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Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV
a book by Ben Shapiro
(our site's book review)
The Amazon blurb says that “Vitally important, devastatingly thorough, and shockingly revealing…. After reading Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, you’ll never watch TV the same way again.”—Mark Levin
Movie critic Michael Medved calls Ben Shapiro, “One of our most refreshing and insightful voices on the popular culture, as well as a conscience for his much-maligned generation.” With Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, the syndicated columnist and bestselling author of Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth, Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future, and Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House tells the shocking true story of how the most powerful medium of mass communication in human history became a vehicle for spreading the radical agenda of the left side of the political spectrum.
Similar to what Bernard Goldberg’s Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News and A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream did for the liberal news machine, Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV is an essential exposé of corrupting media bias, pulling back the curtain on widespread and unrepentant abuses of the Hollywood entertainment industry.
Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV is an essential exposé of corrupting media bias, pulling back the curtain on widespread and unrepentant abuses of the Hollywood entertainment industry
Shapiro says " . . . it is abundantly clear that television has evolved from a medium for entertainment and advertising into a funnel for socially liberal messages. It is controlled by a small coterie of largely like-minded executives who are geared toward pleasing a like-minded cadre of advertisers who seek to cater to a like-minded corps of consumers. Content is provided by a like-minded clique of creative artists, who have generally studied under like-minded mentors and interact with like-minded colleagues. Everyone in Hollywood goes to the same restaurants, belongs to the same clubs, and sits in the same seats at Lakers games. Almost all of them think alike, too. Hollywood is still the land where dreams are made—but those dreams are increasingly the dreams of European-style progressives, who support and reinforce one another within their wealthy cloistered bubble."
Television has evolved from a medium for entertainment and advertising into a funnel for socially liberal messages that filters out conservative messages
Television content has become all about conformity of message, conformity of effect, and it all teaches us—you guessed it—conformity!
In his acclaimed Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam describes the United States as a nation in which we have become increasingly disconnected from one another and in which our social structures have disintegrated. But in the final chapter of that book he detects hopeful signs of civic renewal. In Better Together, Putnam and coauthor Lewis Feldstein tell the inspiring stories of people who are reweaving the social fabric by bringing their own communities together or building bridges to others. Better Together: Restoring the American Community examines how people across the country are inventing new forms of social activism and community renewal. Putnam's much praised Bowling Alone put the concept of social capital (social networking IRL) into broad currency by remarking on its growing absence. "In large part, he [Putnam] blames television," says Shapiro.
Putnam's much praised Bowling Alone put the concept of social capital (social networking IRL) into broad currency by remarking on its growing absence. "In large part, he [Putnam] blames television," says Shapiro
Gary Graham, character actor, writes "There are very dire consequences to being in this town, working in this industry—and speaking out against the sort of leftist agenda that is now racing through our government at every level—from city to state to federal. It pisses them off. And unfortunately for those who speak out, they control the gates to the kingdom." The blacklist, according to character actor Dan Gifford, "exists as certainly as political correctness and passive aggressiveness in Hollywood exist. Anybody who has spent five minutes in Hollywood knows that PC and passive aggressiveness are perhaps the two main driving forces in the industry. Oscar- and Emmy-nominated writer Lionel Chetwynd was similarly disparaging about the supposedly "open" nature of the industry. "Hollywood is always a liberal enterprise any way you look at it . . ."
Seeing creators of TV shows arrogantly talking about how they successfully propagandized generations of Americans to the liberal way of thinking is alarming. It is more than just the fact that they are intolerant of people with opposing views. They also don't even know or care what those views are. They surround themselves with like minded people and blacklist anyone suspected of not being part of their progressive movement. In the future, historians will compare this to the McCarthy era.
