One of the most important films in 25 years!

[Rainscents]

Footage you were never supposed to see... SPIN!

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.

Take the time to watch it from beginning to end and you'll never look at TV reporting the same again. Tell your friends about it. This extraordinary film released in the early 1990s is almost completely unknown. Hopefully, the Internet will change that.

http://www.brasscheck.com/videos/spin/spin.html

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[Peace Patriot]

1. Thanks for the tip! There are two things Americans need to learn more about:

Spin.

And Diebold/ES&S.

Re: Spin. I haven't seen this film yet, but my analysis of Spin is this: The spin we find it hard to perceive--because it's very subtle--is the spin that makes members of the great progressive American majority feel like a minority--and makes individual members of that majority feel isolated and alone, demoralized, disempowered. The war profiteering corporate news monopolies have failed--rather spectacularly--with their war propaganda, and a lot of their Bush fascist corporate propaganda (and black holes in the "news"). But their one success has been to create an illusion of support for unjust war and truly nutball winger ideas, by giving nutball wingers a Big Trumpet with which to promulgate their nutball fascist viewpoint. It's very important to understand that the opinion polls that these corporate news monopolies--and others--conduct, have all along shown major resistance to the War and the Bush. Way back in Feb. '03, for instance, 56% of the American people opposed the invasion of Iraq. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election. (And, believe me, it was!) Now it's grown to 75%! Total failure of their war propaganda. We're supposed to be waving the flag and "supporting the troops." We are not--or not the sense they want. We want to bring the troops home. That's what's patriotic. Not this unjust, heinous corporate resource war, with our troops as cannon fodder.

The war profiteering corporate news monopolies are controlled, basically, by 5 fatcat, rightwing, billionaire CEOs. By who they give a forum to, on TV, and radio, by who they give column space to, on editorial pages, and by how they shape and color the "news" (and what they leave out), they make us feel like we have fallen down the Rabbit's Hole and ended up in Wonderland. Everything is upside down and wrong. And all the people speak jabberwockey. Is this America? Sometimes we think it is--too often. But it isn't. Some people who don't realize what they're saying call it the "mainstream media" (MSM). We shouldn't give these bastards that ground. They are not even close to being "mainstream" America. WE are mainstream America, here at DU. 75% of the American people agree with US--about the war, and about a lot of other important things.

Spin. It's lethal. Beware. WE are the majority--the overwhelming majority.

Which brings me to Diebold/ES&S. These two corporations, with very close ties to the Republican Party and far rightwing causes, are now "counting" all our votes with electronic voting machines and central tabulators, run on "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code.

That WAS the coup. October 2002. The "Help America Vote For Bush Act."* It's staring us in the face.

If you are going to perpetrate an unjust war, in a democracy--especially one with the Vietnam War in living memory--you have to fix the elections. That's what they did.

And until we, as a people, rise up against this, and demand vote counting that everyone can see and understand, nothing is going to change.

Most of our Democratic Party leadership supported secret vote "counting" by rightwing corporations, and still do. So they ain't gonna help us. HAVA* was a $3.9 billion boondoggle, that corrupted a lot of people, and secret vote counting has been convenient for many others who pretend to be on our side, and are not. The whole thing is extremely corrupt. Best venue for reform of the election system: state/local, where ordinary people still have some influence.

Once we understand these two things--Spin, and Diebold/ES&S--everything falls into place, and we have the truth and reality that are needed to recover our democracy and our country. Break the illusion that we, the good, and idealistic, and generous, and peace-minded, and progressive people of the United States are in the minority! And demand that they count the votes for real!

------------------------------

*(HAVA. Known to its perps as the "Help America Vote Act" of 2002. Engineered by the biggest crooks in the Anthrax Congress--Tom Delay and Bob Ney--with help from certain corporate Democrats, chief among them, Christopher Dodd. Rammed through Congress at the same time as the Iraq War Resolution, and closely related to it. The $3.9 billion helped to fast-track these election theft machines all over the country during the 2002 to 2004 period. I call it the "Help America Vote for Bush Act," or the "Help America Vote for Bush's War Act," because that's what it was. Secret vote counting. A fascist coup.)

[PuraVidaDreamin]

2. Thanks PP

:thumbsup:

[loudsue]

4. I'm with you, Peace Patriot!! Great Post!!!

:applause: What SHE said!!!!


