it demonstrates the power of media within the superstructure and its hold on peoples' imaginations. this experience reminds me so much of an experience i had in maybe 2017 or 2018. i had wandered into chapo after 2016 and started to engage more with marxian theories, post-colonialism, etc. i pretty much stopped watching The News except for primary reporting on big events. the analysis was all garbage, the pundits were all idiots etc.

anyway, after a few years of that, i'm trying to have a conversation about current events with a guy i'd known since high school, who was a bernie guy etc. but he stayed in the corporate media approved marketplace of ideas. he insisted he knew these outlets weren't telling the whole story, but he felt compelled to consume them because he "wanted to know what they were saying." as a result, he only had b.s. lib talking points. he knew nothing of any kind of union activity going on anywhere, nothing about goings on within AES states, no familiarity with anything going on in the semi-periphery beyond like Vuvuzela is when no hamburger or iphone. it was like talking to a collection of about 20-30 talking points and the conversation couldn't go anywhere because it wasn't his ignorance so much as his incredulity for anything outside those points.

the worst though was trying to tell him that i could literally tell him everything the news analysis is saying without having to watch the news, that hegemonic discourses are the ocean we're all swimming in... and short of moving into a cave with no electricity for a few years, you are going to hear everything they want you to believe just going about your own personal business. because all the messages are short, sweet, and repeated at the top half and the bottom half of the hour on every station

• russia bad
• china bad
• semi-peripheral state with lots of resources needs US-UK-EU intervention because human rights probably
• and toothless court intrigue in the halls of power (impeachment/indictment/scandal/investigation)

that characterization pissed him off as "too simple" and then we sat through 30 minutes of exactly that on loop until i got up and left out of boredom. i get along more with his boomer parents because we can talk about their experiences with unions and actual political projects with material components.

anyway, it's the same shit with these people. they have nothing new to say because there's nothing new coming out of the talking point factory. purity politics bad, economic rivals bad, vote, blah blah blah.