Once again, a comment that turned into a diary.
There was a diary today called Pie fight? Oh pu-leease that received 447 comments. LOTS of recommendations, too, but apparently not enough, because I do not see it up only a few hours later. (What ARE the rules about the number of recommendations needed to sustain a diary, by the way? And for how long?) It was about an ad for some TV program that was obviously an attempt at some sort of FCC-allowable soft-core male titillation. The comments got pretty hot. Lots of anti-sexist anger that it was on this site in the first place, a few male defense postures....the "What are you? Anti-SEX?" thing.,,and not just a few examinations of the need for ad revenue, subscribe if you don't like the ads or block them, etc.
I wrote a comment about the need to understand the implicit CONTENT of ads and to pick and choose among them if you have an agenda that does not agree with THEIR agenda...and as usual with me ("Ah cain't HE'P mahself!!!"), I took it a little further.
So here it is. Laugh if you've got `em.
OK...I'm going to skip the sex for a minute and get right down to the REAL shit. The money and how it supports the status quo.
ADVERTISING IS EDITORIAL.
It's that simple.
Advertising is editorial.
It is CONTENT.
That is what so many people miss about the commercially financed mass media. So you're watching a fairly innocuous program...mental chewing gum like a basketball game or a survey of the reptiles of Lower Wherethehellarewe. It's been a hard day. You are spinning down; maybe you've had a beer or two...you are CHILLIN'. Wheels spinning aimlessly as you prepare to go to sleep. And here's an ad for a credit card that will enable you to continue to live above your means for another year or so at SUCH a small price, followed by one that will allow you (or your mate) to keep his dick hard past all previous human experience and why, there's no risk at ALL, hardly, it's just like all of our OTHER wonderful medicines and then there's an ad for a major bank that wouldn't THINK of supporting international economic terrorism "Why, just LOOK!!! OUR clients have great homes in the suburbs and look JUST LIKE TV MODELS" and now back to our wonderful program.
Repeat every ten minutes or so for about two hours daily, year in and year out for the duration of your life, starting at somewhere around 1 year of age.
We will fight for your right to PAAARTY!!! To eat poisonous food, use poisonous credit, and drive poisonous and wasteful automobiles. To own and drive SUVs when you have not a use on EARTH for them. Yessir, we MEAN it. Why, we'll go to Iraq and KILL people for your right to drive them SUVs.
And now the news.
Same same in newspapers and magazines, only not NEARLY so effective.
And we wonder why the public raises no beef over ButchCo's actions no matter HOW plainly they are presented.
The American people are fucking HYPNOTIZED.
Advertising is CONTENT.
OK...back to the pie fight.
On dKos.
Inappropriate?
YOU BET YOUR ASS IT'S INAPPROPRIATE.
As inappropriate as an ad for Enron or Halliburton or the magazine Soldier of Fortune.
As inappropriate as a campaign ad for Rick Santorum in which he claims that he is "A peaceful man. A loving man. An intelligent man."
If in the riduculously surreal world of American politics Jeb Bush DOES run for President in 2008...or Condoleeeeeza or any OTHER political/war criminal...would it be "approriate" for dKos to accept money from THEM to pay for ads?
No. Of course not.
But where do we draw the line?
If advertising contains implicit editorial content, so-called FREEDOM of advertising carries explicit POWER.
And it is the power of money.
Buy into the idea that all advertising is equal in terms of subliminal editorial content and effect, and you have sold your system right down the river to those that have the most money, because they can buy more (and more effective) advertising.
And there you go, right into Corporate Medialand and the position in which most Americans live today...paralyzed MORALLY by a hypnotic trance state that is perpetrated by the mass media. ALL of it (and all of its programming) that is sponsored by "free enterprise". That is, the one with the most bucks gets the most ad time.
NOW back to sex.
So...are women to be treated as infantile sexual objects?
They certainly are treated so in much of this society. The majority of American men AND women buy into this.
Still.
Does this website want to have a part in changing that somewhat?
Not eliminating sexual pleasure...just de-infantilizing it a little.
If it doesn't...it damned well should, because that infantilization is a LINCHPIN of the whole right wing ethos.
I got yer "pie fight" right HERE!!!
Jerk off to THAT, you dumb motherfuckers!!!
There are some things in life that money can't buy.
For everything else, there's BushCo!!!
Priceless.
The infantilization of women IS BushCo's MOST EFFECTIVE WEAPON. It turns women into sheep and men into goats, and then they "Round 'em up and herd 'em out, podna!!!"
Kos...don't go there. Not for ANY amount of money.
Let 'em buy you...and there you are.
Bought and sold.
Don't go there.
Please.
Don't even START to go there.
AG
"Let the intelligent read and understand, and let the ignorant stay that way." From the earliest known piece of writng. A Mesopotamian shopping list. Nice.