tv is succumbing to MSM/GOP merger

So cruising through the various programs on commercial broadcast television last night, i came across some interesting manifestations of just how deep and embedded the GOP conservative talking points have become in our dramatic and comedic programming. I will offer a couple of examples, but first a word from our sponsors. Have you noticed how many manly men oriented advertising there now is across the spectrum?? Numerous attempts to establish male dominance in the marketplace represents something almost sinister, if i didn't realize that the people who actually run the Biz these days are incompetent boobs for the most part. I am sure there are a couple of shrewd fascists among the elites who choose the ads to run because they are encouraging white male objectivist/selfish dominance, but for the most part, i envision most of the executives shrugging their shoulders and thinking about Seinfeldian irony (in other words, stupid) and demographic data. Cars as penis substitutes never seems to be too much for TV.

Then i watch BONES, a Fox drama ostensibly about a forensic anthropologist and FBI agent. The episode had drawn my attention because of its vague similarities to the Tillman case, as well as exploration of the usual war crimes Fallujah style. But not much more than fifteen minutes into it do we get a doozy of a Fox/GOP talking point. The "conspiracy" nutball suggests that the WMD's that had been framed as the cause celebre of the war did not exist and were known to not exist. The wonky/weird semi-goth nerd chick (is this not de rigeuer these days) replies matter of factly: "all of the world's intelligence agencies believed they were there." This is a flat out lie, a lie of such bold proportions, that any, even remotely not-stupid conspiracy type would have been able to recite a long litany of US intelligence data proving it to be a lie. That a smarter one, who supposedly would work in this secret special lab, was not given the lines to rebut this smacks of Fox propaganda. The list of foreign intelligence services, and the subsequent release of their memos from before the war clearly demonstrates that only the cherry-picked data that Bushco chose to release suggested that WMD's existed. This script and dramatic presentation reeked of Orwellian smear. Later, when discussing the war and war crimes, the ostensibly super intelligent forensic anthropologist remained stupidly silent whilst the war loving GOP talking point uttering FBI agent was directed to espouse nonsensical views about war, its purpose, its resultant affects/effects, and other Bushco advancing messages. It is unthinkable, and grotesquely unrealistic, for the lead female to have not clearly been able to state opposition and rational rebuttal to the agent's points. Again Fox has capitulated to the GOP and Bushco, now streaming the talking points propaganda mainline into their non-news programming as well as their cable assets.

Likewise the idiocy of a faux pandemic drama, attempting to garner sweeps points was lunacy run amok. Selling fear as a commodity to garner viewership and to reward the advertisers (they really were big Pharma companies) seems now to be the mainstay of the flagship networks, in this case the GOP ABC affiliate run by Disney. Squeezed with Alias, Lost, and battling Fox's even more heinous 24 the bird flu thriller was even more inane than usual. As this subject is being endlessly discussed in other blogs and online, i will only mention that the commercials for the Poseidon Adventure and X-men 3 that ran were only slightly less loony, but of the same genre.

CBS's Criminal Minds exhibited a further degradation of the same theme-- even our own FBI is hugely vulnerable to fear and intimidation by crazed terrorist nutcases. In order to make this premise work, one would have to accept that everything the producers and directors have established for this show up to this point no longer matters in the slightest. The viewer is being asked to unknow all that they have been asked to know about the characters, because that is the only plausible way that the plot can work, and then it still doesn't. Consider this: an entire FBI unit, an HQ command structure and staff, are under attack by a well- orchestrated, coordinated threat that demonstrates superiority of hacking skills, manipulations of law enforcement agencies, the complicity and cooperation of corporate services and so forth all centered around the kidnapping of a young adult female. And at no time whatsoever are other Federal agencies, including the central command of the FBI itself, getting involved. No NSA, no DHS, no DoD, no DoJ, no SS, etc. are even beginning to question the nature of this threat????? You have to be kidding me. It is so positively unimagineable that even suspending all disbelief and previous constructs based on previous shows, this program ceases all connection with reality. It isn't even good comic book.

I could of course go on and on, but will try to wrap it up well short of spending anymore time on how bad it has gotten. When VH1 has a show called Celebrity Eye Candy and E.tv runs a daily top ten documenting just how corrupt the best publicists can be in getting their celebrities to be seen, one must realize that what occurs in the halls of Congress and the Executive Branch, between lobbyists and bureaucrats remains a mere shadow of the Biz and how it works. I can't even allow myself to imagine the production meetings at which the day's segments are laid down and scripted, wherein those who have the money, are pledging all manner of this and that to get so and so seen at this or that moment to garner attention so sell this or that whilst the advertiser of that two minutes requires this and that to continue providing this and that. It is all one huge scam for no other reason than the scam itself. The money never need change hands at all, in that it is all balanced out in the end; it is just about the scam, the political power brokering to facilitate the nod of the head in submissive recognition that the scam worked and that the scammer, in that moment, was victorious over the scammee. Otherwise there is no reason whatsoever that Lindsey Lohan's life matters on this earth.