“And my dirty dreams all come alive
on my TV screen
And assassination plots
Show me what I haven’t got
Show me what I love
and who I’m supposed to be
Show me everything I need
Show it all to me.”
- The Goo Goo Dolls, “Flat Top”
Television – aka “The Glass Teat” or “The Zombie Box”
Television is an interesting topic, because pretty much most of the population owns a TV and watches one on a regular basis. The idea of television is so ingrained into our society that to not watch it is to be an anomaly. To live in two worlds usually means to have given up most aspects of the media, including television. For myself, I haven’t had cable hookup since 1998. Nine years being TV-free, save for those times I’ve glimpsed it while traveling or while at work or in public. It’s nice.
Watching television is an avenue for disengaging your mind where you sit in a trance state, absorbing what is presented to you on the screen, in between being bombarded with commercials telling you what to do and who to be. Here is a good summary of what my biggest peeves with TV are:
1. “Dream logic” and absurdity. Commercials – and even show plots – that increasingly make absolutely NO sense. Have you noticed this? It’s disjointed randomness slapped together, or people acting like buffoon clowns, not even remotely resembling anything going on in the real world. Here’s one interesting example of the current state of “dream logic” within TV show plots. Henry Makow felt that the plot was depraved; maybe so, but it was also completely absurd. ! The more I read, the worse it got, just disintegrating into complete nonsense. What does watching disjointed illogical (gross out/depraved) nuttiness do to people over time I wonder? Rhetorical question, of course.
[On a side note – Kid’s cartoons also have to be noted as well. Comparing today’s cartoons with those of previous decades, the “animation” is often times second rate, with purposely ugly and assymetrical character features, and plots that play out in a spazzy, disjointed way. Hyper choppy movements, chaotic backgrounds, and lots of visual “noise.” And nothing happening in these cartoons really makes any sense. There’s no real coherent plot going on. Compare some of today’s cartoons to old cartoons, such as Scooby Doo, The Jetsons, Muppet Babies, The Flintstones, and so on. !! It all serves a very calculated purpose though – create scramble brain. When people are scrambled, they can’t think and be effective. I feel sorry for the kids born in the 90s and beyond, because they really got the short end of the stick with their entertainment. “Stuff” moved in to kick things up a few notches for them, not just with cartoons and television programs, but with their toys, video games, and everything in general. The cartoons and entertainment they watch is just one component of a mass attempt at brain scramble.]
2. Desensitization of the masses/Agendas. Recently during a trip to the northeast I was staying in a hotel room, giving me access to TV. I was a bit shocked to say the least at what I was seeing. A commercial featuring a couple in their mid to late 20s driving in a car – the car goes BUMP over something in the road. The guy driver is grinning from ear to ear. It turns out they just ran something over – the girlfriend asks, Shouldn’t we go back? looking over her shoulder at the road behind them, wondering what it is. Still grinning with that maniac grin, the guy laughs that he just ran over a raccoon. Back in 2004 while staying at a motel during our move to Virginia I saw an episode of Fear Factor, and before I realized it was going to happen, the host of the show took a container of live maggots, dumped them into a blender and put it on high. Then the contestants had to drink it.
Animal cruelty, sexual degradation, violence, these are all the normal parts of television when you flip it on in 2007, and the younger generation who’ve been raised on it don’t know any better. They think this is normal. The bar is being raised higher every year in an agenda to desensitize the masses. I was watching one of those VH-1 countdown shows and couldn’t believe the things that were coming out of some of the “talking puppets’” mouths who were giving their irrelevant two cents on the various people who had made it onto the list. As crazy as this sounds I actually questioned whether it was real. The things that the people were saying made me wonder uh, is this broadcast really real? Or is somebody playing with me? I remember what VH-1 used to be years ago, and it’s not even the same network anymore. Why they still call it VH-1, “Video Hits 1” as it originally was, is beyond me. Now it’s a “Hot List Countdown” network full of bizarre/gross commentary.
3. Tabloid and/or “news” shows that will do and say ANYTHING to get your attention and get you tuned in. A recent example being the OJ interview that had been in the works, called “If I Did It.” As soon as he announced he was going to write a hypothetical account, with accompanying interviews, the media was clammering all over it, desperately trying to hook viewers’/readers’ attentions with it. “LOOK HERE! LOOK HERE! HERE!HERE!HERE!!!!” Then when the public backlash kicked in, it was later revealed that the whole thing wasn’t real, and that OJ never planned to do that. So what’s really going on here? Do we even want to know? !
