posted 01-10-2002 02:24 PM            

_____________________________________________

Review of Jerry Mander's
Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television
by Ron Kaufman

"Winston turned a switch and the voice sank somewhat, though the words were still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely . . . Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen."

-- from 1984 by George Orwell

http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/Jerry.Mander.html

"Television offers neither rest nor stimulation," Mander says. "Television inhibits your ability to think, but it does not lead to freedom of mind, relaxation or renewal. It leads to a more exhausted mind. You may have time out from prior obsessive thought patterns, but that's as far as television goes.

"The mind is never empty, the mind is filled. What's worse, it is filled with someone else's obsessive thoughts and images."

Why do you think they call it programming?

[Edited 1 times, lastly by defender on 01-27-2002]

posted 01-10-2002 02:34 PM            

quote:

---

In Media Violence Alert (2000), an informative and concise collection of five essays by a variety of insightful contributors that was put together by the Center For Successful Parenting (www.sosparents.org), Dr. Brandon Centerwall, M.D., M.P.H., documents in his essay "Television Comes To South Africa and Mcbride, Canada" that it has been proven in every single society in every single country in the whole wide world---from India to Indiana---that crime rates more than double within ten to fifteen years of the introduction of television to any society.

Wow! Why the fifteen-year delay, you ask? Because crime---rape, murder, assault---is an adult activity, and since television's greatest influence is on children, the time frame is indicative of the gestation period between when violent images are first perceived until when violent action is conceived. Basically, it's the length of time between how long it takes for the brutalization of a three to five year old to reach prime crime age.

It's common knowledge that children learn by mimicking, so it shouldn't be surprising to find out that within two years of introducing television to any group of children, two things will happen: the children's creative capacity will decrease by at least 22 percent and rates of biting, kicking, hitting, etc., will more than double. (Gee, I bet a third thing will happen, too. I bet a new strain of "learning disorder" will evolve out of virtually thin-air. And that a ton of parents will eagerly medicate their children with a chemical compound strikingly similar in make-up and effects to that of cocaine …...)

The most effective essay in Media Violence Alert was Lt. Col. David Grossman's twenty-six page opus entitled "Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill." Grossman, a former army ranger, West Point professor, and the author of On Killing: The Psychological Cost Of Learning To Kill In War And Society , drops the metaphorical bomb in an utterly brilliant presentation of the shared paradigm between the military's conditioning process and that of the media's.

In a nutshell: after the first few major wars the United States military was simply aghast at man's inherent lackthereof ability to just simply kill another man upon command, a "flaw" that was indicated by a scant fifteen-percent firing rate among soldiers and one that prevailed even after informing the troops that they were in fact only shooting at designated "bad guys." Apparently, just as "pesky" environmentalists are destructive to the lumber industry, a respect for life is destructive to the death industry, so since humans aren't born with an innate instinct to murder the military constructed one to install. And instill it they did: the firing rate by the time of Vietnam was well over 90 percent.

Grossman attests that militaries use one of three types of conditioning to train a man to kill: brutalization, or inculcation of values; classical conditioning; or operant conditioning. In brutalization, or the inculcation of values, a person's existing norms and values are broken down so that a new set of values, which embrace destruction, violence, and death as a way of life, can be accepted. To the young soldier this is more commonly known as boot camp; to the young child, unable to discern between their reality and media reality, this comes in the form of any violent or graphic media footage in scenes from cartoons to "E.R." to video games.

Classical conditioning, once best demonstrated by Pavlov's dogs, who learned to salivate from the sound of a ringing bell, can now be illustrated just as well by the student's reactions at Jonesboro high school upon being told that someone had just shot a bunch of their little brothers, sisters, and cousins in the middle school: they laughed. We have a generation of people who associate violence with pleasure, and no, not because they're parents didn't love them or they listen to Judas Priest: these kids were conditioned ten to fifteen years ago in a culture that propagates it, long before they were old enough to buy albums.

