We're Living in a Theater State -- Plug in and Be Lit up by the American Hologram

[marmar]

via AlterNet:




JoeBageant.com / By Joe Bageant

We're Living in a Theater State -- Plug in and Be Lit up by the American Hologram
TV and movies keep us in an entertained stupor, awed, mislead, and most importantly, distracted.

May 16, 2010 |


Ajijic, Mexico -- I've spent most of this week watching American television and movies. I leave the TV on all night long. I toss and turn with my bad back, and bad lungs, catch a rerun episode of Two and a Half Men, or CSI, and conk out again. Then I awaken to the U.S. morning talk shows. It's a grueling regimen, only for the strong. Or the lonely. For periodic relief, I switch to Mexican television (be patient, I really am going somewhere with this). Mexican TV is not one iota better than US television, but is veeerrry heavy on the booty. More than heavy. Astronomical. Think all-but-bare tits and ass close-ups every fifteen seconds, straight through commercials, dramas, comedy shows, history shows, and even the news where possible. Every show but the bullfights and that old nun who comes on at ten PM, who invariably drives me back to the U.S. channels.

Ahhhh … Safely in the American national illusion, where all the world's a shopping expedition. Or a terrorist threat. No matter, as long as it is colorful and wiggles on the theater state's 400 million screens. Plug in and be lit up by the American Hologram.

This great loom of media images, and images of images, is so many layers deep that it has replaced reality. No one can remember the original imprint. If there was one. The hologram is a hermetic snow globe, a self-referential circuitry of images, and a Möbius loop from which there is no logical escape. Logic has zilch to do with what is going on. The smallest part holographically recapitulates the whole, and vice versa. No thinking required, we just cycle and recycle through an aural dimension. Not all that bad, I guess, if it were not generated by forces out to fuck every last pair of eyeballs and mind plugged into it.

The investing class has put thousands of billions into movies, TV and other media to keep the hologram lit up over the past six decades. Which is to say, keep the public in an entertained stupor, awed, mislead, and most importantly, distracted. But the payoff probably runs in the trillions. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/media/146888/we%27re_living_in_a_theater_state_--_plug_in_and_be_lit_up_by_the_american_hologram/

[Hannah Bell]

1. k/r

[leveymg]

2. Simulacra is America's last world-leading export commodity. That, and military hardware.

These are the last days of the dinosaurs. Enjoy them while you still have two brains.

[wackadoo wabbit]

3. That is the Best Picture Ever! n/t

[leveymg]

4. Then, you may enjoy these . . .

[amborin]

6. those are great

[madmax]

5. I've been saying this for years

although not as brilliantly ;)