4. Condescending. The way so many programs talk down to people, using simple vocabulary and sentence structure geared at about a fifth grade level, while keeping everything super short because they believe you wouldn’t be able to sustain attention for longer than one minute here, and one minute there. If you’re dumb you won’t notice it. If you’re smart you’ll have no tolerance for it!
5. CNN and any nightly news program. All gloom and doom and fear and terror, propaganda, lies and more lies, all the time. Recently a friend forwarded an interesting movie featured on Google called Militainment, which discusses the way in which television is controlled by the Pentagon, the huge propaganda machine with the war in Iraq, and the way the war is being portrayed on CNN and the nightly news like a fun and exciting movie from Hollywood.
6. Pointless chatter puff pieces. The other day I was sitting in the waiting area of a car repair shop, waiting for my car, and they had a TV set up and going for the customers. There was no way to turn it off either, apparently, because trust me I looked. ;) I was subjected to a whole hour of “Regis and Kelly” and then a whole hour of Kathy Lee Gifford and her side kick, and after two hours of hyper amped up chatter about absolutely nothing, and then all the commercials on top of it, let’s just say….I actually felt like I was going slightly bonkers. My head was swimming and I felt agitated. I don’t know how people watch this stuff every day. TV wants to keep your head busy with pointless chatter/internal dialogue so that you never have time to clear your head and be focused. Why? Because then you might actually have your own thoughts, and think of meaningful, important things. And the Powers That Be definitely don’t want THAT now, God forbid. Society is programmed to believe that it needs to listen to the inane banter of what other people have to say about everything, all the time. How about a nice dose of silence instead? shhhhhhhhhhh……….now there’s a novel idea.
And that’s not even counting the spy technology in your cable boxes, all the subliminal ads and messages inserted in at every turn, and whatever wave beams may be emitted by your TV and its accessories. With millions and millions and millions of people tuned in and “plugged in” worldwide, you have to wonder how that is……exploited, by those with the technological know-how.
It’s all so manipulative and so calculating that I wonder how people can even stand it anymore. How do people tolerate this…on a daily basis?
I have two of my “ultimate TV anecdotes” which I’ll relay here, because it’s so fitting: But back in 2005 I briefly worked at what I nicknamed the “Illuminati hotel”, and which had a one-channel TV going in the break room. It was mandatory for this TV to be on, to CNN, all day long. Any time I was in the break room by myself though I always shut it off. I have no tolerance to even hear stuff like CNN going in the background. It agitates and amps me up. Can’t deal. So I’d be sitting in blissful quiet, eating and reading, and guaranteed, somebody else would come into the room and become just as “!!!!!!” about the fact that the TV was off. Complete opposite reaction. They’d visibly get nervous, or even frown at me, trying to make me seem like a weirdo, and turn it back on and be glued to it the rest of the time they were in the room.
Another time I was passing through the crowded break room and saw one of the HR girls sitting at her table, fork suspended in mid air, mouth hanging open, face transfixed by the television set mounted from the ceiling in front of her. I turned to look at what she was so mesmerized by and saw a manic commercial with people jumping around like clown buffoons, hyper music going, just total ridiculous nonsense. I turned back to her and announced loudly to the room, pointing at the television as I continued walking past, “THAT’S why I don’t watch TV!”
She looked at me like, Huh? pulling herself out of her trance. Slowly and confused she said, “Why? Because you don’t like ____?” (insert product name, can’t remember what it was.)
I was like, !!!! “NO! Because of commercials like THAT!”
Hello, talk about missing the point. She didn’t even know that her fork was suspended in mid air or that her mouth had been hanging open, didn’t realize she was entranced, totally missed the point of what I was saying and STILL didn’t get or “see” it even after I pointed it out to her.
