Television Posted by Oaktown Girl, 05 Jul 2007 05:34 pm
“Kill Your Television”
Oakland and Berkeley California must surely have been the world capital of Kill Your Television bumper stickers on cars and other inanimate objects at the peak of that particular phrase’s popularity, (probably sometime in the 1980’s). You can still see them every once in a while, but not nearly as much as before. Bigger fish to fry, what with Bush and Iraq, I suppose.
Kill Your Television was the only “lefty” bumper sticker that really bugged me. In fact, it was probably the only lefty bumper sticker that bugged me. And that’s saying a helluva lot. Nowhere, I believe, are there more lefty bumper stickers than in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco California.
From the very first time I saw it something really got under my skin with the Kill Your Television message, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. Clearly, Kill Your Television is snobby, and that’s rather unappealing. But there was something more. It’s also condescending, which is really irritating. But even that didn’t answer the gnawing question of why it bugged me so much. Oakland and Berkeley was positively riddled with irritating, snobby, condescending lefty types (ironically enjoying all the benefits of White privilege). I grew up there. I’d long since developed a survival immunity against letting that get to me, at least most of the time. So what the hell was it about this one damn bumper sticker message?
Finally, I figured it out. Kill Your Television wasn’t just snobby and condescending, it was insulting. Yes, that was it - it’s downright insulting. What it’s saying (at least to me) is, “You don’t have the intelligence and discrimination to discern the good from the bad. You can’t tell chicken shit from chicken salad. You are unable to make good viewing choices. You’ll sit there and absorb everything you see equally and become an establishment tool. Therefore, it’s better for society if you not watch TV at all.”
Oh what a sense of relief I felt to finally have been able to put my finger on exactly what was bugging me so much about that Kill Your Television bumper sticker. Those assholes are calling me a dumbshit! Are you kidding me? Beyond the insult on the very face of it, as far as media-awareness street cred goes, I’ll bet you I have more media literacy education activism and media activism in general in my big toe than 99.9% of those fools with the bumper stickers have in their entire body. So, you know… fuck you!
I bring this up because today I saw something on TV I really enjoyed. It was a piece about the artist Bernini, and is part of the BBC series now being shown on PBS called Simon Schama’s The Power of Art.
I’d never heard of Simon Schama or that series, so I went in completely unbiased. A bit of Googling on Schama afterward (including reading reviews of the Power of Art series) informed me that some people take exception to his style, which they say is over the top. Further, he’s accused of being a Superdon. If that’s the case, it certainly didn’t bother me while watching his piece on Bernini. Then again, I love watching documentaries and reading about great art and artists. A narrator would have to be really, really over-enthusiastic for it to ruffle my feathers. Besides, it’s a frickin’ documentary. Whoever did it obviously feels fairly strongly about the subject or else they wouldn’t have made the damn thing in the first place. You know that going into it, for goodness sake. (Well, the Kill Your Television people don’t think you know that, but I’m sure some of you besides me do in fact know that). And while I’m passionate about the arts, I’m also very opinionated. So a narrator or author speaking or writing breathlessly (and I don’t think that Schama did) isn’t going to unduly influence me much one way or the other. [And for the record, neither was I unduly influenced by the sexy, smoldering, searing portrayal of Bernini by Andrea Gherpelli in a non-speaking role.]
I just try to be open. But not an absorb-everything-and-become-an-establishment-tool kind of open.
I have to make that clear in case one of those “We know what’s best for you” types tries to break into my apartment and kill my TV.
Trackbacks
Responses to ““Kill Your Television””
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 6:49 am 1. christian h. said …
Word. How arrogance and contempt for the “masses” was ever considered left is beyond me. Yes, there are big problems with television. Most of what is produced for it is used to keep people distracted, just like all the other features of our consumer society. People need this distraction because they are stuck in alienating jobs for most of their time, that sap their ability to spend the little leisure time there is on more productive pursuits. But the “blame-the-victim” approach is cynical. “Kill you television” buys into the basic right-wing notion of personal responsibility and therefore already concedes the political battle.
Maybe we should fight for returning the public airwaves to the public instead. (Of course, I myself do watch TV and sometimes get tired of people telling me it’s stupid… so I’m not an objective observer.)
