The Submission Will Be Televised

Media Manipulation In The Brave New World

“Whole problem ‘th you folks’ generation . . . nothing personal, is you believed in your Revolution, put your lives right out there for it — but you sure didn’t understand much about the Tube. Minute the Tube got hold of you folks that was it, the whole alternative America, el deado meato, just like th’ Indians, sold it all to your real enemies, and even in 1970 dollars — it was way too cheap.”

— Thomas Pynchon (Vineland)

Prologue Well, here we are with a pandemic ripping across continents, a former reality-TV show host and now “commander-in-chief” who can’t make up his mind from day to day which lie to tell, and a media machine hell-bent on convincing us that the “safe” alternative is a sadly addled man, whose campaign is devoid of policy ideas, direction, or passion—and who may have cognitive issues.

Joe Biden, for the uninformed, dropped out of his 1988 bid for the presidency after admitting to extensive plagiarism and exaggeration of his academic record. His record includes proposing cuts to Social Security, an anti-choice stance, support for bad trade deals and the Iraq war, and a laundry list of other bad decisions.

Hillary’s emails will seem like fluff compared to these public blunders and his wishy-washy agenda—and the Orange Troll will devour him.

How did we get here?

Television.

She Came In Through The Google Email

All the following ruminations are as a result of an email I received yesterday from a friend.

She wrote: “This is what really bothers me about Sanders. His inability to stop the bullying. His disrespect for women. Please. No excuses.”

This person knows I am a committed Bernie Sanders supporter from my social media sharing. She would occasionally toss in a random snippy comment like “he can’t win”. Just one of those abrasive jabs common on social media—any response to which leads to meaningless back and forth. Ironically, I’d call that bullying. She never indicated who she supported, so I’m guessing she was awaiting, as it seems millions do, for the DNC (for whom “unity” spells submission) to crown some “centrist” or “moderate” (whatever those even mean) for the undecided.

Her statement, coming in my personal email, out of nowhere, really took me aback. Where did this come from — what does it even mean?

The entire Bernie Bro bullying myth has been debunked many times over. It is quite simply a creation of the media, with fuel added by Democratic Party operatives like David Brock. Anyone spending any time at all online, especially in the netherworld of Twitter, knows that nastiness and trolling, by humans and bots, is soup du jour. It knows no party or candidate affiliation, race, or gender (although of course men are generally more capable of assholery.)

The part that this friend shared—about Bernie’s “disrespect for women”— really knocked me for a loop. As the young people say: WTF?

Talk about a statement made from some bubble isolated from political reality. From reproductive rights, to pay equity, to dealing with sexual and domestic violence, to the ERA—Bernie Sanders has a most impressive history of support and respect for women! In 1996, feminist writer and activist Gloria Steinem even crowned Bernie Sanders an “honorary woman.”

[ For current political perspective on women’s issues I add this quote from Joe Biden in 1973: “ I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body”.]

So, then, just below my friend’s statement she attached a link to a Washington Post article: “Warren calls out Sanders for ‘organized nastiness’ and ‘bullying’ by his supporters.”

Luckily I already knew about this absurd conversation that had occurred on the Rachel Maddow show—she of Russia conspiracy-mongering fame—because the Washington Post allows access to their news stories exclusively to those who can afford to pay. Keeps out the riff-raff.

Oh wait, isn’t this the newspaper owned by Jeff (richest man-in-the-world-whose-company-Amazon-doesn’t-pay-any-federal-income-tax) Bezos, and which in 2016 infamously was exposed running 16 anti-Bernie pieces in 16 hours. Why yes, yes it is. How surprising.

Whether my friend had actually watched the TV show—it is frightening that 3 million people actually do—or if she just read the analysis in the Washington Post—it was obvious how she had bought the entire false paradigm and was now throwing the talking points against my wall. I ducked that conversation.

But on display right before me was the entire national network of televisions and other media (all owned by six media giants), manipulating opinion on a massive scale—and, as Noam Chomsky had so clearly defined it in 1988: Manufacturing Consent.

“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” — Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow)

I read 1984 and Brave New World in high school. The latter instantly resonated with me as a reflection of the world around me. Television translated to the drug “soma” in the book—citizens medicating themselves into bliss, voluntarily sacrificing their rights in exchange for consumer goods and entertainment. Still are. The totalitarian Soviet Union visible in 1984 had nothing on the sophisticated system of propaganda (and surveillance) that we are currently under the spell of. Their wall fell, ours has an ad for iPhones on it.

A Slight Digression: A History of The Tube (In My Life)

I have railed against television from around age 16. The family Tube was a mix of nightly Vietnam troop death-counts and Gunsmoke, with the Andy Griffith show maintaining the 1950s “decency” from the earlier Father Knows Best.

