A Tweet Review of Obama’s Healthcare Plan
August 30, 2009
Peter Fleckenstein has been reading through Obama’s Healthcare Bill and tweeting what he’s found. Here’s his extensive list of comments and references on the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009:
PG 22 MANDATES the Government will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!
PG 24 Line 116 Government effectively sets prices for ALL private health plans.
PG 30 Line 123 THERE WILL BE A Government COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.
PG 37 Line 132 The Government will be reviewing grievances about themselves and will decide on appeals for rejected claims.
PG 29 Line 4-16 YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!! Additionally you can reference PG 15 Line 19-25.
PG 42 The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HealthCare Benefits for you. You have no choice!
PG 50 Line 152 HealthCare will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise.
PG 58 Government will have real-time access to individuals’ finances & a National ID HealthCare Card will be issued!
PG 59 Line 21-24 Government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer!
PG 61 Line 22-24 Congress has no clue what Electronic Medical Records will cost. Asks for estimate.
PG 62 Protection of Data, Government shows they will have database of your personal & financial info.
OK peeps a big one – PG 64 Line 21-25, pg65 Line 1-5 which refers to processing payment transactions by financial institutions
PG 65 Line 164 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in Unions & community organizations (ACORN).
PG 72 Line 8-14 Government is creating an HealthCare Exchange to bring private HealthCare plans under Government control.
PG 84 Line 203 Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private. HealthCare plans in the Exchange.
PG 85 Line 7 Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Government will ration your HealthCare! #AARP members – your Health care Will be rationed.
PG 89 Line 6-10 The FAR is not applicable. Government can write contracts any way they want.
PG 95 Line 8-18 The Government will use groups i.e., ACORN & Americorps to sign up individuals for Government HealthCare plan.
PG 98 Line 8 Americans – You will be paying for others HealthCare while paying for your own.
PG 100 Line 15-19 The Government Will be using ACORN and other community groups to promote & enroll.
PG 102 Line 12-18 Medicaid Eligible Individual will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No choice.
PG 109 Line 207 Health Trust Fund. The Government will raise taxes on EVERYONE to fund HealthCare as they see fit. Correction
PG 110 Line 7-12 Employment taxes on ALL employers NOT offering Government HealthCare. No choice.
PG 110 Line 13-18 An excise tax on ALL goods from companies not offering Government HealthCare. ALL Americans pay.
PG 110 Line 19-24 the Treasury can take $$ from Soc Line to pay HealthCare.
PG 111 Line 208 The Federal Government will usurp all State powers in State Based HealthCare Exchange. Violation of 10th Amend.
PG 119 Line 1-3 Establish geographically-adjusted premium rates for public option Can you say ACORN census?
PG 121 Line 223 PAYMENT RATES FOR ITEMS AND SERVICES. Can you say Government price fixing & monopoly?
PG 124 Line 24-25 No company can sue Government on price fixing. No “judicial review” against Government Monopoly.
PG 126 Line 10-15 The Government can make up prices for anything at anytime for any reason.
PG 126 Line 22-25 Employers MUST pay for HealthCare for part time employees AND their families.
PG 127 Line 1-16 Doctors: The Government will tell YOU what you can make.
PG 129 The public option will be subsidized. Credits = your tax dollars. Redistribution of wealth.
PG 130 Line 10-23 Federal Government will subsidize State Medicaid = Even Higher State & Federal taxes for ALL.
PG 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE.
PG 149 Line 16-24 ANY Employer with payroll 400k & above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll.
PG 150 Line 9-13 Biz with payroll btw 251k & 400k who doesn’t provide public option pays 2-6% tax on all payroll.
PG 151 Line 1-3 Aggregate Rules-tax on employers payroll not on public option include payroll of other biz.
PG 167 Line 18-23 ANY individual who doesn’t have acceptable HealthCare according to Government will be taxed 2.5% of inc.
PG 170 Line 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay)
PG 195 Officers & employees of HealthCare Administration (Government) will have access to ALL Americans financial/personal records.
