Stupidity: TV's Cultural Objective

TV IS the 'vast wasteland' Newton Minow spoke about in 1961... Still...

Its everywhere you look... irresponsible, uncaring, stupid behavior. We have, as a society, raised ignorance to an art form and non-responsibility to a religion. And, unless you've killed your television, it's your fault.

You can see it in the confederacy of bumpkins paraded before you like a slave auction on almost every talk show - people who are paid to be dumber than dirt for the amusement of people who [wrongly] think they are in some way superior.

Have you noticed the surfeit of 'Court' shows, lately? Judges Mathis, Milian, Dougherty, Brown and Scheindlin abrading and 'judging' defendants. Are we clear that the warring parties get paid for this circus? That's right... Unlike the real world, where suing somebody for nonsense can cost you, when the TV judgment is rendered, the 'pot' is split with that much more going to one or another litigant. Jeez, what a win-win... fame, fortune, advertising revenue and an audience of dumb-asses who actually believe that the law is in any way being served, much less being followed to anywhere near the letter.

OK, so TV is largely the 'vast wasteland' Newton Minow spoke about in 1961, while chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. But stupidity is more than a spectator sport...

You buy lottery tickets? Yes? You independently wealthy? No? Then what you are is incapable of basic math, because the chance of winning the gazillions on the billboard are just slightly WORSE than the chance you'll be hit by lightning or struck down on the way to church by a block of blue ice that escaped from the aero-potty of a jetliner as it passed over your sleepy little 'burb.

It's no wonder the Fed doesn't enforce the truth in advertising laws anymore. If they did, the state lotteries couldn't mislead people with slogans like "You can't win if you don't play", which is true to the same extent that the guy stealing your money at a three-card-monty table is speaking truth when he says you can follow the card and take his cash. Yeah, he's standing out there as an act of charity. You'll make more money if you take that ten or twenty bucks to the bank every week. And you won't look nearly like the trailer trash standing in line at the lotto counter of the mini-mart.

Everybody knows TV wrestling is fake, right? Uh...Right??? Well, I have a surprise for ya... so are the presidential debates, which are run under an agreement between the Republicrats and the Democrumbs that specifically outlines how there won't be anything that even vaguely resembles actual debate between candidates. Not now...not ever.

This is not Robert's rules of order, this is how they collude to keep you sheep baa-ing contentedly. Worse still, if you attain the appropriate level of contempt for these carpet bagging pond scum, they do not care. The lovely thing about a REPUBLIC is that we do NOT make the rules. We choose people to make the rules, and we chose the current rogues gallery to represent our will. Forget about Purel in the porta-potty, I'd suggest washing your hands after you exit a voting booth.

Next time you see an ad for the ambulance-chasing shyster who swears he, she or it will get you "...all the money you deserve..." because "...doctors make mistakes...", you might want to ask them what happens when they, being human and all, commit an error. How many clients have they paid back for their errors? What's the chance that they'll sue another lawyer for screwing up your divorce, custody battle or incarceration? About zilch, I'll wager. Their highest ideal is not truth, justice and the American Way, it's taking somewhere between forty and sixty percent of any award they might beat out of a jury.

You can bet the steel-trap legal minds advertising on the tube are not looking for a chance to work 'Pro Bono' because they grasp the rightness of your cause. The colors they're flying are the red, white, blue and mostly green.

Had enough...? No? OK...

Then there's Martha. Yeah, that one... Ankle bracelet ex-con with her own new TV show. Bleating in front of an audience that thinks what is important is towels and a china patterns and what isn't important is that the center of their demented attention hasn't been out of prison long enough to dry clean the uniform.

Up we are mixed. Up we are screwed. Biciles we are im. With no sign of respite from the herd of ad-driven brain-numbing words and pictures projectile-vomited from the soul-deadening appliance in the living room.

Shut it off. Or watch your society die a slow, ugly, painful and commercial (but surprisingly affordable) death. If you don't believe me , check out the commercials for "Casket Royale"