Thirty one years ago, on this day, October 5, 1992, REM’s album Automatic for the People was released. It contains the stone-cold classic “Ignoreland.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that twelve years of Republican Party presidents were close to coming to an end – if Clinton could win the presidency which of course he did.
REM were global superstars by this point and memories of the “Republican Revolution” were still fresh in the minds of people who had an inkling of how doomed we were.
What I think we can learn from this
This along with Bobby Conn’s “Never get ahead” is one of the great songs about neoliberalism – and the media in this case. If you can’t grok the role of the media within the state-corporate nexus, as a means of limiting information and debate, then there’s no hope for you. Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model is necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) for you, my friend…
What happened next
REM got paid silly money. Did some great songs bless.
Neoliberalism continued in people’s minds and hearts and was ultimately responsible for the collapse of human civilisation in the 2030s.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.