PG 198 Line 1-3 1.5% ADDITIONAL TAX on peeps who have income of 500k to 1mil. Redistribution of Wealth.
PG 198 Line 4-6 5.4% ADDITIONAL TAX on peeps who have income of $1mil+. Redistribution of Wealth
PG 199 Line 1-4 Surtax rates on raised AGAIN on Americans in 2012.
PG 201 Line 12-19 Government will ignore whatever costs they see fit to show savings. (Cooking the books)
PG 203 Line 14-15 “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax” Yes, it says that.
PG 202-215 is a Government rewrite of the tax code ensuring more taxes for EVERYONE, Everywhere.
PG 239 Line 14-24 Government will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income, poor affected.
PG 241 Line 6-8 Doctors, doesn’t matter what specialty you have, you’ll all be paid the same.
PG 236 Line 22-25 PG 237 Line 1-3 National rate of uninsured defined by Census. Can you say ACORN corruption?
PG 239 Line 10-12 Medicare DSH payments will be increased. Can you say even higher taxes for all?
PG 238-249 Line 1121 Doctors-Government mandates your growth, costs, value, services, & income. Peeps- Welcome to rationing
PG 253 Line 10-18 Government sets value of Dr’s time, prof judg, etc. Literally value of humans. We’re next.
PG 260 Line 1125 Fed Government will adjust Medicare Payment Localities for California based on Census. ACORN?
PG 265 Line 1131 Government mandates & controls productivity for private HealthCare industries.
PG 268 Line 1141 Fed Government regulates rental & purchase of power driven wheelchairs.
PG 270 Line 1144 Government Mandates that all private ambulatory surgical centers submit cost data & other data
PG 272 Line 1145 TREATMENT OF CERTAIN CANCER HOSPITALS – Cancer patients – welcome to rationing!
PG 276 Line 3-20 Oxygen Equipment & Supply Companies – Government MANDATES you will provide supplies NO MATTER where individual is.
PG 287 Line 14-25 PROOF that Government will ration HealthCare by mandating waiting periods for readmission.
PG 298 Line 9-11 Drs, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission – Government will penalize you.
PG 303 Line 12-25 Post Acute Care Services Data – Government will collect data including personal information as they see fit.
PG 304 Line 17-19 BIG ONE HERE: Expedited Data Collection – More information here
PG 304 Line 17-19 Government does NOT have to protect your private, share with anyone, & is not resp (more on expedited data collection)
PG 306 Line 3-6 The Government can expand the scope & size of Post Acute Program Services anytime & as they see fit.
PG 313 Line 9-14 Government MANDATES Health Services providers will state ownership, invest, & compensation arrangements.
PG 317 Line 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Drs. what/how much they can own.
PG 317-318 Line 21-25,1-3 PROHIBITION on expansion- Government is mandating hospitals cannot expand.
PG 318-319 Government is mandating how hospitals & physicians conduct business & investments. We’re next!
PG 321 2-13 Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required. Can you say ACORN?!!
PG 328 Line 1157 Government study disguised. Its a HealthCare workforce study mandated by law for unionization.
Pg335 Line 16-25 PG 336-339 Government mandates estab. of outcome based measures. HealthCare the way they want. Rationing.
PG 341 Line 3-9 Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Adv Plans, HMOs, etc. Forcing peeps in to Government plan.
PG 354 Line 1177 Government will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people!
PG 355-369 Line 1181 Government disguises tax on Drug Companies as rebate to Government to subsidize Drugs. We pay in the end.
PG 379 Line 1191 Government creates more bureaucracy – Telehealth Advisory Committee. Can you say HealthCare by phone?
PG 399 If your a subsidy eligible individual under Medicare part D and you don’t enroll, the Government will auto enroll you.
PG 401 Section 1221 Americans will fund Medicare Language & Translation Services Program. Can you say MORE taxes?
PG 404 Lines 12-16 Government exempts itself again from – Chap 35 of title 44, USC including privacy of Americans.
