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Television

As our society continues its snowballing ride downhill toward collapsed empire status, some among us become "radicalized," or willing to admit that this branch in humanity's history has been a big error and we need to not "fix" it but replace it with something different at the most basic level of concept. Among Greens and Nationalists this pattern has been most visible. Radicalized people do not necessarily advocate violence, or brutality, but they are past the point of believing that a few elections, laws passed, or corporate boycotts will fix anything.

The inclination one has upon coming to such a realization is to drop everything and go extreme, whether that means stocking up on Barrett M-82s or forcing recycling upon one's neighbors. When one has gone extreme, and notices that few others are following that lead, a period of wondering how everyone can be so blind results. We see the end is near; why don't we mobilize? The frustrated Green or Nationalist activist shakes a head in desperation, and goes home to cool his or her heels with a chilled beer and some mellow television.

Herein is a great problem.

Our society is not controlled by a conspiracy, but by the shared idea that it's OK to live only for individual desires as expressed in material means. Most people believe this is the right way to live, and thus they uphold it, even to the point of enslaving themselves. The largest portion of them cannot help it: they don't have the time or the mental wiring to understand politics. The rest are brainwashed, but again, it's by their own choice.

The average American watches four hours of television each day. During that time, they see at least 20 commercials, and take in 3.5 hours of programming designed by people who make their money in product placement. The job of a television program is both to interest people, and to tie itself to lucrative promotions deals; this is why in your favorite sitcoms, characters often have preferences for certain corporate brands or products. They don't mention them - that would be obvious - but how easy it is to be using, or holding, the product during a key scene or funny line.

The same is true of our movies, and of what is best called "news-entertainment," which was actually news in healthier days. Out go the corporate press releases; coincidentally, many of these corporations are responsible for lots of the advertising and copromotions that keep Hollywood and the news-entertainment media alive. It's not rocket science to realize that when the kids in "E.T." eat Reese's pieces, money changed hands between Hershey's and Universal Studios. Or that all those soft drinks and beers in the movie had a paid sponsor, too.

Some time ago, there was a hubbub over government influence on television shows and movies; apparently, scripts were sent on to Washington for oversight regarding important issues like drug use, racism, sexism, poverty, etc. While we all know that military movies are screened and edited by the Pentagon in exchange for military cooperation, that government as a whole would ask to insert propaganda in movies and television is shock to some people. But should it be?

Television and movies are a business; the only rule in business is to make money. In that view, government is just another advertiser, and if one can get preferential treatment for making sure that government-approved ideas are in your work, it's a financially smart move to do so. Furthermore, no business has any obligation to tell you the truth - they make money from keeping you interested, so you notice ads and project placement.

With this in mind, it's impossible - in my view - for any sane person to own a television or watch it regularly. You are voluntarily sitting still while government and industry pour their opinions into your head under the guise of "entertainment," which to me is a condescending word implying that you cannot keep yourself busy. Because the nimwit friends and family members around you are not thinking critically, they believe they cannot exist without television, and you join in to be one of the group.

That so many extremist activists even consider this course of action is mindboggling. Cheaper, more legal and more effective than a shooting spree or vandalizing SUVs is to simply disconnect the propaganda device: don't watch TV. In fact, if every Nationalist and Green activist stopped watching TV tomorrow, the result would be more effective than a hundred thousand marches or protests. It would literally hit industry at the only level it respects, which is money.

Each moment you spend watching TV is one in which you rent your brain to the dogma of your enemies. If you let your children grow up around it, thinking it's acceptable to watch TV, do not be surprised when they adopt attitudes from their electronic babysitter. It's not like they'll miss out; our society is so broken that most people socialize by discussing entertainment, thus they'll hear about all of it anyway.

Television is a passive action, like metrosexuality or multiculturalism. It puts you on your butt and has you submit to the ideas of others, which flow into your brain in unguarded moments when you expect to laugh or be distracted, when in fact subtle cues are working their way into your opinions. It is a low-tech form of mind control, although "mind influence" would be more accurate. But if that influence occurs for four hours every day, how can it not be in whole or part absorbed?

Radicalized political people talk to me every day, and so few of them have thought of this that it's alarming, as if the parasite is already too deeply entrenched. If you turn off your TV, you're truly thinking outside the box. Any kind of radical act you can imagine is, for now, secondary to disconnecting from the flow of lies. If you turn off your TV, those who respect you will be closer to doing the same. Each person who switches off the box deprives those who oppose you of another propaganda outlet.

Oh, people will whine at first - but that should encourage you. Anything they're afraid to do, without good reason, is part of the illusion that our society is something OK. If you're willing to radicalize, you deny that our society is OK, and thus you should act accordingly. People used to try to rebel by listening to weird music, eating weird things, and taking drugs, but now we are slowly realizing that the same people who profit from those things are the ones against which we are ostensibly rebelling.

(And you might whine at first, too, about all the great programs and movies you're missing. If you go to theatres, you can carefully pick which movies you see, and do it infrequently enough to avoid losing hours of every day on "entertainment." If you avoid TV, you get four more free hours a day to work on yourself, start a business, or act politically against those things you see as destructive. How can you afford to keep wasting time on TV and movies, with your only worry being that you personally might miss out on some distractions? Grow up!)

In fact, there is no way to rebel, or to strike a blow with socially-acceptable means, as long as you attempt to do it within the sphere of entertainment products; your enemies own all of the means of production there, and will sell you any type of protest entertainment you'd like, while quietly inserting their own opinions into it. Each time you watch, they gain influence over your mind. The only rebellion is to step outside of the media altogether.

Since the means of rebellion, like the means of production, are controlled by those for whom money obscures all other goals, your only recourse is to head the opposite direction. The true revolutionary in these times does not watch television, does not listen to major label music, and refuses to read news-entertainment media. They know it's a big farce and show designed to distract and brainwash.

Instead, they read books and listen to classical music. When they do that, they're not only off-radar, but counteracting the negative influence of a "culture" manufactured by industry and government to control us all. This is why you turn off your television: you recognize that this mainstream "culture," our corporations and governments, and most people are motivated by the same illusion, and that illusion is responsible for everyhing you despise. Strike back at no cost to yourself - turn off the TV and never turn it on again.