From: <james at communistbanker.com>
JG: There's certainly room for improvement, but I think that we are in a golden age of TV at the moment - The Sopranos, etc. But I do agree with Lord Reith, former director general of the BBC - "Don't give the people what they want, give them something better."
CB: I've never seen the Sopranos, but I'll take Carl's word that it's good.
>From what I understand , it has a "gangsters are people too" theme, which is
one thread of the Godfather genre. I guess it must be better than "Elliot
Ness and the Untouchables", is it ? I have thoroughly "absorbed" the
Godfather cult thinking from a lot of my buddies so as to stay in touch with
social reality, but I have to object to its contribution to Gangster Rap
culture. I see guys , now, walking around with teeshirts with pictures of
Lucky Luciano or Al Capone, and words treating them like role models.
Surely, that is not an improvement over the fifties , even if it is no
worse.
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CB: "My reference to the "Golden Age" is a reference to the state of mind of the very working masses to whom you want to make these decisions."
JG: Just keep taking the happy pills?
CB: You are going to have to make up your mind on this one. At some points you are championing the "right" of working classes to make this decision about what they want and need and now you refer to the same working class ( that of the fifties in the U.S.) as on happy pills when they made exactly that type of decision. Which is it ? The U.S. working class in the fifties were persuaded that their material culture was a Golden Age. I'll take them at their word, and say to the new working class generations, hey, that scale of material production can be happy for you too.
All I'm saying is , hey , the working class in the U.S. in the fifties was as happy with its material kit, cultural and otherwise, as the U.S. working class of today is with what it has. So, it seems plausible that we could be happy again with a material kit and cultural on the material scale that was had in the fifties.
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CB: "We have to be more choosy,discriminating in our tastes,even. Don't just accept everything they throw at us."
JG: I'm very discriminating thank you.
CB: Well, that's what I am disputing. You are not discriminating enough. You are letting the bourgeoisie unload a bunch of crap on you. And worse, you are acting as a sort of adman for them, trying to convince others that things have improved so much from the fifties. We are stagnant since the fifties. Things are not better. You are urging people to accept low standards and fake progress.
^^^^^
JG: And I'm sure that everyone else thinks of themselves in the same way. I'm not saying that we shouldn't raise cultural standards. But when you speak of discrimination, I suspect that you don't mean the philistine billionaires and their crappy Renoirs, but working class people choosing between consumer goods. Which, I might add, aren't thrown at people - we have to work hard and fight for the money to pay for these things where I come from.
CB: You are using "choose" in a misleading way. Working class people in the US have very little choice or influence on what consumer goods are available. When I say "thrown at them" I mean in advertisements and the like.
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CB "By the way, I am not part of "the elite" imposing my views on people of what I think they need."
JG: Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you'll be in line for the commisar for production job after the revolution.
CB: Well, somebody from the ranks has got to keep an eye on the communist bankers.