Howard Zinn is a professor at the Boston University, who also wrote a best-selling and influential novel that once stated, “[i]f those in charge of our society—politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television—can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.” Zinn clearly states that if we allow for our ideas to be manipulated then we will not need supervision because the way we think about society will already have changed through the media and propaganda of the politicians and corporations of the world. In the world of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, the corporations in the novel completely dictate how the community is run. For example,
…show more content…
Lee’s Greater Hong Kong,” the Mafia/Uncle Enzo, and L. Bob Rife. Rife is the character that mostly condones a sort of propaganda-style for his drug trafficking. He used Da5id to show his power in the Metaverse by displaying the horrors that the drug can cause, which was a brainwashing effect that caused Da5id to babble. As we know, Snow Crash was designed to seem like a drug in order to produce a lot of interest and buyers. His use of Da5id could be interpreted as a way to discourage the hackers in the Metaverse to mess with the drug because they are the only ones who could possibly understand it more than Rife. The way he uses his propaganda links to the idea of anarcho-capitalism, which is a political ideology that states anarchists favor leaders but disfavor someone decreeing law. This way, Rife’s technique of using Snow Crash to brainwash the people that way his dictatorship, going unnoticed, will lead him to have full power. Or so he thought. This may not be a surprising fact, but the Metaverse can be linked to America today, because not only does the Metaverse have privatized corporations but so does America. The, even more, the surprising fact is that through privatized corporations, there are alliances to be made or gained in politics and their …show more content…
The GEO and Corrections Corporations of America have nearly given 25 million on lobbying efforts and have graciously given more than 10 million to candidates since 1989. The Huffington Post gives us a little more background on for-profit prisons, “The United States is experiencing a major tragedy. We have more people in jail than any other country on earth, including Communist China, an authoritarian country four times our size. The U.S. has less than five percent of the world's population, yet we incarcerate about a quarter of its prisoners -- some 2.2 million people.” So why are there so many people in prison? The Justice Policy states, “As revenues of private prison companies have grown over the past decade, the companies have had more resources with which to build political power, and they have used this power to promote policies that lead to higher rates of incarceration.” So, in the end, the incarceration policies that private prison companies promote do nothing to enhance and boost communities or cut costs, but actually, worsen the safety and protection of communities. Instead of the people being the main priority, we may conclude that private prison companies, like L. Bob Rife’s in Snow Crash, are solely in for the
Lee’s Greater Hong Kong,” the Mafia/Uncle Enzo, and L. Bob Rife. Rife is the character that mostly condones a sort of propaganda-style for his drug trafficking. He used Da5id to show his power in the Metaverse by displaying the horrors that the drug can cause, which was a brainwashing effect that caused Da5id to babble. As we know, Snow Crash was designed to seem like a drug in order to produce a lot of interest and buyers. His use of Da5id could be interpreted as a way to discourage the hackers in the Metaverse to mess with the drug because they are the only ones who could possibly understand it more than Rife. The way he uses his propaganda links to the idea of anarcho-capitalism, which is a political ideology that states anarchists favor leaders but disfavor someone decreeing law. This way, Rife’s technique of using Snow Crash to brainwash the people that way his dictatorship, going unnoticed, will lead him to have full power. Or so he thought. This may not be a surprising fact, but the Metaverse can be linked to America today, because not only does the Metaverse have privatized corporations but so does America. The, even more, the surprising fact is that through privatized corporations, there are alliances to be made or gained in politics and their …show more content…
The GEO and Corrections Corporations of America have nearly given 25 million on lobbying efforts and have graciously given more than 10 million to candidates since 1989. The Huffington Post gives us a little more background on for-profit prisons, “The United States is experiencing a major tragedy. We have more people in jail than any other country on earth, including Communist China, an authoritarian country four times our size. The U.S. has less than five percent of the world's population, yet we incarcerate about a quarter of its prisoners -- some 2.2 million people.” So why are there so many people in prison? The Justice Policy states, “As revenues of private prison companies have grown over the past decade, the companies have had more resources with which to build political power, and they have used this power to promote policies that lead to higher rates of incarceration.” So, in the end, the incarceration policies that private prison companies promote do nothing to enhance and boost communities or cut costs, but actually, worsen the safety and protection of communities. Instead of the people being the main priority, we may conclude that private prison companies, like L. Bob Rife’s in Snow Crash, are solely in for the