Re: <nettime> The Man can't bust our music

[Carl Guderian <carlg@vermilion-sands.com>]

http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0004/propaganda/index.cfm

The "massive education program" is underway. <g>


>Taylor McLaren <paste@interlog.com> goes:
>> MEEP! Julian Dibbell <julian@mostly.com> wrote:
>> >And I'm only mildly
><...>
>
>Maybe I should have been more precise: It wasn't hysteria that marked the
>Reuters piece for me. It was its truly colossal squareness, which is what
>it shares with Sgt. Joe Friday and his ilk. The most hilarious moments of
>antidrug propaganda, after all, have always come from its attempts to
>project a knowing, on-top-of-it-all, unhysterical pose in the face of a
>subculture it's basically clueless about.


>
>Right now there are only two real consolations. The first is the fact
>that, as the Reuters piece shows, the Man still hasn't quite figured out
>how not to make himself look ridiculous. And the second is the hope that
>the copy wars may yet have a happier ending than the drug wars. I wouldn't
>expect the first to last much longer, and I'm holding on to the second by
>a thread.
>

There's a third consolation. The bastards don't have a half-century head
start  in the media wars, which they did in the War Against Drugs. Having
no access to alternative information, Mr. & Mrs. Straight America knew only
the official story and thus considered it the natural state of affairs.

The RIAA may in the end outshout and out-legislate our side, but it will at
least be a noisy battle. Hearst today is just one noisy (and noisome) voice
among many.

Tune in tomorrow...

"All the real revolutionaries are on Sony/CBS/AOL-Time Warner!"


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