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 7:33 am 2. JP Stormcrow said …
Well said, but I do still have a spot in my heart for the following John Prine song:
Spanish Pipedream (AKA Blow Up Your TV)
© John PrineShe was a level-headed dancer on the road to alcohol
And I was just a soldier on my way to Montreal
Well she pressed her chest against me
About the time the juke box broke
Yeah, she gave me a peck on the back of the neck
And these are the words she spokeChorus:
Blow up your TV throw away your paper
Go to the country, build you a home
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches
Try an find Jesus on your ownWell, I sat there at the table and I acted real naive
For I knew that topless lady had something up her sleeve
Well, she danced around the bar room and she did the hoochy-coo
Yeah she sang her song all night long, tellin’ me what to doRepeat chorus:
Well, I was young and hungry and about to leave that place
When just as I was leavin’, well she looked me in the face
I said “You must know the answer.”
“She said, “No but I’ll give it a try.”
And to this very day we’ve been livin’ our way
And here is the reason whyWe blew up our TV threw away our paper
Went to the country, built us a home
Had a lot of children, fed ‘em on peaches
They all found Jesus on their own -
on 06 Jul 2007 at 8:50 am 3. Seattle said …
I have a long sleeved T-shirt that I bought from REI (forgive me) a number of years ago. It says, “Think outside the box.” and below that is a small TV. I’ve worn it to death. The ribbing is unraveling and still I keep it around. I have a TV and it’s on damn near every day, but I refuse to buy cable and it seems that you can’t get any of the “free” stations anymore without it. I enjoyed many TV shows when TV used to be free, and I really miss PBS. I still remember watching “A Town Like Alice” over 20 years ago in weekly installments.
As it stands, I still pay for TV, just when I chose to buy a DVD set or movie. And my son finally sucked me into NetFlix. It’s all HIS fault… LOL
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 9:08 am 4. Oaktown Girl said …
I was worried that people would see the title of this post and not read it thinking they knew what it was going to be about, but I didn’t have any better ideas. christian suggested putting quotation marks around the title, and I’ve decided that’s a good idea. So if you see quotation marks suddenly appear, that’s why. (Cabinet Officers - whoever has the opportunity to do it, please do).
More later.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 9:40 am 5. JP Stormcrow said …
(Cabinet Officers - whoever has the opportunity to do it, please do).
Done. Your command is our wish …
What follows is one of my favorite “commentaries” on TV and intellectualism, from Five Easy Pieces. Scene is at Jack Nicholson’s artsy family’s house, with their snooty friends. Rayette is Jack’s “low-class” girlfriend. (Oaktown, don’t know if you’ve seen this or not, might want to for the classical music aspects.)
SAMIA
But the point is, man is born into the world with a pre-existent adversary, both real and imaginary, so you’d have to say that aggression was one of his primary,psychic inheritances, which…JOHN FINCHER, a professorial type, attempts to interject:
FINCHER
If I may beg to differ…SAMIA
Beg all you like, John, but the fact remains that man takes enormous delight in aggressive acts, as well as the portrayal of aggressive acts, and to be triumphant over another no matter how, seems fundamental to his having a sense of well being, as well as…FINCHER
No, I don’t quarrel with your inference, but you draw too long a bow in your conclusions, which seem unnecessarily harsh and…SAMIA
Well, I don’t make poetry. As an analyst, I…Rayette interrupts, calling across the room to
Carl:RAYETTE
Is there a TV in the house?Carl starts to answer and is pre-empted by Samia:
SAMIA
John believes in the basic goodness of man, and that’s fine, but gaze into the pit like I have and that view seems a little soporific. And not unlike television, it hardly represents the real world…RAYETTE
There’s some good things on it, though.SAMIA
Pardon me?RAYETTE
The TV. There’s some good things on it, sometimes.SAMIA
I strongly doubt it, but I wasn’t really discussing media… -
on 06 Jul 2007 at 10:02 am 6. Oaktown Girl said …
Seattle – I really like the “Think Outside the Box” message. It’s a hell of lot more insightful and useful than “Kill Your Television”. My neighbor has a “Think Outside the Box” bumper sticker on her car, and the “box” is an outline of the United States. That’s really cool…and desperately needed. Way better than the bland “Think Globally”.
