It is time for the Mainstream Media to come to an end.

[baby_mouse]

It must be finished and laid to rest. It no longer serves any purpose.

The right grassroots view it as liberal hogwash and the left grassroots view it as pukish vomit. Who supports its existence?

NOBODY.

Sell your TV. Better still, throw it out with the garbage.

Call any advertiser that uses a station of which you disapprove and tell them that you will no longer use their products.

Telephone and complain every time you see something on television of which you disapprove. There's no reason not to be as obsessive over this as the opposition are....

The money that goes to the mainstream media outlets MUST dry up.

Express DISAPPROVAL, JUSTIFIED DISAPPROVAL of relatives and friends watching television. It has become a DANGEROUSLY subversive medium, undermining the very core values of America.

If you know anyone with any experience of being on television they will tell you that the image of them portrayed on the box is nothing like the position that they would have wanted projected. Why are we to assume that this is any different for any other person on television?

It's a distortion mechanism, nothing else, an effects box placed over a guitar signal, a wibbly filter in photoshop, a cartoon, a hypnotic, a narcotic, a DRUG.

People who watch too much television are CREEPY...

[sasha031]

1. thank gawd Al Gore invented the internet

unfortunately it is still were the majority gets their info., I wonder at times will it take Amerika to turn into a Charles Dickens novel, the masses will be selling their Tvees for groceries and medicine.

[baby_mouse]

11. I think cheaper Internet acess may be the way.

Also more Internet entertainment. It's almost impossible to centralise and control the Internet.... I hope...

[catmandu57]

2. Blowup your tv, throw away the papers

move to the country
build you a home
plant a little garden
eat a lot of peaches
try to find jesus on your own.
John Prine Spannish Pipedream 1971.

[Zenlitened]

3. Sad that the pukes have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Remember when we considered the press an ally in the fight for American ideals?

The conservatives hated that. So they set out to destroy it, beginning with the "liberal media" refrain.

But a funny thing happened. They didn't merely knock it down... they took it over. They turned it into one of the most useful tools in their entire arsenal.

So, no, the conservatives don't want to end "Mainstream Media." Sure, they still repeat the "liberal media" meme. But only the grunts of the right-wing movement -- who are by and large too stupid to wipe their own asses -- still believe it. The right-wing elite know just what a good thing they've got.

Sad. Their plan to destroy the free press in America has been a huge -- and tragic -- success.

[baby_mouse]

13. Free speech has not been destroyed, though.

Here we are, you and I, talking...! Hooray.

Also, it's genuine comunication rather than a broadcasted "select your opinion from these presented options" paradgim...

It needs better plugging and marketing, the Internets....

[Zenlitened]

18. Have an apple? Have an orange?

Free speech still exists, no doubt about it. In fragments, at least.

But the destruction of an entire institution so important to American democracy is a sad milestone indeed.

[baby_mouse]

19. What will rise from it's ashes, I wonder? :-)

Yes, very sad.

Perhaps we are present at the birth of something better?

[Gildor Inglorion]

4. I haven't watched T V in more than 20 years

so I only know the "personalities" from discussions in DU. I can't imagine why anyone would WANT to watch such mind-rotting drivel. TV "news" was bad enough when I stopped watching it. Now that it's apparently mostly the opinions - OPINIONS! - of the "newscasters," the notion of watching it makes me queasy. I strongly agree with baby mouse: Liberate yourself! Kick the television habit. Trust me, you'll feel much better about yourself afterwards.

[xiamiam]

5. boycotting the corporate media needs to be accomplished

i think you are right ..and i think that the msm shills should find a real job...and stop benefitting from the havoc they create...i think that an organized plan to stop the nonsense could be accomplished... o reilly, scarborough, hannity, tweety, russert, hume, etc etc contribute to the downfall of this nation...i really believe this...and yet millions of people watch them and believe their pontificating crap..i think the power given to their opinions is dangerous..i would love to see it stop...im gonna watch the news..and im gonna come here and the internet for the news...but i dont want to see those people ever again..and i dont want to wait.

i wonder if an actual plan could be organized to boycott them...i know our numbers are great ...and i know the advertisers are going to pay attention to the bottom line...maybe we could start with a nation wide boycott of any of their programs for one day...or one week...

[baby_mouse]

14. Identifying the narcotic elements and neutralising them will help

In motivating such a plan. The boycott would have to *appeal*.

