December 24, 2004
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Have you ever had a friend who knew everything??? The type of person who has an answer to almost any question. Well…I’ve been talking to that friend for the last few hours:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
It’s like I’ve discoverd porno and can’t get away from the computer.
Everything from a run-down of every war known to man, to media bias, to the US’s refusal to comply with the UN after the Iran-Contra scandal, to the origins of Marxism, to so many things. It has links to everything, so anything that’s new, you can immediately learn.
For example…I know all about Fox News being a completely biased news program, and I’ve been reflecting a lot on how all news is biased…so I search fox news, that led to a link called, “the propoganda model.” ex)
TF1 is a French tv station
“… the job of TF1 is to help Coca-Cola, for example, to sell its product. (…) In order that an advertising message is perceived, the brain of the television viewer must be available. Our broadcasts are aimed at making that brain available: i.e. by distracting it, by relaxing it and preparing it between two messages. What we sell to Coca-Cola is time with this available human brain.”
Ever think, “man, why do they show so much stupid shit on the news” there you have it. I spend so much time getting frustrated by how much the news sucks, now I know why. Not only are they trying to relax your mind and put you in a buying mood for commercial breaks, but, the media gets most of its news from gov’t sources, so it can’t exactly bite the hand that’s feeding it.
And yes…Noam Chomsky is on my reading list.
Comments (4)
I love Wikipedia. Although it’s not as mindnumbing as pornography. Well TV news, unless it’s national, tends to be cookie cutter stuff. In college, during j-school, we were divided into the broadcast people and the print people. We’d hear vicious rumor of a “broadcast journalism graduate of the school” who got himself done (as in plastic surgery) just to get that first tv job. TV news does emphasize on what they think the people want and what will bring up ratings versus what the people need to hear to be better informed.
I too am addicted to wikipedia (as you know from all the links… har har!).
I’m glad to see this stuff here recently about criticism and self-criticism. You’d probably be interested to know that Huey P. Newton, the largest figure in US American Maoism, was named after Huey Long, who you’ve recently mentioned once or twice.
a nice Long introduction…
another interesting piece on “The Kingfish” and the everlasting attacks on his legacy…
Reconstructing an economy by raising taxes on rich people and corporations and creating make work programs while defaulting on foreign loans… people obsessed with American Corporate Capitalism will tell you it can’t work, will even deny that it is working, but Argentina seems to have found a solution…