Where did it all go wrong

[Ryoko]

Punk Britannia on BBC3 (4?) the other night about the history of punk was pointing out valid points about the history of the movement, kids being told they will never amount to anything, falling out of schools and being told to get jobs in the local factories or rot.

It's all so familiar, mammoth unemployment, people being told they will never get anywhere in life, the belittling of the poor and the sense of no hope, yet we have no outlet today, what went wrong?.

We have no "protest" music anymore it's all been taken over and softened by the music company big wigs, no shows on TV what happened to things like The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, Brass Eye, Bremner, Bird and Fortune etc, A little bit of politics is no longer part of mainsteam TV.

Where is the outlet for our disdain other then rioting and matching down the streets?, the more I think about it the more I see a dumbing down of expressive medias and hiding of things the only place to find real critics of life today and real life comedy/satire rather then OTT stereotypes to help enforce the statues qua of divided Britain is in the Internet, and by it's nature will never be anything more then a very small sideshow enjoyed by a few and quickly forgotten.

I agree the establishment has put forward false prophets claig, that is without doubt what happens when the media men pick up on which way the wind is blowing, I agree as regards the sex Pistols, I like the music but it essentially has nothing of importance to impart, it is cleansed and spun out to pacify the population. Not all punk music falls into this category which is why I mentioned the kennedys. All of their music challenges the political order.

I disagree with you that certain antagonistic or radical elements have fallen out of favour, they have simply been wiped and young people have been led to believe there are no alternatives. Things that challenge Neo-liberalism and free markets such as communism have been portrayed as a failed experiment, why? That is the power of the media to colour your opinions, that is why you think communism is dead, as is anarchy. Those are the ONLY challenges to the established order.

I agree the establishment has put forward false prophets claig, that is without doubt what happens when the media men pick up on which way the wind is blowing

It is no accident that the capitalist class want to assume control over all popular art and music, it makes money, they can control the masses and dumb them down, they use that power to perpetuate their own wealth and power, wake up claig you seem to have a fantastic grasp of neo-liberal economics and politics, culture and music but you seem to be saying we need more of the same.

Yes, there are protest artists. But the Dead Kennedys are not as big as the Pistols. They don't get teh svengali media exposure.

Many left wing thinkers abandoned communism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. They lost the argument. Thatcher triumphed.

The new 'protest', pushed by the establishment and the svengalis, is about environmentalism and green issues. The svengalis and elite rub their hands as they trick more and more youth into that sheep pen, because it is about 'limits to growth' and will cut the employment prospects and growth prospects for the youth that are herded along that path.

'you seem to be saying we need more of the same'

No, I am saying that they are fooling us. They are tricksters and the joke is on us. They tricked us with the financial collapse, they tricked the people of Spain, Ireland and Greece with their talk of boom without bust. They set them up for a fall and now Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again.

I agree with many of the things that left wingers say they want. But we know that they are tricksters too. We know that communists trick people into losing freedom and lead them into low growth and poverty. We know that they don't mean what they say. We know that the green policies are another trick of the elite to 'limit growth' of the masses.

We see the Greek 'socialists', who were in power when teh books were fiddled with teh aid of bankers, in their smart suits, meeting in Brussels with the European elite trying to do deals to maintain the austerity on the Greek people. And we hear how Lagarde has little sympathy for teh Greek people, she has more sympathy with Africa, she says. And still the 'socialists' in their smart suits, who caused it all, who caused parents to abandon and sell their children, and who led to pensioners shooting themselves in desperation, are wined and dined in luxury in the palaces of Brussels.

They tricked the people, they lied and cooked the books, and now they pretend that they have the solution.

It's not the socialists who caused this - it's the free marketers. Lagarde is no socialist, the lot imposing austerity from Spain to Ireland are not socialists, I suppose you could call the bankers socialists in that they certainly be;lieve in soialising their losses...but stretching the definition rather far?

No, I mean the socialist puppet politicians, who cooked the books in Greece along with their banker masters.

" people being told they will never get anywhere in life,"

YABU... the only people who say this are those who don't want others to succeed. And IME that tends to be those that are stuck at the bottom of the ladder... not the ones further up.

houseonthecorner Plan B?

I still don't see what went wrong with TV, or more why it went wrong.

Things like The New Statemen, Brass Eye are still cult classic, Bremner was popular for years, yet it's all gone, everyone wants to be stupid now, no satire, just oddball off the wall things, pandering to stereotype things and trying to rip off US shows type things.

Those programs had well established audiences I really can't see how multi-channel TV could have caused the death of political satire/comedy?.