Controlling the Culture

'More importantly, [the mainstream media] control the culture, which administers endless injections of their ideology to the apolitical “swing” voters who are so critical to elections. The parade of businessmen and religious zealots who serve as Hollywood’s corps of villains, plot lines designed to make liberalism seem irresistible, a thousand little jokes and asides that paint the Right as psychotic… It takes a lot of wattage to blast a conservative idea through all that white noise.'
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2009/10/04/rogue-warriors/

This always reminds me of M.A.S.H. Even back in the early eighties when I watched this show, I was occasionally struck by how anachronistic the politics of the show was. Not only was it wrong for Korea, it was even more wrong for the nineteen eighties. M.A.S.H was made by boomers nostalgic for the sixties. These self-righteous pricks have dominated large parts of the TV production system in the US (and therefore the world) for at least three decades. Despite being clearly very much a minority with minority views at the beginning of this period, they have swung the pendulum of mass opinion in their direction by ceaseless repitition of their mantras:

1. Religion has caused most wars in history

2. Christian people are stupid. No eductated person would ever belong to a Christian church.

3. Other religions are superior to Christianity. Especially hippy religions like Buddhism and Taoism. Islam is cool because its not Christianity.

4. Conservatives are boring, square and stuck in the past.

5. Progressives and Democrats are hip, modern and represent the future.

6. Conservatives are not necessarily evil, but provide cover for the evil corporations, evil cynical corrupt politicians, and the military-industrial complex.

7. America is always wrong and evil. Its intentions are always evil and greedy and corrupt.

8. As a necessary concomitant of 7, all the genuinely evil dictatorships and tyrannies in the world are less evil and tyrannical because they aren't America (see Saddam Hussein).

9. All that the world needs for beautiful multicultural harmony and joy to break out worldwide is to castrate America.

10. We might need to exaggerate America's evilness a little bit to get people to buy 1 thru 9. Ok, we might need to exaggerate a lot. But its all in a good cause.

Barack Obama is a fully-paid signed up believer in all the above, if we are to believe his words and actions.

UPDATE 14.30 p.m.

'The Obama presidency has given many people who dislike politics no choice but to become political. Political control has infiltrated every aspect of their lives. As they awaken to this reality, they’re looking around for someone besides Obama, someone who can show them an alternative to the total State, which they can no longer pretend not to see. They will not turn to someone quietly waiting to be noticed. The announcement of Going Rogue marks the moment when Palin’s future became more important than her past. What she “used to be” is no longer as important as what she is, and may become.'
[Quoted from the same piece]
This immediately made me think of a tsunami. Usual waves have only a few hundred yards of water behind them. That amount of moving mass is not enough to buckle sea defenses or crush towns. But tsunamis have millions of tons of water behind them, and that relentless crushing power is what makes them devastating. Sarah Palin with a huge mass of mainstream American voters behind her will not just crush the Democrats but also the establishment RINO-type Republicans who hate Ms Palin because she ISN'T establishment and represents such a devestating threat to that cosy world. Things could get interesting.