Operant conditioning is a very powerful procedure of stimulus-response that is responsible for 75-80 percent of the shooting on any battlefield. When people are frightened or angry, they will do what they are conditioned to do, hence life-saving procedures such as fire drills and self-defense courses for women featuring simulated attacks. It should be of great interest to know that the United States Military has licensed a slightly modified version of the Super Nintendo game "Doom" and are calling it MACS, Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulators. To train people to kill.

Is it effective? You tell me: Michael Carneal, a fourteen-year-old from Paducah, KY, had never fired a pistol in his life when he stole a .22 pistol from a neighbor, took it to school, and opened fire on a prayer group as they were breaking up. Firing at a group of screaming, running kids, he hit 8 of them with 8 shots---5 in the head, 3 in the upper torso. Grossman, who also not only trained the Texas Rangers, but the Texas State Patrol, the California Highway Patrol Academy, and a battalion of the U.S. Army Green Berets, reported that when he informed the Green Berets of this child's "achievement", they were stunned: nowhere in the annals of military or law enforcement history can an equivalent accomplishment be found. Witnesses testified that Michael stood and shot with a blank look on his face, never moving his feet. He was playing a video game. Michael came not from a "broken" home but rather an affluent family, where "combat simulators" played a common role in his childhood curriculum.

Grossman aptly calls this conditioning and desensitization AVIDS---Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which works a lot like AIDS: it alone does not destroy you, it destroys your defense against otherwise non-fatal situations that come across your path. In fact, he often testifies as an expert witness in cases where kids are facing the death penalty, fighting for mitigation on behalf of that child. To paraphrase, his expert ass can be found trying to convince ignorant you not to sentence a child to death since the culture that you propagate actually conditions kids to kill, but since you consider yourselves to be such "experts" on the matter yourselves---so "morally" convictive about what's "right" and so truly abreast of what is "really" going on with people these days (when you're not glued to your TVs, that is)---that you can't see the forest for the trees.

---

http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/mediaviolence.html

posted 01-10-2002 06:33 PM            

This was really kind of a great idea, though it may not have been intentional? The message I guess, was that in this fictional future, corporations could destroy everyones individuality and curtail aggression by focussing on this global Rollerball league as a replacement for real warfare. Using aggression in the form of SportsMercenaries/Gladiators in place of wasteful and destructive global warfare (as we have today). Rollerball doesn't seem like such a bad idea, aside from the Big Brother angle they were going for?

Personally I love pro and college football and I don't see a problem with it, nothing compared to warfare! Yes, it's violent but not lethal, like Rollerball (not yet anyway?).

In fact, that idea about getting the (proverbial) heads of the opposing countries to have a fist fight instead of sending hundreds/thousands/millions of people to their death has always been a great idea IMO,... but there would be no profit in that!

The war-mongers and power freaks of the world must keep the masses separated and at war with each other to maintain their little pathetic empires of wealth and comfort. That's another way I can see satanism as a good fit for TPTB in that they also appear to have no conscience about stepping over the dead bodies of their "inferiors", people with less wealth, or less intelligence or education... The average person doesn't want a war, what would he have to gain?

It seems that the weapons dealers and oil interests and the politicians they own are for the most part responsible for most of the carnage in our life time, not opposing ideoligies or religious beliefs as the govt-controlled media would have us believe.

They use religion, organized and 'institutionalized' crime, black ops and the lying media to stir up hatred among the populace, to inspire the need to send young and impressionable kids (18 year olds in Viet Nam) to kill 3rd world populations (that have no say in global politics) for their own financial/political gain.

They also suppress peace movements and alternative energy sources to maintain their apparent stranglehold on the world's population. They're the antithesis of spirituality, and to me, that amounts indirectly or directly to satanism and evil.

posted 01-10-2002 06:35 PM            

quote:

---

Throughout Amused To Death (59k), Waters attacks television news programs as frivolous. The song "What God Wants, Part III," ends with the lyrics:

And the network anchor persons lie
And the soldier's alone
In the video zone
But the monkey's not watching
He's slipped out to the kitchen
To pile the dishes
And answer the phone

The television war can be turned off and forgotten just like any other program. "I think it would be very good if every human being in the world, as their right, had a news channel that was not selling corn flakes," Waters said on Westwood One. "Who's duty was to gather information and disseminate it without caring about whether or not it helped them sell corn flakes. Who didn't care what their ratings were and who were not interested in putting on something that had to compete with a game show or a re-run of Happy Days."