In that break room I was surrounded by employees of every color, from multi cultural backgrounds, many of them not even from America, but nobody else got it. People thought I was weird when I’d point stuff out or question what we were seeing. Like the time there was some interview going of a woman whose daughter had been kidnapped back in 1985 and never found. The interviewer furrowed her brows, trying her best to mimic how we humans do the emotion called “concern” and asked, “How did that make you feel when you learned your daughter had been kidnapped?” I heard that and said “WHAT?!” my head whipping over towards the TV. “How does she think it made her feel? Happy?” Yeah, I realize I was talking at the TV ;) but still, nobody agreed with me or nodded. Most people don’t see it I’ve learned, no matter what their background or where they’re from, a fact that truly mystifies me…and scares me.
Newspapers – Forget it and go make your own news.
The newspapers are mostly all lies, so since they serve no real purpose, out the window they go too. Most papers have content that is 99% negatively oriented, with stories that have no relevance to anything that’s happening to you personally, and they usually concern things that you can do absolutely nothing about. What purpose does it serve to know about who’s slaughtering whom half a world away?? Especially when the incidents in question have already taken place, so there’s nothing anybody can do about it now? You know, just wondering. It’s all just another avenue for The Powers That Be (TPTB) to peddle a version of reality that they want you to believe and accept. The real incidents of a conspiratorial nature rarely if ever get covered by any paper that’s corporate owned. So if you never read the newspaper, you’d be no worse off in my opinion. It would not directly affect you, or your day-to-day happenings, other than you’d have to find some other substitute to read on the bus, subway, or on your lunch break at work.
Actually, I forgot, newspapers do serve one useful purpose — they make great absorbent liners to go underneath my cat’s litter box for those times when she misses the box and accidentally pees on the floor. ;) But if you’re looking for truth, you’re not going to find it on those black and white pages. The newspaper’s “truth” is not your truth. Your truth is all around you. Just start paying attention. It can be found within the events of your life. The real news is outside your front door. Grab a camera and go poke around and investigate. Make your own news. You’ll be surprised what you find, even in the most seemingly boring of small towns.
The Internet
The internet…personally, I love the internet, it’s probably the greatest modern invention of Mankind. It least it has some usefulness and doesn’t have forced, mandatory commercials. And with ad-blockers, you can eliminate even the annoying still-frame ads. There’s 50 billion websites to choose from on every topic under the sun, you can actually learn something, and, there’s at least some sort of interaction going on between you and others. The internet is fascinating, because basically, it’s changed life as we know it. For better or worse, it’s hard to tell sometimes. ;) Shopping online, banking online, finding mates online or friends with common interests, books online, movies online. Email. If you want to know anything – anything – you just hop on your favorite search engine and do a search. You can access anything you want, the world over, instantaneously. Most people use the internet so often that they no longer take a moment to comprehend this fact. Remember the days of going to the library? No? Me neither. ;) The entire planet is connected. There has NEVER been anything like it. It wields awesome power. And it’s scary to think of how much will be lost when and if civilization ever does go down…again. For one brief shining moment in Version 5.0’s history, we had something like this. Use it wisely, is all I can suggest. Take every advantage of it while it lasts.
But, there are the drawbacks that we all have to be very mindful of, of course. It can be as addicting as television. It uses up hours of people’s days, keeping them from interacting with their families, or engaging in meaningful hobbies. It can be abused with “negative content” of an exploitative nature, to put it delicately, and used to spread lies and disinformation…and at insane speeds like never before. It can be information overload, encouraging a short attention span, as people rapidly click from site to site to site. Not much difference between a television remote control and a computer mouse in that regard. Information overload also leads to busy mind with non-stop chattering internal dialogue. And sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time has negative physical effects. On the eyes. On the body due to lack of physical exercise. And from the electromagnetic waves pouring off the screen. Being around electronic equipment isn’t healthy by any means.
While the internet is fantastic for networking and finding like minded people all over the world, it simultaneously encourages people to become disconnected from each other. Go to any internet gossip blog or message form and you’ll often find people saying the most vile things not only about entertainment performers, but back and forth to each other as they fight and rip each other apart in anonymous giddy glee, safely protected behind their computer screens. People say things on the internet that they’d never say to someone’s face, and this encourages dehumanization. “People” are often times now just words on a screen, and images to rip apart. And on a deeper metaphysical level, there’s the concept of Rudolf Steiner’s Ahrimaic Consciousness, which is the mechanical, robotic side of Man, that is already spreading like wildfire. It’s too large of a topic to get into here, but planting oneself for hours a day in front of a computers and electronic equipment will do something to your personality and life force. And with an interconnected medium such as the spiderweb internet, be mindful of the “critters” that reside in other realms who use it to their advantage.
