If You Agree With It, It Isn't Propaganda, Right?

[st_rev]

You say "Ever notice that you almost never see a photo of Cheney where he isn't sneering?"h*** says "he looks like someone's cranky granddad asleep in front of the game

Comments

[aphorisic]

Why do you have to defend these fuckers? From editorial photo choice?

[st_rev]

Because "my side" isn't the same as "the right side", and accepting shitty arguments and propaganda just because they flatter your preconceptions is a good way to ensure that you end up on the wrong side.

[aphorisic]

But I'm on my own side.

BTW, Stang's apparently releasing a NEW NEW NEW Subgenius book.

[st_rev]

oooOOOooo url pls

[spimby]

He actually isn't sneering, as I understand it--the left side of his body has been affected by several heart attacks, and like many stroke victims, that's most noticible in his face. But...he does "sneer" all the time, that's not some invention by THE MEDIA.

And yes, it's utter hypocrisy for a lot of "progressives," who ordinarily wouldn't allow mocking of someone's disability, to hoot at Cheney's face.

However, I personally think disabilities are hilarious, and it warms my heart whenever I see Cheney on TV looking like an old James Bond villain. All he needs is the white cat.

[st_rev]

Well, he's got an asymmetrical smirk going, yeah, but I'm thinking of the jowly tooth-bared snarly sneer that e.g. This Modern Life uses.

Cheney not sneering: http://radar.smh.com.au/archives/cheney.jpg

Cheney sneering: http://www.ncf.ca/~ek867/cheney.jpg
http://www.worldpress.org/images/20050223-dick-cheney.jpg
http://www.thetalentshow.org/images/twoface-cheney.gif

[st_rev]

Er, This Modern World I mean.

[spimby]

Yeah, I figured.

It's a shitty comic. It always has been. I did a spoof of it for a Portland alterna-paper almost fifteen years ago, and every time I see the actual comic, I realize that I could just publish that again and it would seem fresh and new.

Wrong bias, sorry

[nihilistic_kid]

The media doesn't select for sneering pics, viewers fail to remember non-sneering pics. Or, in your case, the "sneering Cheney" idea lets you go on about media bias while congratulating yourself, so you blindly accept it.

Heck, even parodic pictures of Cheney don't depend on the sneer.

Re: Wrong bias, sorry

[st_rev]

Those mind-reading classes paid off, I see!

[nihilistic_kid]

Nah, my sausage-making classes. I can't even imagine how a unity of effort that can be described as the media SUBTLY CHOOS[ING] A PRE-DETERMINED CHARACTERIZATION could even come to pass, after having, you know, been doing this for a living for a decade.

You could though, cuz you is a sucka.

[st_rev]

No unity of effort, just Chomsky in reverse.

AND NO YOU ARE ALSO U STINK

[simon_draskovic]

I think of when FDR had polio, and the media agreed to only show him seated, not report on his disease, and other things to make him seem stronger than he was. Granted, this was during World War II, but I wonder if there are any set of circumstances that would result in the media (all mainstream media, anyway) agreeing to a similar sort of self-censorship in the name of national security, or morale, or whatever.

Of course, they could be doing something like that already, and we wouldn't know it. :tinfoil hat:

[st_rev]

That's the kind of thing I puzzle over a lot. People (especially educated, hip people) talk about propaganda as if 1) it only comes from The Man and 2) they are clever enough to see right through it. But there's no one The Man, there are thousands of them, on every side of every debate.

[simon_draskovic]

The Man, such as He is, often has to do the censoring Himself. One thing that irritated the FUCK out of me was immediately post-9/11, where some journalists were criticizing the government for refusing to tell them just where President Bush was at any given moment

[simon_draskovic]

Sorry, I kind of diverged from what you were saying. But the "BUSH WAS A HIDING COWARD DURING 9/11" thing is something that's always grated on my nerves.

[jhvilas]

Ok, thanks. If I can find those, I bet they'll be interesting. Unfortunately, what's more likely is I'm going to go to bed shortly and wake up in the morning wondering why I stayed up. :) I don't mean just to be glib: I also need to stop and go to sleep. Sorry.