Summary of text [comment] page 72

[There are three figures in many Progressive TV programs.

1. The hero stands for the producers and the institutions of Progressive TV.
2. The victim stands in for the viewer, who watches yet cannot talk back to the television. The viewer believes that “she” is aware of what “she” is doing. “She” is watching TV. Yet, “she” empathizes with the victim because “she” subliminally knows that “she”, as viewer, is a victim of an apparatus that deprives “her” of a voice.
3. The victimizer stands for the person who does not watch Progressive TV. Why aren’t they watching? Do they have better things to do? People who apparently are minding their own business are cast as scary, evil, malicious and obsessed. At no point does the truth about the victimizer becomes clear. The victimizer comes from the Progressive’s imagination. It is a projection.]

[The golden calves have always enticed their admirers into surrendering their small golden ornaments.  They melt the donations down and fashion a statue in the image of themselves (the golden calves).

Unfortunately, television is an ideal medium for this exploitation. TV is an imagistic way of talking (which is far more emotionally salient than radio (pure voice) or writing (pure script).

In America, the exploitation of the television viewer sustains a falsehood that is so foundational that it must be presented as the truth itself.

What is this lie?

The golden calves, who produce Progressive TV, and the viewers, who watch yet are not empowered to reply, are on the same side, the former as hero and the latter as ‘someone who sympathizes with the victim’.]

Summary of text [comment] page 72

[Think^{Progressive_TV} is not Christian.

It loves its gods … er … celebrities (the golden calves).

It pretends to love its victims (the ornament-bearing but silent target audiences).

It hates evil, twisted, and immoral exploiters.

Therein lies the fraud.

The exploiters turn out be projections by think^{Progressive_TV} onto people minding their own business.

As such, think^{Progressive_TV} parodies of Schoonenberg’s concept of ‘real love’.]

[Progressive TV calls the golden calves and their ornament-bearing, yet unknowing, victims into a mimetic contagion. Both are called to turn against the unwitting scapegoat, the one who is trying to mind her own business.

This is precisely what Paula Dean and George Zimmerman had in common.

Both were trying to mind their own business. One minded a cooking show. The other minded his own neighborhood.

Then, they stumbled into stereotypic events, placing the golden calves and their ornament-bearing viewer-victims on the same side.

What opportunities!

Both events were made for TV^Progressive.

The golden calves could proclaim their concern for the victims (standing for the true victims, the television viewers, who cannot talk back and are, therefore, disempowered).

The viewers could be shocked and outraged (thus, acting out frustration and anger at their own disempowered condition, even though they are accomplices to their own disempowerment).

Both Dean and Zimmerman were labeled think^anti-object and conscience^anti-object.

Both were destroyed by scapegoating.]

[Rene Girard framed these phenomena in terms of the anthropological importance of the mimetic contagion.]

[Who are these monsters?

They are competent people who do not consider themselves either golden calves or alienated victims. Plus, they do not watch Progressive TV.

These competent people are the true scapegoats.

They are often portrayed as incredibly greedy business people. They are depicted as swindlers so greedy that they will cheat any victim out of her ornaments in return for nothing (in the same way that television cheats the viewer-victim’s time).

These “businessmen” are only projections of think^pro-object‘s covetous imagination. Since they are imaginary, they can be totally improbable.

Have you ever seen one?

Television^Progressive teaches the viewer how to be stupid.]

[Progressive TV constantly presents its core truth (falsehood) in a wide variety of programs.

The golden calves (standing for the television organizations) and victims (standing for the television viewers, who cannot talk back and are lured into surrendering their gold ornaments) are on the same side, the think^pro-object side, against the think^anti-object monsters.]

[The object is the victim.

Both think^pro-victim and its objectified victims despise the exploiters.

The exploiters are responsible for the victims.

The exploiters are think^anti-object and conscience^anti-object.

They are the bad ones.

They must be identified and destroyed by the good ones.]