The title of Amused To Death (59k) comes from a book by New York University Professor Neil Postman entitled Amusing Ourselves To Death. In the book, Postman chronicles how information has changed from the typographic age to the television age. "Television has become, so to speak, the background radiation of the social and intellectual universe," wrote Postman. "The all-but-imperceptible residue of the electronic big bang of a century past, so familiar and so thoroughly integrated with American culture that we no longer hear its faint hissing in the background or see the flickering gray light."

Postman's book, though a bit preachy, does a good job showing the changes in American culture with the advent of television as the major media force. The biggest effect is that images have now replaced thought. Showing somebody thinking does not look good on TV. "The average length of a shot on network television is only 3.5 seconds, so that the eye never rests, always has something new to see," Postman said in his book.

"Television offers viewers a variety of subject matter, requires minimal skills to comprehend it, and is largely aimed at emotional gratification. Even commercials, which some regard as an annoyance, are exquisitely crafted, always pleasing to the eye and accompanied by exciting music."

"It is the nature of the medium that it must suppress the content of ideas in order to accommodate the requirements of visual interest," Postman said. "That is to say, to accommodate the values of show business."

This one of the main points put forth in both Postman's and Waters' works: All television is entertainment, even the news.

The lyrics in the title song of Waters' album paint a wonderful musical explanation of the culture created by the television set: a culture concerned with Jessica Hahn and Melrose Place; with consumerism (98k); children huddled together staring at the tube (98k); and a need to be constantly entertained. (59k)

"I had at one point this rather depressing image of some alien creature seeing the death of this planet and coming down in their spaceships and sniffing around and finding all our skeletons sitting around our TV sets," Waters told the L.A. Times.

"They come to the conclusion that we amused ourselves to death . . . television, when it becomes commercialized and profit-based, tends to trivialize and dehumanize our lives. So I became interested in this idea of television as a two-edged sword, that it can be a great medium for spreading information and understanding between peoples, but when it's a tool of our slavish adherence to the incumbent philosophy that the free market is the God that we should all bow down to, it's a very dangerous medium." (59k)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 1997 by Ron Kaufman

---

posted 01-15-2002 09:02 AM            

The news, it seems, is written by corporations with the objective of providing as little information as possible, but making the viewer/reader think that they are getting high-quality, well-informed content.

---------------------------------
Here's a cool German site;
http://www.tvkiller.com/

Here you'll find information about "TV",
and arguments and ideas on how to spend your time,
without always holding your remote control.
A forum for all, who have a personal opinion,
their own thoughts and suggestions about this subject.
A way to get rid off tv.

"Kill your television" and enjoy life!
There is much more to it without TV!

posted 01-16-2002 12:50 PM            

The Media-Industrial Complex is a term I made up for what used to be called the Military-Industrial Complex.

Back when the cold war was in full swing, the military-industrial complex would propose multi-billion dollar "defense" projects to Congress, hoping that Congress would allocate billions of tax dollars to fund these projects.

Congressional members who voted for these projects received campaign funds from the military-industrial complex so they could get re-elected. The factories, military bases, and research institutions that these billions of dollars paid for ended up being located in the home districts of the same influential congressmen and senators who voted for the projects in the first place.

Any member of Congress who did not vote for these projects would be labeled "soft on communism" or a "pacifist" or a "traitor to the American Way Of Life". When the next election came around, people who voted against these projects would find that their opponents were suddenly much better funded than they'd been in the past.

Some of these projects were actually useful in the defense of our country, but their success or failure in obtaining funds had more to do with who got the money and power generated by the projects, rather than the usefulness of the projects themselves. The shareholders of the big defense corporations received millions and sometimes billions of dollars in profits. The senators and congressmen got re-election funds and managed to hold on to power for as long as they wished. The American people got a first-rate defense system, although they'd paid billions more for that defense than they probably needed to, and ended up putting their great-grandchildren into debt in the process.

