convenient hypocrisy

December 21, 2004 11:46 AM

Community Values, Corporate Profit and Pornography
"Popular culture isn't popular because members of the "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving left-wing freak show" (to borrow a line from a campaign ad this year) are the only customers. It's because there is an unquenched thirst for it, and the corporate profiteers (who are members of and contributors to both political parties) see a nationwide market for it." What will we tell the children?
posted by nofundy (20 comments total)

The fourth page of a WaPo article! Hot damn!
posted by u.n. owen at 11:57 AM on December 21, 2004

Let us all repeat this Bush quotation:
"My job will be to usher in the responsibility era, a culture that will stand in stark contrast to the last few decades, which has clearly said to America: If it feels good, do it. And if you've got a problem, blame somebody else."
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:12 PM on December 21, 2004

The fourth page of a WaPo article! Hot damn!

The link brings up the first page of a four page article for me. Thanks for the input anyway.
posted by nofundy at 12:27 PM on December 21, 2004

Brings up login/reg page now, but it was the Page 4 for me too at first
posted by crunchburger at 12:30 PM on December 21, 2004

I for one am sick of this feel-good culture. "Clean air and a budget surplus make us feel good."... Bah! Go back to Russia, hippy!
posted by hammurderer at 12:32 PM on December 21, 2004

I for one am sick of this feel-good culture.

What feel-good culture? Most people I meet feel lousy.
posted by jonmc at 12:33 PM on December 21, 2004

This is something I think about a lot, and something I know a lot of mefianos do, also. (Tired of 'mefites'...) Why is it that most strip joints are kept rolling in dough by red-voters? Why is it that Fox is easily the most ribald and suggestive of the broadcast newtorks, and yet it has the most conservative politics? Why is it that DC prostitutes will generally tell anyone who asks that Rebublicans are way kinkier than Democrats?

There's some truth buried in there, somewhere. Whatever that truth is (or truths are), it's sure interesting to me that it all serves to keep a shitload of people in a constant state of sexual anxiety of one stripe or another. And that's interesting to me because, as we all know, people (well, late-model Americans, at least) tend to buy stuff when they're uptight....
posted by lodurr at 12:41 PM on December 21, 2004

link works fine for me. reminds me of Frank Rich's NYT thanksgiving piece (full text no longer available) about the MNF shenanigans. in brief: while the show "Desperate Housewives" is much more controversial than the MNF ad, the show is still a big hit. so who thinks the ad was offensive? not many people, actually.

In this world of irony, corporate leaders at companies as diverse as News Corp., Marriott International and Time Warner can profit by selling red state consumers the very material that red state culture is supposed to despise. Those elites then funnel the proceeds to the GOP, which in turn has used the money to successfully convince red state voters that the other political party is solely responsible for the decline of the civilization.

concise and true.

a little more about Randy Spencer and pornography in Utah.

the culture of commerce will always outweigh the dubious notion of "community standards." big business will never be hurt by its association with pornography.

the problem now is that all of us opposed to big-business politics now know that watching mainstream porn supports the GOP. :(
posted by mrgrimm at 12:56 PM on December 21, 2004

I just get a 404 greeting.
posted by cosmonik at 1:02 PM on December 21, 2004

I get page 1 as well...
posted by Bugbread at 1:07 PM on December 21, 2004

Like standing on both sides has ever been a problem for business before.

Big business is a supplier in the culture war, selling pharma ads during O'Reilly and pay-per-view to any and all, while the culture war remains merely a tactical skirmish that provides useful cover for the strategic battle for economic power via political control.

These divisions of corporations are merely arms merchants, in the service to the greater corporate empire's goal.

And the only people to whom this is not obvious are children.
posted by dglynn at 2:19 PM on December 21, 2004

Interesting article.

Middle America seems to be blinded that Bush doesn't give a shit about gays or abortion or Jesus.

As a war profiteer, he just wants your vote.
posted by orange clock at 2:44 PM on December 21, 2004

Orange Clock, you're right, and wrong.

Bush pretty clearly doesn't have the zeal that some of the pro-life and anti-gay-marriage people do in the Republican Party.

What he does have, however, in bold and plentiful measure, is a resolve to stamp out the tyranical tendency of liberal judges to impose their will on the people.

He will appoint judges who will vote to reverse Roe vs. Wade and not federalize gay marriage on specious equal protection or full faith and credit grounds.

After that, though, I think he'll be perfectly happy to leave it to the people's legislatures to make state-by-state determinations.

And while gay marriage, in as many words, may not happen for a while, or ever, nobody, including any serious Republicans, thinks that the mainstreaming of gay men and women is a reversible phenomenon. The basic measure of gay rights is here to stay.
posted by MattD at 3:20 PM on December 21, 2004

MattD makes me laugh every time. I couldn't fake being a head-in-the-sand right-winger any better than he does. :)
posted by Space Coyote at 5:19 PM on December 21, 2004

SpaceCoyote, MattD's head is out of the sand, he's quite aware that Bush's strategy is to use the zeal of the yahoo's to put money in the pockets of people like him. Which is GW's real priority. The rest is a bone to the Religious Right to get him elected. the more energy we waste on that shit the easier it is for him.
posted by jonmc at 5:45 PM on December 21, 2004

Or to put it another way

"I don't believe the rich should be allowed religion. It demeans the faith of the poor." --Noah Hawley, a Conspiracy Of Tall Men
posted by jonmc at 5:58 PM on December 21, 2004

So, jonmc, the simple and pure faith of the working people of this good country is something that is exploited by the people that they vote for?

In other words, they are chumps?

Hey, look, we found an elitist.

Now where's my Blazing Saddles dvd.....
posted by dglynn at 10:13 PM on December 21, 2004

Hey, look, we found an elitist.

Ah, cute: Can't call a spade a spade without getting called out for being too smart for your own good, eh? And this from the guy who said:

These divisions of corporations are merely arms merchants, in the service to the greater corporate empire's goal.

And the only people to whom this is not obvious are children

So, I guess you're calling out jonmc as a kindred soul?
posted by lodurr at 5:44 AM on December 22, 2004

In other words, they are chumps?

Sure they. But everyone's a chump for somebody.

So, I guess you're calling out jonmc as a kindred soul?

you say that like it's a bad thing.
posted by jonmc at 7:02 AM on December 22, 2004

It depends. You've never struck me as being that much of a pessimist.
posted by lodurr at 8:46 AM on December 22, 2004