Individuology

When I was growing up, yes we had running water & electricity, there was about an hour worth of news (that is things that were actually new) each day. It aired around dinner time 5-6 pm. Then came the capability of cable where they could broadcast 24 hours a day. There was still only 1 hour of news a day, so they had to make up, that’s right make up, 23 hours of junk news, ‘filler’ to be overly kind. Let’s look at some of those ‘fillers’ or junk news types…

Type #1 – Interviews:
Now, instead of reporting what actually happened, they conjecture what may happen sometime in the future. Discussion shows have several people, say A, B, & C.

A says “This is what’s going to happen”. Of course A has NO idea what will happen. Quite often it’s simply projection – This is what I, “A” wishes would happen.

Then B in a slightly louder voice says “No, This is what’s going to happen”. Of course B also has NO idea what will happen, but projects what “B” wishes would happen.

Then C in an even louder voice proclaims “No, This is what’s going to happen”. Of course C also has NO idea what will happen, but projects what “C” wishes would happen.

But all 3 will claim: This is what the American people want… See my blog entry
American Person

This can easily fill a 30 or even 60 minute slot – minus commercials, which is what it’s all about. No actual news is required.

Type #2 – Car chases:
I live in New Hampshire. Why should I care about the police in California chasing someone? I shouldn’t care & I don’t. But the media, to fill the 23 junk hours would like me to get excited, and waste my emotions, which should be directed towards my family, and my time, which is all I have left as a senior, to watch some insane car chase. Duh!

Type #3 – Polls
If you want to make up a news story, a popular method is to run a survey. You can call on one of the professional pollsters like “Rasmussen” or “Zogby”, or you can run your own little ‘informal’ poll, and when only 25 people call in, excuse it as ‘informal’ but then go on to discuss it in great length as if Zogby or “Rasmussen” had run it. And of course we have, what I consider the single greatest beneficiary of the 2008 election cycle, Frank Luntz.

Type #4 – “I’m up against a hard break…”.
This is one of the most over-controlling tricks, and virtually guarantees that no news of any significance will ever slip in.

It’s completely arbitrary from 2 dimensions:
A. As an overall contract with the station.
Imus ran his show for many years ignoring this rule. If a guest ran on a bit, or even a lot, Imus would then run a whole bunch of ads back to back to make up for it. Big deal – great for hearing what guest had to say.
I believe this is a primary pull of C-Span. The hosts, or even call-in folk ask the guest a question and then allow them as much time as necessary to answer it. How utterly refreshing!

B. As a local decision – and this the host CAN control.
Let’s say you have a half an hour or 30 minute segment. Subtracting out commercials, the whole reason for this junk news segment in the first place, you have maybe 24 minutes left to interview guests.
So you could have:
2 guests at 12 min. each; like C-Span might do it; or
4 guests at 6 min. each; enough to hear what they have to say; or
6 guests at 4 min. each; getting just the gist of their thoughts; or
12 guests at 2 min. each; where you can get absolutely nothing but meaningless sound bites. Each lead in will be something like: We only have 12 seconds left; but what is your view of western civilization’s history? Duh!

Lightening rounds are a subset of this. The general rules is that the Host asks rapid questions and the guest must answer in teeny, tiny little sound bites. I absolutely loved it when Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday’s host explained those rules to, I believe it was General Petraeus, and his response was: Those are your rules not mine! Bravo for him!

Type #5 – Speculate, Speculate, Speculate…
This a subtype of Types #1 – Interviews: & Type #3 – Polls
You can configure it in many different ways, even call it “breaking news” but every word is a speculation about what MAY happen. No facts, NO news.

As human beings we have the God given right NOT to be treated as idiots.

What do you think?

Bob
–
“The difference between fiction and reality?
Fiction has to make sense.”
– Tom Clancy

We hear a lot about wealth re-distribution, but exactly what is it, and how does it work? These are some of the details I’ve been able to gather so far…

Wealth re-distribution, previously called stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, requires 3 not 2, groups of people to make it work. This is rarely talked or written about, and this is by design.

The First group is the wealth creators: the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the marketers, etc. If no wealth is created, nothing can be stolen & re-distributed.

Second is the ‘needy’ group, historically the ‘poor’. If there are no poor there is no justification for stealing from the rich.

Third is the re-distributors themselves. Some one individual, or small group, has to manage the actual process of stealing from some and giving to others, or. . . keeping the wealth themselves. This group prefers to work in secret, and if possible, prevent people from even knowing that they exist.

How, in detail, does this re-distribution process work?

To steal from the wealthy (Code name: Rich), re-distributors first need to seize all defensive weapons from the wealth producers so they can no longer defend themselves. This is typically done using political power, and passing laws. Then the re-distributors can steal to their hearts content.

The re-distributors, and this is rarely mentioned, having stolen the wealth from the wealth producers, can either give it to others, the so-called needy, or simply keep it for themselves.

To avoid people seeing that this is what they are doing, some PR (Public Relations) is necessary. So for every say $100 they steal; they, with great show & fan fare, give $2-$5 to their favorite ‘needy’ group. In addition to the PR effect, this also keeps the needy group in their ‘needy’ state. The so-called poor will remain poor. The re-distributors need to maintain & nourish these needy groups, as they are the sole justification for stealing from the wealth creators, and then keeping that wealth for themselves.

But sometimes events outside of the re-distributors control can occur. During the 20th century (1900-1999) the ‘poor’ of the United States of America experienced constantly increasing standards of comfort & living. This posed a significant threat to the re-distributors.

So, the re-distributors greatly encouraged a new fashion – Rights!

Rights became the cultural in-thing, like mini-skirts. Rights were subtle, and often so compelling. Today, anyone can stand up and shout, they rarely whisper, “I have a ‘Right’ to whatever they want, and no one is giving me my newly created ‘right’”. They then demand: Would someone, Please, go out and steal from the wealth producers and give my new right to me for ‘free’.”
As a commission for doing this robbery for me, the re-distributors can keep anywhere from 1% to 99% of the take.

Historical Background:
If you, as an Individual, wanted to have something you could not afford, say a big screen TV, you could have become a criminal and go out and steal it yourself. You could either steal the TV, or the money to buy the TV.

But a criminal career has it’s drawbacks. The hours are poor. Sometimes you have to work (steal) in the evening or nighttime, when others are going to restaurants & shows. You also have to buy guns, ammunition, holsters, etc. and devote some non-productive hours to target shooting, learning how to clean-up a crime scene (getting increasingly high tech), drive get-away cars safely, etc. There’s also the risk of being shot by a homeowner, or police officer. This risk can be minimized by restricting your activities to states or cities where homeowners have already had their self-defense weapons confiscated.

What do you think?

Do you know some re-distributors?