By cyrena, August 19 at 8:48 pm

Well, I was being quite cynical about it as I, to the point I mentioned, have found numerous states of the Orwellian world in the book existing in our world, perpetual wars, ministry of truth(infomation manipulation) and the secret or no so secret survellience of the people and the dictates of how the people are to be controlled. I do believe that the total control in the book has yet to manifest itself in our world but how soon unless there is a reversal of the slide toward this Orwellian world.
And I am not deceived by what I feel the neocons have done and that is ‘1984’ has been read by them and a lot of the methods in the book are or have been put into practice in our world. Which for a control for and by the ‘elites’, ‘1984’ is as good a script to follow as there is. Not the only one I feel but a good one.

“I am at a place where winston’s world is about to be turned upside down. That does my blood pressure no good. But, hey, it’s just a story, right?”

~~~~

Samosamo, do you *really* want me to answer that..

“...just a ‘story’, right?”

Uh huh. It’s a ‘story’ all right. (probably not like Lord of the Rings though).

I’ve got blood pressure medicine in case you run out.

By cyrena, August 19 at 7:42 pm

Thanks for the offer of the link but I am a book person myself. Too many books I have read tend to come out a lot more than less what the book gives, case in point and 1 of the few pieces of fiction I really like is ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Having read the trilogy several times and seeing what peter jackson did to it is just a sample of the disappointment one gets in ‘viewing’ books.
As for ‘1984’ the book is good enough. As much so that I would not want to see some director’s interpretation of it. Maybe, like I said, I am at a place where winston’s world is about to be turned upside down. That does my blood pressure no good. But, hey, it’s just a story, right?

samosamo,

Good for you on the 10 mile bike ride. I try to walk at least 2 every other day, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. It does help though. I’ve got a couple of bikes around here, but I’d actually preferred the skateboard. It made some of the younger crowd nervous though, so I gave it up. The bike makes ME nervous, because we have more bike traffic around here than cars, and they WHIZZ-ZOOM-WHIZZ-ZOOM so fast that it’s just more than a middle-aged woman can handle. It’s easier to dodge them on foot than on the bike. I was thinking one of those little motorized scooters, but the doc told me to keep walking. So I will.

Meantime, I don’t know if you’d wanna do it this way, but the 1984 movie is available for viewing on line. We used it (among others) for a Law & Society Course back last winter. (Authoritarian States…excellent course, I was very, very pleased. Fell so perfectly in with my own work). It had been ages since I read the book myself, and didn’t remember any of it. In fact, it was so long ago that I don’t think I even grasped the full meaning of it at the time.

For me, it’s usually better for me to read the book rather than watching the movie. (or at least to read it first). But, if you want to check it out on line, I can look up the link.

Lemme know.

By cyrena, August 19 at 4:00 pm

Just got back from my 10mile bike ride, one of the few things I can do short of taking the blood pressure medications to keep it at a normal level. Always exhileratingly refreshing.

***are a handful left, like Michael Moore, Jane Mayer, Seymour Hersh, Bill Moyers, and Gwen Ifill, and a few others, who have managed to gain a platform of relative independence, to the extent that they aren’t really ‘owned’ by anyone, aside from their viewers and those limited sponsorships of independent people. ****

I have heard the name Ifill and will look her up, the others I bounce around occassionally to see what they have on their minds, moyers more than the others.
Quite honestly, I admit that I am within in 100 pages of finishing Orwell’s ‘1984’ which I swore I read several decades ago but having gotten as far into it as I am now, I at least did not get this far before. Is is truely revealing. ‘1984’ itself doesn’t seem to be as true to life in the world today but there are way too many similarities for comfort. But it has help put so much more of the pieces I see and recognize on my own together to wonder at Orwell’s prescient genuis and such a detailed account. He sure seems to have Oceania which includes the UK pegged just right.
Oprah is just doing her shtick in as you said maintaining an obedience to her handlers and as I may have said in these comments but surely in some comments, oprah is and has an air of concern and compassion for her following so much more than the pricks like rupert murderock and his ilk have. Conservative compassion, what a plate of grease and load of crap that euphemistic phrase bubbles forth.
As far as the book goes, I think I am heading into some of the most discouraging reading imaginable.

Yep samosamo,

You are so correct. Believe it or not, my own sister only just came to figure this out, (with my help) a few years back. That is, the whole controlling by the MSM, and NOT just in what they choose TO show us, which is how they make their money, but in what they specifically AVOID making us aware of.

