Posted By: Thad McKraken Nov 15, 2016
I’m sure some people here have by now read the Cracked.com listicle by David Wong, How Half of America Lost Its Fucking Mind. I mean, at this point it’s been clicked on over 9 million times and climbing. If you haven’t, you really should check it out because it is a great piece and kudos to Wong for tossing it up. Another FB friend (like my page for psi intel) posted this other post election piece from the Guardian by the uber important Naomi Klein the other day. Again, good stuff about America’s increasing political divide between urbanites and our rural brethren. Both point out that our current political turmoil has more to do with the cities vs. the country than red states vs. blue states. It’s an important point and this seemingly insurmountable divide has been fairly glaring ever since I’ve been following politics. I’ll never forget looking at the voting break down of the 2000 election. It was like looking at a light map from space. Absolutely nothing has changed on this front since the last time we had a republican president get into the office while failing to win the popular vote (Go Electoral College!!!!!).
What neither of these articles even really bother to address however is this: How on God’s green fucking earth did a bunch of poor white people in rural America come to believe that a dude who inherited 100 million dollars from THE biggest city in the country was going to be their political savior? It get’s even more ridiculous if you take a half second to look at his proposed policies. If you haven’t, let me sum it up for you: he’s going to fuck up healthcare for poor people and give not only super rich people, but also super rich corporations massive tax breaks. Also, he quite literally wants even more of the exact corporate deregulation that derailed the economy in 2008. No, really. Another way to put that would be: he’s going to completely, 100%, fuck over the exact people who voted for him and he’s been fairly open about this from the jump. This New Yorker cartoon sums it up better than I ever could:
I love that cartoon because it actually hints at something that’s rarely talked about i.e. that humans are animals. Capitalism is an extension of the inherent brutality of the natural world where the rich are the predators and the poor are the prey. It’s a divide between the economists and the economized, and we’re going to have to start figuring out how to transcend this primal bullshit if we intend to survive for much longer. Our new pres is a climate change denier. Hooray!
With the healthcare thing, we sort of have to face the fact that Trump might likely completely bankrupt the country, because you know, that’s a big part of the reason we were reforming healthcare in the first place if you were paying attention. You know how the economic meltdown of 2008 made some people realize that George W. Bush wasn’t actually looking out for their best interests the whole time? I’m calling it in advance with Trump. I don’t really know shit about economics but I know enough to know that trickle down economics and increased corporate deregulation will create short term profits for the super rich and then blow up in our faces quite spectacularly later down the road. I guess I know this because: IT ALREADY FUCKING HAPPENED, just a mere 8 years ago. We’ve learned nothing. Oh wait, I suppose what I’ve actually learned is that when the economy tanks, rich predators make out like bandits. Resource values like real estate crash and they’re now the only ones with the money to buy them. Then they just sit back, wait for the value to rebound and voila. More money for doing exactly nothing. The question is, will things rebound again? I’m sort of thinking not. The predators might finally run out of prey. I can’t imagine another bailout is ever going to happen.
What I’m getting at is, let’s not just pretend that poor people in rural America just accidentally vote against their own self interests. Rich predators set up a calculated propaganda machine to ensure that they do exactly that. It’s a bit odd to be in the position of absolutely supporting free speech while simultaneously realizing there 100% HAS to be limitations set on paid propaganda.
Shut up you un-American communist hippie!
Well, socialist hippie might actually apply a bit in my case, but un-American, ummm, no. I can’t believe that I’m seemingly the one who has to give people these little history lessons, but we have in fact had limits on paid propaganda in this country for longer than we haven’t, but we started lifting these regulations roughly 30 years ago. Am I honestly the only one who’s paid any attention to the work of Noam Chomsky? This is what he talks about ad nauseum. Back in the 80’s we got rid of what was referred to as the Fairness Doctrine. What was the Fairness Doctrine? Here’s a decent article on it where this quote comes from:
“The Fairness Doctrine, as initially laid out in the report, ”In the Matter of Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees,” required that TV and radio stations holding FCC-issued broadcast licenses to (a) devote some of their programming to controversial issues of public importance and (b) allow the airing of opposing views on those issues. This meant that programs on politics were required to include opposing opinions on the topic under discussion. Broadcasters had an active duty to determine the spectrum of views on a given issue and include those people best suited to representing those views in their programming.”
This doctrine was revoked in 1987 under Reagan and is largely credited with the rise of batshit crazy right wing radio. If that law wasn’t changed, we wouldn’t have former narcotic addict human pieces of garbage like Rush Limbaugh pumping hatred into the feeble minds of vulnerable people in rural America. So killing limitations on intentionally filling the minds of the weak with factually incorrect bullshit was a Republican thing? Nope, absolutely not. In fact, the biggest death knell to anyone in America having any sort of clue as to what’s actually going on in politics came under the Clinton administration with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (20 years before it fucked over his own wife as it turns out, oh the irony). In short, this allowed media companies, which we already decided could basically shill people whatever sort of totally biased toxic nonsense they wanted into the minds of Joe Sixpack and Suzie Stripmall, to fucking monopolize. Oh yeah, that’s going to turn out well.