My mind was expanding and I saw what I was facing at 18 — the military draft for this insane endeavor half-way around the word—and the deceptive veneer of decorum that was being maintained so that people behaved and business could go on as usual. Respectability. Support the Troops. America: Love It Or Leave It. Such is life in the country that is the largest seller of weapons in the world.

To me the TV emerged as primarily a tool of pacifying—indoctrination, propaganda.

All that post-WWII prosperity was pushing Americans to want the latest. Bigger cars, fancier single-family homes, and of course they needed this new source of amazing entertainment right in their homes. Starting with shows like “Howdy Doody”, how could they resist?

The “idiot box”, or “boob tube”, came into every home like an Invasion of the Body Snatcher pods, and we happy and prosperous Americans began a cycle of Amusing Ourselves to Death.

By the 1960s The Flintstones (the first TV show to show a couple to be in bed together) was dazzling another generation. At core I suspect Beverly Hillbillies and Game of Thrones (or whatever people are currently binge-watching) are the same tossed peanuts to the happy monkeys — well, with higher production values and some sexy stuff so folks feel all liberated.

Jump to now: There are 189 TV channels in the United States. And there’s Netflix and Disney+ and HBO and whatnot. The average size of a Tube in the home now is 47 inches, and expected to increase.

I am gross and perverted / I’m obsessed ‘n deranged I have existed for years / But very little has changed I’m the tool of the Government / And industry too For I am destined to rule / And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious / But you can’t look away I make you think I’m delicious / With the stuff that I say I’m the best you can get / Have you guessed me yet? / I’m the slime oozin’ out / From your TV set — Frank Zappa. (1973)

Other Screens

With ever-increasing computing power, smartphones now allow their owners to access endless resources of human information. In seconds they could be researching details on unusual relics and reliquaries in Italy, or the varieties of hat styles in different religions, or even what happened in Chile on 9/11, 1973. But based on my personal research as a daily subway commuter — people primarily use them to play Candy Crush, shop, text, take/post selfies on social media, listen to some hit tunes, and moreso daily: watch videos. Compact lil’ TV sets—a bit more interactive, a lot more obsessive—mass market entertainment that is always with you. Better go check if there are any new notifications.

Capitalism requires continual growth in profits—everything else is secondary.

What an acheivement it would be to mold a 24/7 consumer— a distracted human, with a short attention span, a lack of historical perspective and critical thinking on hold. Technology is sold as progress—promoted by the invention of the latest bells and whistles. The lines are up the block anxiously awaiting the latest distraction. Anyway—I don’t watch any television. (I have a screen in my house. It is for playing movies. And when I gave up television in my teens I gave up on superheroes and soap operas, so not much from Hollywood hits my radar these days, thanks.)

As a result, when I do come across television broadcasting I am truly shocked. I can’t imagine what they are thinking when I am in a doctor’s waiting room and The Price Is Right, Judge Judy, or the “news” [sic] has been set up to bombard the already ailing patients. Other people’s reaction to the stuff disgusts me. I watch in wonder as the talking faces on the tube talk down to their captivated audience, infantilizing them—and it seems to me that through daily exposure people stop even noticing that this is going on. It just seems normal.

There should be courses on deconstructing television broadcasts with critical thinking.

But television always has stuff to sell so they have to make sure it’s palatable to the lowest common denominator viewer.

Millions upon millions daily absorb these political talking points (paid for by the advertising corporations) on the montage of fear, adrenalin, and gossip that is so deceptively called “news”. With insurance companies being such an enormous profit machine, you can be sure the networks where these companies’ ads are run, will not be endorsing Medicare4All.

Fox News (controlled by right wing wingnuts) was always the bane of my liberal friends—and yet these same individuals don’t seem to notice that the other outlets—MSNBC CNN et al—are equally slanted and disingenuous in their reporting. These talk show programs with opinion pundits are where the corporate and political realms meet to plan out the days propaganda.

As obvious as the slant was in the past — consider the NYTimes and all the other media selling the Iraq War—it is getting more and more obvious, more transparent by the day. It’s as if they realize they don’t even have to be slick about it any more.

Bernie Sanders

The current election. I’ll start of with my opinion that Bernie Sanders is the most honest, real,and caring politician in my lifetime. In general my views tend leftward of his, but his progressive policies and ways of looking at, and trying to address, this country’s and world’s issues are unparalleled.

After the manipulations by the DNC in the last election I knew the powers that be were going to do whatever they could to stop him. Now I see that I did let my guard down and did not expect it to be so bold, unrelenting, and hideous. No shame from any of these sources for just making stuff up and running with it—they know that if they are caught it will be forgotten in a day as they come up with new distractions.

