CSotD: Land of Confusion
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I wasn't sure where to begin today, but Matt Bors offers a nice meld of the Facebook issue and our national governance crisis.
Bors often depicts a level of something I'm hesitant to call "paranoia" but which is based on an assumption of purpose and intent that I think the world largely lacks. That is, people no more decide to be corrupt or honest than they decide to be wise or foolish; it's more a case of what rises or falls in the current climate.
Trump, and all his works and all his pomps, may be intentionally and purposefully evil, but a more sane, centered United States would have dismissed him with a horse laugh.
He's not the disease, but only the most obvious symptom.
Mother Goose is closer to the source of it all than the cartoonist likely intended.
There has always been something to watch, but the question of whether any of it was ever really worth watching is crucial. There were bright, shining moments and particular pieces that we remember, but Sturgeon's Law applied then as it does now, and 90% of everything was, and is, crap.
It was Pinky Lee as well as Playhouse 90, and, as for broadcaster intent, NBC honcho Paul Klein invented the term "Least Objectionable Program," which he explains in this 1974 clip:
Note that he also mentions the concept of "flyover country," though he doesn't take credit for it. But the theory of LOP was that people were consuming the medium, not the programs, and TV just offered them things to watch.
The proliferation of channels did for television what expanding from six teams to 31 teams did for the National Hockey League: It became easier to make the team and, while old time purists complained about the quality of play, there were plenty of people happy to buy tickets, bang on the glass and scream abuse at the players and refs.
And we shouldn't be snobbish about it, because, while the idea of sitting down and watching Honey Boo-Boo makes some people snort in contempt, "Downton Abbey" was not scripted by Arthur Miller, and those who prattle about this being a "Golden Age of Television" are simply praising their own version of LOP.
Which brings us to Chan Lowe's advice about protecting your privacy.
He's right, sort of. Not being on Facebook will protect you from Facebook, but will you also stop shopping on-line and unplug entirely?
If you never ride in cars, you won't be in an accident, and if you never eat, you won't get food poisoning, and it's hard to unplug enough to genuinely protect your privacy and yet live in the current world.
During the Vietnam War, Phil Ochs declared the war over, and John and Yoko echoed that "War is Over If You Want It," but the difference was that Ochs was suggesting a personal policy of militant non-cooperation rather than playing along but claiming to have heel spurs, while John and Yoko were promoting something more cosmic and personal.
Simply quitting Facebook is, by itself, as solipsistic and pointless as climbing into bed and pretending there is no war. You probably have to get up, go out and earn a living anyway, and, meanwhile, your silence implies consent.
In any case, just as with TV, Facebook is the medium, and people are involved in it, not in the specific things that it provides.
Though with both media, there's a difference between stepping into the gutter to cross the street and lying down in it for a good wallow.
The fact that being connected has become somewhat universal, if not strictly compulsory, doesn't let Zuckerberg off the hook, either for the sloppiness of his operation or his lack of candor. Dave Granlund depicts him fruitlessly attempting to plug the leaks, but it's not clear he's even around.
The good news, as briefly noted in this explanation from a Facebook executive, is that they have stopped allowing vendors to access the data of friends of people foolish enough to take their stupid quizzes.
The bad news, of course, is that a lot of horses have already been stolen.
And the other bad news isn't news at all: The world is full of idiots who mindlessly twiddle away on Facebook.
And if you warn them about like-farming and spam traps, or suggest they check Snopes before posting things, they either tee-hee and do it again, or they unfriend you and cocoon themselves in a world of like-minded Mildred Montags.
I'm reminded of a case in which hand-written flyers for in-home gynecological services were being posted in laundromats, sparking the question "What kind of idiot would fall for that?"
The answer being "The kind who most needs to be protected," and here's the amateur doctor being read his rights.
But that was several years ago and now we are dismantling the "nanny state."
Bob Gorrell notes the number of calls for investigating this and that, and indeed it does seem like nothing more than circularity and talk.
In the last month, there have been calls for hearings about the President's alleged sexual misconduct, about McCabe's firing, about kid-on-kid sexual assault on military bases, about how utility companies responded to recent storms and, yes, about the Facebook data scandal.
All of which might tie things up a bit, except that the Red Queen has already determined the verdicts and the hearings come after that.
Mostly long after that.
Not like in 1913, when the thuggish response to the Women's Suffrage Pageant had witnesses in Senate hot seats within 48 hours.
Well, folks, there's going to be another pageant in the streets of DC this weekend, and Phil Hands lays out the opposing parties.
If the kids keep the faith and follow up with voter registration and turnout drives, we'll finally see change.
And they'll have done it through social media, shoe leather and giving a damn.
Only one of which is new.
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