Now my sister is not a stupid person. In fact, she’s actually very smart. Still, it’s easy enough to be brainwashed without being aware of it, and we all are, to some degree or less. But when I brought that to her attention, she reacted with something like, You know, I noticed that with the trailers, (I guess that’s what you call that stream of information running at the bottom of the TV screen) report these blurbs of information that is NEVER included in the actual news reports. So, anybody watching these packaged shows like “Today” or “Good Morning America”, or whatever are keyed into whomever the talking heads are, while the other (slightly more pertinent) stuff is moving along silently at the bottom of the screen.

All of that said, we know why there are so few really investigative news sources any longer. There are a handful left, like Michael Moore, Jane Mayer, Seymour Hersh, Bill Moyers, and Gwen Ifill, and a few others, who have managed to gain a platform of relative independence, to the extent that they aren’t really ‘owned’ by anyone, aside from their viewers and those limited sponsorships of independent people.

Truth be told, Oprah is STILL not entirely independent, because for as long as she’s been on the air, she has still been beholden to these major network conglomerates. From the beginning she has made it out to be ‘her show’ as if she really was ‘running the show’ and within a certain perspective, she was. BUT, only to a degree that involved a line she wouldn’t cross, and only as long as she was raking in big bucks for the industry.

All too often, these people become ‘celebs’ and believe that they are calling their own shots. But that is never entirely the case in anything. Dan Rather found that out, as have many others. Now admittedly Oprah has managed to use them as effectively as they’ve used her, IF it’s just the money and the ‘fame’ that is the priority. For her, apparently it is. For me personally, the ‘top rung’ would have been complete independence, so I would have done enough to gain a reasonable sum of money, and then switched to something with some substance. But then, that’s probably exactly why I don’t have any money. I figured out long ago, just how costly independence really is.

So, maybe Oprah had the right idea after all. Speaking of which, she lives just down the highway from me, and sometimes parks her plane in the nearby airport. A year or two ago, I was on the bus enroute to the airport car rental agency, and apparently Oprah was also planning a trip, since her jet was on the tarmac. So when the bus driver stopped there for me, he asked me if I was traveling somewhere with Oprah (why, I don’t know; .same age, both African-American females?) I asked him if he thought I’d be riding the BUS, if I was in anyway connected with Oprah! At the very “most” of any connections, I would only have been there to chauffeur her to wherever she was going, but I didn’t bother to confuse him with that extra information. It’s just too much of a hassle to mess with peoples’ preconceived notions of who a person is, based on what they look like. Besides, Oprah would never have a pilot more gorgeous than her, flying her around, and I don’t think I’d wanna work for her anyway.

So I’ll just stay and independent, retired, and broke I guess. It could be worse.

By cyrena, August 19 at 11:54 am

***She hasn’t ALWAYS owned her own network or Magazine***

Imagine the possibilities if the true investigative reporters had their own station(s) and magazine(s)(this may be going the way of the dodo) to get their information out on the airwaves. But, how stupid of me, this is why the corporate media is owned and operated like rupert murderoch in giving us what he wants us to know and believe, TRULY Orwellian stuff. And our elected people are the upholders of this traitorous tradition as it can now be held.

“…By youraveragejoe, August 15 at 9:07 am

•  Where’s the Democrat Party call for a windfall profit tax on Oprah’s fortune?  (Or on lawyers?) Using her celebrity status to influence her sheep to vote for whatever candidate is inexcusable.  Oprah is now unsubscribed in our house.

Too funny!!! A ‘windfall tax on Oprah’s fortune’??? How about a ‘windfall’ tax on the Rockefeller fortune, or any of the other privates. How about a ‘windfall’ tax on McCain’s TEN MANSIONS? How stupid.

I’m sure she pays as much as the next very rich person pays, which isn’t enough, but then..we’ve got 10s of thousands of absent yacht owners here in California (obviously very rich) who pay even less than she does, due to a nifty little loophole. As for her using her ‘Celebrity Status” to ‘influence’ votes being inexcusable, that’s an even bigger joke. Celebs have been endorsing political candidates for decades. Ronny Regan and Arnold Scwartzie, the undocumented worker, supported themselves. Never did get any ‘windfall taxes’ from either of them either. Matter of fact, Arnie is robbing us blind. Last but most obvious, it’s HER magazine, so she can pretty much do whatever the hell she wants with it.

