pasithea: glowing girl (Default)
pasithea ([personal profile] pasithea) wrote2005-06-30 11:00 pm
Entry tags:

The power of the mainstream

This link contains shots of the 9/11 footage. If you're not easily offended, watch it with the sound on.


So.. It's sick, isn't it. Distrubing, upsetting, and ... It probably made you giggle. It did me.

That makes this probably the best video EVER because it exposes what the right wing does to women's rights, gay rights, the disabled, and on down the line. No matter how awful and unpleasant something is, if you put a laugh track to it, you can make people laugh and by doing that, you can desensatize them to the pain, suffering, and horror of anything. We can see this video for what it is and still feel for the people who lost their friends and loved ones in the world trade center collapse, but that's because all of the pull of the media is to remind us of that. Take and issue like gay rights where the tone is reversed though and... No one cares about gay rights. Gays are funny. We can laugh at them and ignore everything they suffer. The same goes for feminists, blacks, and everyone else.

This video, produced by some schmuck thinking he's clever inadvertently lays bare the face of the true nature of the mainstream media. Nothing spreads like a joke, even a joke in poor taste, most people will elect to whisper it to their friends with the added conspiritorial nod that of course you don't believe this but it's still funny. No one ever seems to realize that laughter is more closely linked to hate than rage, and this is why liberals are losing the culture war with conservatives. We know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a 'joke', and we try not to laugh at people who are different from us because we want to respect their ideals. Conservatives in their ignorant childishness are not so restrained.

Next time something makes you laugh, pause a moment to think about why. Just remember.

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry out against it and... you're all alone.

[identity profile] kinkyturtle.livejournal.com 2005-07-01 06:58 am (UTC)(link)
Aw man, I was expecting "Yakety Sax".
frith: (horse)

Spectacle

[personal profile] frith 2005-07-02 02:09 pm (UTC)(link)
I did not have the same reaction as you. The whoops of laughter did not mesh well with this disaster. I did not have the urge to giggle.

I consider the collapse of the twin towers to be the most spectacular disaster ever. I am still in awe of it. I spare no particular sympathy for the thousands of well-to-do citizens who died relatively quickly under the tons of free-falling concrete. They lived comfortably and died fast, unlike billions of sweat-shop workers, matrimonial peons, beggars, the destitute, drought victims, and the diseased.

People are still milking the 9/11 attacks for every last drop of blood they can get, feeding hysteria and xenophobia to the masses, garnering approval for yet another wave of hypochondria, overbearing bureaucracy and reduction of civil liberties. Neo-mcCarthyism is in full bud, showing just how shallow we are. People have no perspective whatsoever. We are all uptight about a few terrorists but oh so blasé when it comes to pollution, overfishing, traffic accidents, over-medication, poor nutrition, overpopulation... So a few thousand people died early on 9/11. Three hours later they'd all been replaced with newborns in North America alone.

*royally pissed off*

Re: Spectacle

[identity profile] dv-girl.livejournal.com 2005-07-02 05:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Good points all.

Forgive my clumsiness. What I was trying to say was that I get upset and enraged about things like that too, but the average american is ignorant of them and can laugh them away. The WTC event, though is affected only a small percentage of americans, is something they're reverent about and will be upset by laughing at. I was trying to use it as an example of why laughing at things that upset other people is wrong and how it's used in the mainstream to ignore things that are more important. 1000 times as many people died in the tsunami last winter but americans don't care. They aren't the least bit traumatized by it, but they still go on about 9/11.
frith: (fawn)

Re: Spectacle

[personal profile] frith 2005-07-02 09:55 pm (UTC)(link)
No need to ask for forgiveness. I do not find you clumsy and I am not angry at you. 8-)

Even the tsunami disaster has been blown out of proportion by media coverage. What is it? Maybe 1/100th of the population was affected? That isn't much. The black death of the middle ages had death tolls 50 times higher. I am so sick of panic reports on flus and STD's while people are dying in squalor and neo-monarchist police states are more interested in keeping the elite wealthy and sending the healthy off to war. Shit like tidal waves happen, but the real tragedies are the indonesian governments and military interventions from wealthy countries.

Sometimes it is better to laugh than it is to cry.