Pynchon, media, control: adbusters.org

[barbara100 at jps.net]

Check out adbusters.org. They put out a great hard copy every other month
too--"Journal of the Mental Environment"--Not an ad anywhere throughout.

Cultural Revolution is Our Business

We are a loose global network of artists, writers, environmentalists,
ecological economists, media-literacy teachers, reborn Lefties,
ecofeminists, downshifters, high school shit-disturbers, campus
rabble-rousers, incorrigibles, malcontents and green entrepreneurs.  We are
idealists, anarchists, guerilla tacticians, pranksters, neo-Luddites, poets,
philosophers and punks. Our aim is to topple existing power structures and
forge a major rethinking of the way we will live in the 21st century.  We
want to change the way information flows, the way institutions wield power,
the way TV stations are run, the way food, fashion, automobile, sports,
music and culture industries set their agendas. Above all, we want to change
the way we interact with the mass media and the way in which meaning is
produced in our society.



> "Every day public opinion is the target of rewritten
> history, official amnesia and outright lying, all of
> which is benevolently termed 'spin,' as if it were no
> more harm than a ride on a merry-go-round. We know
> better than what they tell us, yet hope otherwise. We
> believe and doubt at the same time--it seems a
> condition of political thought in a modern superstate
> to be permanently of at least two minds on most
> issues. Needless to say, this is of inestimable use to
> those in power who wish to remain there preferably
> forever."
> --Thomas Pynchon, _1984_ Foreword, p xiii
>
----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchonoid" <pynchonoid at yahoo.com>
To: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 7:32 AM
Subject: Pynchon, media, control: The Matrix Reloaded

> <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/arts/25RICH.html>
>
> May 25, 2003
>
> FRANK RICH
>
> There's No Exit From the Matrix

> The power of the five companies that foster this
> sequential amnesia is increasing, not declining. In a
> vote set for June 2, the Federal Communications
> Commission is expected to relax some of the few
> ownership restrictions meant to rein them in.
> Companies like Viacom (which already owns CBS and
> Paramount) and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation
> (which owns Fox and is on its way to controlling the
> satellite giant DirecTV) are likely to go on shopping
> sprees for more TV outlets. But who knows or cares?
> Though liberal and conservative organizations alike,
> from Common Cause to the National Rifle Association,
> are protesting this further consolidation of media
> power, most of the country is oblivious to it. That's
> partly because the companies that program America's
> matrix have shut out all but bare-bones coverage of
> the imminent F.C.C. action, much as the ruling
> machines in "The Matrix" do not feed their captive
> humans any truths that might set them free. [...]
>