Radio and Magazines – Somebody pushed the “repeat” button and walked away….
In my “Thoughts” section I have a blurb about the repetitious nature of the mass media, specifically radio and magazines, and how the world around us seems to be on “repeat” mode. The world changes…but so much stays the same. Women’s magazines run the same stories, month after month. The same topics, the same issues. Simultaneously pushing food, while in the next breath trying to convince you that you’re fat and need to diet. How to find a man, how to keep your man. Sex sex and more sex. The latest fashion/hair/cosmetic trends. Celebs. More food. More sex. More celebs. Repeat. Hello! Can we wake up from this looping nightmare already?? Hasn’t anybody noticed that most magazines, women’s especially, all have the same format and run the same interchangeable stories? What a colossal waste of trees!
With mainstream radio it’s the same deal. Excluding independently owned stations that play a variety of music and encourage local musicians, the corporate owned radio stations all run on the same format. Goofy morning show in the a.m., with over caffeinated perky hosts guffawing through your speakers; “Two-For Tuesdays,” the “All Request Lunch Hour”; and the afternoon show for the ride home. And the worst offender of all: The repetitive play list. Playing the same 100 songs, over and over and over and over and over. With Top 40 stations, it’s the 100 most popular songs of the moment, endlessly pounded into your head. With stations that cater to the 60’s – 90’s, it’s the same select few songs from certain artists….as if they never recorded any other songs or had multiple albums.
A big part of why this is involves the human love of ritual and all things safe and secure. Many reading this have probably known a person who liked to play their radio at work, always tuned to the same station, with the same song list playing, day in and day out. It’s comforting. It’s secure. The world is a safe place when you can count on your radio to always be there for you, playing the same comforting song list. In a cold, cruel world, at least the radio will never let you down. ;) Problem is, this programs and conditions people to stay within the safe confines of a limited existence. Don’t take risks. Don’t rise up and look around outside the pen. Stay put. And never mind the programming that occurs from all the manic, amped up commercials that always have the volume turned up higher than the songs.
The world of music also seems to have reached a stagnant stalemate. Music coming out today often times can’t be differentiated between music from the 90’s, ten years ago. So much is just recycled, with no originality. Remember how each decade used to have its own unique sound, as the world of the 20th century progressed very rapidly? Things were changing so quickly in years past that when I’m listening to classic rock/oldies I can most times actually pinpoint what year a song came out in….even if I’ve never heard it before. That’s because every few years there was a new and unique element being added to the mix with music, all of which makes it possible nowadays to accurately guess, plus or minus a year, when a song was released. Well, what happened?? Where’s the “sound of now” ? There is none. But how many people have actually noticed this?
And here’s an idea/question I’ll leave off with concerning music – how is that seemingly unrelated bands from different areas of the country that get “discovered” by talent scouts and signed on to recording labels somehow all managed to come up with the same exact sound, so that when they are featured on the radio and MTV, every band’s sound matches with the others creating that “sound of the moment” ?? This isn’t something that pertains to just the present day either, this is something that goes back decades. Why is it that every time period must have a “certain sound”? And who determines what this sound will be? Also, if society was able to come up with a particular musical sound or genre in one decade, are we to believe that it wasn’t feasible several years prior? Using the 50’s and 60’s as a good example – the late 60’s is infamous for its now classic rock – but how come this sound didn’t “evolve” ten years earlier? They had the instruments in the 50’s – the electric guitar, bass, drums – so who is it that decided to flip the switch “on” and usher in the sound of what we now know of classic 60’s and early 70’s rock? Who created that sound and why did everybody have the same sound? It seems almost too obvious to ponder. It’s something that really hit my boyfriend and I several years ago, and which I’ve been wondering about ever since.
The whole “sound of the moment” thing is another programming tool when you think about it, because it forces the herd into accepting limited choices and options. “This is all you have to listen to at the moment. This is all that has been ‘invented’ as of yet.”
Movies and Hollyweird
Movies, with the rare exception of those meaningful message movies loaded with symbolisms and analogous truths about our reality, are for the most part completely useless. The average movie is geared toward the mindset of a twelve year old, complete with gross out toilet humor and physical “comedy” where people being maimed and killed is now played for laughs. A ha ha! A ha ha!
