So there I am, standing in line at the post office, watching the ubiquitous television silently running through the standard montage of daily disasters. Homes falling into rivers, people being mugged on security cameras, twenty car pileups on the highway, and on.

Just another day among my fellow citizens in the public square. And I ask you: Is this information we need to help us build fulfilled lives? Does it better our democracy?

No. It’s cheap entertainment. And since it comes by way of other people’s misery, (hurricanes, floods, unsolvable dilemmas), it’s entertainment at another’s expense, and for cable news profits.

That, dear readers, is called exploitation.

About a year back I had to go to the local cable TV store, the place where you exchange a busted remote or set-top box. And there they were: Three TVs tuned to Lifetime, keeping the folk well sedated during the wait, I suppose. They were running some sappy “romance” movie, and a woman was being raped and beaten while we stood there watching.

It was the most surreal event you can imagine - not just because a woman was being sexually abused before our eyes, but that most people yawned and scratched themselves as if nothing was wrong with it.

Why is it OK that people are raped, pillaged and beaten across 500 channels all day long and it’s OK with us? What’s happened to our sense of perspective? And why must we - and our kids - be subjected to this junk at public spaces? More and more you run into television intruding onto our public world. My bank’s got them, the doctor’s office uses them, even the diner I used to like put them up. We don’t eat meals in my house with the television on; why would I go to a restaurant to sit dumbly in front of one there?

This is one of those political arguments that transcends party. Right-wing, left-wing, we ought to all feel outrage over the excesses of commercial entertainment and its intrusion into our private lives. (And if you want some warm and fuzzies check out Mr. Obama’s eloquence on media and kids here.) That’s why I also love organizations like White Dot, in the UK, a country which frankly is miles ahead of the US in terms of recognizing the negative impact of media on our lives. You can even choose a “media-free” car on the London-Heathrow train. Imagine that.

I think the awareness in the US is starting to jell. Although - sadly - the website for TVTurnoff appears to have gone dark, the Center for Screen Time Awareness seems to have picked up the slack. (If anyone has information on either of these sites, please let me know.) Many people I know profess embarrassment at watching TV, a welcomed sign-of-the-times. Still, the next time you enter a public space and there’s a TV blaring away, just zap the thing with your TV-B-Gone. And help bring a little more peace into the world.

Hat tip to the always enlightening Moue Magazine (my daily reading; visit often) for their link to ChangeAny1thing in an excellent post about growing up in a house where parents (to their credit) limited the family’s exposure to commercial media. From the article:

I bet. Look, I grew up on 1970’s television. I can probably re-enact every Gilligan’s Island plot and can quote the Brady Bunch at will (I guess; no one’s asked me in a while).

I watched hours and hours and hours of television.

And here I am, 41 years old and a rather well-adjusted member of society (most of the time, anyway). So what’s my deal with the endless rants about smashing the TV?

Here’s the thing: There was a difference between commercial entertainment then and the media monstrosity we’ve got now. A big difference. Spending hours at the mercy of mellow 70’s passive entertainment - on maybe five different channels, tops - is admittedly troubling, and may be the reason I never became a lawyer, let’s say. Ultimately not the best way to spend a childhood (God knows).

But: Spending hours and hours (and hours) with hyper-realistic, psychologically manipulative, adult-oriented, sexualized, super-violent, and emotionally intrusive material - across 500 channels or whatever - is a whole different thing. And that’s what we’ve got today. In the 70’s watching too much television was a troubling social concern. Today it really does threaten our democracy.

Of course, we can’t look back at newsreels from the 50s without cracking up at the horn-rimmed, slicked- hair, t-shirt squares bemoaning the dangers of rock ‘n roll. Turns out Elvis wasn’t the end of civilization as we knew it, after all.

