OT: How about those Union Tribune Layoffs?

[Arraya]

Chris Hedges, who resigned from the so-called “liberal” new york times because he was asked not to speak about the Iraq war in 2002, is no stranger to journalist censorship.

His latest piece;

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_prophecy_worth_watching_20100614/

Orson Welles and John Houseman were preparing to mount a production in June 1937 in New York City called “The Cradle Will Rock,” a musical written by Marc Blitzstein and set in “Steeltown USA.” The musical followed the efforts of a worker, Larry Foreman, as he attempted to unionize steelworkers. His nemesis was the heartless industrialist Mister Mister, who owned the steel mill and controlled the press, the church, local civic groups, politicians, the arts and the local university, where, as a trustee, Mister Mister made sure the pliant college president fired professors who did not laud the manly arts of war and capitalism.

The show was scheduled to open at the Maxine Elliott Theatre with an elaborate set and a 28-piece orchestra. But Washington, bowing to complaints, at the last minute announced that no new shows would be funded by the theater project until after the fiscal year. The theater was surrounded by armed guards since, the government argued, props and costumes inside were government property.

snip

The corporate and government censorship—practiced in the name of sponsorship—that was imposed on “The Cradle Will Rock” is the censorship that has decimated the arts, the universities, the press and the church and destroyed the theater. These liberal institutions have been bought off. Corporate money, grants and government support reward those who stay on script, who do not challenge the cruel structures of American imperialism, our permanent war economy and unfettered capitalism.

His latest book: Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the
Triumph of Spectacle

[Arraya]

Or as Joe Bageant aptly puts it:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/05/lost-on.html

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.

For the clear-eyed citizen, there is a growing inner horror and despair in all this, with nowhere to turn but the Internet. The Net is a cyber reality, no more real than the hologram, and indeed a part of the hologram, though not quite yet absorbed and co-opted by capitalism. We take what relief we can find.

[Arraya]

Or as Joe Bageant aptly puts it:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/05/lost-on.html

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.

For the clear-eyed citizen, there is a growing inner horror and despair in all this, with nowhere to turn but the Internet. The Net is a cyber reality, no more real than the hologram, and indeed a part of the hologram, though not quite yet absorbed and co-opted by capitalism. We take what relief we can find.

[Arraya]

Or as Joe Bageant aptly puts it:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/05/lost-on.html

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.

For the clear-eyed citizen, there is a growing inner horror and despair in all this, with nowhere to turn but the Internet. The Net is a cyber reality, no more real than the hologram, and indeed a part of the hologram, though not quite yet absorbed and co-opted by capitalism. We take what relief we can find.

[Arraya]

Or as Joe Bageant aptly puts it:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/05/lost-on.html

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.

For the clear-eyed citizen, there is a growing inner horror and despair in all this, with nowhere to turn but the Internet. The Net is a cyber reality, no more real than the hologram, and indeed a part of the hologram, though not quite yet absorbed and co-opted by capitalism. We take what relief we can find.

[Arraya]

Or as Joe Bageant aptly puts it:

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/05/lost-on.html

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.

For the clear-eyed citizen, there is a growing inner horror and despair in all this, with nowhere to turn but the Internet. The Net is a cyber reality, no more real than the hologram, and indeed a part of the hologram, though not quite yet absorbed and co-opted by capitalism. We take what relief we can find.

[Coronita]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=flu]Let me tell you a sad story of the state of the L.A. Times….
My parents use to subscribe to L.A. Times for about $80/month for 7 days. Then they started to realize they don’t really need the papers as much, so they ended up calling them and renegotiating to $40/month for 5 days…Then after about 3 weeks, they decided, they really don’t need the papers anymore since they get things from CNN.com, so they called and cancelled.

The L.A Times didn’t want to lose them as a customer (been a subscriber for 20+years). So while my parents continued to insist on cancelling, L.A. Times kept lowering the price…End result? 7 day subscription for….$1/month….
[/quote]

So figure how much money your paper is going to lose doing this. The one-dimensional strategizing by these companies boggles the mind. I keep hearing the phrase, “Think outside the box”, but it is extremely rare that I see actual employment of the concept. I don’t know what they are teaching in B-schools today, but American business executives, for the most part, appear incapable of any sort of strategic analysis of their company operations. There certainly does not appear to be any proactive crisis management; I’m guessing that’s not possible when you won’t even admit the possibility that a crisis could arise at some point in the future. No, crisis management for most of the banks, the car manufacturers, the newspapers, and the insurance companies seems to be a corporate version of the little Dutch boy who plugged a leak in the Haarlem seawall with his finger, except that these incompetents expect the taxpayers to plug their leaks (and, courtesy of an obliging government, we do).
[/quote]

It’s not just newspaper though. Magazines are hurting too. And a lot of the ones normally you find on the newstand for $4/pop folks are getting them free too. I had a free trial subscription for a few magazines in the auto,news,finance, and 2 years later after cancelling them, they keep sending them to me, even though I’ve called them every 6 months confirming I’m not a subscriber…Someone once explained to me, that part of this is also due to demographics….Supposedly, some of the magazines are given free to certain economic/ethnic/social demographics, I guess due to all the advertisements. Supposedly, some of these strategies also include given the subscriptions away to folks with a certain level of household income, as supposedly they are a vehicle to get ads in product placements in hopes of getting one to spend more…So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…Anyway, kinda a waste imho since I don’t have time to read everything, and a lot of them end up in the trash….