Christian – you’re quite right about taking back the airwaves. The first step and biggest challenge in media reform and education is getting people to even understand that we - the public, the people – own the airwaves, not private corporations. And furthermore, the condition for those corporations maintaining their licenses is that they serve the public interest. (The “public interest” is not some vague thing either – it’s fairly well-defined). The corporate media and the politicians to whom they contribute thrive under this huge aspect of public ignorance.
JP – cute song. But my brain always balks at these folksy songs written by men that sing so le-de-da about “having lots of kids”. I can’t help but think to myself, “Yeah, it sure is easy for men to have lots of kids, isn’t it?”. I’m Just saying there’s a reason why you don’t hear many songs written by women praising the good life as having “lots” of kids. A few, maybe. But this “lots of” business usually only comes from men.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 11:24 am 7. Kiera PSI said …
If I killed my television, what would keep my fuppies company during the day? I swear Angel learned her trick of sitting up like a meerkat from watching Animal Planet.
Personally, I think people urging others to destroy our televisions is symptomatic of our tendency to fear and destroy that which we don’t understand. If they were less ignorant, and more in control of their lives, they’d realize that television is a tool, and like any other tool, you need to learn how to use it properly. It’s just too easy to turn on the “boob tube” to just anything and passively absorb the corporate message and then blame television instead of ourselves when our children are taught to be more violent, less tolerant and less intelligent (yes, you can be “taught” to be less intelligent).
Is it too much trouble to intelligently review the offerings and use it for enjoying culture that is not otherwise available to you where you live? I think not, but then, I’m not generally a lazy individual.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 12:10 pm 8. James Killus said …
Oaktown Girl, not to be too picky about it, but the song does say “We…had a lot of children,” not “I” or whatever.
Now I speak as someone who has no children but has a mother and wife both from families of ten sibs, with the same proportion of male and females, interestingly enough, but the family histories are almost entirely different in every other way. Which is to say that I am entirely clueless about the matter.
I always took the “Kill Your Television” thing to be just an indication of a general hostility to pop culture in general, rather like the sentiments expressed in Harlan Ellison’s The Glass Teat. But, well, Berkeley lefties, heh, they seemed so harmless after the sanctimonious Christian’s of my youth, and I do not believe that subsequent history argues otherwise.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 12:46 pm 9. Oaktown Girl said …
James, not to be picky too, but I didn’t say the songs being written and sung by men said “I”. What I said was …these folksy songs written by men that sing so le-de-da about “having lots of kids”..
My point wasn’t about possession/ownership. It was about who you most often hear singing la-de-da about having lots of kids, and who you don’t. The gender discrepancy is fairly obvious, and I think the reason is fairly obvious too.
I always took the “Kill Your Television” thing to be just an indication of a general hostility to pop culture in general
Yes, I agree. That’s the way I’ve always interpreted it as well. And There’s numerous bumper sticker slogans that have basically the same message, just said in a different way. It just took me a while to figure out why the hell that particular one irritated me so much.
As Roseanne Roseannadanna would say, “It’s always something.” And that “something” is different for everybody. What irritates the hell out of someone else may be like water off a duck’s back to me, and vice versa.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 1:26 pm 10. Seattle said …
I’ve got a bunch of dead TV’s in my seasonally flooded garage….that should make SOMEONE happy. I’m developing my own little toxic waste dump due to being unable to afford recycling fees as everyone and their brother offers to donate their TV to me so they can upgrade to something more cutting edge. What they’re really doing is avoiding the recycling fees themselves. LOL
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 1:49 pm 11. Oaktown Girl said …
I sure home electronics-generated toxic waste that creates monsters(or Lord Astaroth only knows what all) will nicely fit into the WAAGNFNP cast of characters lore. I know Godzilla fought the Smog Monster at one point, (my big brother was so all over that one when we were kids), and that seems rather related to toxic home waste.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 2:04 pm 12. JP Stormcrow said …
But this “lots of” business usually only comes from men.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth. Genesis 1:27-28
So what part of “be fruitful and multiply” don’t you understand? I mean we have this whole long list of crap to do, replinishing and dominioning and all, and you gals are balking way up at “multiply”? I mean this is God talking here, not some stupid actor on the TV.
I only pray that I won’t have to write something like this again.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 2:09 pm 13. Zeus said …
Hey Oaktown G,
Having grown up without a television, I can concur on some faith, that televisions do not necessarily rot the mind if one tunes into something worthwhile. I watch TV occasionally and try to keep in meaningful (but with the internet, it becomes often more convenient to watch “Frontline” on the computer [check out their excellent documentary on Cheney: something like “Life in the Shadows”].
For me the “Kill your TV” has a visceral response because it is a) simplistic [denial and erasure ain’t going to solve the problem of led minds], b) violent, c) (mentioned earlier) overly individualistic, d) materialist [as if we simply change the outward physical arrangement/manifestation all will be well], e) negative, and a bunch of other things.
I find the same insufferable arrogance transmitted by middle-class, academic [ironically bourgeois] Marxists who believe they could create social transformation and “wake up the proletariat” by actually abetting suffering. Now Marxism appreciated on the affirmative level [who is doing the actual production?] is helpful– it can lend itself to grass-roots empowerment, for instance, in a way that is very democratic. Taken to the other direction, the you-have-false-consciousness-and-I-don’t way, it can easily devolve into Stalinism, or more likely in our little burg, “let them eat sprouted wheat, organic honey cake” elitism.
I think it is this “whiff” that bothers me about slogans like “Kill Your TV”. It ain’t the TV and it ain’t the ignorant unwashed masses. It’s you and I for better or worse, and we ought to make the best of it. Killing the TV ain’t going to do anything for our relationship and it ain’t going to move the world forward, so I’m led to conclude that it is essentially either cathartic farce for some or just useless grousing. Neither actually promotes forward movement.
Citizen Zeus
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 2:24 pm 14. Kiera PSI said …
Does J.P. get the trunk treatment? I’ve got it ready…and since my car’s AC decided to quit, it’s even hotter than ever in there!
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 2:38 pm 15. JP Stormcrow said …
it’s even hotter than ever in there!
Hmmmm, how hot is “ever”?
Not really on topic, other than that he once played a “sane person” on TV, check out this howler from human Klein bottle Ben Stein in defense of Libby. (via alicublog)
Some highlights:
… publicity-mad demoness Valerie Plame
… the full on publicity hound Mr. Fitzgerald (who he suggests should be prosecuted) and
… a defendant had been pilloried for no good reason and then sentenced to a Stalinist sentence -
on 06 Jul 2007 at 2:42 pm 16. Oaktown Girl said …
Zeus!
Wow- what an excellent job putting into words so many reasons the “Kill Your Television” thing got under my skin so much. Just to pull a few from what you said:denial and erasure ain’t going to solve the problem of led minds
Yes - that’s it exactly! Back in the 80’s I’d look at that and ask myself, “OK. Kill your TV and then what?” Lord knows killing your TV does not automatically bring knowledge and action.as if we simply change the outward physical arrangement/manifestation all will be well
Ha! Perhaps, but you get the joy of sitting back and feeling superior to a whole bunch of other people. And if that doesn’t forward the cause, I don’t know what does.Zeus (and everybody!) - be sure to come around for this weekend’s Open Thread, which will be up around 5pm Pacific time or so.
Sheriff Kiera - as an Officer of the Ministry of Justice in good standing, you have the authority to re-trunk JP as you see fit. And, yes, he does seem to be begging for it. Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read that last comment of his. If I’d had juice or coffee or -Gojira forbid - some carbonated drink come out of my nose, well, that would have been a long, long, looooong time in The Trunk for JP.
But don’t leave him in the trunk for too long. Clearly, he’s shaping up to be some of the best entertainment we’ll have at the WAAGNFNP World Gathering ‘08!
