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Planet Waves | May 13, 2005
 
I was born a few months after the United States dropped their payload on Japan.  I guess that makes me one of the earliest "boomers."  I'm also one of the very first tv addicts, unable to remember life without it. I do have very early memories of the entire neighborhood gathered around our family tv set [little bitty screen, grainy black 'n white image, popcorn being passed.]  We were one of those fortunate few who could afford such a luxury. I remember the first color tv's -- that big [proud] peacock dazzling us with its extra-bright tail at every commercial break. I remember when rabbit-ears went in the trash and antennas came off the roof in favor of cable  -- and tv became a 24 hour proposition. Then came "premium channels." And pay-per-view.

While the tv junky in me is pleased as punch to have all those options -- sadly, I don't consider this progress.  First of all, the quality of programming is dismal and redundant ... back-to-back re-runs even on those networks that produce their own programming ... news stories loop over and over again, most of them patronizing sound-bites -- if I wanted war coverage accompanied by patriotic music and flapping American flags, I'd rent Patton.  And because I get around the web [I didn't hear this on tv] cable news does not include what the government refers to as "hostile information."  That would be ... ummm ... stuff that makes them look bad. Since most everything does -- what kind of "news" is that?

Who's responsible?  We are, of course.  They "give us what we want," according to tv exec's ... everything's judged by ratings, and if ratings drop -- yer outta here!  It follows then that tv reflects the sensibilities of the general public. But that shouldn't shock anyone -- while there are exceptions to the rule, tv is not an educational tool; it was designed to keep us busy and entertained, and sell us things we didn't even know we wanted, not teach us critical thinking. 

"The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter, but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining."
~ Neil Postman


As much as I love tv [and set my VCR to grab those few programs that hold my interest these days] I fear that what it used to be was vastly better than what it has become. It used to be BENIGN entertainment ... it's not, anymore -- it dumbs us down while it pretends to inform us, and I find myself in agreement with this Raymond Chandler quote:

So by all means let's have a television show quick and long, even if the commercial has to be delivered by a man in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, selling ergot pills. After all the public is entitled to what it wants, isn't it? The Romans knew that and even they lasted four hundred years after they started to putrefy.

And tv news?  Reminds me of infomercials ... it "sells" me notions the same way QVC wants to sell me cutlery at 2 am.  There are a handful of channels that are better than others -- PBS used to be one of them, but don't hold your breath now.  C-SPAN, BBC.  Still, we need to practice discernment with anything we're being told -- don't drink the Kool-Aid, dearhearts. They don't call it the "boob tube" for nothing.

William Rivers Pitt has a few things to say on this subject -- here's a snip:

For me, that's it in a nutshell. That's what ails us as a nation. The corporate media does not report the news anymore. They create consensus, they manufacture the common fictions under which we are expected to live. With the TV media, this behavior is all the more insidious because TV reaches everyone.

Television is the most extraordinarily effective tool of mass control that has ever been invented by anyone anywhere.

Read his article below, and another from the American Progress Action Fund -- READING is still a worthwhile and valuable skill, no matter WHAT they tell you on tv.
 
Peace ~

Jude
 

 
Eric Francis is on holiday. Jude, the editor of Political Waves, is standing in for his daily blog this week. You can subscribe to Political Waves (our all-politics news distribution list) for free at the link below. You’ll receive between five and 10 news articles each day. You may write to Jude with your responses to her commentaries at  moderator@planetwaves.net.

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