File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-12-19.094, message 48


Date: 17 Dec 96 19:34:44 EST
From: jonathan flanders <72763.2240-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: Rate of Profit


 >>  I don't get why Lou is so hostile to the idea of studying movies and
TV in a serious way: they shape consciousness. And as the old man said,
when an ideology grips the mind of the masses it becomes a material
force. The Frankfurters didn't study them the way lots of pomos do, as
somehow containing the germs of critique or even liberation, or the way
Suck.com does, with a wiseass smirk, but in the culture industry's
relation to the ruling class and the ideas by which it rules. Adorno may
have been a bit of a stick-in-the-mud in his phrase-turning, but Donald
Duck as a character is not unrelated to the institutions of American
capitalism. Or Beavis and Butt-head, even.

 Doug <<

 Well said, Doug.

 I would say tho, that the workers that I know, are more aware of how
leasing and high interest loans rip them off than you account for. We've
had many a discussion round the break room table on stuff like this.

 It's just that there is no other way to get a car, which is a necessity
for most workers. So you make the payments, or in my case, put the repair
bills on the Visa. You do what you have to do, until you can't do it
anymore.

 Then you get home, and can't afford expensive entertainments, so a big
dollop of trash culture goes down the gullet. Watching Donald Duck get
hammered....hey he's got it tougher and is dumber than I am!

 Lets put his creators in charge of the TV news!

 I think the next watch campaign(modeled after this new Corporate Watch
website), should be an Oligarchy Watch.

 Entertainers in charge of basic news, gated communities, stretch limos,
Ford Fairlane credit, HMOs cutting medical care off, Ted Turners eight
ranches, etc., etc.

 If it can be said that we have had a sort of popular capitalism up til
now, then the Oligarchical takeover will fuel popular anti-capitalism. We
need to get our yellow highlighters on the look-out for it.



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