Hard On for HughesNet : The Big Massage

By all accounts HughesNet isn't that great but I don't care. I won't be subscribing to it because I know the truth, but it wasn't an easy choice, given the fact that Kimberley Joseph is its spokesperson. She is my latest obsession and I hope to be engaged to her in the very near future. What a goddess, and when in her commercial she exclaims, "No Way!", I just get tingly all over. She will be mine, by the gods she WILL be mine...but I digress. Let's talk about Marshall McLuhan for a moment...that media analyst from way back who coined the clever phrase," the medium is the message." He spoke of various media as being hot or cool. Hot media ...like motion pictures... require little cerebral participation, while television, a cool medium requires more. At least that was his assumption back in the day. but things have changed since then or maybe the delineation between the hot and cool mediums has gotten fuzzy and confusing. I mean really...radio,television, video, DVDs, computers, cellphones, PDAs. Christ, we're bombarded by mountains of information that demand our attention and we are often tempted to just disconnect from the persistent and sustained assault on our senses. But McLuhan would later refer to that constant assault by a different name. He altered his previous statement ( the medium is the message) to proclaim that "the medium is the massage" ...a mild state of prolonged hypnosis where we are more susceptible to suggestion and lulled into a state of compliance and conformity to those suggestions. Television is the culprit. I could include the internet but the point would still be made so let's just settle on television for the moment. Today television has become a tool...a tool for political propaganda and more importantly an instrument of the "free market." I know...I know, It's always been a means in which to sell products and services to the public under the guise of entertainment ( and now a word from our sponsor) but it's ability to influence the masses has increased a thousand fold due to the development of the continuous 24 hour broadcast cycle. It is literally on ALL THE TIME.
I am by no means a man of leisure but I watch my share of news and entertainment on satellite television, and I have to say... Repetition is the enemy of a rational man. It is a wolf wrapped in a lamb suit. More to the point, how else can one explain the current phenomenon of buying insurance from gecko lizards, CGI Generals and penguins, and finally a ditzy female waitress in a showroom that resembles a kind of "insurance purgatory." And banks...don't get me started. Banks aren't banks anymore...they're bicycle shops, peddling ( I couldn't resist) home loans, credit cards and financial planning...to get you where you want to be. Honestly, how absurd can it get... and it's all part of the massage.
I learned something a long time ago that has always disturbed me...insurance companies own the world, or at least the good ol' USA. Insurance companies own banks, and banks in turn own businesses...all of them. And banks control budding entrepreneurs and even established corporations by dolling out money under specific terms for prudent use in daily operation and most importantly ...for meeting the demands of employee payroll. Small companies and large corporations alike have a submitted business plan to the bank that hopefully justifies the bank's risk on behalf of the lendee. The bank ( or should I say the insurance company) basically dictates what employees will be paid for their time and work. And here's a little secret that really isn't a secret at all...the cost of labor is always underestimated...underestimated on purpose by the bank, so that real prosperity can never be achieved by the employee. So how do we as the underpaid employees attempt to realize that prosperity? Two words...credit cards. Lines of credit issued by...say it with me...the bank ( the insurance company) Do you see a master plan evolving? Media distracts while political and economic opportunists hoard the money. The perpetual distraction...entertainment, news,politics designed to dazzle and distract the consumer from the dirty truth embedded in our system of free enterprise. The illusion of prosperity is achieved by first holding back fair wages to the majority of workers only to later give that same money back to them...for a price. That price is the systematic and long term enslavement of the average worker to the moneychangers who fix the game. Honestly, elections have become more like draft picks in the NFL from one season to the next and they serve the same purpose...provide the distraction...have winners and losers...but never ever change the basics of the game. We are told by the media that changing the game would be "un-American." I have to ask,"what is so scary about the prospect of a more equitable system that spreads more money around to everyone and not just the friends and families of insurance companies?"
So that's it... enslavement made palatable by the Big Massage. My television is always on, even when I'm not at home. It keeps me company in my now empty nest and it calls to me and tells me what I need...what to buy, what to watch, who to vote for and of course how to feel. Back in the stone age, and by that I mean the 50's, The Flintstones urged us to smoke cigarettes and we never questioned whether they were perhaps just blowing smoke up our ass. We eventually learned the truth. We became more sophisticated and learned to question what we were told.
Today the massage provided by television is slicker and all the more relentless in it's effort to mellow us out, to patronize us and to ultimately manage us. Repetition of a lie. Discover Card tells us that to save money we have to spend money...huh? Apparently using credit cards is a fast track to wealth...but for who? Years ago I read in a magazine about advertising that we, as consumers, accept the lies contained in advertising because the alternative is to be told the truth and that would be to horrible to face. But I'm stubborn...I always look for the lie. No amount of cutesy cartoon animals and whacky characters will convince me to un-see it.
Meanwhile I'll keep listening to Kimberley and her pitch about HughesNet. I understand that it is an excellent internet provider. At least that's what she says. And she wouldn't lie to me would she? No Way.