The Great Perversion

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Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:05:38 -0500 (EST)

The Great Perversion

S

 

 

 

 

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_charles__051213_the_great_perversion.htm

 

 

OpEdNews.com

 

Original Article at

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_charles__051213_the_great_perversion.htm

 

December 13, 2005

 

The Great Perversion

 

Both television and today's sophisticated computer games are powerful

psychotropic drugs that alter one's perception of reality. Indeed,

they have become a substitute for reality—a surrogate for actual

experience. Rather than living life, most Americans now experience it

vicariously through the medium of television. Hence the proliferation

of so many so called Reality Shows. Contrary to public opinion, the

purpose of commercial television is not to inform the people with

information that is relevant to their lives. It is to substitute

fantasy for reality, lies for truth; entertainment for knowledge. The

programming that most of us watch is not the primary purpose of

television. Commercials—capitalism—are the primary reason for the

existence of television. Even public television is not immune from

heavy-handed manipulation from the Whitehouse and corporations.

 

The experience that most Americans live vicariously through television

is an utter fraud. As Thoreau said, " We have become the tools of our

tools. " Our lives have become more virtual than real. Fraud does not

inform our experience; nor does it provide us with the information we

need to make intelligent decisions about life. Like all things

American, television has been perverted from a tool with enormous

potential for education to the trivial commodity of patent capitalism

we call entertainment.

 

According to consumer advocate Ralph Nader, ninety percent of

television is commercial. That makes it ninety percent trivial and

about ten percent useful to the growth of human potential. Television

is a powerful, seductive, mind numbing drug that renders viewers

physically passive, but open to the endless message of blind

consumption. It holds the viewers fast while programming the mind to

consume and to accept the manifest lies and propaganda spewed forth by

the corporate juggernaut that has hijacked both the American

government and the public air waves. As a compelling mind altering

drug, television is without equal in the annals of human history.

 

Both television and computer games cajole and control the unsuspecting

minds of their subconscious addicts. They reduce the attention span

and render us useless as citizens. Those who are seduced and

mesmerized by television are not likely to make trouble. They are not

going to question corporate America's version of reality and make

waves for the status quo. Television is junk food for the mind that

leads to morbid mental obesity. The result is impaired mental

function. It stifles free thought and inhibits human potential.

Nothing in the history of civilization has been more responsible for

dumbing down the American public than commercial television.

Television numbs the mind and impoverishes the spirit. It is an

essential tool of the corporations that have hijacked the American

government and led to the commodification of everything from forests

to human labor. Without the commanding and highly addictive drug of

television, America's powerful military industrial complex, with its

ambitions for world domination, would be rendered moot.

 

Introduced to the world as a tool with enormous potential for

education, television has been converted into an insidious tool for

mindless consumption by unbridled capitalism. This is an important

point because the political perception of the average American is

shaped almost entirely not by reality or by the evidence, but by the

self serving interest of corporate entities driven by an insatiable

lust for obscene profits. Tragically, we have allowed those entities

to do our thinking for us—often with horrific results.

 

This point is equally valid for commercial radio where rabid right

wing talk show hosts work the airwaves tirelessly in the service of

their corporate pay masters. Daily, a cadre of deceitful corporate

puppets masquerading as public servants fleeces a gullible American

public with their endless drivel and incessant propaganda. They are so

effective in selling the public their well coordinated daily talking

points—many of which emanate from television's Fox News—that they

actually convince millions of people to deliberately act against their

own self interest. Once the domain of considerable diversity that

featured local programming, the public owned radio waves are now the

almost exclusive domain of corporations that hold contempt for the

public welfare. Corporate entities like Clear Channel have neither

heart nor soul. What matters to them are market shares and profit

margins. They are raking in billions by tapping into the millions of

exploited angry white conservatives who unwittingly do the bidding of

corporate America. Here is a news flash for those white, mostly male

conservatives: It's the corporations, stupid!

 

Government is not the problem that conservatives make it out to be.

Government is the scapegoat of the corporations that have stolen it

from under our inattentive noses. Government becomes a problem when it

is run by corporations and millionaires rather than by ordinary people

who serve the public interest.

 

To the extent that any segment of the American public is awake to a

reality that adheres closely to the observed evidence, we find

ourselves utterly abandoned by those who are supposed to serve us. The

government is no longer the servant of the people that it promised to

be. It has been bought by ill gotten corporate wealth. It makes a

mockery of the very concept of democracy. Let us learn to call the

American government what it really is. We use terms like freedom and

democracy much too recklessly. We live in a corporate oligarchy or a

plutocracy, not a democracy. It's not even close.

 

This explains why it is so absurd for Americans to talk about bringing

democracy to the Middle East. We cannot bring democracy to any nation,

to any people, until we demand it here. We cannot liberate anyone

until we liberate ourselves from the iron grip of capitalism and its

ugly cousin, corporatism. The airwaves, whether pertaining to

television or radio, belong to the people—not to the corporations that

exploit them for private gain. The public air waves should be used in

the public interest. The corporations that have stolen them will never

give them back unless we force them to. Do not look to the

commercially owned puppets in government to help us. They are in the

pockets of their corporate pay masters. It is up to us.

 

Charles Sullivan is a furniture maker, photographer, and free lance

writer residing in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. He welcomes

your comments at earthdog.