Friday, February 27, 2004 12:10 PM | Matthew Jeanes I was shocked at myself when I came to the conclusion last night that the best course of action in this year's presidential election is a vote for Bush. I've been tossing around different scenarios surrounding this election and what part a responsible, progressive citizen can play in it. Voting (at least at the presidential level) has always seemed like more of a symbolic action than anything else. In a way, it's a bit like a token of civil activity the same way that church on Easter Sunday and Christmas is a token for many half-hearted Christians. Voting seems a lot like an excuse for people who have no interest in government, politics, and world affairs and who exercise no other act of adding real value to their communities to get out and feel good about their role as contributors to society. There are of course many people who vote who don't fit that classification, but I always get the impression around election time that people like to wear their "I voted" stickers and parade around basking in their participatory democracy because they just want to be part of the spectacle. This year, the choice seems clear to me, and that's strange because the choice has always been so muddled to me before. The funny thing is, the idea of voting for Bush came to me in, of all ways, a thought about reality television. Chud.com asked the question "What's good about reality television?" or something to that extent and the first thing that came to mind for me was that reality television is necessary in order to lower the standard of entertainment so much that people realize the shambles their culture is in. We need programming as bad as most reality tv is so that the already-intellectually impoverished medium of television can hit bottom, and I do think there's a bottom. Ultimately, it's a slow steady and seemingly endless decline into the rank depths of reality tv that is going to turn people around and get them up off the sofa or at least get them to ask for something else to watch. Like a junkie bottoming out, television is going to get so bad, so unwatchable, and so redundant that it won't interest people anymore and they will be forced to flee to media where entertainment has something more to offer. It took a decade of excess and a glut of giant, boring corporate music and movies to grow a viable underground film and music industry, and the same thing will happen with tv. In fact, the same thing happens just about everywhere... even in nature, eventually the dead, decayed material becomes useful again and gives life to something new. With Bush, he's done a fair job of proving that he's a bad public speaker, that he relies too heavily on counsel, and that he's no better than any other politician when it comes to making and breaking promises. But, he hasn't been given enough time to really cause a mess that will force people to see what it looks like at rock bottom. He hasn't angered ENOUGH people yet, so he needs more time. There's that old saying about giving someone enough rope-- well I think Bush needs a few more years worth of rope to show that not only he but what he represents is not not who and what we want running the country. So in 2004, the answer is, VOTE BUSH. Actually, the answer is VOTE NADER since a vote for Nader will help elect Bush but will show that you have some sort of conscience. Maybe Bush can mire the presidency in a new low and people can finally start to see that something needs to change. Tuesday, February 03, 2004 5:15 PM | Matthew Jeanes The notion of Supply and Demand has been on my mind recently, and the question of how that concept shapes our world was brought to the fore during the Super Bowl. Whether or not the nip slip was intentional is kind of beside the point--the fact is that not only was it highly enjoyed by a large section of the viewing audience, but coverage of that story has dominated 'entertainment news' and even grabbed the front page of the USA Today. Whether people agree or disagree about the indecency of Janet Jackson's boob, they all seem to want to know more about it. Unfortunately, that's the way the news (and everything else) works here. Advertisers, (and let's face it, all network and cable tv stations are advertising platforms more than they are content providers,) will always feed a demand, and in many cases create one where none exists, so the question of who to blame when things are so terribly out of balance is a hard one to answer. Do you blame Viacom and all their advertisers for pimping Janet's chest for ratings and aftermath publicity? Do you blame the millions of people who searched Google for "Janet Jackson Breast Super Bowl"? Do you blame the FCC for having taboos like bare breasts that make them seem that much more titilating, (after all, bare breasts aren't given a second thought in many other places)? I don't think there's an easy answer. It seems stupid to regulate what people can say and freely watch, but it seems equally stupid that we live in a nation of tit-hungry dorks who are so obsessed with sex and celebrities that this is even an issue? The answer is an ugly one, but I think it makes a lot of sense. If you let the culture be ruled by economics, where supply and demand are the golden principles on which lives and liveliehoods are made, then you have to be ready for that system to work in other ways. People want to see boobs. Why? Because there is a limited supply due to the social mores about showing boobs. Someone shows a boob, there's a little supply, and then a ton of more demand for screenshots, avi's, wallpapers, fakes with both boobs exposed and with Justin Timberlake holding a giant black dildo... you get the picture. If you own a commodity, the best thing you can do to create demand is to demonstrate that the commodity is scarce. The whole idea of holding back diamonds, milk, corn, or comic books is that you can charge more for them, and it's all tied up in this very Capitalist idea that a person should be able to make the most possible money he or she can from what he or she owns. When you think about it, it's really contrary to the notions of goodwill and community that we like to think our society is founded on. You see this played out with the cost of bottled water whenever there's a natural disaster or outdoor concert. Now, you're seeing supply and demand work its magic on popular culture. People flock to Survivor, so why not give them Big Brother, The Bachelor, and MORE SURVIVOR? People loved Legally Blonde so of course it only makes sense to produce Legally Blonde 2! Well, people like sex, boobs, and lowest common denominator entertainment, so brace yourselves because it's getting worse before it gets better. The solution is to voluntarily turn away from those economics that line our pockets and give us 75 channels of cable tv, and to turn towards a way of thinking that's more beneficial to the people the society is built on. So often, we find ourselves in a world made for our cars, our banks, our jobs, and our houses, but in a world that is not really made for US! What if Coke DIDN'T break last year's earnings figures? What if Home Depot DIDN'T open 12 more stores in Kansas? What if Starbucks DIDN'T have competing coffee shops on the same block to drive up the price of coffee? In the words of Public Enemy: "You can't give the people what the want, You gotta give the people what they need!"

Other Thoughts: Adbusters The Droplift Project Illegal Art Independent Media Center LARVAE Movie Thoughts Michael Moore Negativland Slumber Inc. Star Wars Thought of the Day The Noam Chomsky Archive Archives: