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MARCH 15, 2005 –
Everyone talks about the drug problem in our country and, you
know, the War on Drugs, but then how come we embrace... even
encourage... the use of our most widely abused narcotic. By
the age of five, virtually all of our citizens are already addicted
to it. Our congressmen and women and Senators allow this drug to
guide their debates. You can not go out in public without being
exposed to this drug; virtually none of our citizens can bear to be
home without using it.
When you hear the idea of TV as the most devastating,
addictive drug in America, you may scoff
or leave... run away, I mean.
That’s expected. All junkies turn on the first person to tell them
they’ve crossed the line. But to see if you’re an addict, take this
simple test. Go one week, cold turkey, without so much as looking
at or listening to a TV. You can’t turn one on; if one is on where
you are you must leave the area
And I mean all forms of TV. Like coca
leaves progressed to cocaine and then to crack, TV has also
progressed, from 13" black and white boxes to larger and larger
screens, color, and now 27" high definition, surround-sound; from 13
basic channels to cable TV, VCR’s, video games, one thousand channel
digital TV, and now, the crack of TV, the boundless internet. And
still it’s not enough -- you feel like there’s one-thousand channels
and nothing’s on -- the promised high, like with all drugs, remains
endlessly elusive, as your life is sucked away from you, as you sit
staring at a box.
It won’t be easy to make it seven days,
because TVs are everywhere – in our bars, our restaurants, airports,
even the clubs we go to work out in – we can’t even exercise without
our fix.
TV addiction directly causes horrible
physical and emotional problems. The use of this drug causes
obesity, anti-sociality, lethargy, and a skewed view of reality that
borders on insanity.
Watch children who couldn't sit still
for a minute when they come in contact with this drug; watch adults
at a gym who had been working out at a normal pace when they come in
contact with one of the screens at the gym; look at your family
members as they watch programming. Don't watch the program,
just look at them. They become zombies, sitting mouths
half-opened, staring inactively at a box.
TV is a hypnotic drug. It is not
the programming itself but the blue light and alpha waves that are
stimulated. This is an important distinction to realize.
It is not about the quality of the programming or lack of it, it's not
about "surfing" the wrong sites on the web. To say that would
be like telling a coke addict his problem is he just isn't doing the
good stuff.
America, you want to blame George W.
Bush for what has happened to our nation, you want to blame Bill
Clinton, you want to blame liberals. The reality is, our
nation's drug addiction is the cause of our ills.
Virtually everybody in our nation is
overweight - read that clearly: virtually everybody. 70
percent are very overweight, 35 percent obese. That is
virtually everybody right there, and then you add in those who are
just regular overweight and you see it is BASICALLY EVERYONE.
Roughly 65-70 percent of our nation gets
little to no physical activity. According to
MSNBC, "two-thirds of Americans are not physically active on a
regular basis." That is most of us. And yet, even
though, as the article reports, 87 percent of us know how important
exercise is, 70 percent of us are okay with our physical health,
even though we are obese and inactive.
This is not sane. It is the skewed
thinking of a drug addict.
It gets worse. But first, let's
address the thought that will first cross most of your minds when
you think about giving up TV - indeed, it is the question I get
asked most when I tell people I don't watch TV, at all.
They first say, "So you just watch an
occasional sitcom or something?" No, I don't watch at all.
"Come on, you watch sometimes." No, I don't. "Well, what
do you do then?"
This question may seem normal and sane
to TV addicts, but it is not. It is, indeed, the same question
addicts of other drugs, like cocaine, and alcoholics ask when
someone suggests they give up their chemical: what is there to
do that doesn't involve alcohol? How can life be fun without
partying?
And so it is the same insane thinking
that pervades the TV addict - what is there to do without
TV/videos/video games/the internet? How boring would life be
without it?
Reality is that just a short while ago
VCR's, DVD's, video games, and the internet didn't exist, and TV was
just 13 boring channels. TV viewing was looked down upon - it
was called "the boob tube." Notice how similar that is to the
nickname for marijuana: dope. Pot is called dope because
it makes you stupid and lazy; a dope. TV was called "the boob
tube" because it turns you into a stupid, lazy "boob."
The sane question is not how can someone
live without watching TV, it is how can a sane adult spend so much
time sitting staring at a box.
Because that is the reality of what is
occurring. If I filmed your behavior, you would see a person
sitting idle staring at a box, for hours. Or typing some while
staring at a box. For hours.
There is a part of Chicago called
Wrigleyville. It is an area where mostly young professionals
in their 20's - 30's live. You would think this area would be
lively on most nights.
But the reality is that if you walk the
streets, go to the local establishments, most nights it will be like
a ghost town. What you will see are just glowing blue lights
coming from inside the apartments. That's all TV programming
is when viewed at a distance. No matter what is on, it is just
a glowing blue, hypnotic light. And so instead of being out
socializing or doing anything active with friends and neighbors,
people are alone in their apartments or with a small group staring
at the glowing blue hypnotic light.
And don't confuse one point - it is not
that people coherently and of their own free will decide to watch TV
- TV is an addictive drug that beckons all around to watch it.
All you have to do is make the mistake of looking toward one, of
responding to a noise you hear on one with a glance, and you will
then have to literally fight to turn your head back away to not
become a TV-glued zombie. This is something seen at gyms
regularly: an active person gets caught by some sound as they
pass a TV, and 5, 10 minutes later they are still stuck there
staring. This drug is more powerful than a 200-pound
muscleman.
Again and again your mind will try to
argue that what I am saying isn't right, that TV watching is not
that big a deal. That is the addiction talking.
