you will be surveilled

"you see how it is...wherever you are, you always have to work. there's never any excuse for idleness. there are also no wine-taverns, no ale houses, no brothels, no opportunity for seduction, no secret meting places. everyone has his eye on you, so you are practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time."_____"this ensures that everyone's conduct in public is watched by those who are responsible for their discipline at home." thomas more, from utopia.________and one supposes to think properly as well, no? thomas more was under sheriff of london so his desire to watch everyone all the time is understandable...rule crazy control freak...and it is no surprise that those outstanding teleologies in human history ( so far ) the catholic church and every authoritarian state to date embrace more as one of their own...much of our lives are led under surveillance these days...cameras are everywhere and they claim there is workable facial recognition software out there...my phone is tapped...my emails and texts read..i have no intention of hiding my blog and fucking facebook is trying to hijack my life..so? today's n y times sunday magazine has a two page color advertisement ( something like $214,000 for that ) for nest's iq home surveillance camera you can connect to your smart phone and see what the help is up to while your busy extorting money with yet another wall street ponzi scheme...just because it's legal for you to fleece the public doesn't mean the goddamed help can slack...an electronic overseer...digital simon legree..i don't have a web cam...i don't need some government funded hacker watching me type this...that doesn't mean i am not seriously observed on a daily basis...my gut feeling is this is not going to get better...have a shufti at my last post in "death of the real"...you will be surveilled.

deep shit

i am inclined to agree regarding the reliability of information available in the media...but not because i believe in any sort of "deep state" conspiracy paranoia...the media have always been mouthpieces for elite worldviews that present he interests of wealth and power ans the "national interests" and label anyone who takes umbrage with that as a brain-dead slug or a worthless traitor engaging in "class warfare"...one of the points i was trying to get across about last year's circus of a presidential election ( a clown won with his side-show freak running mate ) was that the divisiveness and scurrilous attacks that partisan media mounted against one candidate or another was nothing new...they are and have been commercial entities created to turn a buck so the naturally gravitate to the partisan views of some segment of the population and the advertisers who are trying to reach them...they tailor content to fit a general worldview and use specifics to manipulate that opinion...fox...msnbc...cnn...( and let's not leave out the n y times or that home of yellow journalism the wall street journal...talk about unrestricted class warfare ) all that news is distorted and you can almost always read someone's political views by what outlets they choose to patronize...none of them are trustworthy because they all have a corporate agenda and a need to manipulate your thinking to maximize their profitability..it isn't about objective news..it's about the share holders...so...you could characterize media as stenographers regurgitating the current vogue of agitptop emanating from elite centers that breitbart wants me to believe is a cabalistic "deep state" instead of the "business as usual" system that has been in place since 1789..or you could just turn your back on it...maybe read a few books...and just look around and think about what is going on in your neck of the woods and how it relates, or doesn't, to what the doyens, doges, and pundits have to say...don't let them confuse you.

all they needed was the beer

"mr.carol replied that the people of america were enlightened. information and knowledge would be the support of it. mr. adams replied, information and knowledge were not the source of obedience; that ignorance was a much better source."__________________"the first business was the report on what was called the stephen moore's bill. this man is the owner of the land on which the old fort of west point stands. he is got in debt in town to the amount of two thousand or some such sum. he has nothing but the rocks of west point. the secretaries of war and treasury and other influential characters have interested themselves in getting this bill passed to buy the land from him, to pay his debts, under the notion that the ground is necessary fro a fortress. barefaced as this business is it was carried in the senate by a great majority. am i mistaken or has the spirit of prodigality broke loose...?" william maclay 's journal of the first congress 28 may 1789 and 24 june 1791_______________just a quick post to point out that generations of american politicians have mystified, confused, dissembled, and outright lied to keep "the mob" in ignorance of what they were really up to which, in the end, is doing their best to protect the privileges and prerogatives of wealth at the expense of the rest of us...clearly john adams loved "the uneducated" long before don trump blustered his way into the white house by playing on the fears and deepening the ignorance of the polity...the pure venality we see in the acts of congress ( and their celebratory pounding down of brewskis like the aged frat boys they all are ) are nothing new...it may be that the media of the day was a hindrance to the exposure of the venality in 1791...news traveled slowly and was received long after the deed was done...the act was complete...we suffer from instantaneous news now...more rapid reception seems to be no guarantee of better or more public spirited behaviors...the whores are bought and sold...traded like stocks..or securities better still...their true constituents are unconcerned with "the voter"...we are ciphers tot hem...one wonders how long the fog of ignorant obedience will linger...fuck these people.

