Turn Off the Television

This year I'm not visiting the United States, but for the last several years I have spent my summers in America. It has given me the opportunity to put real life next to the news reporting that comes off the Internet. I have seen year after year how my home country is declining in every way possible.

Since the Reagan Administration, the quality of life for most families in the United States has dropped considerably. The infrastructure has rusted and crumbled at a constant rate. Megastores and malls have replaced downtown shopping, requiring a motorized vehicle for almost every daily activity. Home foreclosures are running amok; and television, ubiquitous television, that big box in the family room and probably several other rooms in the house that eat up your power bill and captivate you and your loved ones every day for hours on end.

Let's say we have the opportunity for someone to come and watch American culture for a month or so. Afterward, we ask this visitor to give a critique of the culture of the United States, why it has so many problems. I can guarantee you that the visitor's assessment will not mention people in love, gay or not, even once. People in love do not destroy the world. They make it better. They put a smile on our faces. People in love raise loving children and participate positively in their communities. No, love will not be in the visitor's assessment. The critique of American culture's absolute failure will include how television has kept the American people isolated, uninformed, misinformed, fed a mental diet equivalent to pig slop, submitted to a stream of advertisements one after the other whose only purpose is to make people lust for material things, exposed to television programming that runs twenty-four hours a day every single day of the year, tickled to giggle at insults and dirty jokes, prodded to howl like animals at every young body paraded in front of the camera, witness to thousands of horrific death scenes delivered in some of the most bizarre methods Hollywood technicians can create, and the glorification of money, if not excess, the lip-licking greed that drives capitalism.

The next time a respected member of society gets on television to tell you gay people will ultimately destroy America, just think about what medium he is using and turn off your television. Go out and find some gay couples and get to know them. Find out what's what before you run off to fulfill the nightmare prophesies you heard on the idiot box. Television is not your friend.  Even though you will argue, sometimes heatedly, that “there are some good things” on television, you are just grasping at straws. Watch a one-hour documentary on ducklings, and count how many minutes the capitalists inserted their advertisements at strange moments in the program. How can you say you watched an hour long documentary when you in fact watched a 35 minute documentary? The program was produced only as a background for the advertising scheme. If you still watch television, then you are what's wrong with America. You are destroying America, and you're too cowardly and misinformed to admit it. It's just easier to find some people in society that most folks hate and blame them for the ills you are creating. That is the true fruit of watching television: sheer laziness.