Drowning in Advertising

Here, in the land that we are told invented advertising, we have reached a state of affairs where we are absolutely drowning in the stuff.  In the brave new world where privatization has become the mantra of the regime, the incursions of advertising into heretofore untouched venues is full apace. Even on so-called public television, more and more commercials are in evidence, and, in a related matter, the time devoted to soliciting viewer contributions has gone up dramatically,  This, it appears, is the concession made by PBS's nominal defenders (against such as former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who during one of the debates stupidly muttered something like, "I guess Big Bird will have to go," [it probably lost him millions of votes].)  In keeping with the trends in evidence since the complete takeover of government by corporate interests, the gentlemen's agreement to keep alcohol ads off the air has deteriorated, more and more booze ads have made their way onto television.  For each half hour of television broadcasting a minimum of twelve minutes of commercials seems the rule, thus giving us almost as much commercial as program time.  News broadcasts have no restraint in presenting advertising disguised as "entertainment news."  ("It's what the people want" we are told.)  Sports broadcasts regularly advertise other sporting events or clutter the screen with streaming banner ads. "Infomercials" directed at a nation whose people grow more obese chomping down on chips and the like seated--or lying down before--their 50-inch "smart" tvs convey the latest non-prescription dietary "supplements," exercise machines, dance videos, etc. particularly at times when women and the unemployed who don't need to keep regular hours are watching.  (This has been a windfall for fat, chubby and obese actors, now preferred by advertisers in an obvious attempt to show people Americans can really identify with.)
       Much of this whorehouse capitalism is the lingering aftermath of the Reagan era, a time when no union or regulatory agency was not fair game for extinction.  Republicans have since perfected the art of tasking their assigned commissioners with the destruction of the very agencies that they are supposed to supervise, although it must be said that Democrats have stood by or actually cooperated in these efforts to maximize the privileges of commerce over the interests of average citizens or any claim to having a decent, safe, lord knows, dignified, standard of living.  At the risk of seeming paranoid, even the mysterious mandate for the nation to "go digital" seemed designed to wrest any possibility of having small, independent media take to the air waves with an alternative message.  It was a windfall for Samsung, et al., however, as millions of perfectly workable analog television sets were set out with the rubbish so that we could enjoy high definition advertising on ever larger, more expensive screens.    
       Now, especially, it seems, since Obamacare, we have the new infusion of advertising for prescription drugs, "free" medical equipment and even hospitals.  The production values of the latter would probably shock Orwell himself.  Often touting their seriousness by foregoing color HD for more "serious" Black and White, one teary parent after another will praise a given hospital for saving their child's life--or the child herself will appear on screen to express the appropriate gratitude to a hospital that makes the truly scary claim that it was only through the unique care available at their venue that a child's life was saved.  So much for socialized medicine.  This tsunami of advertising by the corporate health interests defies description as merely a sop to the other side.  One can only imagine the degree to which the nature of communication between doctors and their patients has become pathological, with patients asking why a certain advertised drug has not been recommended or whether an advertised procedure is available in the hospital with which their doctor is associated. In many countries, it is illegal to advertise prescription drugs.  Not here.  Not in the land that spends more on health care to far less effect than many countries large and small around the world.
      Pick up any magazine, (those aimed at women are particularly egregious), and the ratio of ads to content is closer to 95%.  In effect, the ads have become the content.  Magazines are often deeply discounted from the newsstand price, on the same principle that has computer printers basically given away by companies like Hewlett-Packard in exchange for the consumer's commitment to buy, for the life of the machine, printer ink which, it has been observed, costs more by volume than Chanel No. 5 perfume.
       It did not take long for the internet to follow suit--in spades--with earlier electronic and print media by taking what should have been and could have been an invaluable communication tool and burying the message in advertising.   I guess we should not be surprised.  Some of a certain age can recall Newton Minow in 1961 decrying the state of the then still new television industry as "a vast wasteland."  That, in the age when Playhouse 90 and the NBC Symphony Orchestra were part of the fare offered to Americans. One need not puzzle over what Mr. Minow thinks of current media.
      What might now be called the "hard-copy" of The New York Times will currently run you about $1,100 a year to purchase.  Since only the most affluent and institutions can now afford to buy the paper, most readers access the Times on-line.  Even here, the right to respond to the paper's articles and such requires a minimum subscription of about $15 dollars per month.  What happens when you go to the paper's internet site?  Well, a banner comes up and then pop-up ads of varying size appears, and one must either scroll down or click on a barely discernible "[x]" or "close" to remove the offending item.  Through the long anticipated magic of video material being embedded along with the news, the paper is now a "mixed-media" vehicle.  Here again, however, subscriber or not, to see the video material one has to first wait through the transmission of an ad or really a television-styled commercial before getting to the content.  In the good old days of newspapers, one had a choice; one could just turn the page and skip the ads.  Some internet outlets, in an apparent expression of sympathy for the users, now allow one to watch a certain period of time and watch a count-down to the point when you can elect to SKIP the ad.  Others will invite you to assist them in their efforts to tailor their advertising to your unique interests.  Of course, they are already tracking you.  At one point, I was searching for a toy truck for one of my grandchildren.  After that, I was deluged with pop-up ads from an actual truck manufacturer for months, the company mistaking my interest in toy trucks for real ones.  Anyone who doubts that "Big Brother is Watching You" at this point has to be living in a cave.
      Of course, giving over all of American media to commerce really shouldn't surprise Americans who were once told, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country."  Now, all those jobs in the auto industry have been shipped out, over the feeble protests of hobbled unions like the once-powerful United Auto Workers, to Japan, Korea, and the benighted Southland of the country where trying to organize a union is still a dangerous proposition.  But "Engineer Charlie," former Secretary of Defense and head of General Motors, Charles Wilson was right after all, at least by the lights of corporate America; it turns out that what is good is waving goodbye to any hope of a decent job in industry.
     And the less disposable income Americans have, the harder corporations must work to separate them from their remaining dollars; squeeze they must.  The American Hershey bar gets smaller and smaller, and the smaller it gets, the more it costs.  Madison Avenue is the midwife, helping Americans give birth to a "new and improved" social order. Good to the last drop.