Politics 5: The shadow of big business

The general level of paranoia in the general public has constantly risen since Nixon. A constant flurry of lurid exposés of authority figures is part of our culture's normal background noise, as are absurd conspiracy theories. Business is a main component in both factually reported misdeeds and the insane fever dreams of the theorists. The collusion between business and politics is very real, however, and about as old as government itself. Governments and politicians need large amounts of money and businesses are willing to provide, for legislation that benefits them and the contracts to do things for the government. Basically businesses spend money to make money. The only difference in recent years is how much more powerful businesses have become. Multinationals have always been able to lord it over poor countries, often with the backing of their home countries, but now there are companies big and influential enough to take on western democracies. Since the 1980's there's been a definite effort to give businesses as much freedom as possible, with detrimental results for the individual. If you adjust for inflation, the average real wage has taken a drastic drop throughout the west, and taxes have gone up only slightly. Governments have also privatised so much of their own businesses they barely have an idea how they operate in the real world anymore. Their tasks haven't really changed though, except now it's up to private contractors to do it, for a fee. The government gets less money from you, has lost a great deal of power and competence, handed it to business, who are now bigger and richer and get more of your money. They're only getting more powerful and both the individual and the government suffer.

Politics 4: Watching the news is harmful to your inteligence.

This is what's wrong with the news. It's a formulaic narrative run by a commercial enterprise, which is why it's frequently scary, nonsensical and obsessed with sensationalist topics which have nothing to do with the facts. The facts are the only thing that ought to be important, but nobody wants to read that, that's what Wikipedia is for. But they keep changing these facts, and it's hard to keep track of them. But not that hard. The news makes perfect sense if you know some of the backstory, i.e. everything that's ever happened. It's like a daily list of changes, so it's almost in it's nature not to provide a lot of context and to ignore things that don't fit the stories that already exist. That's why the only important story about the civil war in Sudan for the majority of the conflict was the fact that no one seemed to do anything about it or care very much. This happens to a lot of important things. The news is so ephemeral there's genuinely no telling what's going to happen, or what has actually happened without getting your information from other sources, but less and less people do that. The news, seriously defective as it is, is the main source of current information. It is a playground for the smart manipulative assholes that politicians employ to communicate with the public. The only thing standing in the way of constant 24-hour propaganda from politicians, business and third parties is the people who make the news. But they're under-informed, underfunded and under constant pressure to keep you interested. Is it any wonder you alternate between being bored, frustrated, angry and scared every time you watch it? There's no way to fix it either.

Kesha's career is following a pattern

In fantastically bad taste, this video finally gets the Kesha train back on track. The song is showing that whatever zeitgeisty producing duo is behind this, they now know how to perfectly match up their production to the vocodered valley girl inflections for maximum frontal lobe damage. As a culture, we've all won. But more importantly, two or three more singles, the inevitable Christmas album, the lackluster second album, lots of weird collaborations and then the 'back to basics' album (you know, acoustic guitars) and then years in the making comeback. The only question that remains is will the ridiculous 'bad girl' image last that long? It's endearing, but I don't think anyone is buying it.

Gaga's reliably mad videos

I knew Lady Gaga wouldn't disappoint. We've been hearing this song for a while, but now we get to see this piece of inspired madness. Here's the uncensored 9 minute version, which wouldn't embed, thanks to Vevo. There's also six hundred thousand people singing it themselves to wade through before you can get it, but that's becoming par for the course for any video these days. There's so much garbage, where you have to sit through 10 second ads as well, there's hardly a point anymore watching anything that has corporate sponsorship attached. Oh, by the way, this video is entertaining and all, but it's not nearly as dense and interesting as the last couple or so. There's some Madonna, kill bill, poisoned mayonaise sandwiches, Natural born killers and Thelma and Louise references, but there all quite obvious. Jonas Akerlund, longtime Madonna collaborator is fine, but Gaga should really get Michel Gondry to do her one.

After the apology, the redemption commercial...

The Tiger Woods scandal is about as boring as gets, millionaire sportsman cheats on his model wife? She hits him with a golf club? Snoozefest. But there's comedy gold in the ham-fisted way various image makers are trying to spin it. After the trite and insincere apology to the public, now there's a creepy admonishment from beyond the grave, while a luxuriant black and white shot of a blank, expressionless face fails to react in any way.
Most amusing: these results from a survey about what people felt after seeing this commercial. Mostly confusion, skepticism, disturbance, sadness. All things we will now associate with Tiger Woods. The one thing I would focus on, is his crazy wife. Why hasn't she been on Larry King or something?

Comedians/writers know more about economics than Bankers

Observe:




It's shocking that you hear so little about these two basic truths expressed in these videos, that there's nothing wrong with the economy an sich, it's only a speculation bubble that collapsed, as they will, and that consumption is not the most important or useful index in gauging the size of the economy. Isn't it weird that Bankers and other financial professionals are the only ones who keep believing in getting something for nothing? Every financial disaster can be traced back to idiots believing in easy money. And they're right to believe in it, governments will pick up the bill if you mess up, then hardly complain when you use the money to give yourself a raise. The often touted argument that you need to pay well to get the talent required is false, there is no need whatsoever for clever, new ideas in banking. The more boring and reliable the banker, the better.

April fool's day is now approved by major corporations

I've seen no pranks whatsoever by real people today, but hundreds of youtube video's, etc. by those brave defenders of comedy, the marketeers. Welcome to the new age of boring wackiness, with tons of bland comedy and lack of interest. Not that relying on the organised wackiness of your friends and family wasn't often gut-wrenchingly awful, but at least there was the possibility of someone spectacularly missing the point or doing something awful and inappropriate. Another monocultural milestone crumbles...

Brand diversification...

I used to love the National Geographic magazine, perfect for all the information you needed for any kind of school project and full of interesting pictures and diagrams to contrast the long, boring articles. When I became a bit older, the articles were actually okay, even if they were mostly written in that awful arch magazine style that makes so many publications utterly exhausting to read. But the National Geographic channel is mostly awful. Somehow it always manages to be less informative and a lot more pointlessly stupid than Discovery. There's a hell of a lot more 'America's blankest blank' á la Fox, and a lot less things you actually want to know. This is beyond the pale though. Who in their right minds would buy National geographic endorsed scents? What's next? The Economist sponsored global capitalism meal at McDonald's? Did the latest round of re- or deconglomeration turn these two into strange bedfellows? And what marketing dickhead engineered this?