Virtually all of us are now dangerously
overweight, giving ourselves and our children diabetes, heart
disease, and increased cancer-risk, not to mention immobility and
joint problems. Virtually all of us get little to no physical
activity.
But even beyond that, we are virtually
all in an insane pattern of detachment from reality. The stat
that said 70 percent of us, even though we are so overweight and
inactive, are satisfied with our physical health, is just
emblematic.
This drug, TV, teaches you to lash out
at anyone who would suggest you stop watching, teaches you to hate
anyone who suggests you should actually look out for your health.
Even more, this drug causes people to
accept anything their government does.
In France last week, there were massive
strikes that paralyzed the nation. These strikes cut across
profession and were timed to cause serious political damage by
occurring when the International Olympic Committee was there to
consider France as a host.
What was the big cause that stirred
these people so? The government there is considering changing
the work week from 35 hours, making it longer.
Now, can you imagine us here in America
taking to the streets, paralyzing our nation in such a fashion over
such an issue? Indeed, we work all sorts of overtime, get
virtually no vacation and no protests or complaints occur.
But take it further: we can't eat
our fish there is so much mercury in it, and this problem is fixable
if different technology is installed on our power plants.
Nothing.
Our nation went to war against a nation
that didn't attack us because of WMD's that didn't exist.
We've lost over a thousand, killed tens of thousands for a mistake.
But the point isn't any of these issues,
it is that politicians - of both parties - are now aware that you
can do whatever you want and the American people will do nothing
about it. They know that all they have to do is give you some
excuse to be inactive, to not respond, and you will take it, because
you just don't want anything interrupting your TV time.
They can irradiate our food, put
hormones and antibiotics in our meat - all this happened under
Clinton, not Bush - and no one will do anything. They can work
you 60 hours a week, hand all of the nation's money to a few wealthy
people, knowingly kill 18,000 innocent Americans each year by
rolling back pollution controls, and they know people won't do
anything. The excuses and justifications they give for these
things are obviously transparent, but like with all drug addicts,
the TV addicts of America are not looking for the right answer but
just any excuse to not be interrupted in their using.
Indeed, there are now laws that exist
which make it illegal for our children to do anything but sit home
and watch TV at night; they will get arrested if they go out the
door due to curfews. These laws did not exist like they do
prior to 1986. The government has made it illegal for your
child to leave the house, and you have done nothing.
There are lots of you there who want to
blame George W. Bush for what is happening to our nation. Many
of you want to call liberals the problem. The reality is it is
all of us.
You can spot TV addicts easily.
They are overweight, they don't take proper care in how they dress,
they are unable to hold conversations without talking about TV or
something they saw on it. They can tell you every detail about
entirely unimportant things like the Michael Jackson case but can't
talk for 15 seconds about what the WTO is, even though the latter
very directly affects all of our lives while the former affects them
in no way.
If you want to improve the nation, you
have to begin by dealing with this addiction. Otherwise, it
won't matter who from what party is in charge, they will continue to
run roughshod over the good people of our nation.
If you want to lead people to a better
way, you have to be an example they want to follow. If you are
an overweight, insane, lethargic TV addict, why should anyone listen
to you? Liberals like to say they have the better, healthier
way - looking at you, I wouldn't know. Conservatives the same.
If you want more finger-pointing
nonsense while our nation gets run into the ground, keep watching.
You can blame George Bush or liberals to make yourself feel better,
giving yourself a good excuse to continue sitting on your butt
staring at a box.
But it doesn't change this reality:
that life is not a Hollywood movie. One of the main ways TV
addiction affects the human brain is to make it think that
everything wraps up in a happy ending, as all movies and shows do.
It convinces people that no action need to be taken about anything,
that anyone who is complaining or making an issue of something is
the problem, that anyone who would take any action - other than TV
watching - in response to anything is problematic and insane, that
nothing ever really goes wrong, that if you just sit there and don't
get too upset or mess with things we can all just stay comfortable
watching our TVs, happy and basking in the blue light glow.
The world is real, the cancer deaths
from pollution are real, the deaths in Iraq are real, the deficits
are real, the fact that we get no vacation is real, the fact that we
are virtually all dangerously overweight and getting diabetes by the
score is real. And the fact that you have spent an enormous
portion of your life staring at a box is real.
TV causes obesity, anti-sociality,
lethargy, and a skewed view of reality that borders on insanity.
It causes psychotic detachment from the people and the world around
you and the inability to respond to life-threatening situations that
are immediate and present dangers in your life.
I am not overweight but fit, I do not
watch TV, and I am here to help you all rejoin the world. Only
a nation of fit, sane, social people can stand up to our government
when it steps out of line. Picture if one group split off from
the obese, TV-addicted rest of the nation and decided to fix their
nation by first fixing themselves. If you want to be part of
the solution, you must lead by example.
Let the left tell you George W. Bush and
the Republicans are the problem. Let the right tell you
liberals and Democrats are the problem. We Moderate
Independents are the only ones honest enough to tell you that no, we
are all the problem, and we must take action now, beginning with
ourselves. Remember, it is these two parties who have let
things get this way without taking any action. Neither Clinton
nor Bush have cared that more than 200 million Americans are in
immediate danger, and that the dire consequences that could occur
are entirely preventable and reversible.
No, they appreciated that you would sit
idly by as they did as they pleased.
Unfortunately for them, we Moderate
Independents are now on the case. Shut off your TV's, get
ready to change your lives, and we will take our nation back without
even trying.
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