truth

the truth is subjective... the truth can be evaded... the truth can be distorted... the truth is controlled by elites... the truth is alien to politics and politicians... the truth can be inconvenient for advertisers... the truth is hard to know ( see distorted )... the truth has many versions... so..whose version are we protecting here? a four dollar cup of coffee's? a thirty million dollar condo's? or a version tailored by the n y times advertisers to fit the world view of the balance of their readership?

lots of ads...must be the sunday n y times

it has been a while since i visited the new york times "media kit" which lays out the advertising cost for the paper...inflation has impacted the advertising industry in the "new economy" as well and prices have gone up since my last sojourn into costs...a full color page in the "T" style magazine is up to $109,215 and a two page color spread is $209,695...full page black and white runs $74,890 and two pages $143,510...68 color pages, 8 color two page spreads...5 full page black and white and two black and white two page spreads grossed the n y times $9,971,510 in advertising revenues...clearly an advertising vehicle compared to the regular sunday magazine which has somewhat more space devoted to what could be called journalism and an assortment of 2/3, 1/2, and 1/3 page ad spaces the "T" magazine dispenses with by offering only full pages...less advertising space = less revenue...only $3,437,975...a loss leader if ever there was one...so i'm thinking with that much cash in the hopper the times is not about to go alienating advertisers ( unlike youtube )...the "truth" and "objectivity" they are on about is relative to their advertiser's worldview...and, while we are on the subject of "truth"...in a side note to the editors of time...truth has always had a difficult time of it..it has struggled and been ignored for centuries...it is especially vulnerable around politicians ( not just the current crop of yahoos either...this is a more generalized observation..past administrations have had their way with "truth"...abused it like they owned it...orwell has become fashionable again but he was never irrelevant...i would steer you away from 1984 and towards some essays...like "politics and the english language"...a primer for those trying to work out the special vocabularies of politicians...fuck politicians they are all lying scumbag whores...to an individual..one of the few absolutes i will subscribe to ) who work hard to say nothing they can be held accountable for...it is part of the kit that comes with the a seat at the table.

someone should tell them art is subjective

while the n y times continues to tell me almost daily how they are ferreting out the truth about the president ( pro tem ) and their sterling objectivity and utter detachment in doing so they also serve the interests of their advertisers as they try to sell me...among other things...condos that start from "$ 2 million" ( and those are the cheap seats folks ) and $8,890 leather couches ( on sale! ) from some elitist outlet store called rochebobois...i am deeply skeptical about their objectivity in any of this and i am convinced of their manipulative propensities...they have mostly the same agenda as don trump...make me rich(er)...the media are corporate entities with editorial boards that decide what and how much i should know...i have been a subscriber for some time..but not because i think they are purveyors of truth...it is a fin insight t into what the elite is thinking about and they have definite impact on other media...always good to know what the other side thinks i should think...i am, by the by, mostly disinterested in the music they are hyping in this "music issue"...with the exception of leonard cohen and james macmurtry this stuff is pointless dreck ( see? subjective )..i will pursue my own tastes ( and play my own music ) at the risk of being unstylish...fuck these people.

elitist tussle

it's clear that the n y times loathes donald trump...today's op-ed section has some interesting titles to the pieces..."can this presidency be saved?" and "how we overcame tyranny before" among them...the n y times is keen to remind me that it is "not an elitist newspaper"...this is, of course, bullshit...the owners and shareholders of the n y times are every bit the elitist freaks the president ( pro tem ) is...a quick gander at the real estate advertising for "luxury condominiums" that "start" at approximately 118 times the base price i paid for m midwestern suburban home tells me that they are not aiming to sell much of anything to me ( unless you count the "new york times store" which has trinkets and gewgaws like jigsaw puzzles and page reprints that might fall into the range of my means...not the photographs or sports memorabilia though...those are priced for status or collectors )..so? the elite is at war with itself because they aren't monolithic and, while an acquisitional frame of reference gives them common ground there's no accounting for how individuals interact with one another even if they have common ground...this is good news for the rest of us...the elite work hard to keep us divided along many social fissures and brands ( are you chevy or ford? coke or pepsi? the divisiveness is in everyday life, not just the hot issues...so enculturated we don't even notice ) it is refreshing to see that , while they don't think so, they are actually human and not as overwhelmingly bright as they might suppose...there is hope here...cold comfort in these unhinged times...but comfort none the less...and i see the times has joined whole hog in data mining...i don't watch much but silent german expressionist films and some eisenstein and maybe dziga vertov...the only thing they might divine from that is "art house pretensions" and i don't go out much...trust no one.