Prime Time Propaganda

[WinstonSmith]

2000 article on how the government used entertainment to propagandize an anti-drug message.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/01/13/drugs/

[jredheadgirl]

Whoa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did I say whoa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????

The White House reviewed scripts? Via payoffs? What? OMG....This is creepy, creepy, creepy.. and wrong. This issue is about a hell of a lot more than drugs.

[smallbird]

That article was written in 2000 JR, but I'm pretty sure it is still happening. I don't watch much "prime time" TV anymore, nothing interests me since they took off the good shows and replaced them with reality TV and Jay Leno every night. I just hunker down with my computer and read my Kindle (as well as hard copy books).

[jredheadgirl]

I just hunker down with my computer and read my Kindle (as well as hard copy books).

Smallbird,

Books are a good thing:-) .....and thank god for the computer....oh, and MUSIC.

PS...UNFETTERED music...hehe...

[smallbird]

I also love music JR - mostly oldies (classic rock) since I'm an oldie (classic blonde)

Also, I minored in music in college (never got to the point of public performance, like you).

[jredheadgirl]

I also love music JR - mostly oldies (classic rock) since I'm an oldie (classic blonde)

Also, I minored in music in college (never got to the point of public performance, like you).

Smallbird,

Classic rock ROCKS:-) It's classic for a reason..hehe...

What was your major?

[Ariel]

http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?id=6678

We have not been given, nor will we be given, an adequate explanation for why House's chronic pain is suddenly manageable without painkillers. Keep in mind House had a legitimate, verifiable medical condition (infarction leading to muscle death) in his leg, so it's not like fibromyalgia or bad headaches some other painful condition that is hard if not impossible to medically verify.
The DEA has been writing letters to Fox complaining about House's "flagrant use and abuse of narcotics without consequence" for years now, and finally the network, writers, and producers all caved in to the government's demands... in the worst possible way. They decided to make the vicodin House had been taking for over a decade into a sudden hallucinogen, causing him to see dead people. They showed him going through the painful detox, and now he's just fine and dandy, no reference to his pain at all. And there won't be any further reference to his pain, other than "it's all manageable."

Who knows???

[Cantiloper]

I just added this to the dosenation page but figured I should share it here as well!

===

This will be a bit long, but it speaks directly to how this sort of government programming control was accepted years ago without criticism - in both the "War On Drugs" and the "War On Smokers." From p. 208/09 of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains":

"Under the sway of the office of President Clinton's drug czar, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, some of America's most popular shows -- including 'ER,' 'Beverly Hills 90210,' … and '7th Heaven' -- have filled their episodes with anti-drug pitches to cash in on a complex government advertising subsidy." (Daniel Forbes. A Salon Special Report. Salon.com, 01/13/00)

One particular episode of 7th Heaven featured an evil twin smoking after his smoking father passed away from lung cancer, while one of the regular teen characters started smoking, influencing two toddlers to emulate him by pretending to smoke with crayons as another teen regular kept loudly proclaiming all smokers’ stupidity and another younger teen quit a newly acquired habit to prove that he wasn’t stupid. To top it all off, yet another smoking character was thrown into the mix to rudely blow smoke in a nonsmoker’s face at an outdoor café while the home she was house-sitting simultaneously burned down from one of her cigarettes… after which she simply lit up another smoke and stalked off with a comment about the place being insured and nonsmokers being uptight! (No, I am not making this up.)

Incredibly, TV networks even accepted having government officials review and alter scripts dealing with drugs to fit specified guidelines and received for this the equivalent of over ten million dollars a year in releases from PSA obligations that they could then sell to commercial sponsors. The idea of the government using our tax money to practice this sort of cultural indoctrination through our supposedly independent entertainment media should be deeply shocking to any American (Forbes. op.cit.).

===

The Cosby Show, Full House, Roseanne, Happy Days, even Buffy The Vampire Slayer all caved in or were paid off for their antismoking themes and episodes... even though some of their commercials "for the children" were for stuff like Mike's Hard Lemonade with its rather devastating alcohol content.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"