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 3:07 pm 17. christian h. said …
Wait, doesn’t Kiera drive around in the central valley? And don’t they have some kind of heat wave over there? That trunk could be a miniature GNF…
Zeus: as one of those middle-class academic (bourgeois?) Marxists, I can assure you that “sharpening of contradictions” (increasing suffering in order to force the population to resist, thus bringing about the revolution) was ever only advocated by a fringe (and coming from me, that really means fringe). I don’t personally know of a single academic Marxist who supports it, to be honest. My own impression is that Kill your television is/was a slogan of has-been former radicals nicely settled into their Bay area homes and saving the world one enlightened pauper at a time, a very un-Marxist thing to do. Nowadays they probably think they are doing their part by driving a Prius (I’ve never seen as many in one place as in Berkeley). Obviously, I may just be projecting the use of a slogan I don’t like onto my political opponents here, who knows…
Off topic: White Sox score 14 and still lose by 6, leaving the bases loaded in the ninth. Ugliest game ever. Which I wouldn’t have seen while packing for my upcoming move if I’d only killed my TV!! Damn.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 3:26 pm 18. James Killus said …
Ah well, because I couldn’t actually remember any other songs except the Prine one that sang about having a lot of children, I did a search on lyrics and “have a lot of children”, which was mildly amusing, but offered no insight at all, really, except possibly for the top web hit, “The Girl from Havana,” from Careless Carliss and the Caliope Girls, which I shall not quote, as it seems to have some kind of backstory that eludes me.
That did get me to thinking country music, though, and reminded me of a old (1999) CD that I just got from the Amoeba bargain bin, Shannon Curfman’s Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions with what is apparently her theme song: “I Don’t Make Promises (I Can’t Break).
And yes, I often have no idea how I get from Point A to Point Orange.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 3:35 pm 19. Oaktown Girl said …
christian - oh, the White Sox did what? I feel your pain. The A’s have made an art of scoring zero runs with the bases loaded AND no outs. And if anyone forgot Mike Piazza plays for the A’s, it’s because he hasn’t played in one game all year. “A” stands for “Ambulance” in ‘07.
(This is just a passing comment, nothing to do with Marxism specifically - just an observation against folks who piss me off:) I don’t know about anyone who calls themselves a Marxist, but I do know there is a passive wishing on the part of some fairly well-off so-called lefty types for things to get drastically worse so the revolution will come. I’ve heard it several times with my own ears. I call it “passive” because they don’t even have the guts or integrity to own the consequences of what they’re advocating. And of course, the Revolution will come before things get so bad as to actually affect them in their nice middle class enclave. As far as I know, none of the people I’ve ever heard say those things calls themselves a Marxist. And as far as I can tell, they’re usually just arrogant and lazy - it’s an excuse not to be active and fight for justice now.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 3:55 pm 20. Kiera PSI said …
Wait, doesn’t Kiera drive around in the central valley? And don’t they have some kind of heat wave over there? That trunk could be a miniature GNF…
Yep, you’d better believe it. It’s 107 in the shade with 20% humidity and it’s not even 4pm. It will get a bit hotter before it starts to cool off.
I’m guessing it’s hot enough to cook dinner in THE TRUNK
Meanwhile, I’m forced to drive the Mungo Huge Gas Guzzling Silverado or suffer heat prostration. Oi.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 4:02 pm 21. Seattle said …
Ok. Now you’ve done it.
Michelle Shocked:
When I grow up I want to be an old woman
When I grow up I want to be an old woman
Oh, an o-o-o-o-old, an old, old womanThen I think I’m gonna find myself an old man
Then I think I’m gonna marry myself that old man
An old, an old, an old, an old, a really old manWe’re gonna have a hundred and twenty babies
A hundred and five, ten, fifteen, twenty babies
Uh huh, that’s what I said a hundred and twenty babiesWe’ll raise ‘em on tiger’s milk and green bananas
Mangoes and coconuts and watermelon
We’re gonna give ‘em that watermelon when they starts yellin’Here’s what they’ll yell…
In the summer we’ll sit in a field and watch the sun melt
In the winter we’ll sit by a fire and watch the moon freeze
Me my old man and a hundred and twenty babies
Me my old man and a hundred and twenty babies
I said, me my old man and a hundred and twenty babies
Oh, when I grow up I want to be an old woman
When I grow up I want to be an oooooold… -
on 06 Jul 2007 at 4:29 pm 22. christian h. said …
Oaktown Girl, I’m more of a Cubs fan mostly, and they are playing fairly well, so I don’t suffer nearly as much as fans of the A’s must be doing this year. I was happy to see they beat the Yankees a couple times, though!
As for lefty types passively wishing (I like that expression!) for the worst: I’m sure they exist, but seem to be more the kind of bourgeois and intelligentsia ultra-left radicals Marx and Lenin warned against. This is the reason Marxism-Leninism insists that the working class lead the revolution.
