I remember seeing the Nazi agitprop films during anthropology classes in college. I'm not saying that modern TV is particularly splendid. But at the producers are capitalists trying to maximize ratings (and sex and insults may do that), not murderous government officials trying to justify mass extinction.

-Declan

yup, $ not gas, but it is not necessarily wrong to be looking for subtle themes that might inadvertently disclose a deeper illness.

On Mon, Jul 09, 2001 at 09:20:32AM -0700, Ray Dillinger wrote:

...

I turned on a television set last night, for the first time in many months. I was watching videotapes, but I caught fragments of shows while tapes were rewinding, etc.

[snip]

First, the people are conditioned to accept "harsh reality", survival of the fittest, etc. Second, the people are conditioned to accept that, these things being inevitable, hurrying them along is a virtue. Third, some class of people are identified as being "inferior" and pseudoscience upholding the claim is advanced.

The shows I saw last night were deep into the second stage, and universal public monitoring is now more pervasive here than it was then and there, and our schools are raising a generation of people who think monitoring and draconian weapons laws are normal, and ideas not "politically correct" are being persecuted as vigorously here as they were in Nazi Germany.

The parallels continue... The "new media must be controlled" of that era was radio and television -- now it's the internet. Same basic debates going on -- most of the same outcomes happening.

I am scared.

Bear

Maybe these things exist as undercurrents in all societies and occasionally they swirl a bit, setting loose a bit of swamp gas. Sometimes the whole pond turns over bringing all sorts of stinking muck to the surface. Maybe it's disturbing to recognize these undercurrents in the smiling, happy place you call home but they've been there all along. Mike