There’s the standard sadistic horror gore bonanza, involving people being maimed and killed in grotesque and demonic ways for fear harvesting purposes, numbing the audience with endless scenes of dehumanization. Saw I, II & III, Hostel I & II, Silent Hill, etc., and the never ending parade of movies centering around serial killers and people getting killed in horrific ways just for the sake of showing them getting killed. Every famous serial killer out there now has a movie about them represented at Blockbuster. “Become a serial killer and attain eternal fame and glory!” I keep “joking” to my boyfriend over the past year that there’s no point in going to Blockbuster to find a movie because there’s only going to be demonic ghastly movie covers every other movie. Have you noticed that, what’s going on with movie stores? C-level straight-to-video demonic freak fare has taken over the shelves, with their DVD covers that have the same cookie cutter gritty coloring and graphic design and images of people bound up with torture instruments, decaying flesh and bones, dismembered body parts, blood, knives, mouths and eyes stitched up, demonic faces, etc. With every year it gets worse, and worse, and worse. We’re nearly on the brink of mainstreaming snuff films. Because that’s what these movies almost amount to. Agendas. Desensitize the masses. As a result I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to Blockbuster. It’s been months and months now. And I’ve been a member since ’94, so, that says a lot. I’m just sick and tired of the crappy movie selection and DVD box covers. In fact I may as well just cut my membership card in half and call it a day since I’ve resorted to getting movies online now!
Related to this is the way in which many movies nowadays try to slip in shocking scenes and material out of nowhere, to the point where it’s completely gratuitous. And…..shocking. It’s stuff that doesn’t need to be there and may involve injury, rape, torture or death of innocent people, children and animals. It’s one thing when a movie advertises itself as demonic freak fare – you know going in what it is, you can’t pretend to be shocked – but when a movie slips in shocking gratuitous stuff out of nowhere that has nothing to do with the movie’s plot it makes you feel like you just had the rug pulled out from under you, and that you were tricked. I now make sure to really read through movie reviews on sites such as imdb.com before seeing movies to see what other people are saying. Not about acting, and plot holes and good or bad endings, but about stuff like this. And I’ve actually scrapped seeing several movies recently for that very reason. People on imdb.com had noted some shocking scenes that were slipped in to a movie and I’m glad they talked about it, because that’s exactly the sort of thing I now unfortunately have to be on the lookout for. You didn’t used to have to……but you do now, because things have changed. “Stuff” has taken over this reality.
So if demonic freak fare isn’t your cup of tea, then there’s always the mindless stream of romantic comedies, with the same recycled plot. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl to competing boy. Madcap antics ensue. Boy wins girl back at the end. The end. See, I just saved you $8 on each of the next 150 or so movies that are scheduled for release in the upcoming year. Or the $1.99 – $3.99 on renting the DVDs at your local video store. Amazing!
Movies are not all completely useless though. That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are those occasional movies with meaningful analogous truth about reality and great symbolisms, and those that are totally unique and ground breaking and actually deserving of being labeled “artistic.” But finding the meaningful, clever, intelligent and artistic movies among the ever increasing nonsense is like finding a needle in a haystack, to use a totally unoriginal cliche.
Something else worth pointing out while on the subject of movies, and the agenda they serve, is Blockbuster Video. Besides their newfound affinity towards carrying a huge selection of C-level straight-to-video demonic freak fare, you may have also noticed the posters on their windows advertising their special membership thing where for $14.99 a month, you can rent all the movies you want. With no return dates. And no late fees. You will literally see people carrying a stack of movies, piled ten or twelve deep, up to the checkout counter. Doesn’t this seem…oh I don’t know…a little weird?? Like, maybe something out there wants to entice people to waste as much of their time as humanly possible parked in front of their television, watching movies?? I like a good movie as much as the next person, but who in their right mind would watch that many movies to that extent?? TPTB don’t want us out there in the world noticing things, or interacting with each other in meaningful ways, thinking, engaging the brain, and possibly rising up and making changes. So along comes the push for mass entertainment consumption.