It’s likely that this ultra-leftism is a particular problem in the US, because the political structures of the working class are so weak (more like non-existent), and the left is so marginalized (this leads to frustration and dreams of the “cleansing” crisis).
The truth is that a worsening crisis of the working class makes revolution actually less likely. That’s why some critical mass of reform enabling workers to organize, and to spend time and energy on political work instead of survival, is needed first (bad news on that front: Employee Free Choice act failed in the Senate after successful filibuster.) Imminent mass starvation can at best lead to disorganized revolt, not revolution.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 4:53 pm 23. James Killus said …
Well here’s a thought to throw into the mix. I recently had a conversation with a buddy about the Left, the Right, and authoritarianism. my contention is that the way that Marxism became the “go-to” leftist philosophy was because of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” thing, which is inherently authoritarian, and authoritarian organizations have had a lot of development work done on them, e.g., the military (it’s a fairly well-established fact that the first large corporations in the U.S. were explicitly modeled along military lines).
Authoritarian organizations, however, have the look-and-feel of the Right. Even if your Revolution starts out as being against established authority, that doesn’t last, and there is a strong tendency for things to get hereditary pretty quickly, one way or another.
So where does that leave the Left? What is a stable form of Leftist organization? My friend suggests Bureaucracy, and I’m leaning his way. Laws, rules, tests, credentialism, the whole business, looks like the sort of thing that Left-leaning organizations (and countries) gravitate towards.
And laws, rules, and bureaucracy are things that Americans tend to pride themselves as being against. So the U.S. is not very hospitable to leftist philosophy. Vigilantism is more our style, and it’s a very short distance from Dirty Harry to G. W. Bush.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 5:03 pm 24. christian h. said …
James, from my point of view bureaucracy is the hallmark of Stalinism and the other “bureaucratic state capitalist” societies (Tony Cliff’s term) that followed. The original Leninist system of local workers Soviets lacked the centralized bureaucracy that took over later. Anyway, I don’t want to get into a whole discussion about Marxism, I just wanted to point out that I completely agree that wishing for people to suffer in the hopes that they get pissed off sufficiently to effect change is a not only cynical, but also unsound, strategy.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 5:12 pm 25. Oaktown Girl said …
James (#18)-
If we had a national health care program, I could be working at a job I’d truly love - in Amoeba’s classical department (and I could make it even better than it is, too). And I’d keep an eye out for any records/CD’s (of any genre) you wanted. Plus I’d give you theemployeeWAAGNFNP discount.On an extremely related note, (choosing and/or being stuck at lousy jobs due to health insurance reasons), anyone who missed
my health care rantour health care/oppressive work environments discussion, you can find it on the previous Open Thread cunningly titled Take My Administration…Please. JP’s got a new comment from today over there at (what is right now) the bottom of the thread. -
on 06 Jul 2007 at 5:33 pm 26. christian h. said …
I should add that some amount of bureaucracy is of course unavoidable - the question is often only if it is under some form of democratic control (Medicare) or not (HMO). My personal experience is that the US is actually more bureaucratic than Germany, the difference being that in Germany it’s possible to figure out what the rules are and usually rely on both sides following them, while in the US so much bureaucracy is private and the stronger side always seems to have some super-secret out clause.
What I meant to say in my previous comment is that holding bureaucratization up as something to strive for rings my Stalinism alarm bells… -
on 06 Jul 2007 at 9:04 pm 27. James Killus said …
It’s cetainly possible to have an authoritarian bureaucracy; what’s important is how the rules and laws are set.
But that’s not particularly relevant to my primary question: what is a leftist method of organization? Because if you can’t come up with something that can beat an army or a corporation, you are always going to lose.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 9:23 pm 28. Hattie said …
I’m a Berkeley girl too, but I have not succumbed to self hatred. Conservative assholes bother me lots more than Berkeley liberals. You don’t hear conservatives going, “Actually I know we conservatives can be absurd proto and cryto fascists, but well we have to put up with each other, I guess.” No. They admire each other and give each other money.
The reason I can’t watch television is that it is overstimulating. It drives me crazy with the blinkity, yakking, vrooming, screaming, loud reports, vile commercials and all the rest of it. When I was younger and had a stronger nervous system I could laugh it off, but no more.