[Coronita]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=flu]Let me tell you a sad story of the state of the L.A. Times….
My parents use to subscribe to L.A. Times for about $80/month for 7 days. Then they started to realize they don’t really need the papers as much, so they ended up calling them and renegotiating to $40/month for 5 days…Then after about 3 weeks, they decided, they really don’t need the papers anymore since they get things from CNN.com, so they called and cancelled.

The L.A Times didn’t want to lose them as a customer (been a subscriber for 20+years). So while my parents continued to insist on cancelling, L.A. Times kept lowering the price…End result? 7 day subscription for….$1/month….
[/quote]

So figure how much money your paper is going to lose doing this. The one-dimensional strategizing by these companies boggles the mind. I keep hearing the phrase, “Think outside the box”, but it is extremely rare that I see actual employment of the concept. I don’t know what they are teaching in B-schools today, but American business executives, for the most part, appear incapable of any sort of strategic analysis of their company operations. There certainly does not appear to be any proactive crisis management; I’m guessing that’s not possible when you won’t even admit the possibility that a crisis could arise at some point in the future. No, crisis management for most of the banks, the car manufacturers, the newspapers, and the insurance companies seems to be a corporate version of the little Dutch boy who plugged a leak in the Haarlem seawall with his finger, except that these incompetents expect the taxpayers to plug their leaks (and, courtesy of an obliging government, we do).
[/quote]

It’s not just newspaper though. Magazines are hurting too. And a lot of the ones normally you find on the newstand for $4/pop folks are getting them free too. I had a free trial subscription for a few magazines in the auto,news,finance, and 2 years later after cancelling them, they keep sending them to me, even though I’ve called them every 6 months confirming I’m not a subscriber…Someone once explained to me, that part of this is also due to demographics….Supposedly, some of the magazines are given free to certain economic/ethnic/social demographics, I guess due to all the advertisements. Supposedly, some of these strategies also include given the subscriptions away to folks with a certain level of household income, as supposedly they are a vehicle to get ads in product placements in hopes of getting one to spend more…So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…Anyway, kinda a waste imho since I don’t have time to read everything, and a lot of them end up in the trash….

[Coronita]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=flu]Let me tell you a sad story of the state of the L.A. Times….
My parents use to subscribe to L.A. Times for about $80/month for 7 days. Then they started to realize they don’t really need the papers as much, so they ended up calling them and renegotiating to $40/month for 5 days…Then after about 3 weeks, they decided, they really don’t need the papers anymore since they get things from CNN.com, so they called and cancelled.

The L.A Times didn’t want to lose them as a customer (been a subscriber for 20+years). So while my parents continued to insist on cancelling, L.A. Times kept lowering the price…End result? 7 day subscription for….$1/month….
[/quote]

So figure how much money your paper is going to lose doing this. The one-dimensional strategizing by these companies boggles the mind. I keep hearing the phrase, “Think outside the box”, but it is extremely rare that I see actual employment of the concept. I don’t know what they are teaching in B-schools today, but American business executives, for the most part, appear incapable of any sort of strategic analysis of their company operations. There certainly does not appear to be any proactive crisis management; I’m guessing that’s not possible when you won’t even admit the possibility that a crisis could arise at some point in the future. No, crisis management for most of the banks, the car manufacturers, the newspapers, and the insurance companies seems to be a corporate version of the little Dutch boy who plugged a leak in the Haarlem seawall with his finger, except that these incompetents expect the taxpayers to plug their leaks (and, courtesy of an obliging government, we do).
[/quote]

It’s not just newspaper though. Magazines are hurting too. And a lot of the ones normally you find on the newstand for $4/pop folks are getting them free too. I had a free trial subscription for a few magazines in the auto,news,finance, and 2 years later after cancelling them, they keep sending them to me, even though I’ve called them every 6 months confirming I’m not a subscriber…Someone once explained to me, that part of this is also due to demographics….Supposedly, some of the magazines are given free to certain economic/ethnic/social demographics, I guess due to all the advertisements. Supposedly, some of these strategies also include given the subscriptions away to folks with a certain level of household income, as supposedly they are a vehicle to get ads in product placements in hopes of getting one to spend more…So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…Anyway, kinda a waste imho since I don’t have time to read everything, and a lot of them end up in the trash….