By-product of Media Obsession – Celeb Worship
Another aspect of the media that has to be noted are…the celebrities! Of course. Right off the bat I’m going to confess that I have partaken in the celebrity gossip. I won’t be a hypocrite. I’ve gotten bored at work, and there I was, clicking on mindless celeb stories to pass the time, or I’d find myself grabbing a mag while at Barnes and Noble, or while waiting in line at the check stand at the grocery store. The thing that I can’t help but point out though is how creepy the entire scene comes across. To say that Hollyweird is the land of smoke and mirrors and illusions is putting it mildly. The first time I ever watched “Eyes Wide Shut” I know I suddenly began thinking of those vapid blank cover models and starlets a little differently. I wondered how many of them had the “double life” thing going on as seen in that movie, or were being used as pawn objects by handlers who exploit them and then toss them aside. When flipping the glossy pages of those magazines it never ceases to amaze me what I’m seeing. Young starlets mimicking the Gray hybrid look – huge piercing eyes, blank stony faces, tiny little 80 pound bodies. And then all the empty headed stars who can’t act and have nothing going on between their ears, paraded before us as something to worship.
As somebody I know mentioned to me in an email recently, he swears he hasn’t not seen one of the former Mousketeers – Christina, Britney, Justin – on a cover of some magazine at the check stand over the past seven years. The same goes for Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson, the Olsen twins, Larry Birkhead, Amy Winehouse, Beyonce. They’re always there, every time you turn around. And I had to ask…..why is that? What’s going on here? It’s the same with a certain blonde socialite (and her “best friend” side kick as well…) whom I won’t even dignify here by mentioning their names, but I think we all know who I’m talking about. There’s no escaping their visages. Why? I only semi-jokingly complained on a message board forum about two years ago that the blonde’s mug being on every other magazine cover and all over the internet to the point of no escaping it was a “psy-ops experiment” on the population. (Even at my favorite weather website, www.wunderground.com, they had an ad that featured her face. I wanted to see if it was going to snow, and instead I got hit with another image of her.) I really do believe there’s an ulterior motive going on here by those at the top and in the know wielding the power over the programmed masses. Anybody with even a smidgeon of understanding about the techniques of brainwashing has to recognize this. Brainwashing 101. You park somebody down and bombard them with repeating audio and visual, until they walk away convinced of something they wouldn’t have accepted before. Would the mass public “accept” these people as their entertainment distraction gods and goddesses, becoming obsessed with following their lives, if they weren’t bombarded with non-stop images everywhere they turn convincing them to do so? I think not.
If you didn’t know any better, at any given point in time you might think that there are only 20 actors/actresses/singers total in the business based on the fact that only 20 or so celebs seem to get the focus on every magazine cover. Who is determining who gets to be “it” ? And why is there an “it” system in the first place? It’s a system where some invisible force tells the sheep herd, “Okay, everybody obsess about these ten people now!” Then the circus music cues and the herd stampedes off in the direction they’re pointed to. Psy-ops experiment, indeed.
Summary
The thing that many people are in denial about is the effect of long term media consumption on the human psyche. I don’t need formal scientific studies to validate for me what I’ve already seen and experienced for myself…..back when I indiscriminately watched any ol’ movie and TV show, I was numbed to violence, human suffering, and had less empathy overall. After going without television for years, that slowly changed. Things that didn’t used to faze me, because of my numbed stupor, suddenly became shocking and distressing to me. It’s become much harder to view gratuitous violence anymore in movies, and in those times when I do come across television in my travels I’m always disgusted by what I’m seeing. It’s amazing to think that I used to watch it all without a second thought….and thought it was normal. When you’re raised with TV, then it’s all you know. (although granted, I didn’t watch half the amount of TV growing up that other kids did. I spent a huge amount of time reading, or playing outside, which was good.) The longer you go without mass media, the more you begin to realize just how un-natural most of it is. Always remember that besides serving as a distraction tactic, TPTB are using the media to re-wire the human brain, program belief systems into us, mold our personalities, numb us to violence and human degradation and send us in a downward spiritual spiral overall.