But it’s a whole new ballgame today. Just consider the sneering, nasty tone of commercial entertainment, which alone is enough to make us want to toss the thing in the closet and run to the nearest library. That’s even before we consider the disinformation that passes for “news” (70% of Americans blamed Iraq for 9/11 - enough said) or the consumerist blatherings that spin us into thinking that a fulfilled life is defined by a pursuit for self-gratification. And I’m just getting started.

Popular culture can be – and has been – truly great, and even great art, especially when it represents an organic response to modern living. But when it exists as part of a pre-conceived marketing plan, it’s manipulative crapola. More and more of today’s commercial entertainment – which after all comes by way of a shrinking handful of media conglomerates - carries a “hidden agenda”. It’s getting harder and harder to know what’s really being sold with the entertainment we’re getting, with viral videos of “amateurs” that turn out to be music label plants on YouTube, or “news” shows that do in-depth “features” of films produced by another department of the television network. Or military “experts” who appear objective but are planted, pro-war messengers instead.

Democracy remains the best form of social arrangement we’ve got. But just as businesses need well-defined property laws or a well-run postal system in order to operate best, democracies require a well-informed public that can make thoughtful, wise decisions. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? We could end up with a president we want to share a beer with instead of a well-qualified leader. Shudder. Just imagine what might happen in a world like that.

When I was a kid I thought “politics” was something that you shouted about on family holidays. And when I got to college, I’d sit on the Quad with my NY Times talking about political strategies with friends, and I never let a Sunday pass without “This Week with David Brinkley”. This was how important issues were debated in a free society. Or so I imagined.

When I got older and started to read progressive history books, I discovered a world that I hadn’t heard about before. This other place had labor struggles, anti-war movements, social responses to capitalism; it had poverty and racism and exploitation of a shocking order. These things were never discussed on TV or in newspapers or as part of my family arguments (although that changed in a hurry…). And I came to understand that the “game” of politics had nothing to do with the issues that impacted people’s lives.

Democracy assumes social involvement. So I’m not here to argue for disengaging with the world. What I am saying is that commercial media is like the Roman bread and circuses – it’s a diversion to keep people from contemplating real things that really matter; we’ll be a much healthier and fairer society if we simply tune it out. (Not to mention examples of outright media lies - check the NY Times for the most recent, chilling example...)

It’s not just FOX News that’s the problem. Sure, their paper tigers of “liberals” or “gays” or “islamofascists” are effective propaganda diversions, but in truth it’s the larger consumerist ideology (often wrapped up in sexual imagery) that keeps the folk in a kind of dazed stupor, chasing after quick gratifications.

Meantime few are paying attention as the US becomes a train wreck out of control. Enormous economic changes are underway as wealth rushes to the top 1% (or less) and away from everyone else. We’re becoming a “rich-poor” society. In every sense the system of checks and balances is failing. Why? Because the “people” aren’t paying attention and we’re getting robbed blind. Tyranny isn’t some quaint historical danger that we’ve safely overcome. It’s a threat at all times, even today. Especially today.

No one’s immune to the pull of commercial media, which exists not just to sell products, but to sell a way of living. And that way of living can be summed up as “happiness through purchasing”. This ideology puts lots of money into the pockets of executives but no longer into the pockets of you and me, because wages continue to tumble even as corporate profits reach record levels. Trickle-down theory may be the biggest joke of the last twenty-five years. Ask any family trying to make it these days; it’s getting damn near impossible. Check the Center for on Budget and Policy Priorities for some shocking stats. At the same time, defining one’s happiness through material acquisitions is a sure-fire way to become very disappointed, very quickly. It doesn’t work. But it certainly keeps us preoccupied.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If you want to change the world, you’ve got to shut the diversions off and start paying attention and that means everyone. Even the brightest dog will run into traffic to chase a bone…

If I could change any one thing, I would…

Get people at restaurants to ask - or just get up and turn off - those wall-mounted TVs that have invaded the ”dining experience”. Is there no escape anymore?

This post was submitted by Eric.