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on this, i do not understand art: on what basis do you oppose dominant media and the state? it seems to me that they march pretty much to the same drummer. both are interested in passive consumers----both prefer nationalism because it sells things---- both are interested in the continued financial well-being of large congomlerates----both only respond to the people when they have to.
for example.
the press is usually the ardent supporter of whichever regime is in power. gradually, factions within become a kind of loyal opposition--the exception of late has been right media, which has opted for a much more corrosive kind of option, one that they still play.
so i am not convinced about the choice you posit above between the authoritarian power and the "mediarchy" either as an opposition or in the assumption that the latter represents a coherent political interest on its own terms.
i also do not see what difference there would be between a fascist regime that retains the existing institutional infrastructure and one that does not? the former would simply have a figleaf of formal legitimacy the latter did not afford itself.....but it would come to the same thing, both ideologically and in practice.
and again, what you are mean practically when you talk about authoritarian politics in the states, given the horizons for thinking about this available to us as we sit here in august 2004, is fascism. unless you have another conception of what this authortarian system would look like. so far, most post have been about an argument that would lead you to argue for such a regime, but you have stayed away from defining that regime in any positive sense.....
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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