A reply to the complaints of the paid professional punditry on the subject of having lost their previously impermeable media monopoly they are just now only realizing hit an immoveable iceberg quite a while ago with the Internet, cell phone, and iPod revolutions.
The Media. . .versus. . .The Media???
Would a television executive rather lose hundreds of millions not made because he failed to green light a show that would have been a smash hit rather than be proven wrong in his choice?
This question is actually being played out as we speak, via a new phenomenon that is reviving dead pilots for TV shows, and putting them on the Internet to try for an audience the television owners were unwilling to court in the first place.
At first this seemed like a win-win scenario, as the TV producers could make some serious money on shows that would otherwise rust, collect dust, etc., stashed away in some forgotten storehouse.
Perhaps you are already aware that the majority of movies made in all history have been lost due to being tossed out, lost, or kept in the worst kinds of storage conditions, and then Jack Valenti– the same one who said that home video was to Hollywood as was the “Boston Stranger” to the single woman, and then proceeded to make billions from home video once he realized just how wrong he was– pleaded with the public on Oscar (R) night to look for treasures, left under beds, in garages or attics, and to return them to this Hollywood industry who had so callously thrown them away so these unmeasurable treasures could be revived and reconditioned to sell to the public once again.
Well, this same sort of thing is being played out in the world of television right now, as people are scrambling to find old pilots that were never made into series and to give them another chance, via the Internet, which costs virtually nothing compared to those hundred pound movies shipped to all major theaters every week.
So. . .what is stopping them?
The TV executives who blackballed the shows in the first place!
These top executives can’t stand the idea that some show they had labeled as a flop before it ever got going could become a hit.
The result would be that people will realize these top executives don’t always know what they are doing.
So the result is that the top execs are putting an end to this in rapid fashion before many of you even knew it was happening.
Putting an end to something that could blossom into the next show such as “Friends”. . .which was almost blacklisted. . .a billions and billions of dollars show. . .and the executive who blacklists such a show might find himself tossed out into the gutter, with a private blacklist of his own of people who will never hire him.
So, for the good of the executives, and the not-so-good of public access to these shows, and the very not-so-good losses of billion dollar TV revenues to the networks, it would appear that we could miss out on this opportunity.
There is a name for this kind of attitude. . .it is called SPITE.
“Spite” is a word usually reserved for small children who hate to lose so badly that they will destroy their own chances of success rather than let someone else defeat them.
“Spite-TV” might just be the latest trend in television executive behavior, once again proving that those who run the bit networks, such as depicted in the movie “Network” [highly recommended!] are just as childish.
And Not Just Television Networks. . .Even Car Racing Does This!
I doubt if many of you know much about automotive turbine engines or their mostly unwritten history, but at one time it appeared as if turbine engines would revolutionize at least certain aspects– and one of these engines nearly won “The Indianapolis 500” and it was outlawed before the next race to make sure it never won.
Turbine powered cars had been allowed for years, but none had the ability to qualify until veteran Parnelli Jones did it in 1967 in which he led nearly 90% of the laps until only 4 laps to go, when a plain vanilla bearing died in the rear end and Jones coasted to a stop just short of the pits. . .however, there would be no next year’s rematch, as the rules were changed to eliminate it.
By the way, the turbine engine used in Parnelli Jones’ car was no special deal. . .it was a standard helicopter engine. . .and that meant too much of a threat to the standard cylinder engines which were the power base of Detroit.
These events took place in the days when Indy 500 cars were moved from the huge cylinders of the old Offenhausers engines to a less massive, and thus more responsive, engine, and body, of Formula 1 racing cars after the likes of Jimmy Clark came over the the U.K. to teach us poor colonials a thing or two about racing, even when the racing was done on a silly little closed track with only left turns and no hills, no nothing. . .a very boring racecourse.
The difference is that you can’t rule out a winner, but you can a second place finisher. . .and Andy Granatelli’s turbine car was a runner up. . .not a winner. . .and thus history was changed and a turbine car, with only one serious moving part [some people count ball bearings as moving parts. . .and, as luck would have it, the reason the turbine car lost was a failed bearing].
Of course, the same thing happened to pole vaulters when they got to the limits of stiff poles and had to use something flexible to jump higher. . .for years the flexible poles were outlawed.
Not to mention what happened when calculators first appeared, and were banned from the classroom because students could not learn a thing if the calculator did all the work. . .I’m sure any similar events concerning the introduction of the slide rule got the same or similar treatment.
