Rabbit Warrens & The Matrix

I was watching one of those, “buy a house,” TV shows last night. I do marvel at the American Propaganda Machine’s ability to brainwash us into “serial consumption” through ever increasing personal debt. When did a non “updated” kitchen become the most heinous crime possible to commit in the world of shelter procurement?

Your kitchen. Can you cook there? Can you store food, and cooking and eating utensils there? What the **** else do you “think” is supposed to be going on there?

Have you ever switched channels to one of those documentaries about peasants in China, India, Africa, South America, pick a place of poverty, that shows people preparing and eating food without stainless steel “appliances” and granite countertops? If you haven’t, give it a try. It’s mind-boggling to realize that billions, yes BILLIONS, of people are able to prepare and eat enough food to stay alive without a lettuce crisper.

Have you ever seen TV images of little children who have so little to eat that their small bodies have bones and skin without any discernible evidence of muscle, much less fat? When you see those images, do you draw back in horror, then have fantasies of yourself leading a world-wide charity drive to send cappuccino machines to their parents?

Have you ever lain awake at night pondering how emotionally scarred and dysfunctional your own children will become by growing up in a home without a dedicated electrical cabinet to keep wine at the proper temperature?

Has it ever occurred to you that there’s a genuine cognitive dissonance created by the phrase, “green dishwasher,” when referring to a kitchen appliance, rather than referring to an elf swishing dishes around in soapy water?

Now, I’m going to get to more subtle inducements to greed and stupidity. Try to stay with me.

Have you noticed that the North American home favors what is commonly called, “an open floor plan,” as opposed to those nasty old-fashioned homes which had a room for each family function? Don’t you just hate those old houses chopped up into a million rooms? Don’t you prefer something more along the lines of a medieval castle, where everything takes place in one large room, or, to put it in 21st century lingo, one “great room”?

Well, sure you do! We all do! Cooking, eating, sleeping, being entertained and bathing in one room, where every family activity just “flows” into every other is what we all want. Isn’t it?

And naturally, with that great flow, we want a playroom for the kids, a bathroom for each family member, except for Ma and Pa, who we still expect to share a bedroom and bath, although we recognize that Pa needs his “man cave,” and Ma needs her “spa” bathroom. Also, Ma needs a craft/sewing/meditation room, and Pa needs a “media room,” with a big couch or two, where he graciously allows the fam to join him in a veritable orgy of high definition/surround sound TV and movie propaganda and brainwashing.

So, let’s recap, we want a “great room” where all family activities take place, except for the many rooms we want where each individual can withdraw to their own private universe, and remain disconnected from the other family members, to live out their “private” lives. And, please, let’s not forget the “outdoor living space” where the family does whatever people do outdoors, without actually engaging with nature.

The show I watched last night had a mom, dad, and three kids. They ended up “buying” a house with a living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, den combined into one “flowing” “open” “space.” Then there were four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, (someone was going to be doing some bathroom sharing) an office, a media room and an outdoor living space. The den area was the dedicated playroom for the kids.

I count 15 rooms, not including pantry and closets. And, believe me, the closets should count as rooms.

Was it big, spacious, luxurious? Nope. It was a ticky-tacky, tract home, McMansion. It was a rabbit warren of rooms, just like one of those old-fashioned houses. But it had, not just a wine refrigerator, but an under-cabinet mounted wine chiller. I guess those kids will grow up perfectly sane and well-nourished.

And will the family live in the house long enough for the kids (one of whom was under one year) to grow up there? Will the family live there long enough (30 years) to ever actually “own” the house? We can only speculate on how long dad will keep his job, which involved talking to “the Asian markets” after mom and the kids are asleep.

The important thing is that dad got “his” media room. Mom thinks media rooms are the most unnecessary things in the world. But, dad won that critical battle. Personally, if I were dad, I’d have combined my media room with my office, cutting down on travel time between the two. I don’t know, maybe I’m an unadmitted minimalist?

But, more power to them. As long as they aren’t worried about the starving children in third world countries, or worse, worrying about the children dying of diarrhea in third world countries, they’ll be okay. And I’d certainly hate to think that they’re wandering around in that house, consumed with angst and guilt over the giant piece of the pie they cut off for themselves, while billions lack sanitation, food and water — whether safe or unsafe.

Nope, what I have a quarrel with is…wait for it…the media room. I don’t just think it’s unnecessary, I think it’s the evil Big Brother that keeps them enslaved in the death-dealing throes of a perpetual debt cage. It’s the man behind the curtain that dumbs them down, anesthetizes them, and spoon-feeds them every single thought they will ever have.