In this post-cold war world, the military doesn't have the power it once did to create multi-million dollar projects that were easily sold to a willing Congress. We just don't have the same threats to the American Way of Life that we once did. However, the same defense contractor shareholders who siphoned off billions of tax dollars using the "defense" scam are still out there and they're still the same greedy bastards they always were. As the cold war wound its way down these people sold off their defense stocks and started buying media companies.

We no longer have real threats to the American Way of Life, but if the media tells you day after day of some new danger, real or imaginary, you can bet that Congress will be only too happy to allocate the funds to fight that danger. The cycle will continue, campaign funds will be given, and stockholders will get rich off of American taxpayer dollars. That's why a defense contractor like General Electric bought NBC, and another defense contractor named Westinghouse bought ABC. Those are the well-known cases, but they're just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

posted 01-18-2002 11:54 PM            

once in awhile i peak but
it takes a large dose of elephant tranks after that
and that gives me wierd dreams

posted 01-20-2002 12:05 AM            

Nobody Home

posted 01-24-2002 07:54 PM            

Their music has always struck a powerful chord in me and by music I mean the notes, the melodies.

When you add the lyrics the whole thing is just mindblowing, or soul healing; depending on the situation.

posted 01-25-2002 04:25 PM            

Pink Floyd's messages are pretty clear, as in "The Wall", not mysterious at all. I was surprised in the past couple of years when I realized what a social conscience their songs have. I really love "On the Turning Away", very appropriate in light of conspiracies and a real poignant/desperate voice against social control (and for social awareness).

I always liked them, but I used to put them into the LZ/Black Sabbath category back in the early 70's. I don't see them in that way at all now. Maybe it did do you some good FLKook? When "The Wall" came out, I think it really changed the world..., changed the way I looked at it anyway.

Scanner, I think the Internet does have a lot of garbage, much of it is an attempt by TPTB/corporate world to turn it into a form of TV. The interactive nature of the Internet though, makes it (so far) a great way to communicate ideas/thoughts that are censored/ridiculed/ignored by the TV and it's sponsors.

I think that's why many of us are so into rock and other forms of music, poetry. It's more difficult to silence/control as it is in television or film. Although now, the more I look, I can see how even music, esp. Rock, Rap, more modern forms of music may have been used for more elaborate and subtle forms of mind control. Still, we have more of a choice of what we consider to be true when it comes to Internet (and music). They can both be addictive, in a way, like television, but at least the Internet is interactive. I stay away from anything on the net that smells, tastes, looks like television. To me, that's often a dead giveaway as to the origins of that particular website (or thread for that matter)... you can tell by the way some 'debunkers' think, by what they say, that they are totally indoctrinated into a way of thinking that conforms to what television does to us, that we are supposed to think in a certain way, that we should not question what we are being told.

With the net, interactive sites like this, you can really communicate, more so than in any other way really. What can you do with a TV, other than watch it, or turn it off? You can't discuss/argue with it. Music either works for you, or it doesn't... and it may be that we are only scratching the surface of the effect it can have on society, positive or negative? Maybe like TV?

At least the internet can really give you a voice, if you want it for that. Musicians and artists can use their talents with or without the internet without being censored, as they are in television, and they now have greater freedom to express themselves, like we can through the 'net. TV... no way. Everything on it is a compromise.

posted 01-25-2002 05:23 PM            

Circle around the park
Joining hands in silence
Watch the evil black the sky

The storm has ripped the shelter
Of illusion from our brow
This power is no mystery to us now.

Leave your spirit genocide
The cancer you won’t remove
We cast our funeral rose inside
And bury the need to prove
Our mutilation is to gain from the system

Ooh, turn your head away
From the screen, oh people
It will tell you nothing more
Don’t suck the milk of flaccid Bill K.
Public’s empty promise
To the people that the public can ignore

This way of life is so devised
To snuff out the mind that moves
Moving with grace the men despise
And women have learned to lose

Throw off your shame or be
a slave to the system

I see you take another drag
One more lost soul to raise your flag
The sky is a landfill
I see you take another drag
Let’s see you take another drag

You like to dance to the rolling
Head of the adulteress
You sing in praise of suicide
We know you’re useless
Like cops at the scene of the crime

With your steroids and your feedbag
And your stable and your trainer
I got a mail bomb for you Mister Strong Arm.