In my “Thoughts” section I did a brief write up regarding the idea of “Resist the Click!” which concerns me no longer reading ANY internet news stories or fluffy gossip blogs. I hit my breaking point one day, which I discuss in that write up, and that was it. I stopped it all cold turkey. I only used the internet to check my email, run my website, and visit my favorite message board forum community. Everything else….out the window. Well, that lasted for about one month exactly, until I finished writing my book and found myself once again at work with oodles of free time. Then the bad habit crept back in. And I’ve gone back and forth about it ever since. Right now as I type this, I’m all into reading a great book called Media Sexploitation: The Hidden Implants in America’s Mass Media – and how they program and condition your subconscious mind by Wilson Bryan Key. It’s an interesting read, covering the gambit from sexual subliminals to cultural programming regarding what is “normal” and what isn’t, as well as the use of manipulative language in newspapers and magazines, and the dishonest news media. You’re not paranoid to think that every single aspect of any part of media from a television commercial to a catalogue layout, a news magazine story to a print ad has been thoroughly manipulated in every way possible to influence or program you, and this book shows you how and why. Nothing gets out there unless it’s going to program, influence and reinforce and there are lots of great eye opening examples, excerpts and photos for illustration in this book. I found that Mr. Key says many of the things I’m saying here, nearly word for word…but he was saying it 30 years ago. So this book alone has been motivating enough to go back to “resisting the click” because I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a part of the same herd that’s being so blatently manipulated. I strongly encourage not only reading this book, but all others that relate to the manipulation and programming that we the public have been exposed to over a lifetime of television, movies, magazines, newspapers, radio, and advertising. It’s eye opening. Let’s stop being puppets on a string.
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One of the great speeches from the 1976 movie “Network.” (Click Here to view the scene on YouTube)
Howard Beale: “So, a rich little man with white hair died. What does that got to do with the price of rice, right? And why is that woe to us? Because you people and 62 million other Americans are listening to me right now. Because less than 3 percent of you people read books. Because less than 15 percent of you read newspapers. Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn’t come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers. This tube is the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless world. And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people. And that’s why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA — the Communication Corporation of America. There’s a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy’s office on the 20th floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network. So, you listen to me. Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television’s a goddamn amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the truth, go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves, because that’s the only place you’re going to find any real truth. But, man, you’re never gonna get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you wanna hear. We lie like hell. We’ll tell you that Kojak always gets the killer and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry. Just look at your watch. At the end of the hour, he’s gonna win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness you maniacs! In God’s name you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion!
“So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I am speaking to you now! Turn them off!!”
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Interesting article from the L.A. Times regarding a movie theater owner in Illinois who would rather shut his theater down for several weeks then play the drivel that Hollywood is releasing:
Instead of Bad Movies, Cinema Shows None
HOOPESTON, Ill. “The “closed” sign went up a few weeks ago on the flashy neon marquee outside the Lorraine Theatre, but the 84-year-old movie palace on Main Street hasn’t played its last picture show. Business isn’t bad. It’s the movies that are wretched.
Both theaters in Hoopeston are closed … “because of such poor film choices available,” explains a recording on the Lorraine’s customer hotline. “Go to Danville to see ‘Jackass 2.’ “
Lorraine owner Greg Boardman put his two screens on hiatus rather than sell tickets to the gross-out and freakout fare he said Hollywood distributors had made available in recent weeks. Boardman said he’d rather show nothing than such recent offerings as “Beerfest,” “The Covenant” or the “Jackass” sequel, which topped the nation’s box office last week despite being panned by critics.
“There’s just so much lousy material out there, people vomiting on the screen,” said Boardman, 52, who grew up watching movies in the Lorraine and now runs the business from Northern California. “I have one of the finest sound systems in the world, and I don’t want to waste it on such drivel.”
When the town got its break from Hollywood, so did the Lorraine staff: two paid weeks off.
The protest ends today, when the Lorraine resumes operation with the new animated children’s movie “Open Season” as well as Disney’s recently released football movie, “Invincible.”
This isn’t a crusade launched by a G-rated puritan. The Lorraine has featured its share of R-rated fare, including “Brokeback Mountain” and “Miami Vice.” And there are plenty of action movies, the better to show off the rippling eight-channel digital sound system, a top-of-the-line feature rare even in big cities.
The Lorraine, opened in 1922 as a vaudeville house, was purchased in 1987 by Boardman, who repaired and reopened it.
In a business dominated by nationwide chains, Boardman is a small fry. But he says that keeps the business fun and gives him the freedom to do what he wants…including making his screens dark.”
©2006-2008
Carissa Conti