Adam Curtis – Happidrome – Part One

You are talking about the country that invented the true modern genocide, applied it to the Armenians, and still arrests anyone within its borders who dares say they did any of the above.

If you are totally stuck for what to do, 'raising awareness' is a good thing. Therefore, why don't you just use some social network gizmos to promote the fact that a new Adam Curtis article has arrived on the internets? Email/IM/Tweet to those that matter to you and share the good stuff with them.

What good will this do? Well, for people that would like to think differently and value some of the core themes of Adam Curtis' work, just reading his articles might help them to keep the faith and have a bit more confidence in their ideas.

In my experience, they're simply not. If you ask them specifically if this is happening, they nod and say they are aware, but not so much because they're aware as because the X-Files[1] told them it was true.

[1] By which I mean mass media itself is telling them what it's doing to them, as it does it.

You can find something which plays to your interests and strengths.

I agree that the more crucial questions are around what we (can? should?) do about it, but those questions are far more difficult to actually answer. In the meantime, I think work like Curtis' is helpful in inspiring people to at least begin to construct a framework with which to approach these big questions.

    > I think many (most?) people people are aware at some 
    > level of the media manipulation of populations using
    > crude psychological ploys, the hegemony of the big banks
    > and multinationals and the hidden agendas of so-called
    > benevolent nation states and governments.

If you take any kind of historical perspective, then the ability of the rich and powerful to control the proletariat or bend the world to their will is at an all time low. I welcome any research or sensible citation that counters that, because to me it seems prima facie, and 2 minutes Googling suggests we live in a more democratic world than at any time in history.

US special interest groups are still worrying, as is their ability to influence the foreign policy of the world's biggest military force, but surely they're more worrying because we know more about how they work than ever, and there's considerably more transparency? Arguably the big let-down of the Obama presidency was his inability to work effectively within the system he was part of (as, say, a contrast to Bill Clinton). Labour organizations / Unions unambiguously count as special interest groups, which is sort of ironic.

Anywho, your real point was:

    > More interesting is what we (can?, should?) do about it?

* https://www.mysociety.org/ - British charity and tech-dev company with many projects that increase government transparency * https://gds.blog.gov.uk/ - UK civil-service digital service * http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/11/fact-s... - American equivalent of the above * Mozilla - perhaps the world's only/biggest technology NGO? * https://mayday.us/ - Mayday PAC * The BBC

Are any of the above perfect? Of course not. Are they all focussed on making the world / their country a better place? I think the answer is unambiguously yes.