SPIN - One of the most important films of the last 25 years

[seemslikeadream]

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


Footage you were never supposed to see

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.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Looks like a must-see

I think in this information age, it will become harder and harder to keep secrets--and hopefully to manipulate people.

[warren pease]

6. You know, I'm actually starting to think people *want* to be manipulated...

Maybe not consciously, but I think there are many millions of people in the US -- very conventional people who in high school absorbed the American creation myth without question -- who see institutions they assumed were eternal crumbling before their eyes. The president is an obvious idiot; the Iraq occupation is a disaster; Congress serves only the rich and powerful; basic state and local services are either underfunded or have disappeared entirely; there's no government money left for anything but the most dreary programs; jobs are uncertain; prices of houses, cars, health care and gas are insane; carefree retirement's looking less likely all the time; the brown people are at our throats, whether from the Middle East or Mexico; TV news is an unrelenting saga of murder, misery and mayhem, with a bit of time for fluff before the killing resumes... This is life for many, many people.

They were taught the genocide was just "Manifest Destiny," that slavery was temporary and quickly abolished so those uppity black people have nothing to bitch about, that organized labor is socialistic, that women are generally invisible, that the US always intervenes on the side of justice and decency... Right up to the present, where 9/11 "changed everything" and Iraq and Al Qaeda were in it together.

So given that their knowledge of US history is limited to the smiley face version of America the benevolent, it makes them very nervous when they see the very institutions that symbolize the creation myth crumbling before their eyes.

I think that, for these people, manipulation saves them from a very scary reassessment of their most basic beliefs. When they see people protesting US actions, their conditioned response is that the "blame America first" crowd doesn't know how wonderful the US is. And when Fux or CNN shills for the official story, they don't feel manipulated; they feel validated. That's why propaganda works so well in the US; propaganda has tens of millions of willing accomplices who not only believe the American fairy tale, but have internalized it long ago and will forcefully defend it against those who claim it's pure bullshit.

To make a short point nearly infinite, I think these people not only won't view videos such as that cited in the OP, but will always attack the messengers as ungrateful wretches who bite the hand that feeds them.

And that's why I don't see much hope for consensus on anything of substance in this country. Those who understand the application of propaganda to promote and reinforce the official story have absolutely nothing in common with those for whom the official story is their secular religion. Might as well try to mate a goat with a dolphin.


wp

[leftchick]

2. damn!

I am 22 minutes into it and it is fucking infuriating! :mad:


I NEVER heard of the man running for the Democratic nomination in 92! What was his name? Agram?

[Bill219]

3. I feel ill watching this

This goes to show all of us that we cannot trust anything we see on TV

Not one damn thing

[greendog]

4. Everyone needs to watch this! n/t

[ellenfl]

5. kick for later eom

[Blackhatjack]

7. tune in 38 min mark, Pat Robertson candid comments expose him....

He is nothing like the warm fuzzy friendly face he projects on tv.

He is very scheming and calculating --telling his reporters to play hardball with the Republicans in retaliation for some slight he thinks has been perpetrated upon him.

He states that the carrier of the HIV/AIDS virus is the 'Democratic Party.'

He also stated an intention to take over the Repub Party by 1996.