LOL...I'm getting one, too. Did you all see the south park episode last week? Anyway, I don't think MTV is part of a state-sponsored initiative to turn our kids into morons, but it's closer than you might think. The thing about MTV that is so interesting is how racist it is. Get this - (I don't know if it still happens because I haven't seen MTV in about 5 years - except for watching that osborne show once a few months ago) - it used to be that daytime MTV programming was all rap and hip-hip - in other words, music that appeals primarily to african americans and latinos - whereas starting at around 3 or 4pm EST there would be an influx of rock and white-directed programming. Yup, you guessed it. MTV figured that primarily unemployed people would be watching TV during the daytime, so that was when they would broadcast rap and hip hop. I'd disown my children if they ever took MTV seriously.
Hahaha! That's funny! (Sorry, I know it's not PC to laugh at that..) Is it really racist though? What if the decision was based on a demographic study that said, "yep. seems like there's more blacks and hispanics home during the day than whites. Let's cater to their tastes"? In a similar vein, is someone who opens a gun shop or a liquor store in a black neigborhood, because he thinks he's more easily able to sell his wares there, also a racist?
Good response. I agree with you. Although I'm most definitely pro freedom of speach, i'm not hoplessly lost in libertarian idealism (I believe ADL and ACLU both serve valuable and necessary functions). What would be the solution? An anti-trust case? It's a thorny issue, but one that warrants much deliberation.
I don't know if this is exactly what you are looking for--if not, perhaps it can be modified http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html
I wish I had a good answer, other than trying to discuss it and spread awareness... I strongly favor libertarian ideas, and I find myself leaning more that way every time a new "post-9/11" measure is introduced. However, this is somewhat of a "externality," for lack of a better term (in that normal open market measures might not be enough to control it) - the industry has extremely high barriers to entry, is lucrative enough to provide an incentive to "bend the rules," is controllable by a very small group of people, and most importantly, has obvious value to and power over the politicians...
True, dude! ET "Chit Chat" has become a hotbed of cutting edge political thought! SEC, wake up! The world needs MORE traders!
quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by bungrider Comments are welcome...the political discussions here have been really good lately. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes very good posts/discussions, great arguments from all sides. Josh
Without the cover of the "war on terror", where would Bush's presidency be? In the toilet, no question about it. A double dip recession for the first time in 20 years? 3 consecutive down years in the stock market for the first time since 1941? Unemployment going up, confidence going down, the FED out of bullets, etc. Has Bush said anything about the 1.8 million people who have lost their jobs over the past 12-18 months? Does he have any comprehensive domestic plan to shore up the economy? This "war on terror" is his life raft. Without it, he and his economic team would be sinking badly. On the topic of MTV, I've never understood why they've embraced the "gansta rap" genre so heavily. Think about what percent of the US population are into this lifestyle. Well, African Americans make up around 12.5% of the population. Males would make up about 6.25%. Those under the age of 40 might make up 3%. And of those, how many are living in this "hip hop" ghetto world. You're talking about less than 1% of the total US population. Yet on MTV, it is so perverse, you'd think most people were living like that. Name another industry in which less than 1% of the total population has this kind influence. Country music is a big seller. But you'd never know it if all you watched was MTV. The handful of media companies that control internet access, news, TV shows, radio, etc are being helped by an accomodative FCC. The government doesn't seem to mind 4-5 companies having incredible influence over the country. Could it be far fetched that in a few years, the FCC/the Bush Administration will offer incentives to companies that promote the war on terror, promoting stories on national ID cards, etc? It's a strange new world we're in.
It depends on your perspective. I don't like MTV, so I'm going to argue that what they are doing amounts to racism. But seriously, I strongly believe that the implication of this programming schedule is racist, and I'll tell you why. The big thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that the programming schedule changed during the summertime. During the summers, there was an amazing switch - no more all day rap and hip hop. Instead, MTV all day long was more like it was during the afternoons and evenings for the rest of the year. Not nearly as much rap and gangsta sh!t. So in my opinion, this is the motivation for the change - during the summers, you have two groups of people present during the daytime that were not present for the other part of the year - school children under 18, and college kids who do not need to work. The implications from this are as follows - 1)schoolchildren do not like hip hop and rap as much as they like various kinds of rock music [but then again, neither do most adults, so IMO this is probably moot, as there is probably a larger percentage of <18 year olds that enjoy rap and hip hip than there is adults from 18 to 75 that enjoy rap]; 2) college kids do not enjoy rap and hip hop as much as they do rock music - this could be very damning for MTV, since we can poll various ethnic groups for their music preferences. I'm not going to say what I think those preferences are, since I do not have any direct evidence that one ethinc group, say whites, prefer one genre of music over another. In a similar vein, is someone who opens a gun shop or a liquor store in a black neigborhood, because he thinks he's more easily able to sell his wares there, also a racist? I'm not sure that what you are saying amounts to the same argument. If everything within the store is offered to the same neighborhood at all times, it's different than what MTV is doing. It would be like the liquor store giving out free sample's of Boone's during the day, and free samples of Absolut during the evening. The implication is that non-whites drink cheap drinks and get drunk in the daytime, just like homeless people. Sure, you could say that Boone's is fizzy and refreshing and has a lower alcohol content so most people would prefer it during the daytime when they are most active; whereas Absolut is more something you drink when you want to get drunk, so you drink it at night; or Absolut is stronger so you want to drink less of it and you tend to drink more fluids during the daytime. There would always be an excuse for the timing. My argument is this - wrong or not, MTV has helped feed 1) a stereotype; and 2) a problem. Here's another one - Blockbuster prices movies differently if you consider demographics of each location (or it might just be supply and demand, or even both, but I'll let you decide). Where I live, there are BBV stores in various parts of town - poor parts and wealthy parts. In stores in both parts of town, there are pre-viewed movies for sale. In the poorer areas, the jackie chan movies are expensive, and movies that would appeal more to educated (I don't think anybody's going to argue against my implication that wealthy people tend to be more educated) folks are dirt cheap, such as independent flicks. Or this - can you ask for more ID in poorer parts of town? Where I live, there is one grocery chain in town. They have maybe 20 stores. I'm clearly a WASP. I get carded for alcohol less in the bad parts of town and carded more when I want to rent a movie or pay with a credit card (especially when you are buying a ton of alcohol, which I regularly do) in a bad part of town. It's the opposite in a good part of town - they don't ask for my driver's license in the stores in the good parts of town when I rent a movie, and they ask for it if I were to buy one 6 pack, or one bottle of wine. Another thing is that the stores in the poor parts of town are staffed by mostly non-whites, and are extremely dirty and do not have as wide a variety as the stores in the nicer parts of town, which are staffed almost exclusively by whites.
Bung, you have hit the nail on the head...sort of. Orwell wrote the book in 1948. The phenomenon has been in the works since long before the present administration. But yes, it is very real. Some frogs can feel the water heating up.