PG 404 Lines 17-19 Government doesn’t know the cost of Language services but states that money is there.
PG 425 Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life.
PG 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory!
PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.
PG 427 Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The Government has a say in how your life ends.
PG 429 Lines 1-9 An “advance care planning consultant” will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.
PG 429 Lines 10-12 “advance care consultation” may include an ORDER for end of life plans. AN ORDER from Government.
PG 429 Lines 13-25 The Government will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order. Logan’s Run anyone?
PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life.
PG 432 Lines 18-21 The Government will publish “quality measures” for individual’s end of life in Federal Register.
PG 434 Section 1234 Military Active, Reservists, Families – If you’re not enrolled in Tricare it is mandated.
PG 434 Section 1234 Military Active, Reservists, Families – Once HealthCare bill is passed your premiums will go up.
PG 438 Section 1236 The Government will develop a patient decision making aid program that you & Dr. WILL use.
PG 443 Lines 7-24 Government at taxpayers expense test out an “Accountable Care Org” program (Government doesn’t have plan.)
PG 444 Lines 1-6 Government’s Accountable Care Program will mandate services & infrastructure thru reward/penalty system.
PG 448 Lines 4-17 Government will set performance targets for ALL Accountable Care Organizations including private.
PG 455 Lines 3-4 Government exempts itself from Chapter 35, Title 44 Paperwork Reduction & Citizens Privacy Protection Act
PG 460 Section 1302 Knock, Knock – It’s the Government and I’m here with the Medical Home Program – YOUR home.
PG 460 Section 1302 The Government WILL provide medical services in your home. Paging Nurse Pelosi!!
PG 464 Lines 17-22 Independent Patient Center Home Medical Services – Drs. don’t have to be at your home just some directed by D
PG 469 Community Based Home Medical Services=Non profit organizations. Hello, ACORN Medical Services here!!?
Page 472 Lines 14-17 PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED Organization – 1 monthly payment to a community-based organization Like ACORN?
PG 476 19-20 Chapter 35/ title 44, (Privacy of personal records) shall not apply Home Medical Services. ACORN ACCESS
PG 489 Section 1308 The Government will cover Marriage & Family therapy. Which means they will insert Government into your marriage.
PG 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services.
PG 502 Section 1181 Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. – Hello Big Brother – Literally.
PG 502 Line 5-18 Government builds the “Center” to conduct, support, & synthesize research to define our HealthCare Services.
PG 503 Line 13-19 Government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records.
PG 503 Line 21-25 Government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the US including your data.
PG 504 Line 6-10 The “Center” will collect data both published & unpublished (that means public & your private info)
PG 506 Line 19-21 The Center will recommend policies that would allow for public access of data
PG 518 Line 21-25 The Commission will have input from HealthCare consumer reps – Can you say unions & ACORN?
PG 524 18-22 Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund set up. More taxes for ALL.
PG 525-620 deals with the Government basically taking over nursing homes, … Read More here
PG 620 Line 1-9 The Government will define, prioritize, and nationalize your Health Care Services.
PG 621 Lines 20-25 Government will define what Quality means in HealthCare. Since when does Government know about quality?
PG 622 Lines 2-9 To pay for the quality Standards Government will transfer $$ from to other Government Trust Funds. More Taxes.
PG 624 “Quality” measures shall be designed to assess outcomes & functional status of patients.
PG 628 Section 1443 Government will give “Multi-Stake Holders” Pre-Rule Making input into Selection of “Quality” Measures.
PG 630 9-24/631 1-9 Those Multi-stake holder groups including Unions & groups like ACORN deciding HealthCare quality.
PG 632 Lines 14-25 The Government may implement any “Quality measure” of HealthCare Services as they see fit.
PG 633 14-25/ 634 1-9 The Secretary may issue non-endorsed “Quality Measures” for Physician Services & Dialysis Services.
PG 635 – 653 Physicians Payments Sunshine Provision – Government wants to shine sunlight on Docs but not Government.