Satirsing the MSM entire... not so hard? All you have to do is pull it a little out of its own context and it looks bizarre. TV programs when filmed and put into works of fiction look weird. The weirdness of TV has to be revealed...

It's an *IRRITATING* medium, it's ANNOYING. It goes too fast, often doesn't make sense and mostly doesn't care what you think. It's like having a batty old relative that you don;t really like drooling in the corner.

Wouldn't life be nicer *without* it?

It's going to be really hard because television is ideally suited to pandering to the lowest common denominator. It's short and brutal, accepts no feedback or compromise and has to be extreme to catch attention. All sorts of schtick that needs to be there to make TELEVISION work as a profit-making exercise gets subconsciously accepted as normal for *all* political thinking. This is a weak link in the chain. It needs drama, quick sound-bites and spin to make it work...

Word of mouth is going to be important in such a boycott. And it has to be a positive thing, I think, I wonder if substituting some other activity, somthing genuienly enjoyable, as a replacement would pull the boycott up a strap or two...

[Ohio Joe]

6. But I like my TV

I have no cable, no satellite and receive only one over the air channel that I never watch. My TV gets a lot of use though, I use it to play Nintendo and PS2 games as well as for viewing DVDs (over 800 titles and climbing in my personal collection). Sorry, I just have to hang onto the thing :)

[baby_mouse]

9. GAAAAAH! So long as it doesn't turn you into a freak, Joe.

So long as you aren't pattering away on Call of Duty II when your first kid is born, when the bomb drops, when Armagonnageddonya drops by for tea, ol' pal.

I can't STAND PS2 and, Nintendo and Xbox, they're so BORING.

Also, DVD collection is small. I had a look at my video collection some time ago and figured out how much it had cost me and realised it was equivalent to buying a second hand car and driving it once, or hang-gliding lessons or something actually FUN rather than having mr brain sucked out by the cathode ray tube's baleful glare...

[baby_mouse]

10. PS welcome to DU

:-)

:hi:

[newyawker99]

21. Hi Ohio Joe!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Beam Me Up]

7. I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT TAKING IT ANY MORE!!

Seriously: I stopped watching TV when they made shrub the pResident.

Just turn the fucking thing off and use it for a planter. That's what I did. I keep it around, in case of an emergency. I watched the 9/11 events, for example. I watched the devastation in New Orleans, for example. But in six years that's ALL I watched!

NO WAY IN HELL will I support either "news" or "entertainment" from a corporate owned stream that's ONLY FUNCTION is to SELL US on a CONSUMER BASED REALITY.

[Earth_First]

8. It's not the television, but what YOU choose to view...

We own a single television without cable nor satellite, and we have been MSM-free for years!

[baby_mouse]

12. Cable and satellite SUCK.

Repeat after repeat after repeat... It's like slowly smoking or masturbating yourself to DEATH...

[donkeyotay]

15. Just listen to their "blah, blah, blah," as Rome burns

The media is complicit in bringing us Lord Bush and his war. But you bring up another good point:

"The money that goes to the mainstream media outlets MUST dry up."

Consider how much this corrupt institution rakes in during an election. They throw our elections and get paid to do it. We need to take back control over elections from Diebold AND Foxcnnmsnbcetc.

[baby_mouse]

16. Yes, the money trail has to be followed.

I feel we all have to start buying more responsibly...

[donkeyotay]

17. Ah, but it's not just boycotting corporate partisans

With every election cycle the media gets fed big chunks of money though candidate's commercials. Worse yet, the public turns to them for news and the spin is partisan. If we had publicly funded elections and used OUR airwaves without charge to the candidates, it would remove the income to the media and limit their ability to use their power to sway the outcome.

[baby_mouse]

20. Win, win for the media.

Turn it to lose, lose. How?

Plug honest campaigning as a political necessity. Hard work but possible. Anyone advertising on TV is untrustworthy... Adverts are for the gullible, adverts are there to take your money out of your pocket. Adverts are an EXPENSE. Adverts COST YOU. They make you buy stuff you didn't care about before you saw the 'vert.

Poverty will encourage this meme.

Free air-time for candidates as a legal requirement is the way forward. Paid slot campaigning = corruption. This is true, so is easy to propagate in the long term, but tough in the short term. They pay the networks? What's their angle? What's in for them? Why are they PAYING to get votes? Is what they're saying untrue? Why must they hire advertising agencies? Are their positions unacceptable without a sales pitch? These are the forces that govern our lives we're choosing, not a second hand car....

Tough to propagate but will stick.