~~~
CJ, thanks for your excellent post. I zeroed in on the social/political science part of it. You mentioned this…

•  “Co-optation is very serious. Persons who are celebrities can’t really participate under politically climactic conditions. Yes, they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Often enough, simply refusing to participate is the best way for celebrities to go. Since they can’t win if/when they do participate. For reasons too complex to explicate here.”

This is so very true, and kind of ironic. As an Obama supporter myself, I was actually worried (and annoyed) when I found out that she would be stumpin’ for him. Maybe because *I* don’t particularly like her, (for the phony religiosity and the commercialized/superficial fantasies she sells) I just assumed that she would be a hindrance rather than a help. (I was being presumptuous and arrogant I guess). Still, I don’t see Oprah as appealing to any ‘intellectual’ mindset, and that’s more of what Obama represents. (She does have an ‘honorary’ college degree, I THINK, (I won’t swear to this, because I never researched it myself) from Tennessee State.

But, she does have a way of selling herself very well, and has ‘sold’ very well for the industry. And, she has street smarts. Anyway, I underestimated her appeal to a good percentage of the population, and while that is a concern for me, (that so much of the population pays homage to that commercialism) the extra votes are appreciated.

But, I said all of that to say that NORMALLY, Oprah AVOIDS any and all political involvement, which is one of the things that has pissed me off about her in the past. I’ve always believed she should have a more beneficial use of her ‘influence’, beyond selling shit that the average person can’t afford, or sprouting religious stuff and convincing people that they can just ‘think’ their way into happiness. (after they buy the book or the video on ‘The Secret”). And the reason she has avoided any activism beyond a cause for animals or the Evangelicals, has surely been to protect her own ass. (IMO). She hasn’t ALWAYS owned her own network or Magazine, and she didn’t get to be a multimillionaire by going against the political winds of the ones who REALLY have the money and the power. The networks could have pulled her plug at any time. That said, she generally plays it safe. This was an exception, and while I believe that she is sincere in her support of Obama, I’m sure there is that ‘rubbing shoulders’ quality to it as well. There HAD been a brief moment when there was some rumor about her becoming one of the Presidential staff, and I had a minor stroke at the thought. I’m pretty sure it was just a really bad joke. Minister of Hospitality maybe?

By Smapdi, August 15 at 1:29 am

You make me believe that your ability to comprehend what you read is basically ‘in one ear and out the other’ for your question.

Where’s the Democrat Party call for a windfall profit tax on Oprah’s fortune?  (Or on lawyers?)  Using her celebrity status to influence her sheep to vote for whatever candidate is inexcusable.  Oprah is now unsubscribed in our house.

Only a million sheep in a media empire like that?  There’s hope for the nation after all.

