A friend of mine asked me if I had seen” CSI: Miami” last week. I had not, but he suggested I take a look. He thought I might find something interesting. Warning: Spoiler Alert.
Not all television shows have blatant straw men capitalists cast as Beelzebub incarnate. In fact, many stay away from this topic. Although I have not done a count, there are still too many of these shows. One of the more bizarre depictions of a CEO as a “murder for profit” Satanic imp was presented in the “CSI: Miami” episode “Bad Seed” last Monday. If capitalists were really this evil, mankind would not have made it out of the stone ages, as all their customers would have been killed soon after each new advancement in technology. Of course, in these shows it is only the capitalists who are evil. Not government employees, local farmers, truck drivers, police officers, medical professionals, illegal migrant workers, distributors or really any other human being. Just owners of businesses are evil, because they care about profits. These characters are people who willfully engage in conspiratorial confiscatory practices and also play “God” by determining how many people it is okay to kill in order to sell a product and make a profit.
“Bad Seed” features a venal CEO of “Bixton Whole Foods” whose name caused me to pause the show on my DVR to check what I heard. CEO Beelzebub, in “CSI: Miami”, has the name “Jerry Mackey.” As someone who follows the health-care legislation wars pretty closely I could not believe what I heard. As you may know, the CEO of the real life company “Whole Foods” is named “John Mackey.” Mackey used to be viewed as a liberal icon, “a third way” capitalist so to speak. His employment practices conformed to all liberal-approved ways. His product offering is first class. Now, as one who does not believe in the efficacy of “organic foods” etc., I also have no problem with people who wish to spend more on their food for aesthetic or any other reasons. Whole Foods apparently serves a niche market of well-off urban and ex-urban yuppies quite well. I occasionally shop there myself, as their presentation is very good. The First Lady made quite a stir herself in support of organic foods which I chronicled in “Let Them Eat Arugula.”
But, even the real Mackey’s third way organic capitalism could not save him from attack when he came out against the Obama/Democratic approved health-care plan last August. As an individual who is economically literate, he just could not stand idly by and let these proposals be put forth uncontested. This caused his stores to be boycotted and for him to be demonized by the Democrats. It seems almost impossible that “CSI: Miami” was not purposely looking to subliminally equate their comic book Satan with the real life Whole Foods CEO. “CSI’s” Bixton Whole Foods CEO Jerry Mackey was purposely making statistical trade offs guaranteed to create unnecessary deaths — willfully permitting E-coli to be genetically inserted into corn to make it more “digestible,” while increasing the odds of creating a killer strain of bacteria.
I have sometimes thought “CSI: Miami” was a conscious put on. David Caruso’s character reminds me of a cross between Jack Webb’s “Joe Friday” in “Dragnet” and Dan Aykroyd’s “Raymond Stance” in “Ghostbusters.” But this particular episode is immoral in equating their clown Satan with the real-life Mackey. Perhaps it is all a coincidence. After all, these things happen. But I doubt it. “CSI” seemed to obviously believe in the power of subliminal messaging. I have a hunch if the real Mackey had come out in support of ObamaCare, “Jerry Mackey” would not exist; and likely neither would “Bixton Whole Foods.” Even if it were a coincidence, isn’t there anyone on the staff who noticed the linkage?
Somehow I think the answer is yes.
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