I’ve never been inclined to pay for the dubious “privilege” of wearing some company’s logo across my chest. I figure, if I’m advertising for you, you need to be shelling out advertising money, and I need to be receiving it. Otherwise, I’m not going to do any advertising for you. I’d have to have some seriously diminished mental capacity to pay you to do your job for you.

Yet, that idiocy, “I pay you to advertise for you,” became a big hit back in the 1980s. It was especially appealing to the very young, who proudly sported multi-billion-dollar companies’ logos. And yes, some of their parents also got in on the hot pay-to-be-a-billboard action. The wild and wacky world of marketing and advertising is a marvel of influence triumphing over the self-interest of individual consumers, huh?

Those young people of the 1980s grew up and had their very own young people, who are now having their own young people. The fervor for paying into corporate coffers in order to buy the ability to be a free advertisement has faded somewhat. That’s all to the good.

What isn’t so good is what’s replaced it: the media room. The people who used to pay to be walking billboards are now spending phenomenal amounts of money to have their very own high definition, surround sound, propaganda machine in their very own homes, preferably with the ability to time-shift “commercials” (propaganda and brainwashing) to the most convenient viewing times, which pays them the big side dividend of making it possible for multi-billlion-dollar companies to monitor what they watch.

How, you may ask, does that benefit the “owners” of propaganda equipment? It makes it possible for big companies to “target” advertising in the most effective way to suck money out of people who are so dumbed down that they consider it “entertaining” to be told what to think and how to live.

Yes, it is the purpose of all media, TV, movies, music, magazines, books, etc. to convince you that it’s “priceless” to be in debt, and almost divine to be in debt for the things you are exposed to in each and every type of media. What, in the name of all that is holy, do you think the purpose of “product placement” and advertising is? Do you think those things exist to help you improve your life, and it’s only a serendipitous tangent for product makers that you — have to — “buy” products to get that improved life?

Do you honestly believe that you and your children are immune to the unending barrage of products sweeping by your eyes? Have you ever seen something in a movie or magazine that you’d like to have for yourself? Have you ever watched a TV show and wanted something you saw in the show? Commercials only pop up AFTER you’ve been softened up by the programming. Sounds sort of like how it works on the internet, huh? So which came first, TV or the internet?

I pay a fortune for cable TV. I don’t even know how many channels I receive, it’s hundreds, I know that much. Only Public Broadcasting System, Independent Film Channel and Turner Classic Movies don’t have advertising. And, in case you’ve ever watched those, you’ve noticed that PBS and TCM advertise their own in-house products. I’m paying the cable company to show me commercials and infomercials. How stupid am I?

We think we’re so clever not to watch infomercials, but when we watch movies, we’re simply watching infomercials for a limited variety of lifestyles. In addition, we’re opening our minds up to whatever “message” (propaganda) the film promotes. Whether it’s a message we want to get, (beautiful homes/clothes/bodies don’t cause happiness) or one with which we disagree, (violence is the answer) we still get the message. There is no such thing as “mindless entertainment.” If you’re there, your mind is there. And it’s being filled even more effectively if you allow your mind to float “mindlessly.”

I think most Americans are like me in that they don’t really “buy into” all the consumer propaganda. But maybe you have a partner, spouse, roommate(s), or children who genuinely believe that the quality of their lives would be dramatically diminished by not being able to participate, to the fullest, in the debt-slave culture. What do we do about that?

Well, if you’re living with a person, (or people) who actually feels good when tranced out and receiving messages from the Mother Ship, then you have my heartfelt sympathy. People who like the feeling of surrendering control over their lives are just like any other kind of addict, sometimes they’ll battle to the death to hold onto the thing that’s killing them.

The biggest, scariest evil overlord we have is the TV that we “bought” and set up in our homes. I think the first step in breaking its hold over us is to refuse to buy it all the appendages it wants. Because every electronic accessory you buy your TV is just increasing your debt and your dependence on things outside yourself for your own survival.

Media rooms are evil. That’s my position and I’m standing firm. Good luck to you in your own battle. Just remember it’s not like in the Matrix movies. We actually have to slave for the money to feed the matrix, because our matrix isn’t “just” machines; there are a whole bunch of human minds behind our matrix. We aren’t hooked up to sustenance, being fed lies, while we peacefully sleep in our comas.

We have to give the sweat of our brows, the labor of our bodies, the numbing of our souls and the death of our future to pay for our enslavement.