I just read a most groovy essay called "The New Culture War."
http://www.transparencynow.com/culture.htm
Here's a brief excerpt:
"...America's power elites have given us a new kind of culture that turns much of what it touches into a form of fiction. It specializes in converting reality into "unreality" and producing simplified and exaggerated images that it can sell to us or use as marketing ploys to sell virtually everything else."