[An example of the manipulative undercurrents that on extremely rare occasions actually get exposed to the public: On July 28, 2016, Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned from her position after WikiLeaks released a collection of stolen emails indicating that she and other members of the DNC staff had exercised bias against Bernie Sanders and in favor of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic primaries.] [Of course she has now endorsed Joe Biden.]

The media had for a long time been approaching Bernie’s run in terms of how to “stop Bernie Sanders”—even as he won the first three states—but after Biden’s wins on Super Tuesday they used that opportunity to give Biden endless hours of coverage, praising him as the obvious choice. Casting him as the unifier of the party, obvious back room deals were being made as the other candidates, some of who were adamantly clear earlier about him being an unacceptable candidate, suddenly endorsed him. The corporate media was thrilled, so excited that someone might stop Bernie Sanders—because of course we wouldn’t want a candidate speaking out for working people, for providing healthcare and education to all, for addressing the insanity of the military-industrial complex, for expanding Social Security, for fighting to get money out of politics and not accepting any big money donations.

Standing up to the entrenched financial and political establishment is a courageous and dangerous endeavor. This is the USofA — we have freedom of speech—because it is designed not to have any effect. Television has revved up the vilifying of Bernie, non-stop chattering of the how to stop Bernie soundbite.

So here we are as another big voting Tuesday arrives.

In case there are any voters are still actually looking at the issues and considering Bernie Sanders, the major papers each threw a negative Bernie Sanders item on their front page today. The New York Times: Even if Sanders Wins, Medicare for All Almost Certainly Won’t Happen/ CNN: Sanders faces dire moment in Michigan showdown with Biden/ Washington Post: Why the GOP didn’t unite against Trump the way Democrats Have Against Sanders. And of course very little coverage of Joe Biden, who is hiding somewhere so he isn’t heard mumbling inanities.

Many see it all as a horserace, not an election, and who wins is what matters—addressing the issues and needs of the people are at best secondary. And that’s where the media, with their slanted reporting and predicting of which candidate can win this horserace (even if the polls show otherwise) get people, who all want to be on the winning side of this spectacular event, where the debates are variations of game shows, to cast their votes without deeper critical thinking. Do I think USofA citizens and TV viewers are that malleable? A look in the White House, past and present, rests my case.

In addition to converting the word freedom to little more than a marketing platitude, the idea of one-person-one-vote democracy has so many distortions and imbalances built into it—delegate malapportionment, gerrymandering—that the two parties ultimately make sure that they are the arbiters of candidate choice.

I have voted Democratic across the board since I was able to vote—including my rather questionable, definitely-not-a-Bro tactic of always picking the woman candidate in elections where I did not know the local candidates’ political stands. Even after the debacle of 2016, where they squeezed out an extremely flawed candidate, the Democratic Party establishment refuses to acknowledge that millions upon millions of people are not being served by their neoliberal bubble. The establishment shifted rules so a billionaire (Bloomberg) could get into the race—hoping he could buy the prize for their party—and then shifted them again to keep a candidate who was viable but not to their liking (Gabbard) out. This party in no way represents me, or the working people of this country, so when this horserace is done, this citizen fully intends to re-register as unaffiliated.

Bernie Sanders and the millions of us working for his campaign (yes, this is a real coalition of diverse people, not just endorsements from the political establishment) have stood up for the people who repeatedly get forgotten and discarded by both parties.

In the years since the Great Recession (2007–2009), the bottom 90% saw annual wage growth of just 5.4%; by contrast, the wages of the top 0.1% grew 29.8%.

What was being proposed was nothing more than extensions of FDR-style programs and yet the party and the media put out the buzzwords “too radical” and fueled the absurd equations of Bernie calling himself a “social democrat” with “socialism”. Then of course the TV pundits could roll out variations of the Red Scare because the television viewing is indeed that gullible.

“See the loaded eyes of the children too Trying to make the best of it the way kids do One day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast They call the revolution” — And They Call It Democracy - Bruce Cockburn

This “boomer” is preparing to do what he can in New York City to help the Sanders campaign. He is painfully embarrassed for those of his generation who are falling for this mediocrity from their privileged and comfortable seats in front of the TV. Did they all melt their Phil Ochs records into serving bowls and trade Pete Seeger for Pete Buttigeg?

My small donations (I am on Social Security and unemployed), my conversations with people: the ultimate anti-TV antidote, and other actions will continue.

The fact that a reality-TV show host was elected president was a sign to me of how much influence television could have in getting people to vote against their best interests. I am seeing it again as the corporate/political machine works the scales—and getting the results—to inject a candidate into office who also never worked for the best interests of working people. If the propaganda works and they get their way, and the election proceeds to being Trump vs Biden, the wealthiest class will sit back knowing they’ve set up a win/win situation against working people.

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Extra special thanks to Tammy Remington who helped me herd and corral a rush of runaway thoughts on this subject.

© AleXander Hirka 2020. All Rights Reserved.