This is actually pretty seriously interesting. I didn’t know that about Jolson, Fairbanks and Russell, but am not surprised to learn it. I don’t doubt truth of this latest bit of extrapolation, however “extrapolated.” Does anyone still doubt that Oprah is influential? Same as aforementioned were in their time, and as so many continue to be, no matter level of knowledge. Ours is a culture devoted far more to public celebrities (by virtue of receiving publicity, obviously) than to so-called public intellectuals, not that many of those are worth time and trouble either. Many public intellectuals are also celebrities—from Dr. Laura to Dr. Phil. (One can dispute their intellectual credentials, but both are doctors, PhDs.; thus, “intellectuals,” by standard standard.)

Oprah, whose credentials I don’t claim actually to know and don’t care to take the time to find out, is regarded by millions (very likely mostly women) as some kind of leading light. No one can seriously dispute that what she says and writes is influential. The fact that “women in particular” are angry with her constituting pudding proof of her influence.

So, I’m okay with extrapolation (method), whether or not number is accurate. I’m not okay with, “’We think people take political information from all sorts of sources in their daily lives’,” since that statement comes over as abhorrently “normal,” which involves a claim to some kind of objectivity on the part of social scientists. That’s a problem for sociologists to work out, perhaps by finally dispensing with the very idea of “normal,” if they haven’t already. What possibly could be more political a science than sociology?

Extrapolation isn’t good news. Some guy by the name of Corsi is being much talked about in big media for going after Obama in a book now atop TNYT best-seller list. Apparently, “The Obama Nation-Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality,”  is laden with lies. I don’t doubt that screed teems is screed. While the second part of Corsi’s title is nonetheless worth noting: about the American Left in connection with “Cult of Personality.” (As opposed to the American Right? But I’m not aware of the American Right claiming otherwise, what with the fact that the right is everywhere given to cultism as a matter of political creed. While the left tends to claim otherwise.)

I, along with TNYT via Truthdig, give those on what is regarded as the “Left” in America…Oprah Winfrey—celebrity idol/personality. Oprah, the omnisciently omnipresent, indisputably highly influential among liberals; same as are, say and just for example, George Clooney and Barbara Streisand, or Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, both of whom are more the real deals than first two.

Co-optation is very serious. Persons who are celebrities can’t really participate under politically climactic conditions. Yes, they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Often enough, simply refusing to participate is the best way for celebrities to go. Since they can’t win if/when they do participate. For reasons too complex to explicate here.

For explication, see Francis Mulhern on how and why it’s necessary that culture NOT substitute itself for politics. Identity politics has been and remains a purely cultural phenomenon, that will never result in liberation. Upshot since the New Left? Cultural co-optation along with transfer of wealth—from never-had-much to already-had-enough.

The American Left sometime ago went Right that way. So, not really surprising that what Oprah says and writes carries sway. Hell, what passes for politics in the U.S. is just about purely celebrity-driven by now, whether Obama or Clinton and McCain too. Any serious leftist could have told Garthwaite and Moore THAT much. Claims by mugging politicians and pundits amounting to nothing more than ongoing denial of sociological-psychological facts of human life.

not bad, this lady controls 1meg minds. in other words a shepherdess for 1meg sheep. lol

By Barbara, August 12 at 8:36 pm

I am real. Oprah is an elite, worth more than a billion dollars. That is a lot of money and since it is a free enterprise economy so to speak, any and everyone should be able to make their billion dollars but in the real world ‘it ain’t happenin’. And anyone with that kind of money and supporting a political figure could have ulterior motives. I do think that oprah is far far less worse than a rupert murdoch or any number of multi-billionaires. But, how many people are living a lot less financially secure life because so much money is tied up in a few peoples hands. And to me, pontificating on tv about what and how they think things should be is just so much hot air that you can’t eat or drink or drive to work to make a living. No, I am skeptical of any that do. There are 6.8 some odd billion people on this now small planet that can’t support themselves much less the planet that can’t support them, so where are their chances? Their chances are the tons of money sitting in a few people’s pockets that are so insecure if they didn’t keep others from having it they would croak, which I sure wish they would.

