Yeah. Wow. Geez. It's almost as if NBC Universal is owned by GE, almost as if the GE Energy and Technology Infrastructure subsidiaries have vested interests in the waging and outcomes of wars. I mean, with all due respect to Matthew Yglesias, who's at least a little tongue-in-cheek, this is just crazy:
But rather than focusing on McCaffrey and his issues, it’s worth contemplating the breathtaking lack of integrity on display from the television networks here. As I said, Barstow published a piece on this back in April. None of the TV networks addressed the issue he raised in anything resembling a serious manner. And, again, we now have NBC News caught flat-out in the midst of corruption, deceiving their viewers. And NBC News isn’t sorry. They’re not apologizing. They’re not ashamed. Because they’re beyond shame. They never had a reputation for honor, so they don’t even see this sort of thing as damaging.It's like accusing Budweiser of dishonor for their drinkability ad campaign, or Mike Ditka and his raging boner of dishonor for giving testimonials in favor of Viagra. When you see a military expert on NBC hawking some war, it's just GE hawking its own product. It's paid commercial time. It's product placement.
Now I suppose we could wax nostalgic for the days of independent networks or Chinese walls or what have you, but the truth is that this sort of thing is going to become even more prevalent, no matter how many turgid Times articles appear to question the integrity of this or that operation. Now that we can no longer build a billion new homes a month a zillion miles farther from any densely populated economic center, warmaking is the sole productive activity left in the American economy. Warmaking and energy extraction, the latter a game of inevitably diminishing returns to be sure, but nonetheless. So the idea that the General Electrics of the world are going to let their marketing arms, which is to say, the television networks, movie studios, "content providers" that they own, act as judicious guides to the ethical policy implications of blowing up Wherethefuckistan is palpably ridiculous. Living in a realm of Platonic pure-form divided government counterbalanced by free-press fourth-estate held accountable by informed enfranchised citizenry blah blah bloggity blawg is just the teetotaling post-Harvard civics-student version of staying constantly stoned: tethered to reality, and yet floating free of it. Complaining that NBC is in the tank for the defense industry is like complaining that Pravda was in the tank for the Red Army.
26 comments:
warmaking is the sole productive activity left in the American economy.
I like the paradoxical aspect of this. But warmaking isn't really an individual activity, it's like AIDS, a syndromic economic growth strategy. You destroy a whole lot of shit, so not only do arms manufacturers make out like bandits, everybody selling essential goods and services does too. The fact that you also destroy productive capacity (and people) is neither here nor there: an invader gets the good side of the balance sheet and ignores the bad.
curiously, the only other remotely profitable industry we have left are the very television networks, movie studios and content providers owned by that other profitable industry.
None if which means you shouldn't point it out and complain about it. This almost seems like a grudge or something to me...bit of an immature shot at Matt, but fair point otherwise...perhaps just explaining the why NBC does what it does would have been a more respectable post.
I know I feel safer.
More respectable. Oh dear.
No teevee commentator tires of pointing out how ultimately it was the 1940s that "cured" the US of the 1930s. They're narrativists, and love to foreshadow.
"Wherethefuckistan" is a perfect tag for the virtual place that average Americans wouldn't mind bombing but about which they otherwise couldn't care less.
Also, for what it's worth, pointing out that IOZ might better serve his readers (or is it himself? or "us"? or the ideal sphere of Platonic political discourse?) by concentrating on the "substantive" problem of corrupt interconnections between the military and the media rather than on critiquing the assumptions of otherwise progressive people who are always shocked (shocked!) to discover that such is the case, is to miss his point rather completely.
So, Tob1303, is using Matt Yglesias in this way really so "immature," or might it be in fact "completely relevant"?
U POOP IN MI OATMEELZ!
To define "capitalism" as consisting of the "free competition" of a large number of independent entrepreneurs with freedom of contract and trade is, of course, to speak of the past. A more enduring trait, and therefore one better fitted to be seized upon in a definition, is the major institution of modern society: private property in the means of production. Now rapid technological change, requiring heavy investments, further augments the gobbling up of the little by the big and this monopolization eventuates in an extremely rigid economic structure. Powerful corporations demand guarantees and subsidies from the state. Thus, in the era of monopolization "the administrative act" and not "the contract" becomes "the auxiliary guarantee of property." Intervention becomes central, and: "who is to interfere and on whose behalf becomes the most important question for modern society." In Germany, as seen by Neumann, National Socialism has tied the economic organization into the web of "industrial combinations run by the industrial magnates." By means of the newer implementation of property, the administrative command, the cartellization of German business has proceeded rapidly. The Nazis saved the cartel system, whose rigidities were sorely beset by the depression. Since then their policies have consistently resulted in a further monopolization into the orbit of the big corporations. The cartels and the political authority have been welded together in such a way that private hands perform such crucial politico-economic tasks as the allocation of raw materials.
...
The analysis of Behemoth casts light upon capitalism in democracies. To the most important task of political analysis Neumann has contributed: if you read his book thoroughly, you see the harsh outlines of possible futures close around you. With leftwing thought confused and split and dribbling trivialities, he locates the enemy with a 500 watt glare. And Nazi is only one of his names.
---
This is from C. Wright Mills' review of Franz Neumann's Behemoth: The Structure and Function of National Socialism 1933-1944.