[Coronita]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=flu]Let me tell you a sad story of the state of the L.A. Times….
My parents use to subscribe to L.A. Times for about $80/month for 7 days. Then they started to realize they don’t really need the papers as much, so they ended up calling them and renegotiating to $40/month for 5 days…Then after about 3 weeks, they decided, they really don’t need the papers anymore since they get things from CNN.com, so they called and cancelled.

The L.A Times didn’t want to lose them as a customer (been a subscriber for 20+years). So while my parents continued to insist on cancelling, L.A. Times kept lowering the price…End result? 7 day subscription for….$1/month….
[/quote]

So figure how much money your paper is going to lose doing this. The one-dimensional strategizing by these companies boggles the mind. I keep hearing the phrase, “Think outside the box”, but it is extremely rare that I see actual employment of the concept. I don’t know what they are teaching in B-schools today, but American business executives, for the most part, appear incapable of any sort of strategic analysis of their company operations. There certainly does not appear to be any proactive crisis management; I’m guessing that’s not possible when you won’t even admit the possibility that a crisis could arise at some point in the future. No, crisis management for most of the banks, the car manufacturers, the newspapers, and the insurance companies seems to be a corporate version of the little Dutch boy who plugged a leak in the Haarlem seawall with his finger, except that these incompetents expect the taxpayers to plug their leaks (and, courtesy of an obliging government, we do).
[/quote]

It’s not just newspaper though. Magazines are hurting too. And a lot of the ones normally you find on the newstand for $4/pop folks are getting them free too. I had a free trial subscription for a few magazines in the auto,news,finance, and 2 years later after cancelling them, they keep sending them to me, even though I’ve called them every 6 months confirming I’m not a subscriber…Someone once explained to me, that part of this is also due to demographics….Supposedly, some of the magazines are given free to certain economic/ethnic/social demographics, I guess due to all the advertisements. Supposedly, some of these strategies also include given the subscriptions away to folks with a certain level of household income, as supposedly they are a vehicle to get ads in product placements in hopes of getting one to spend more…So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…Anyway, kinda a waste imho since I don’t have time to read everything, and a lot of them end up in the trash….

[Coronita]

[quote=eavesdropper][quote=flu]Let me tell you a sad story of the state of the L.A. Times….
My parents use to subscribe to L.A. Times for about $80/month for 7 days. Then they started to realize they don’t really need the papers as much, so they ended up calling them and renegotiating to $40/month for 5 days…Then after about 3 weeks, they decided, they really don’t need the papers anymore since they get things from CNN.com, so they called and cancelled.

The L.A Times didn’t want to lose them as a customer (been a subscriber for 20+years). So while my parents continued to insist on cancelling, L.A. Times kept lowering the price…End result? 7 day subscription for….$1/month….
[/quote]

So figure how much money your paper is going to lose doing this. The one-dimensional strategizing by these companies boggles the mind. I keep hearing the phrase, “Think outside the box”, but it is extremely rare that I see actual employment of the concept. I don’t know what they are teaching in B-schools today, but American business executives, for the most part, appear incapable of any sort of strategic analysis of their company operations. There certainly does not appear to be any proactive crisis management; I’m guessing that’s not possible when you won’t even admit the possibility that a crisis could arise at some point in the future. No, crisis management for most of the banks, the car manufacturers, the newspapers, and the insurance companies seems to be a corporate version of the little Dutch boy who plugged a leak in the Haarlem seawall with his finger, except that these incompetents expect the taxpayers to plug their leaks (and, courtesy of an obliging government, we do).
[/quote]

It’s not just newspaper though. Magazines are hurting too. And a lot of the ones normally you find on the newstand for $4/pop folks are getting them free too. I had a free trial subscription for a few magazines in the auto,news,finance, and 2 years later after cancelling them, they keep sending them to me, even though I’ve called them every 6 months confirming I’m not a subscriber…Someone once explained to me, that part of this is also due to demographics….Supposedly, some of the magazines are given free to certain economic/ethnic/social demographics, I guess due to all the advertisements. Supposedly, some of these strategies also include given the subscriptions away to folks with a certain level of household income, as supposedly they are a vehicle to get ads in product placements in hopes of getting one to spend more…So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…Anyway, kinda a waste imho since I don’t have time to read everything, and a lot of them end up in the trash….

[desmond]

Flu “So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…”

Watch out for Perez Hilton.

[desmond]

Flu “So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…”

Watch out for Perez Hilton.

[desmond]

Flu “So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…”

Watch out for Perez Hilton.

[desmond]

Flu “So, yes sometimes those “shi-shi” magazines end up on my doorstep for some reason…”

Watch out for Perez Hilton.

[Author]

Posts