And before you get all, well it’s Clinton’s fault, thaaat’s not accurate either. Both parties have been bought and paid for to continue this trend ever since. It just kept happening under Bush Jr (W’s deregulation of the FCC in 2003 was yet another death strike to the concept of anyone who doesn’t have the time to do a bunch of research having any sort of a clue) and continued under Obama. Almost no one from either side in the House and Senate thought this might be a problem back in ’96, because they were all getting payouts. You know who one of the few people who actually opposed it was? You guessed it. Bernie Sanders. Gee, wonder why the entire media apparatus (even NPR for Christ sakes) was against the dude from the jump.
In 1983, major media corporations were owned by 50 companies. That number’s now down to 6. Oh wait, I was looking at an older article from 2011. Some people are saying it’s now 5. But won’t the internet save us? Nope, they own most of the major websites too. Couldn’t officially tell whether or not Cracked.com is owned by one of the big 6, but I did quite hilariously unearth the fact that their parent company’s ownership has changed like 5 times in as many years. How about the record labels and radio stations? Mostly owned by the big 6 (or was it 5?). Even most of the supposedly “cool” indie labels are now technically owned by these same companies if you look at the fine print. How about Hollywood? Ab-so-fucking-lutely. In general, at this point 6 media companies now control the informational intake of roughly 227 million Americans. Do you see the catch-22 black hole of hopelessness this creates? How would people know that this is a problem? Shit, they’re now relying on these exact 6 companies to call bullshit on themselves. Sure, that’s going to happen. Didn’t hear a single politician other than Bernie Sanders make any mention of media re-regulation at any point during the 2016 presidential campaign. Even Sanders didn’t mention it much. Gee, wonder why?
It’s funny because I did not pay any attention to politics whatsoever back when I was in high school or even early in college really, but in retrospect, you could actually see the change fairly quickly after ’96. Popular rock music went from Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine to Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. Gangsta rap gave way bling rap. Country music turned into pop country. All of a sudden wealth worship reality shows featuring brain dead celebutantes like Paris Hilton started popping up everywhere. The message was resoundingly clear: “Aren’t rich people great?�? Clearly the executives of these wealthy corporations didn’t like the part where you actually had to have some sort of talent to be famous. Shouldn’t people be famous simply for being rich, they asked? Sadly, the unwitting Sixpackers and Stripmallers agreed, having no idea this concept was in all actuality being forcefully jammed down their throats by the exact people who benefit from it the most. They’re the predators, we’re the prey.
So when you see Hollywood liberals get super upset about the Trump presidency, don’t let them act like there isn’t blood on their hands. They sold America a bunch of wealth worship-y faux reality TV hollow calories and oh shit, now we literally have a wealth worship reality show president. You decided to exploit the worst in people rather than bringing out the best because it turned a greater short term profit. Then it backfired on you quite spectacularly, like it always does, like it always will. Hope your mansion was worth it. A Donald Trump presidency isn’t just a triumph of racism, sexism, nationalism, and homophobia, it’s also an enormous triumph for the over the top anti-intellectualism these media companies have been selling America for years.
But culture aside, the first time media deregulation really bit us in the ass was the Iraq war. What do you mean? Well, I mean that when we went to war with Iraq, a majority of Americans actually supported the thing even though it made exactly no sense. Why? They believed that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. It would have required the Wall Street controlled media machine to inform them that nope, Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were in reality, sworn enemies. The media apparatus didn’t bother to tell them this, because they stood to make a ton of scratch from the war. You’d think, maybe the supposedly “liberal media” would have pointed out that there was a pretty good reason we knew that Iraq wasn’t a threat to us in any way, and that reason had to do with the UN imposing sanctions and heavily monitoring them after the first Iraq war. They were the one country in the middle east that we officially knew WASN’T a threat but the media made only minor attempts to inform the public of this fact. You had to dig for it on like page 12 of your newspaper (also owned by these same companies). Here’s a fictional corporate boardroom conversation I imagine took place at some point in the late 90’s:
“Hey man, how was your trip to that affiliate station outside Biloxi?
“Duuuude, have you ever been there? Holy shit are these people stupid and easily manipulated. I went to an evangelical church service. You could convince these dumbass hicks of anything if you play on their basest fears. Absolutely anything. No, I mean, they believe that everyone who shares their faith is going to vanish into thin air in some sort of weirdo apocalypse while the rest of us are left behind to fend for ourselves. We can fuck over their futures because they quite literally don’t even believe their futures are even going to happen. Their preachers have already done the work for us.�
“No way, do you think we could consistently manipulate them to vote against their own self interests and start a for profit war�
“Oh man, absolutely no fucking problem. It’ll almost be too easy!