"'When Hollywood liberals talk about reflecting reality, what they really mean is that they make shows that reflect their values.' Even readers who disagree with Shapiro will find this book succeeds in making them pay attention to the men behind the curtain." (Source: Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, Publishers Weekly)
"If young people tend to be more liberal than their elders, Primetime Propaganda says it’s because their TV programs are indoctrinating them. What makes the book easier to take than most political screeds about TV, left or right, is that Shapiro has bothered to go out and talk to some of the writers of these shows, who were happy to tell him that their political views did indeed influence what they wrote. . . . What Shapiro’s argument really comes down to is not that TV doesn’t hire conservatives, but that it doesn’t hire conservatives like him." (Source: Review: Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, Jaime Weinman, Macleans)
Our TVs are mercilessly propagandizing us and some are or soon will be monitoring our response
"Leonard Goldberg — who executive produces Blue Bloods for CBS and a few decades ago exec produced such hits as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels and Starsky and Hutch — says that liberalism in the TV industry is '100 percent dominant, and anyone who denies it is kidding, or not telling the truth.' Shapiro asks if politics are a barrier to entry. 'Absolutely,' Goldberg says. . . . 'If they’re going to be shocked at something, it should be themselves, not me,' Shapiro said. 'They should be shocked that opinion is so one-sided in Hollywood that it’s OK to say, ‘I’m fine with discrimination.’ My whole book is a plea for openness in the industry,' he added. 'Hire people from the other side of the aisle once in a while, or at least stop mocking them.'" (Source: TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda (Exclusive Video), Paul Bond, Hollywood Reporter)
The American public has been choking on misinformation for the last century—they just didn't know it because they weren't told, and they weren't told because we didn't/don't have the free press we are told we have
Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a concerted effort by the left, not just in universities and the media but also in Hollyweird, to indoctrinate America. And they're not alone:
- Propaganda
- Media Control, Second Edition: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda
- Freedom of the Press—an American Delusion
- Fake News: How Propaganda Influenced the 2016 Election, A Historical Comparison to 1930's Germany
- The Propaganda Project
- Propaganda and the Public Mind
- Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies: How to Find Trustworthy Information in the Digital Age
- Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (CBC Massey Lecture)
- American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News
- The True Story of Fake News: How Mainstream Media Manipulates Millions
- Fake News & Deep State Propaganda: The Insidious Attempt To Subvert A Duly Elected President
- Mass Control: Engineering Human Consciousness
- Political Mind Games: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What's Happening, What's Right, and What's Possible
- Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics
- Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market
- Outrage, Inc.: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood
- Big Brother: The Orwellian Nightmare Come True
The Digital Age is dumbing us down into texting, video game-playing, social networking, distracted morons chasing shiny objects
In the 'good' old days kids were supposed to absorb and believe everything and question nothing, like sponges with ears. The 21st century demands much more from us—if we don't wake up, the demagogues will take us all down, if the media and Hollywood and the liberal university professors don't brainwash us to death with lies first
Propaganda keeps us obedient, distracted, consuming, but never questioning the CW, the media, the authorities, or the liberal media as presented by media and Hollywood
TV has become the monster that sucks our brains from our skulls as it dumbs us down and teaches us to be loyal consumers of mostly unhealthy products we do not need, so record stuff and fast-forward through ads, or mute them when they're on
As Wilson Bryan Key tells us in his great book Media Sexploitation, "We have, in a very real sense, sold out our individualism and freedom in return for a handful of baubles while we play-acted at being free individuals. . . . It is not difficult to conclude that man has done a superb job of conspiring unconsciously against finding out about himself. . . . Culture is a manufactured product. And media are the factories. . . . Knowledge of man’s ability to deceive himself through perceptual illusions would, to say the least, be highly embarrassing [if we contrasted these things with] treasured concepts of free will, omniscience, natural or cultural superiority, God-given prerogatives, etc.—all those fantasies that reinforce Western civilization’s ego needs.”
We need to free the slaves (us) to become something more than mindless consumer suckers
We're being turned into consumer junkies—zombies going for a fix; government and Big Data collude in this horrific enterprise
In short, man doesn’t run his life; his life runs him. He’s not at cause; he’s at effect. He’s told what he needs and wants. No one really needed a personal computer until Steve Jobs told them they did—and the same went for the iPod, iPad, and iPhone. But once we acquired these things, we just couldn't live without them!
