Listening to radio the other day, something struck me as interesting. The number of doom targeted commercials, and to what audience they are targeted. While Bush was in office, the doom outlook commercial pushes were mostly seen on what I'd considered lefty sympathetic shows; I wish I'd taken more note, but it didn't seem all that interesting to me at the time. While on righty sympathetic shows you'd get just the generic orange juice, employee benefit services, and hand soap stuff. Now though, righty sympathetic shows are loaded with "buy gold because the dollar will collapse" all the way to the extreme of "buy our supply of non-hybrid seeds" and "emergency freeze dried food cache for you and your family.." "pre-built bug out bags!"

So I wonder, what portion of people use "DOOOOOOM" as their way of expressing their dissatisfaction with the current party/ideology in power? And if so, is this why "DOOOOM" has to be imminent and related to some actionable policy position? ie, we are doomed, but only if you refuse to adopt my preferred policy position.

I suppose its too soon for me to draw any conclusions, and I should wait and see what the next political shift does to the "WHO" part of the "DOOOOOM" equation. Still, I think its worthy of curious observation.

Both sides use doom to manipulate their followers. People believe what they want to believe. The more we cling to our beliefs the easier it is to manipulate us. Nothing new.

I'm not so much thinking about the top down propagandizing, but rather the commercial response to a target audience. Obviously the guy selling gold at a premium isn't hunting for the serf with $1500 stashed in a can; he's hunting the executive with $200k in a retirement account.

That righty executive, two years ago, was being pursued by hand soap and employee benefit system providers; now, a few months into a lefty admin, we have his favorite media personalities waxing eloquent on the horrors of the Federal Reserve, and people trying to sell him gold and seeds for food producing plants.

The executive has become a "doomer" now. But is he a doomer because his political views are not shared by those in power, or was he just as much a doomer when his political views were shared by those in charge?

On the other end, the lefty targets are selling gold "scrap" for current desires, and are looking for greener/softer product pushes. (though current economic conditions put a bit of a wet towel on this stuff at the moment)

Me, I was a doomer when my political views were on top; and I remain one, now that they are not. I didn't buy garbage for doom then, and I don't buy it now. Even when the next shift happens, I'll still be convinced of DOOOOOOOM, but I see no reason to believe there is anything imminent or avoidable about it.

What's happened is that since Obama is in the whitehouse the right wing of the party has kind of gone tinfoil/libertarian. So under Bush you had Michael Moore donning the tinfoil hat for Farenheit 911, now you have Glenn Beck plagiarizing Alex Jones on the TEOTWAWKI hystrionics.

I reckon there will be decline into a period of looniness as people look for scapegoats to hide behind. I'm not sure just how far to the right we can go with Israel and an empowered world Jewry on the sidelines (unlike some of the flakeheads in here, I happen to see the presence of Israel as a good restraint on the corporate socialist brigade.) but I reckon it will get messy for a while before calmer minds prevail and order is restored.

Probably the biggest upcoming thing in "pop culture" having to do with "doom" is the soon-to-be-released movie "2012."



Hollywood is a liberal place and recent Hollywood disaster movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" have had a liberal spin to them.

Oh, you're so enlightened.

Hollywood is not liberal. It is about making bucks and so disaster, thriller, and horror movies reflect real fears of real Americans and is why they are made and why they sell so well.

I really think you buy into the Ronnie Raygun myth. Raygun was head of the Screen Actors Guild, took the payola, and became a flunkie for rich repubs ever since. Hollywood is no more liberal than the "media." They are all about making the bucks. And you know it.

I've often wondered who was behind the Protocols for unmasking the Zionist Protocols.

Couldn't have put it better.

How about Michael Bay. Something like Transformers is as BAU as BAU can be. Having a Chevy Volt Transformer doesn't change that.

Those ads are constantly on the lefty shows also.

100% agree

<<< works for "Hollywood"

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I believe in almost nothing, except that most people are stupid and show their ancestry of having descended from poop-throwing monkeys.

Why couldn't intelligent life have evolved from something other than PRIMATES of all things? Reptiles, birds, ANYTHING but primates...

After the nuclear apocalypse, our pets will take over.