Here’s another fictional conversation I wholeheartedly imagine happened in a Koch brother’s corporate office shortly after the election in 2008:
“Wow, these big city liberals have exactly no clue how racist rural America actually is, if we intentionally ramp up this racism because of the country’s first black president, we can yet again convince them to continue to vote against their own self interests, even though it just became quite glaringly apparent that we fucked them over with Bush. These people are almost preternaturally dumb and increasingly miserable.
“Shit, great call. We’ll make them more racist than ever and they’ll do anything we want.
And fast forward to today. Our politicians collectively said, yep, billionaires should be able to spend however much of their money they want spreading toxic hate fueled propaganda, and they unsurprisingly did precisely that. They intentionally amped up racism in America with the Tea Party because it bolstered their short term profit margins, and now it officially blew up in all of our faces.
I’ve mentioned this before, but when right wing politicians go around talking about cutting social services for our country’s most vulnerable, it would be up to the media to point out that these social services only make up like 1% of the budget, while military spending at this point represents by some estimates, more than 50%. I’ve on occasion watched both the liberal and the right wing media. This is almost never pointed out as far as I can tell, just like it was almost never pointed out that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.
Media coverage is now based solely on ratings. Trump got the best ratings because he was click bait gold and because of that, Trump then won the presidency (on the electoral college technicality of course). Did the mainstream media ever really point out that there is exactly no doubt that he’s a compulsive lying dullard and not even a very good businessman (fact)? Not really. You had to dig for that info just like you had to dig for the fact that his Dad was arrested at a fucking KKK rally. You had to dig for that info just like you had to dig for the info that his entire proposed economic policy involves completely fucking over the vast majority of the poor people in rural America who voted for him. There was very little talk about policy in this election cycle. Policy is boring. Not good for the ratings. Politics have officially turned into the Jerry Springer show because it puts up numbers. Fine work. Of course, this is why we had shit like the Fairness Doctrine and a regulated FCC in the first place.
Also, don’t get me wrong, media deregulation is just one example of how corporate deregulation has screwed us. We deregulated the pharmaceutical industry (mainly under Bush), now we’ve got a new heroin epidemic in rural America thanks to Oxycontin. Could it have been prevented? Yep. How about the meth epidemic? Yep, could have stopped that and you know what? A former Drug Czar did in fact try to stop it by changing pseudoephedrine’s over the counter status and setting limitations on how much one person could buy at a time, but was conveniently shut down by big pharma greed. Great Job!
So, as much as I loved David Wong’s piece, let’s not pretend that people in rural America’s lifestyle is just dying naturally. We’ve been actively killing it for years by psychologically preying on the country’s most vulnerable and convincing them to vote against themselves, which they just did again…resoundingly. The predators are certainly going to feast under president Trump. There used to be regulations in place to prevent this sort of thing, but we gutted those regulations. One of the things I loved about Wong’s article is that it ended with the point that he’s from rural America and he’s going to have to hug the exact people who voted for Trump this Thanksgiving.
This hits a bit close to home for me. My parents, on both sides, come from liberal California families in the Bay Area. Both my mom and dad went to Berkeley during the 60’s for Christ sake. But my mom isn’t all there mentally and my parents split up when I was maybe 3 and divorced when I was 5. She’s about as vulnerable as vulnerable gets. You know those: “you can totally get rich buying real estate even if you’re poor" scams that Donald Trump is literally being sued for running next month? My mom’s fallen for those. That’s part of where half my college fund went and why I had to pay for most of it myself. My mom moved out of Seattle to a military town in Trump country over a decade ago. It’s only an hour ferry ride away from downtown Seattle, but it might as well be a different universe.
Despite being a life-long liberal, in the last few years she started dating a dude who seemed nice enough at first, but upon further inspection turned out to be a virulent racist. He’s almost a classic parody of an alt right conspiracy theory creep. Everything’s the Jews fault in that guy’s world and he sure hates the blacks. It took us several years to even realize this I might point out, but guess what? The disease has now infected my own mother. The woman who took me to all black Boys and Girls clubs as a kid and used to have a framed Susan B. Anthony plaque on her wall now forwards me pro Trump e-mails. So, on Christmas when I go over to visit, I’m going to have to sit there listening to her new boyfriend loudly spit vile nonsense at my wife and I while I try my best not to drink myself into oblivion to keep my own sanity. While I’m doing so, what I have to keep telling myself over and over again is this: he’s just an extremely lonely, broke old man with no real family of his own who’s been intentionally ramped up by an unchecked propaganda machine that’s preyed off his misery and driven him hatefully crazy. Him having someone visit who’ll actually pretend like they’re listening to his batshit alt right conspiracy nonsense will probably be the high point of his entire holiday season. Every time we visit he excessively guilt trips us for not coming over more often. I cried a little bit just writing that.
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