Throw out the stones from all the cemetery homes
For the violence of a nation gone by

Or the politics of weakness
And the garbage dump of souls
That will now black the sky

Their yellow haze and crowds of eyes
Will plug up the mind that moves
Moving with grace the men despise
And women have learned to lose
We’ll share our bodies
In disdain for the system

posted 01-25-2002 07:32 PM            

quote:

---

Television Addiction

Most people admit to having a love-hate relationship with it. They complain about the "boob tube" and "couch potatoes," then they settle into their sofas and grab the remote control. Parents commonly fret about their children's viewing (if not their own). Even researchers who study TV for a living marvel at the medium's hold on them personally. Percy Tannenbaum of the University of California at Berkeley has written: "Among life's more embarrassing moments have been countless occasions when I am engaged in conversation in a room while a TV set is on, and I cannot for the life of me stop from periodically glancing over to the screen.

---

posted 01-26-2002 03:39 PM            

I think TV has it's place, it can be educational and entertaining... a great way to just sit down and relax or escape for a while. Too much of it is where the harm comes and if a person can't tear themselves away from the screen to do other things then they've got problems.

In our household, the guys around here turn the TV on and then walk off and do other activities. Perhaps they're just trying to fill the house with some kind of noise, maybe they don't like such a quiet house. On the other hand... I find that listening to radio programs like Rense or Art Bell while doing necessary chores makes those chores less tedious, plus I'm learning something of value during that time. It works out great for when I'm doing craft projects.

The one thing that really eats a lot of my time on the computer is the interaction I have with others online. For me this is a much needed outlet since I'm basically a stay at home mom with not a lot of outside activities. This computer has become my link to the outside world. If I had to make a choice of having a TV or computer the computer wins hands down.

My PC has all the entertainment potential that TV has plus it's like having a library in one's home. I can go into chat rooms to converse with friends about all kinds of interesting subjects for stimulating conversation. The down side of this is... it can take the place of actual one on one interaction... maybe that's not such a bad thing though.
One comment I need to make ... if a person isn't able to type worth beans trying to have a conversation in a chat room would be extremely challenging and tiring. For me... I find that it's easier to communicate this way. I'm such an introvert at times that talking on the computer allows me to be more open and free than I would normally be in a face to face conversation. Plus I don't have to try and compete with someone who tends to dominate the conversation. This makes socializing a lot less intimidating.

posted 01-26-2002 04:10 PM            

Slave to the Computer Screen

Although much less research has been done on video games and computer use, the same principles often apply. The games offer escape and distraction; players quickly learn that they feel better when playing; and so a kind of reinforcement loop develops. The obvious difference from television, however, is the interactivity. Many video and computer games minutely increase in difficulty along with the increasing ability of the player. One can search for months to find another tennis or chess player of comparable ability, but programmed games can immediately provide a near-perfect match of challenge to skill. They offer the psychic pleasure--what one of us (Csikszentmihalyi) has called "flow"--that accompanies increased mastery of most any human endeavor. On the other hand, prolonged activation of the orienting response can wear players out. Kids report feeling tired, dizzy and nauseated after long sessions.

In 1997, in the most extreme medium-effects case on record, 700 Japanese children were rushed to the hospital, many suffering from "optically stimulated epileptic seizures" caused by viewing bright flashing lights in a Pokémon video game broadcast on Japanese TV. Seizures and other untoward effects of video games are significant enough that software companies and platform manufacturers now routinely include warnings in their instruction booklets. Parents have reported to us that rapid movement on the screen has caused motion sickness in their young children after just 15 minutes of play. Many youngsters, lacking self-control and experience (and often supervision), continue to play despite these symptoms.