PG 654-659 Public Reporting on Health Care-Associated Infections – Looks okay.
PG 660-671 Doctors in Residency – Government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.
PG 676-686 Government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals.
PG 686-700 Increased Funding to Fight Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. LMAO!! You mean the Government with an $18 mil website?
PGs 701-704 Section 1619 If your part of HealthCare plan that isn’t in Government HealthCare Exchange but you qualify for Federal aid, no payment.
PG 705-709 SEC. 1128 If Secretary gets complaints (ACORN) on HealthCare provider or supplier, Government can do background check.
PG 711 Lines 8-14 The Secretary has broad powers to deny HealthCare providers/suppliers admittance into HealthCare Exchange.
Pg 719-720 Section 1637 ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services MUST be enrolled in Medicare.
PG 722 Section 1639 Government MANDATES Doctors must have face-to-face with patient to certify patient for Home Health Services.
PG 724 Lines 16-22 Government reserves right to apply face-to-face certification for patient to ANY other HealthCare service.
PG 724 23-25 PG 725 1-5 The same Government certifications will apply to medicaid & CHIP (your kids)
Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforcement purposes, the Secretary of Health & Human Services will give Attorney General access to ALL data.
PG 740-757 Government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (That’s your tax dollars peeps)
Pg 757-762 Fed Government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to States. (Taxes)
Page 763 1-8 No DS/EA hospitals will be paid unless they provide services without regard to national origin
Pg 765 Section 1711 Government will require Preventative Services including vaccines. (Choice?)
Pg 768 Section 1713 Government – Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks)
Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services – “increasing birth intervals between pregnancies.” Government Abortions anyone?
Pg 769 11-14 Nurse Home Visit Services include-economic self-sufficiency, employment advancement, school-readiness.
Pg 769 3-5 Nurse Home Visit Services – “increasing birth intervals between pregnancies.” Government ABORTIONS anyone?
Pg 770 SEC 1714 Federal Government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Say abortion & State Sovereign.
Pg 789-797 Government will set & mandate drug prices, controlling which drugs will brought to market. Bye innovation
Pgs 797-800 SEC. 1744 PAYMENTS for grad medical education. The government will now control Drs education.
PG 801 Sec 1751 The Government will decide which Health care conditions will be paid. Say RATION!
Pg 810 SEC. 1759. Billing Agents, clearinghouses, etc. required to register. Government takes over private payment system.
Page 820-824 Sec 1801 Government will identify individuals ineligible for subsidies. Will access all personal finances.
Pg 824-829 SEC. 1802. Government Sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another tax black hole.
PG 829-833 Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self insured to pay for Trust Fund!
PG 835 11-13 fees imposed by Government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.
Pg 838-840 Government will design & implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids & families expecting kids.
PG 844-845 This Home Visitation Program includes Government coming into your house & telling you how to parent!!!
Pg 859 Government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000. Yes thats Billion.
Pg 865 The Government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.
PG 865 to 876 The NHS Corps is a program where Drs. perform mandatory HealthCare for 2 years for part loan repayment.
PG 876-892 The Government takes over the education of our Medical students and Drs.
PG 898 The Government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps. to ensure supply of public health professionals.
PG 898 The Public health workforce corps shall consist of officers of Regular & Reserve Corps of Service.
PG 898 The Public health workforce corps shall consist of civilian employees of the U.S. as Secretary deems.
PG 900 The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians.
PG 901 The Public Health Workforce Corps WILL include commissioned Regular & Reserve Officers. HealthCare Draft? WTF!
PG 910 The Government will develop, build & run Public Health Training Centers.
PG 913-914 Government starts a HealthCare affirmative action program thru guise of diversity scholarships.
PG 915 SEC. 2251. Government MANDATES Cultural & linguistic competency training for HealthCare professionals.
Pg 932 The Government will establish Preventative & Wellness Trust fund – intial cost of $30,800,000,000-Billion.
