Thursday, June 23, 2011

Newspeak: Wisconsin Style

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.[2]”

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.[2]” ----George Orwelle, "1984"
Doublethink, and George Orwelle's other concept, Newspeak, is alive and well in Wisconsin.

In just the last few months, there are multiple examples of these concepts raising it rearing its ugly head with the aid of Scott Walker and his GOP allies in the state legislature, although in truth, it's been around much, much longer.

The longest running example of this propaganda machine, which predates Walker's administration by decades, is, of course, talk radio. You have a rogue's gallery of lying parasites like Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Vicki McKenna, who take big corporate dollars just to argue for and endlessly repeat the things that the GOP (Grand Oligarchy Party) want the listeners to believe.  Their offenses are so many and so frequent that even a multiple-author blogsite can't keep up with all of them.  Only the fact that they are part of the corporate media keeps them from being investigated for their blatant lies and in-kind political donations which never seem to get reported.

But in more recent history, things have gotten much worse and more egregious than ever before, making Richard Nixon look like a choir boy.

You have Steve Smith, CEO and President of Journal Communications, who has his place in all of the major business groups like MMAC, not only "reporting" the news, but trying to control it.  One of the most glaring examples were the repeated editorials and articles blasting the people's choice to have paid sick days in Milwaukee, but failing to mention his own involvement in having the people's voice and will crush under the self-serving corporate interest which Smith took part of.  Then again, it's nothing new for Smith to make huge profits even as he is taking away the livelihood of many people.

Another example may be occurring in Northern Wisconsin, where well-moneyed special interests, in this case, the Cline Group and WMC, who are pushing for a major relaxation in environmental protection laws so they can make some serious profits by raping the ground without restraint, as reported by the impeccable Emily Mills  What Ms. Mills does not report in her column is that there is an unconfirmed story that the Cline Group has bought out the local paper there, The Daily Press. After buying the paper, they removed the editor and a reporter, both of whom were openly skeptical of the deregulation being proposed, and replaced them with a new editor from a Minnesota mining town that the company already has great influence in.

Nothing like having the corporations which should be the subject of series of articles actually controlling what is published and what gets swept under the rug.

To help out the corporate media, or Newspeak, in being able to control the message and promote their own peculiar version of Doublethink, the state legislature and Walker's administration is being blatant in their attempts to control and limit the news which escapes from Madison.

There has been the ongoing legal battle between the people of Wisconsin and the Walker administration regarding access to the Capitol Building in Madison.  When the people took over "Our House," Walker's administration acted to violate state law and restrict access to the building.  Only after the majority of the damage has been done by Walker and his pals have they conceded to follow the law which they've broken for months.

However, for those months where they were in violation of the law, they tried to limit how much information the people themselves were able to get out by banning recording equipment, not allowing people to text or tweet things from inside the legislative chambers and other similar acts you would normally associate with other totalitarian governments like in North Korea, China, or the Middle Eastern nations.

Another glaring example is the proposal to put severe restrictions on accessibility to officials' economic interest statements.  The obvious reason for this is to protect Republican legislators who are facing recalls, like Senator Rob Cowles (R-Sin City), who has invested a lot of money in the adult entertainment industry, to put it politely.

And if information that the ruling regime does not think the public needs to know does see the light of day, rest assured that they will try to control that as well, by digging up what ever they can about the ones that dare to utter unapproved messages, no matter what extremes they need to take to do their smear work.

The best way to sum the current state of the state-run corporate media (or would it be more accurate to say the corporate-ran state-run corporate media?) would be from part of the introduction of the Outer Limits:
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure...
Is it any wonder that a growing number of people, including myself, are relying on each other instead of the media to stay informed on what is really going on in our once and future great state? It truly is a sad statement that we can no longer rely on the formerly proud and prestigious field of journalism.

4 comments:

  1. " It truly is a sad statement that we can no longer rely on the formerly proud and prestigious field of journalism."

    Then do something about it!
    Honestly this country has degraded into millions of people who love to complain and add their two cents while doing little to solve the problem. We have become a country of Arm-chair commentators continuously spouting straw-man arguments, and complaints.
    The instance of the mining company buying out the local News and replacing critics with confederates would be right up the alley of the Better business Bureau. Write them a letter, get a petition going. Ill sign it!
    Do something more than vent on the internet like 15 million other people do.
    Otherwise you are just one of the huddled masses that Orwelle wrote about.

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  2. In response to anonymous's generic "then do something about it" response above: Congnitive Dissidence IS doing something about it. Articulately. Reliably. And most compelling for me, honestly. Reporting on events that are completely overlooked by the Milwaukee Journal and other, traditional, local media outlets, is providing a huge service to its readership. Sharing opinions that put into words thoughts and ideas that reflect our beliefs and encourage continued commitment to ending the GOP's destruction of the state is not just active, not just "doing something," it's doing something that's essential to progress in a democracy. That's "doing" a lot.

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  3. What is all the more shccking imho about Mr. Smith's conduct at the JS is that it's counter to the interests of Journal Communication shareholders. The JS' business plan depends on S.E. Wisconsin's thriving retail businesses. They generate ad revenue and in turn our dependent on a thriving economy with lots of good-paying jobs for the middle class. Instead Mr. Smith has supported "reverse-Robin Hood" economic policies. Export jobs, crush unions and drive all the wealth up to the top 1%.

    OT, in order to financially viable, we need to support bloggers like Chris. It's the only way to get independent, unbiased coverage.

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