Culture Industry #1

When we come to understand how closely related are the profit of the disparate industries of mass media and their connection to the continuation of the current economic structure (state supported private capitalist accumulation of surplus value), we come to understand the degrees of ideology which these media propagate.

On the most affirmative end, you have the blatant propaganda of aggressive-capitalist accumulation i.e. Fox News, corporate elite statements and personalities (Trump), ultra-right media personalities (Alan Greenspan, televangelists, etc), drug-related hip-hop (Dip Sets, 50 Cent, etc), political genre cinema ( Twin Towers, independence Day, The Transformers, 300, Iron Man, Pearl Harbor), financial publications ( Wall Street Journal, Fortune 500, etc), military advertisements (during the NBA Finals, Superbowl, whenever they like), etc.

In the mid-range, you have neo-liberal deceptively non-controversial amusement and information dissemination i.e. most movies ( The Simpsons Movie) most news media (LA Times, New York Times, news television i.e. MSNBC), nightly news (‘local’ news, network news), most television, most popular music, most advertisements, etc.

The other extreme, is the liberal hinting of true art, a truly democratic public sphere, and critical/questioning information. The New Yorker, The Nation, CSPAN, Kenneth Olbermann, popular contemporary forward-thinking artists, political music and artists (Rage Against the Machine, Dead Prez), director based popular cinema ( some of the films of: David Lynch, Spike Lee, Stanley Kubrick, Gus Van Sant, PT Anderson, etc), some science fiction films (The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Manchurian Candidate, They Live!), etc.

When we understand the relation of power, ideology, and propaganda, we come to understand what media/light art is completely intolerable, what is questionable, and what is acceptably questionable. More over, we come to understand that some degrees of affirmation are always intolerable, that some popular culture/ Light Art/ kitsch/ capitalist realist information is some times tolerable, and that there are times when nothing (or extremely little) from the Culture Industry is acceptable.

When the corporatist state government empire allows the private media conglomeration corporations to concentrate further towards one (now only six large mega-corps control more than 75% of all media produced), when all of the media industries (including every type of news medium) are being further commercialized, when all of the media industries are being conservative- either conservative politically i.e. regressive politics, or conservative in terms of sticking strictly to what has been done in the past, and when the corporate media just sucks as badly as it does today, one might consider avoiding/boycotting the culture industry altogether. Do you really want to go see another film about black comedians behaving buffoonishly on airplanes when every family you know in impoverished and poorly educated urban areas has a son in prison on drug related charges ( i.e. were alleged to be workers in the underground state-supported economy)? With Bush in office, the country going down the drain in every category (working class rights, American credibility, the economy, our tax dollars, the environment, our political culture, our crumbling/blown-apart infrastructure) you should be asking yourself when Spike Lee is coming out with a film on Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers, right?

In other words, the media industry, propaganda for the continuation of the capitalist system totally or not at all, is a business ( i.e. a state-regulated business); it profits from the advertisement money paid to it, from the subscription of its viewers, from monopoly minded corporate state laws, from the viewership of saps/’viewers like you.’ We effect what is produced by what we consume. You don’t not have to accept everything they put out. Find out your political interests, and make sure the media you consume represents your interests. If everything is bullshit and flag-waving gentle Uncle Sam and his spinning 36’ platinum wheels, then you should probably read that old book you liked. And when the ratings drop, when we stop letting our children watch their elementary, predictable, fairy tale crap at theaters, stop listening to the same, tired, stereotypical musical, stop listening to their useless and pointless and inaccurate news reports, perhaps the corporate media will start saying something interesting. As for now, I’m not paying a cent for popular television, music, or films. As for now, however, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to find out what their saying through non-paying means, yadada-mean? ;/.