(Do you stay up all night every night?)

:kick::kick::kick:

[bonito]

5. And after the cheating is done we have Mark Penn

Penn, Schoen and Berland (PSB) has played a pioneering role in the use of polling operations, especially "exit polls," in facilitating coups. Its primary mission is to shape the perception that the group installed into power in a targeted country has broad popular support. The group began work in Serbia during the period that its principle, Mark Penn, was President Clinton's top political advisor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn,_Schoen_&_Berland

[medeak]

3. the good ol days

when I caught Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs having a verbal fit and poor Peter Jennings smoking with the most effete cigarette holder on breaks....thanks for this..there was so much material out there then..

[progressoid]

6. Wow, there is a lOT of good stuff at that site...Thanks!

http://www.brasschecktv.com/

[progressoid]

8. Oops, I forgot something.

there is also a lot of loony stuff there.

[krkaufman]

7. Shrek 3?

[lonestarnot]

9. Changing that!

[wicket]

10. K & R

:kick:

[Maraya1969]

11. Damn it how do you make the thing louder? This happens with some videos so I think

it is not all about my computer. Other videos are just fine.

[Rainscents]

12. Have you tried main PC volum?

I had same problem until I turn up the main setting.

[MGKrebs]

13. I hope there is something better out there.

In this movie we learn:
Candidates who aren't on the ballot in most states have trouble getting TV time.
Candidates use make-up before they go on TV.
Pat Robertson doesn't like gays.
Handlers teach politicos how to spin answers to questions.
Larry King likes himself.
Dan Rather wants to be politically correct and drinks Pepsi.

In 1992 this might have seemed a bit voyeuristic, but today it seems quite innocent. Perhaps we are a lot more cynical now, but it seems like the news that we DO get to see these days is so much more invasive than this "insider" information from the 90's. TV, radio, and the internet are FULL of accounts of "off the record" conversations, behind the scenes deals, haircut bills, badly executed campaign speeches, embarrassing photos, and myriad other faux pas. Sometimes it seems that is ALL we get; just the fringe, none of the substance. It's a whole industry and Fox News, for example, is built around spinning everything they touch. I mean, when they win a court case by claiming they are allowed to lie and distort, we can know that the game has changed.

But it's certainly still true that many people are influenced by what they see on TV, even if they KNOW they are being spun, because it's what they want to hear and see. They want reinforcement for what they already believe or want to believe. We now can choose our media outlets by the slant we perceive they have, which is almost the same as saying we don't really trust any of them to be truly objective. The concept of critical thought is being replaced with paradigm reinforcement, and it's all fueled by a capitalist beast straining at it's leash.

Singer over dramatizes some things which detracts from the overall message. For example, we see a street protest in LA in which the broadcast feed is cut while a voice over is warning that TV stations don't want to hear from the protesters, when I think it is far more likely they cut the feed because of the protester who kept sticking his raised middle finger right up against the camera lens. And I was unable to figure out the point of the clips of an audience from "America's Funniest Home Videos". Viewers have been voting in one way or another for their favorite images since the beginning of TV. This is not necessarily scandalous.

I still applaud Singer (belatedly) for the effort and for documenting a bit of the beginning of live satellite TV. Much of what he shines a light on is still true today and probably worse than ever; it's hard to get the truth from that box when major corporations control the switches. There's really no pretense anymore about "news" being just another profit center. The mainstream media have pretty much abdicated any role they have in protecting and preserving democracy. Instead, they protect and preserve capitalism.

Perhaps the most striking moment is a scene in which Tipper Gore is being prepped for a satellite broadcast and someone off-camera tells her that people in Little Rock were watching and had called to offer some make-up suggestions to reduce some lighting glare on her face. This of course is before the broadcast has officially started. You can see Tipper struggling to maintain composure for a few moments as she gradually comprehends what this means. Brave new world indeed.

Our culture is getting more and more "documented" all the time, mostly due to available technology. It seems you can't go anywhere now without someone photographing, blogging, pod casting, or just text-messaging the details of the moment and then usually providing access to the resulting files to the world almost instantly via the internet. I suspect moments of true candor or even just casual spontaneity will suffer. But if constant exposure motivates Americans to dress better, perhaps there will be at least a small benefit.



:)