Man is easy to manipulate by yanking the chains of his insecurities
Americans, who watch a lot of TV, have been suckered. The networks, executives, writers, actors, and producers have been quite devious and sneaky. What a shame that so many of us have no idea how much we've been manipulated by the boob tube. This book shows how television's power over viewers is abused. People of the conservative type must pretend to be liberal in Hollywood or they are screwed. But with their Facebook accounts revealing the real truth, they may get caught with their pants down anyway.
With their Facebook accounts revealing the real truth, conservatives may get caught with their pants down in Hollyweird
This is not a book based on opinions. It contains all the pertinent facts on Hollywood, and provides the undeniable evidence to back it up, right from the actual mouths of the network bigwigs, executives, writers, actors, and producers. If you doubted the liberal bias in Hollywood, doubt no more—the proof is at hand. If you doubted the anti-conservative blacklisting in Hollywood, doubt no more—the proof is at hand.
Primetime Propaganda shines a light on the hypocrisy of the assertions liberals make about being tolerant, open-minded, and non-discriminating lovers of diversity
This most significant thing about Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV is that it not only exposes the ugliness of liberals in the entertainment industry, but also shines a light on the ridiculousness of the assertions liberals like to make about being tolerant, open-minded, and non-discriminating lovers of diversity. Shapiro makes it easy to see what a joke that really is—but no one's laughing. In short, Shapiro has done a great job of getting his interviewees to freely admit not only the ugly truth about Hollywood bias, but also the sad fact that there is rampant job discrimination against those who haven't drunk the Progressive Kool-Aid.
The people remain ignorant, manipulated, and gullible, never knowing they're constantly drinking the Kool-Aid and being brainwashed into following elite agendas that often go against their own interests, and liberal narratives that push PC foolishness into our brains
Screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd asserted that "In preparing his book, Mr. Shapiro interviewed a large number of our Hollywood notables on the subject of diversity -- not the sacrosanct melange of race, religion, gender orientation and the like, but a more challenging diversity: that of opinion and policy. The vast majority felt quite comfortable endorsing discrimination against those whose political philosophy was not rooted in the reflexive Leftism of Hollywood . . ."
Hollywood writers and producers possess pacifistic and anti-Vietnam War agendas, as liberals, and they pushed these as much as they could from their power position in Hollyweird. But there are plenty of conservatives who were against the unprovoked assault on other countries carried out by our military. Human lives should never be lost because some military equipment supplier needs a higher profit margin. One example is Andrew J. Bacevich, who wrote The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War and several other great books about the military.
Bacevich is the swinging banjo in the movie Deliverance, forewarning us of grave repercussions should we continue on the wrongheaded Might Makes Right path we're on
The U.S. military keeps acting like their motto is Might Makes Right, but what they keep proving is Might Makes Stupid
Claims of media bias in the United States include claims of liberal bias and conservative bias. Such claims have increased as the US political parties have become more polarized. Everyone knows Fox News skews right and CNN skews left. Many news outlets make no pretense of being unbiased and give their readers or listeners the news they want, leading to what has been called post-truth politics. Overall, the consensus is that most media skews left. Shapiro says virtually all of Hollyweird skews left, sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly.
Post-truth politics is a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored. Interestingly, the rampant abuses of the application of the liberal narrative's political correctness tenets have the same problem as post-truth politics: appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored.
If a black accuses a white or a woman accuses a man in the liberal university, the black and the woman will be belived because whites are evil and males are evil and white males are doubly evil, so using these liberal formulas as guidelines, the white and the male are convicted and the black and the woman are believed. In the sick liberal narrative's political correctness tenets, this is seen as social justice because the facts are irrelevent—and the appeals to PC emotion rule the day. The PC police make repeated assertions of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored, figuring that if something is repeated enough times, it becomes true in social justice terms. This is, unfortunately, identical to post-truth political thinking.
Les McIntyre says that "many see post-truth as part of a growing international trend where some feel emboldened to try to bend reality to fit their opinions." Trump has been doing that since day one. It is part of the demagogue's playbook (borrowed from Mein Kampf?).
The TV producers and networks want to turn us all into TV zombies who are passive and gullible and who buy what the ads tell them to buy and believe what the liberal programs tell them to believe