PG 935 21-22 Government will identify specific goals & objectives for prevention & wellness activities. Control You!!
PG 936 Government will develop “Healthy People & National Public Health Performance Standards” Tell me what to eat?
PG 942 Lines 22-25 More Government? Offices of Surgeon General -Public Health Services, Minority Health, Women’s Health
PG 950- 980 BIG Government core public health infrastructure includes workforce capacity, lab systems; health information systems, etc
PG 993 Government will establish school based health clinics. Your kids wont have a chance.
PG 994 School Based Health Clinic will be integrated into the school environment. Say Government Brainwash!
PG 1001 The Government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?
PG 1003 9-11 National Medical Dev Reg ‘‘(iii) other postmarket device surveillance activities” you WILL be tracked.
PG 1018 States give up some of their State Sovereignty.
The Matrix Decoded – Baudrillard
August 11, 2009
Le Nouvel Observateur Interview With Jean Baudrillard1
The simulacrum hypothesis deserved
better than to become a reality.2
Le Nouvel Observateur: Your reflections on reality and the virtual are some of the key references used by the makers of The Matrix. The first episode explicitly referred to you as the viewer clearly saw the cover of Simulacra and Simulation.3
Were you surprised by this?
Jean Baudrillard: Certainly there have been misinterpretations, which is why I have been hesitant until now to speak about The Matrix. The staff of the Wachowski brothers contacted me at various times following the release of the first episode in order to get me involved with the following ones, but this wasn’t really conceivable (laughter). Basically, a similar misunderstanding occurred in the 1980s when New York-based Simulationist4 artists contacted me. They took the hypothesis of the virtual for an irrefutable fact and transformed it into a visible phantasm. But it is precisely that we can no longer employ categories of the real in order to discuss the characteristics of the virtual.
Nouvel Observateur: The connection between the film and the vision you develop, for example, in The Perfect Crime, is, however, quite striking. In evoking a desert of the real, these totally virtualized spectral humans, who are no more than the energetic reserve of thinking objects… .
Baudrillard: Yes, but already there have been other films that treat the growing
indistinction between the real and the virtual: The Truman Show, Minority Report, or even Mulholland Drive, the masterpiece of David Lynch. The Matrix’s value is chiefly as a synthesis of all that. But there the set-up is cruder and does not truly evoke the problem. The actors are in the matrix, that is, in the digitized system of things; or, they are radically outside it, such as in Zion, the city of resistors. But what would be interesting is to show what happens when these two worlds collide. The most embarrassing part of the film is that the new problem posed by simulation is confused with its classical, Platonic treatment. This is a serious flaw. The radical illusion of the world is a problem faced by all great cultures, which they have solved through art and symbolization. What we have invented, in order to support this suffering, is a simulated real, which henceforth supplants the real and is its final solution, a virtual universe from which everything dangerous and negative has been expelled. And The Matrix is undeniably part of that. Everything belonging to the order of dream, utopia and phantasm is given expression, “realized.” We are in the uncut transparency. The Matrix is surely the kind of film about the matrix that the matrix would have been able to produce.
Nouvel Observateur: It is also a film that purports to denounce technicist alienation and, at the same time, plays entirely on the fascination exercised
by the digital universe and computer-generated images.
Baudrillard: What is notable about Matrix Reloaded is the absence of a glimmer of irony that would allow viewers to turn this gigantic special effect on its head. There is no sequence which would be the punctum about which Roland Barthes wrote, this striking mark that brings you face-to-face with a true image. Moreover, this is what makes the film an instructive symptom, and the actual fetish of this universe of technologies of the screen in which there is no longer a distinction between the real and the imaginary. The Matrix is considered to be an extravagant object, at once candid and perverse, where there is neither a here nor a there. The pseudo-Freud who speaks at the film’s conclusion puts it well: at a certain moment, we reprogrammed the matrix in order to integrate anomalies into the equation. And you, the resistors, comprise a part of it. Thus we are, it seems, within a total virtual circuit without an exterior. Here again I am in theoretical disagreement (laughter). The Matrix paints the picture of a monopolistic superpower, like we see today, and then collaborates in its refraction. Basically, its dissemination on a world scale is complicit with the film itself. On this point it is worth recalling Marshall McLuhan: the medium is the message. The message of The Matrix is its own diffusion by an uncontrollable and proliferating contamination.