Both the book and the review were written more than sixty years ago. People like Yglesias, who at this point still don't understand, are fair game
"Respectable"?!?! Jeez, look at that little portrait thingy that the host has -- the man puts on a freshly-powdered wig for every post!
Anyway, there's nothing about this NBC gaffe that can't be solved with a high-level, blue-ribbon commission of post-necrotic gasbags doing their final molt at the Kennedy School or some other hibernaculum. Plainly what's lacking here is recommendations for reform.
-- sglover
Hey, 2^(fighting)8 -- nice post, but do yourself a favor and try to avoid using a "word" like "eventuate" for the rest of your life. Prioritize that on your action item list, please.
-- sglover
Aw shit, it was Mills. Sorry.
-- as above
Your information is wildly outdated. GE sold off most of its aerospace business in the 1990s and is now only the 35th largest defense contractor -- barely ahead of Military-Industrial Complex giants like HP and Motorola:
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/top-100/2007/defense_revenue.html
They make a small fraction of what the largest defense contractors earn, and a tiny portion of its revenue from defense-related sales:
http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=bi&q=NYSE:GE
With those realities, the idea that they would care enough to turn its whole news division into a pro-war propaganda machine strictly isn't remotely reasonable.
And then there's the fact that they are paying millions of dollars a year to prime-time commentators who are vehemently opposed to the war, something you forgot to mention. Using your analogy, that would be like Budweiser paying millions of dollars a year to celebrities to talk about how their beer tastes like shit, is unhealthy, and will make you die in car accidents.
GE has plenty of reasons to be propagandistic and amplify the Government line. They obviously propagandized in favor of the war.
But it's more complicated than your little one-paragraph, one-size-fits-all slogan: they want $$$$$$$$$$$$!!!
And, even if you were right that the world is this simple and oh-so-painfully-obvious, that wouldn't be a reason not to point it out. They claim to be a journalistic outlet and many people think they are. The fact that you and your commenters have the whole simple world all figured out and are so bored with your insight doesn't mean that everyone has mastered the Unified Theory that Explains Everything.
"And then there's the fact that they are paying millions of dollars a year to prime-time commentators who are vehemently opposed to the war, something you forgot to mention."
Which war? Not the one in Afghanistan, nor in Colombia, nor against the Palestinians. Do you mean the reshuffling of US troops in and from Iraq? Plenty in the elite support such a tactical move. Does that make the corporate ownership antiwar as well?
I think Glenn's slicing the difference rather thinly. We still have a pro-imperial propaganda system, which is undergoing a brief rebooting before making excuses for Obama's aggression. Assuming such a thing could ever happen in Changeland.
Jeeze Glen, what did IOZ ever do to you? Don't tell me you're looking over your shoulder and noticing him coming up on your left. Does it feel a little threatening to not be the most Fight-the-Powerest of all. IOZ doesn't make fun of you for your slightly ridiculous obsessions - net neutrality, et al -- so why not cut him some slack?
"The fact that you and your commenters have the whole simple world all figured out and are so bored with your insight doesn't mean that everyone has mastered the Unified Theory that Explains Everything."
Oh, sheeeeiiiiiiiit. Glenn for President.
Scratch that. Glenn for IOZ.
this glenn greenwadl guy, he's a blogger, right?
I'm so confused.
Seddit before and I'll sayyit again: Greenwald is IOZ without the weed. IOZ is Greenwald without the law degree. Einhorn is Finkle! Finkle is Einhorn! Einhorn is a man! Oh my god, Einhorn is a man!
I think you meant to say, "she's my sister! [Slap] My daughter! [slap] My sister! [slap] My daughter! [slap] My sister! [slap] My daughter!"
Glenn's right, man. You suck. If you had any integrity you'd say that you'd rather have the mafia running the show as long as it was your guys in charge. Just like he did when talking to Dennis the P for the record a bit back.
Don't you know the world isn't black and white? Sometimes you have sign a bill of lies, swallow a thousand tons of diseased feces, and kill a million or two innocents to make things right and get a finger on the wheel. It's better than the alternatives!!!
Who are you to judge me!?!?!?!
"Only" the 35th largest defense contractor.
The DoD has paid more than a billion-and-a-half dollars directly to Motorola since 2000? That is, on one hand, a modest revenue stream for a giant diversified technology and manufacturing company; it is, on the other hand, a modest revenue stream for a giant diversified technology company. And that's only monies paid directly for DoD-awarded contracts.
Whether or not GE is the first of five thousandth largest recipient of direct payments via Defense contracts is totally, like, not the issue, man.
Also, who are these commentators. Rachel Maddow? For realz, yo?
Hey, cut Glen some slack IOZ. He won't get invited to all the right parties if he doesn't do his bit to keep hope for small change alive.
You know the green eyed monster is alive and well and living on Ioz's blog by the studied use of the misspelled name....
so lame.....
My only quibble with the points Glenn makes is that although this is true:
And then there's the fact that they are paying millions of dollars a year to prime-time commentators who are vehemently opposed to the war, something you forgot to mention
it's off the mark for the topic at large. As Kyle points out above, they're not spending one penny for any antiwar commenters---just people who are itching to change the theatre for a variety of reasons, none either rational or humane.
"And then there's the fact that they are paying millions of dollars a year to prime-time commentators who are vehemently opposed to the war"
Glenn. Read. Revise.
shit...and here I thought GE was mostly a finance company.
envious? lulzuz.
we just like bothering the bothered.
ups sorry delete plz [url=http://duhum.com].[/url]
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