TURN OFF THE TV!

The 'evolution' of "lipstick on a pig" May. 6th, 2006 @ 04:34 pm
May 6, 2006
Thingamabob

So much of the Bush Administration's vaunted political capital seems to have been spent trying to put lipstick on a pig, as they say, that we all seem to have missed a crucial evolution of how the media and White House conspire to manipulate contemporary culture.

I used the "c" word (conspire) because there is no logical understanding of what has happened in this country in the past five plus years that does not involve the notion of the media and current White House working together, whether according to a plan or merely a set of common goals. And what has happened is that they have been putting lipstick on the pig that is this administration for five years now. But not in order to conceal that it is a pig; no, merely to make it look like a made-up pig.

Think about the news the last few days alone:

* Rumsfeld grilled about his lies, but it's the ulterior motives of his critics which is questioned;
* Rep. Kennedy scratches his car and the MSM stops the presses to investigate this serious breach;
* Goss resigns, no explanation offered, after only two years on the job, and CNN goes to great length to describe his role of "returning professionalism" to the CIA;
* Dick Cheney waxes philosophical about Russia's suppression of freedom while at the same time holding several prisoner's heads under water with his other hand, and the media sees no irony or hypocrisy; and
* Colbert points a finger at Bush and the media, so the media... pretends he doesn't exist.

The whole notion of providing positive spin is complicated--the knee-jerk reaction that all spin is bad is of course simplistic. "Spin" is merely how one chooses to internalize the information--the same piece of news can be seen as good or bad depending on one's own situation. Surging oil prices, for instance, are bad if one thinks merely about the cost of fueling one's car or to the economy as a whole. On the other hand, surging oil prices mean revenue to that industry, and the most concrete example of why we need to develop alternate technologies. Fewer trips in the SUV means less pollution, etc.

But what has changed dramatically is the purpose of that spin. Whereas the news was spun at times in order to allow the audience to better see the positive impact, now it is spun purely out of habit. No one believes any longer that the news is not bad--so what the media is busy doing is trying to cast doubt on the basic elements of communication and meaning. They won't ask "But isn't that a bad thing?" because it is a given which even they have no choice but to acknowledge. So instead we have a lot of people and money being devoted to the task of asking, "but isn't something this bad really good for us?" And when they are not doing that, they are simply creating an alternate news service which broadcasts none of the offending material.

So, today, CNN cast Goss as someone bringing "professionalism and stability" back to the CIA. What is the evidence that it was missing? The leaks which suggested that the White House was cherry-picking it's use of intelligence? Perhaps it was the fact that it was allowed to happen in the first place. Heavens! We wouldn't want to have to consider that possibility... ever.

Goss resigned suddently without explanation. That couldn't be significant, could it? Bush accepted his resignation, all the while refusing to accept the resignation of others, and so soon after putting Goss in that position in the first place. That couldn't be significant, now, could it?

Meanwhile, CNN finds it impossible to ask the most obvious follow-up to the Rumsfeld incident--how many CIA personnel know that Rumsfeld has been lying, and given that fact, why is he still here??!

But not impossible, meanwhile, to ask whether Rep. Kennedy should go to jail for scratching his car on public property while under the influence of many fewer pills than Rush Limbaugh uses during every show.

And no one, but no one, seems to think it the height of impudence for Dick Cheney to critique Russia's commitment to democracy while he is busy putting the Constitution of the US out to pasture.

We can all see that under the lipstick we are looking at a pig. But current mainstream media isn't interested in hiding the fact that it's a pig, merely in going through the motions. We just don't get it: there is no longer any way to reform the corporate media, only a chance to create an altogether new, responsive and responsible media.