Nouvel Observateur: It is rather shocking to see that, henceforth, all American
marketing successes, from The Matrix to Madonna’s new album, are presented as critiques of the system which massively promotes them.
Baudrillard: That is exactly what makes our times so oppressive. The system produces a negativity in trompe-l’oeil [a reference to illusion painting], which is integrated into products of the spectacle just as obsolescence is built into industrial products. It is the most efficient way of incorporating all genuine alternatives. There are no longer external Omega points or any antagonistic means available in order to analyze the world; there is nothing more than a fascinated adhesion. One must understand, however, that the more a system nears perfection, the more it approaches the total accident. It is a form of objective irony stipulating that nothing ever happened. September 11th participated in this. Terrorism is not an alternative power, it is nothing except the metaphor of this almost suicidal return of Western power on itself. That is what I said at the time, and it was not widely accepted. But it is not about being nihilistic or pessimistic in the face of all that. The system, the virtual, the matrix – all of these will perhaps return to the dustbin of history. For reversibility, challenge and seduction are indestructible.5
Endnotes
1 Jean Baudrillard was interviewed for Le Nouvel Observateur
(19-25 June 2003) by Aude Lancelin. The Editors of IJBS
are grateful to Ruth Valentini and Le Nouvel Observateur
for permission to translate and publish this interview in
English
http://www.nouvelobs.com.
Aude Lancelin conducted the original interview for Le
Nouvel Observateur.
2 Jean Baudrillard. Cool Memories IV. New York: Verso,
2003:92.
3 Upon opening the book during the “Follow Instructions” scene in
Neo’s apartment, the hollowed out text reveals the first page of
the short essay “On Nihilism.”
4 It was perhaps Peter Halley more than any other American
Simulationist painter who triumphed Baudrillard’s
conceptualization of hyperreality in relation to day-glo colours.
And, as he wryly notes, Baudrillard dashed the hopes of Halley
by distancing himself from claims on him. But it wasn’t only
Simulationist painters who received a cold critical shoulder. As
Paul Hegarty heard in a recent interview with Baudrillard (April
2003; in his book Jean Baudrillard:
Live Theory, London: Continuum, 2004), “the last ones were
those ‘symbiotic’ artists. They kept pestering me, saying, ‘but
you must love what we’re doing. I said, ‘hang on, this is not
acceptable’.”
5 Gerry Coulter’s essay in this volume examines this aspect of
Baudrillard’s writing over the past thirty years. See
Gerry Coulter. “Reversibility: Baudrillard’s One’s Great
Thought”
http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol1_2/reversib.htm.
Translated by:
Dr. Gary Genosko
(Canada Research Chair in Technoculture Studies,
Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada).
and
Adam Bryx
(Graduate Student in English, Lakehead University).
Murder of the Real – Jean Baudrillard
August 10, 2009
This clip shows Jean Baudrillard’s book, Simulacra and Simulation, in which Neo hides his illegal software at the beginning of the movie. In one scene Morpheus says ‘welcome to the desert of the real‘, a phrase coined by Baudrillard – his idea is that the simulation has become more real to us than the physical reality. BUT the Tavistock spokesmen in the following clip are taking Baudrillard LITERARLLY, spinning it as if we are now able to bend spoons with out minds, etc. When I read Baudrillard what I got was that he was saying media has become a ‘world wide web’ of simulation – like a CAGE.
Notice they spin it like Baudrillard is supporting their methods….but I don’t think he really is when one evaluates Baudrillard’s work. Just listen to the following speech, where Baudrillard discusses The Murder of the Real, pointing out that when reality is entirely artificial the people in it experience nihilism.