Amen, samsamo. All heil the TV demigod!

By Big B, August 13 at 7:17 am

I cannot believe any canidate from either of the dems or repubs aren’t corporate puppets and sure enough, it did not take long after obama supposedly had captured the dem nomination when he started making the corporate noises and the ONLY redeeming value of obama is: I sure as hell don’t want mccain in office or a republican of any stripe for that matter.
But I guess the biggest thing about oprah that I have against her is her actually coming off as evangelical or some deified pope type figure, which would be about the same as if we put pat roberson in the white house OR congress.

A million votes eh, he’ll need them and more to make up for blue collar northern whites that won’t vote for his skin color. He will need even more to make up for the now disaffected youth vote that helped him in the primaries, but are now seeing the true Barry, the sell out, the man who has changed his mind already on the war, off shore drilling, and domestic spying. They, ney, all of us are concerned that as time goes on there is no appreciable difference between him, Hillary, and (gag) McSame!
It’s a good thing Oprah’s only in it for the money (like everything else she ever touched).

I don’t care if oprah helps get obama the presidency, I am more concerned about her motive(s), what does she want? I would not want her in any kind of appointed governement post such as the cabinet or other agencies. If she is that good, let her run for congress or president and earn the position.
It’s one thing to expound ideas and such on a tv show but doing government work I just don’t believe she would work, sort of the arnold schwarznagger thing.

From http://counterpunch.org/

——————-
Oh dear, what has happened to the knight on the white horse?

This week, many of Barack Obama’s admirers were shocked. Up to now, it had been believed that the huge sums of money flowing into the coffers of his campaign came from anonymous citizens, each sending a check for 100 or 200 dollars.

Now, alas, it has been disclosed that a large part of those millions actually came from big donors - the very same huge corporations, their CEOs and lobbyists, who have corrupted the democratic process in previous contests. They spread their largesse generously and simultaneously among all the candidates from left to right, so as to be on the winning side whatever happens.

Obama had promised to put an end to the old, dirty corporate funding-for-influence system. Now it appears that he participates in this corrupt system himself.

What a disappointment.
——————————

Anyone care to provide the list of “what” he exactly plans to change? Looking like the same ol stuff to me

By the time Oprah came to California her endorsement was already old news and did not get much coverage.  Also, because of early voting in California, half the population had already voted before Oprah stumped for him there.  And Oprah never stumped for Obama in Massachusetts.

Where Oprah really had a HUGE DECISIVE impact was Iowa and on the black vote.  Obama was losing black women big time until he announced Oprah’s participation in late November, and by the time she started stumping for him in early December (especially in South Carolina where she attracted his biggest crowd of 2007) black women began to migrate to Obama in droves.  In a race between the first black and first woman, it was the black woman vote that was decisive, and Oprah served as a powerful example of which way to go.

But the contest that changed everything was Iowa, where Oprah attracted thousands of volunteers to Obama’s campaign and amazingly he beat Hillary in Iowa even among WHITE WOMEN. If Obama hadn’t won Iowa, he never would have won the nomination. Iowa changed everything, so in that sense Oprah was worth far more than even a million votes.

99% of endorsements are useless but Oprah’s in a class all her own.  She’s statistically tied with Hillary as the most admired woman in America.  When she recently recommended the book A NEW EARTH, it sold FOUR MILLION copies. When she refused to eat burgers the price of beef hit its lowest point in a decade.  And when she endorsed Dr. Phil, he became the most successful day time talk show since her own.  Time magazine named Oprah the most influential woman on the planet; looks like they were right.

According to every source I found (about half a dozen), less than 1 million votes separated Obama and Clinton in the “straightline” popular vote at the end of the primary season (i.e., without including Michigan, Florida, etc.). This means that if the extrapolation is correct, Oprah’s endorsement was instrumental in putting Obama over the top in terms of popular vote.

So much for those who were saying at the time that celebrity endorsements have little or no effect on voters.

Peace.