indictment?
When defending these choices, news execs inevitably fall back on the old "we're just giving the people what they want." But are they? Fox News averages around two and a quarter million viewers in primetime; CNN hovers just under a million; MSNBC pulls in a quarter million. We have 280 million people in the country. That means that tens of millions of people actually don't want what they're being given -- and that there are huge slices of audience a real news operation could go after.
The mainstream media regularly confuse interesting with important. What's more, they don't even do the former very well, and they largely ignore the latter."