Lang and Shyam Sundar of Pennsylvania State University have been studying how people respond to Web sites. Sundar has shown people multiple versions of the same Web page, identical except for the number of links. Users reported that more links conferred a greater sense of control and engagement. At some point, however, the number of links reached saturation, and adding more of them simply turned people off. As with video games, the ability of Web sites to hold the user's attention seems to depend less on formal features than on interactivity.

For growing numbers of people, the life they lead online may often seem more important, more immediate and more intense than the life they lead face-to-face. Maintaining control over one's media habits is more of a challenge today than it has ever been. TV sets and computers are everywhere. But the small screen and the Internet need not interfere with the quality of the rest of one's life. In its easy provision of relaxation and escape, television can be beneficial in limited doses. Yet when the habit interferes with the ability to grow, to learn new things, to lead an active life, then it does constitute a kind of dependence and should be taken seriously.

posted 01-26-2002 07:37 PM            

Those are good points Catnip. Internet/computer even though interactive can be very isolating, just like TV. Actually, classrooms, churches maybe even political rallies(?!) are better than the Internet, insofar as you have that physical contact and interaction with real live humans! You can communicate in those old-fashioned ways (eye contact, body lanquage, etc), though you could also argue that those are a distraction? in comparison to pure intellectual written conversations via Internet? Maybe it's best to do some of both, everything in moderation... maybe even TV?? All in all, I still believe that the world would be a better place without it (TV). I think most countries of the world, outside of the United States, even some that view the U.S. as "The Great Satan" would certainly agree that the world would be a better place without TV!

IMO, it's been used to direct, control and deceive Americans to serve the purposes of the power elite or TPTB. I can't speak for UK, Europe etc. since I didn't grow up there. We've been desensitized to violence, made apathetic by decades of phony 'elections', and lied to about the realities of U.S. intervention into 3rd world countries, like Viet Nam. All with the help of the television.

I'm still in awe of the possibilities of the Internet and the amount of info you can dig into. I'm wary though sometimes of how it may be co-opted or commandeered by TPTB, (as TV has, or as TV has even been designed as a control/propaganda device)... but all in all, I still think the Internet amounts to a possible leap in human evolution and a positive force in social reforms.

If I had a choice, (hmmmm.... just think about that phrase!!!... If I had a choice!!! How often do we use that one??), I'd give up TV over the computer too. I was one of those kids raised on TV (maybe that's why I'm so screwed up? )... so I know first hand how addictive and isolating it can be. There was a time, before the Internet, when I used to laugh at my sister for not letting her son watch TV or certain movies. I've wised up considerably since then... IMO

On the other hand, computer games, like flight simulator shoot-em-up's (my favorite) may pose a bigger threat/danger than TV has been to my generation? As an adult, I still like playing those games sometimes, but you have to wonder how a 5, 6 or 7-year old kid or teenager is affected by them. Especially kids in single parent families, latch-key kids with maybe less direction and support from parent(s)?

There's already the casual, even fun attitude toward violence in TV series, cartoons and movies, now (or should I say for the past 20 years!)... there's the actual ability for kids to be part of a large variety/selection of virtual wars, massacres really, involving virtual machine guns, sword-fights etc. that are becoming more realistic every day, (Sega, Playstation, etc.).

posted 01-27-2002 09:21 AM            

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday...

Sunday Bloody Sunday - U2

posted 01-27-2002 10:24 AM            

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30522-2002Jan11.html

To me it's a toss-up on which is worse. On one hand we have an overtly oppressive state (recently declared to be a democracy?) Russia, that shuts down it's only independant TV station (assuming that is true).

On the other hand we have the possibility of a covertly oppressive state, the U.S.A., that uses TV as a form of mind control. Public TV in the U.S. was supposed to be an independant voice of the people, though it is obviously not that, sponsored by corporate interests as it is, it's not really much different than commercial TV.

Which is better...or worse? MCTV (mind control TV), or no TV at all?

You could say that in Russia, they have already 'killed the TV'. But who really killed it? The people? or the Russian franchise of TPTB?