What has this to do with Kresimir Macan, the spokesman of the Croatian Television?
It has some, inasmuch as Kresimir Macan truly believes in the illusion that his brain hasn't been devastated by an organic disorder. He believes he has been "cured", or maybe even that he has never been ill, which is a typical reflex of a mind instinctively defending itself from its own defect.
To tell the truth, Kresimir Macan hasn't been struck by a brain tumor, at least not as far as I know, but it is more than evident that the remnants of a dark secret dwell in his gray mass. Macan's secret is not really the problem here, but the fact that the patient sees that dark sediment as the only proof of his normality. This gives him strength to walk through life with his head held high, despite the imminent accident that tics away inside his head. If by some chance the head of Kresimir Macan exploded, the TV spokesman would probably say that his head actually "burst with health".
Kresimir Macan the scandal that occurred after the Croatian TV (HTV) banned the broadcasting of the pre-paid TV commercial for the weekly Feral Tribune with words that made the nation scream with laughter. In this way a certain symbolic inversion took place, so that HTV, as a permanent source of political excesses, stopped being the source of scandals, and the role has been taken over by their good Samaritan spokesperson. He explained that Feral's commercial, which contains documentary scenes of the Old Bridge in Mostar falling down, followed by the slogan "Think about it... remember!!!" - has been banned due to "technical problems", since "there is nothing between the two scenes of the Old Bridge falling down", or more correctly, there is darkness between them, so that the idiotic viewers "might think the program was terminated". Macan also lied that the people from the TV "asked Feral to re-edit the video and shorten the time during which the screen is black", but Feral "reacted with an official statement".
However, Feral's commercial was really banned because of the darkness, but not the one on the TV screen, but the one that circles inside the brains of the TV people. As a disease and as a concept. This situation requires additional explanation. Feral hasn't received a request to "re-edit the video", but a written notice that the video was banned on the "grounds of a programming decision" signed by Jelena Runjic-Bedina. Feral's video is seven seconds long, it consists of five different scenes, and the scene of the "blank screen" lasts less than a second, which is not enough to provoke the reflexes of idiotic viewers. "Technically faulty" video was made by one of the best cameramen and editors Andrija Pivcevic, a man with a thirty-years-long career, many documentary and commercial works, and about sixty feature movies and serials under his belt. The "technically faulty" video was broadcast on TV Nova and many local TV stations, and none of the idiotic viewers protested about the "termination of the program". Kresimir Macan and his team carried out the whole censoring operation, including its "defense", without informing the head of the station, which means that they carried out some kind of a subversive act, following the example of the major part of the "programming", which irresistibly smells of subversion.
Namely, after the scandal went public, the head of HTV Mirko Galic called Feral, completely ignorant of the situation and shocked by what had been done. "I do not want to be remembered as someone who imposes or allows censorship, especially against journalists", he said. He told he would watch the video, check out the alleged "technical fault" with three directors, and phone back the same afternoon. And really, Galic phoned back a few hours later, said the video was fine, apologized for the inconvenience and said the video would be broadcast in the next paid time slot. The spokesman's reaction to Galic's move is yet to be seen.
We are not, however, interested in the condition of the pent-up chaos in the institution in which Mirko Galic is caught in a paradoxical situation trying to bring back the lost spirit of freedom by force. He will recover from the stab in the back by his spokesperson, and we are interested in the incurable ones, whose retardation is hereditary and contagious, from a regime to a regime, from servility to another servility.
There is a big population of mentally crippled, who are ready to commit any imaginable perversity in the realm of spirit, with the explanation that they are doing it for the sake of health, or - as in the case of Kresimir Macan - "technical perfection". The fact that he was the spokesman of the HTV during Tudjman, when no independent media could broadcast a pre-paid TV commercial, and that he is ready to defend that "concept" and call it a "technical fault" instead of censorship, is completely logical. It is a programming disease, which is a result of too many "healthy views" on the so-called social reality, and the only way to prevent further epidemic is to send the sick to the quarantine, outside the public area.
The spirit policemen do not need institutional call to action: they react instinctively, as hunting dogs, from one regime to another, from servility to servility. These bureaucrats used to walk around executive boards of the Communist party and colorful "kitsch detection commissions", then they served Tudjman's propaganda for ten years, and now they hunt "technical mistakes" wherever they detect something "socially unhealthy". In a sick society mental hygienists have the best sensors for the phenomenon of collective health.
It is clear that the video was banned because of the documentary scenes of the Old Bridge falling down, because "at this moment" those scenes - are inappropriate. "The moment" is such that Vesna Pusic was warned in the Parliament because of her statement that Croatia committed aggression in Bosnia. She is even asked to apologize, because by stating an easily verifiable fact, she "insulted the Croatian state" and broke the rules of public communication. Those rules are made by the spirit policemen, and do not depend on facts, but always and only on "this moment". That there is no Old Bridge because someone made it fall into Neretva is a fact, but expressing that fact "at this moment" is inappropriate.
That thing with "this moment" as the only allowed criterion of truth obviously has much deeper roots than the credulous ones could imagine. Though they cannot say they were not warned. The problem is that you should not release hunting dogs from the leash and expect them to behave differently then when on the leash. The Croatian Television will not become a credible institution of the liberal public when Mirko Galic bangs his fist on the table and declares freedom, but when numerous Macans [macan, pronounced "mahtsun", means a pussy cat] ran away from the TV like mice.