I’ll take a book and a quiet corner every time. -
on 06 Jul 2007 at 9:24 pm 29. Hattie said …
That’s crypto. I wouldn’t ordinarily bother to correct myself, but this is one of them blogs for intellectuals.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 9:25 pm 30. Oaktown Girl said …
The truth is that a worsening crisis of the working class makes revolution actually less likely…Imminent mass starvation can at best lead to disorganized revolt, not revolution.
Absolutely agree, christian, which is why I get so mad at those jerks advocating just letting things go bad as a way of hastening the Revolution. All anyone has to do is look at what our embargo of Iraq did. Our embargo made the people of Iraq so weak, it took away every possibility they had to stage a revolt of any kind whatsoever. And this is not just my American armchair analysis. Sure, it’s pretty obvious, but it’s also what I’ve heard from several Iraqis themselves.
And make no mistake, the people in the U.S. I’ve heard advocate this stupid philosophy (if you could call it that) are NOT “ultra left”. They are ultra lazy, and ultra arrogant, and ultra ignorant.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 10:11 pm 31. Oaktown Girl said …
Hi Hattie!
I certainly didn’t mean to run down Berkeley liberals, or liberals in general at all. This is about that particular kind of twit that puts the “Kill Your Television” bumper sticker on his car. Sweet Lord Astaroth - I’d crawl on my hands and knees on broken glass to escape a room full of Conservative assholes.And please don’t worry about the typos. Hell, this is such a down-home operation, I often go in and fix ‘em myself if I can get to it before someone comments about it.
but this is one of them blogs for intellectuals.
Say what, now? I wasn’t listening.
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on 06 Jul 2007 at 10:22 pm 32. Hattie said …
Hay-Yuck!
I’m not really mad, just venting. -
on 08 Jul 2007 at 7:01 am 33. Rhea said …
I read the classic “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” a number of years ago. It must be where the idea for that bumper sticker came from. It is a wonderful book that describes exactly what makes TV harmful. On the other hand, I agree with you that there are always going to be programs on TV that open up your world. I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, yet I understand what folks are saying with that bumper sticker.
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on 08 Jul 2007 at 8:38 am 34. JP Stormcrow said …
I read the classic “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” a number of years ago.
I also enjoyed/recommend Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. But as you can see from this and the following thread here, I am an enthusiastic partaker of the TV. Livin’la vita contradictorio.
But, of course, being a boomer means never having to say your sorry. (To my non-boomer co-bloggers and party members:
SorryTough shit - Demographics Über Alles.) -
on 08 Jul 2007 at 12:14 pm 35. Oaktown Girl said …
Hi Rhea - yes, I understand what folks are saying with that bumper sticker as well, and I hope I made that clear in my post. Also, see Zeus’ good comment back up at #13.
My beef with it (beyond the points I’ve already made) is that the message it gives is extremely lazy. Eliminate TV, what does that do? The radio is 90% Right wing talk, much of that extreme right wing talk. (A report on those numbers just came out in the past week). What are you going to do, kill your radio too? And then what?
Corporations have also taken over and consolidated the print media, and there’s almost no non-corporate, independent print media left. What are you going to do, tell people to burn their newspapers?
No, the answer is to give people the information and tools to actually help fight back against the corporate takeover of all our sources of information. It’s the ol’ give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish lesson.
A much more useful bumper sticker message would be anything that actually advocates fighting the system, not just trying to avoid it.
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on 09 Jul 2007 at 11:36 pm 36. Zeus said …
Christian,
I concur on Oaktown Girl’s comment in support of your statement:
“The truth is that a worsening crisis of the working class makes revolution actually less likely…Imminent mass starvation can at best lead to disorganized revolt, not revolution.” I do agree, and sounds like the kernel of a full-length post!
What is the progressive Marxist today? What cliches are they avoiding and what are they embracing and what does it have to do with Marx? I’ve always liked the analysis of Marx in terms of human relations and production (though his materialist approach and scientific certainty aspects are a little dated). I’d love to be updated!
Hattie, I’d tend to agree. What is more aggravating smugness or fecklessness. I’d have to say self-certain smugness any day (a most desperately annoying kind of arrogance), but the feckless liberal gets the prize for frustrating (but they’re mostly harmless and can be a little funny sometimes; not so for the smug conservative).
Citizen Zeus
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