The World Is A Better Place With Paris Behind Bars
Sat Jun 09, 2007 at 07:34:27 AM PDT
I'm going to break with progressive political protocol and comment on the omnipresent celebrity news item of Paris Hilton's "political" imprisonment. I've seen the minds of the greatest journalists of my generation destroyed by Paris Hilton's demand for constant attention. Even the Olbermann Nation at MSNBC has been caught in the grip of Paris madness.
Keith Olbermann will tell you his extensive coverage of Paris is a parody of tabloid celebrity newz,but how do you parody Paris Hilton, a pseudo-celebrity who is already a parody of herself? The best parody of Paris Hilton is Paris Hilton and while Olbermann's parody might bump up his ratings, he can't compete with the the hilarity of Paris' own parody of herself. Kieth Olberman's efforts are a second hand parody of parody.
I could care less about Paris Hilton's soap opera. She was allegedly dragged back to jail kicking and screaming for her mommy yesterday. It's pathetic that a spoiled narcissistic heiress can command so much attention from the American public and the news media. Paris Hilton for all of her wealth hasn't done a single philanthropic act of charity in her 27 years.
Paris Hilton's only purpose in life is being a super/sexy/crazy/cool Hollywood party girl who is obsessed with her own celebrity and worshiped by fans for her sexual escapades and her excessive use of drugs and alcohol.
To hell with Saddam Hussein, the world would be a better place without Paris Hilton’s smug little smile plastered on the cover of every newspaper and magazine. It's time for a regime change in Hollywood.
Paris Hilton's shelf life has expired, and her 15 minutes of fame ran out 3 years ago. Now it's time for Paris retire from public life and join such former luminaries as Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jayne Mansfield, Charo, Edie Williams and Suzanne Sommers as members of the "It" Girl Hall of Fame, home of the formerly famous babes of Hollywood.
We've become a celebrity addicted culture and being "in the know" about a twit like Paris is more of a priority than knowing if George W. Bush is using NSA to monitor our phone calls and email.
Our news media is a vast wasteland of celebrity trivia and gossip, but don't blame it all on the Media. We, ourselves, created the Fox/Infotainment news culture. It's all those slack-jawed yokels out there in "TV Land" that give infotainment news such high ratings over hard news with real information.
Of course there's some merit to the argument that we are suffering from the Rupertization of the media. And wasn't until FCC deregulation of media ownership in the Eighties that Mr. Murdoch was allowed to buy up any American media company that captured his passing fancy.
Rupert Murdoch spread has his signature tabloid journalism and right wing editorial style to every city in the United States and now the even Wall Street Journal will become another Murdoch propaganda tool.
Believe me, once you've let a monster like Murdoch out of the box and he gains control of your nation's media it's nearly impossible to re-regulate him because he's got his toe in the door and has lawyers on retainer that even Jesus consults on matters of FCC rules on media regulation.
The Murdoch Group's counterpart in retail business is Wal-Mart who have a developed a Rupert-like vertical monopoly over all competition in their industry. Like Murdoch, Wal-Mart's mission is to sell Americans a product that is garbage and Wal-Mart uses their considerable political influence inundate Americans with their crock of shit right-wing political ideology, in the finest Murdoch tradition. Our entire private sector is being Rupertized!
I still think it's a bad idea to have a citizen of a foreign country in command of the largest share of media ownership in this nation. What the hell does Rupert Murdoch care if America goes down the tubes as a result of being inundated with his crypto-fascist editorial policies? He can always hide in the Australian outback until the civil insurrection is over in the United States.
And then there's a whole question of Rupert's loyalty to the United States. If given the opportunity to make a financial killing would Murdoch sell all of his media holdings in the United States to the People's Republic of China or even worse a syndicate of wealthy Arab investors headed by the bin Laden Group?
The fact is that once you've allowed your media to be taken over by foreign investors you've also outsourced the integrity of a free press to those same foreign investors.
And that brings us back to Paris Hilton and the splashy page one tabloid coverage she is receiving. This style of reporting is brought to American by the Murdoch group and nearly every media company is starting to imitate the Murdoch modus operandi in order to compete in this sink or swim environment that Murdoch has created with his voyeuristic exploitation of fake celebrity newz.
Now if the Republicans finally succeed in putting PBS and NPR out to pasture, all Americans will get same Rupertized garbage and right wing propaganda disguised as "the news."
I think it's shameful that Paris Hilton's jail sentence of 20 odd days is worthy of lead story coverage by every media outlet in the world, while innocent men have languished in prison for 20 odd years because they can't afford a good attorney to file a motion to get the DNA testing to exonerate them on rape charges. That's what I call screwed up priorities.
Permalink | 27 comments