All you have to do to stop a new kind of engine technology from a racing career is to mandate a certain kind of fuel that the brand new engine doesn’t run well with and you eliminate competition.
Without appearing to have obviously aimed at that elimination.
In states such as mine, where there is only one city’s population that is over a million, they consistently pass laws based on city populations. . .taxes. . .ordinances. . .etc., that are targeted, but not obviously, at giving Chicago either an advantage or rough times for certain legislative agendas.
In each of these cases those making the rules can say, pretending to do so in all honesty, that everyone is playing under the rules of the game. . .the same laws apply to everyone. . .when the real case is that they do NOT apply equally to everyone.
These rule makers are usually the type who played the game in the early years in the local school “Student Council” or whatever, so it might be worth the while of those who have the opportunity for watching such events to take a little time to see how obvious the ploys are when the politicians are young, and then how little the change has been, other than polishing up their act, but not moral fortitude, when they get to the big time.
In Conclusion
What we see “the-powers-that-be” doing is situational ethics in a number of famous cases when they cannot win against a new idea:
“There is no force greater than an idea whose time has come.” and thus their response when unable to compete fairly is being unable also to keep to their stated morality, legal standing, etc.
“Those unable
Tilt the table.”
“The-powers-that-be” thus void their own laws, rewrite them over, and over, and over again, to continue their dominance when masses of the public could have the advantage of a new technology.
This is particularly evident in the case of copyright, where very few copyrights were ever renewed [90% expired after a first term] and yet not only were the copyright terms extended, over and over and over again, but the need for renewal was eliminated, thus any hope for the public domain has been shattered, even though 10% is the average portion of copyrights ever renewed, and the fee was a merely nominal along with minimal paperwork and and extra year or two in which to file for the extensions.
The result is that the publishing industry, from end to end has a hyperinflationary spiral that has taken the price of the averages of paperback markets to a billion people from around $.26 and the price included tax, to a price of over $16, tax included, in that same period of time as a gallon of gas went from $.26 with tax to $3 with tax. . .Oh! How the news media would pounce on the story, if it were gas that cost $16, never mind the book prices.
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
The more money that goes into the publishing empires that mergers and megamergers have created, the more money flows into lobbying, and the longer and longer and longer copyright has become, until, just recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case that was at one time labeled “Hart v Reno” [yes, me] and later called “Eldred v Ashcroft” that The U.S. Congress could make copyright as long a period as they wanted via continuing extensions in SPITE of their U.S. Constitution reading “limited period.”
The most famous quote from Hello Dolly is : “Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around, encouraging young things to grow.”
The result of the opposite is that the rich are now richer in all measures than they have ever been before, absolute wealth and the percentage of the wealth they own and control.
“The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.”
This sentiment has been echoed by presidents, poets, and Prophets down the ages, as follows:
U.S. President Andrew Jackson, in his 1832 bank veto, said:
“when the laws undertake… to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society. . .have a right to complain of the injustice to their Government.”
U.S. President William Henry Harrison said, on October 1, 1840:
“I believe and I say it is true Democratic feeling, that all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in 1821, in A Defence of Poetry:
(not published until 1840) argues that in his England,
“the promoters of utility” had been able “to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and want. They have exemplified the saying, `To him that hath, more shall be given; and from him that hath not, the little that he hath shall be taken away.” The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer. . . .”
Matthew 13:12 tells us the same from two thousand years ago:
“For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.”
However, it should be obvious that not only the “powers-that-be”
have taken notice of this situation, but also more down to Earth writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, who included the following:
“One thing’s sure, and nothing’s surer.
The rich get richer and the poor get. . .children.”
To conclude in the same spirit as the previous quotations. . . .
For those who would prefer to see that literacy and education continue to wallow in the mire, I can only say that a silence on your part creates its just reward. Your expertise dies an awful death when it is smothered by hiding your light under a bushel, or under any other covering, howsoever named.
Matthew 5:15
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Mark 4:21
And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?
Luke 8:16
No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light.
Luke 11:33
No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.
by Michael S. Hart
Internet User #199
Founding Member of
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World eBook Fair &
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There are four parts to this article by Michael Hart. Follow the links below to continue reading.
The Cult of the Amateur – Part I
The Cult of the Amateur – Part II
The Cult of the Amateur – Part III
The Cult of the Amateur – Part IV