TV Land in America
“God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.” – Lyrics of a popular country song.
Choices. People believe those in the GLBT community have a choice NOT to be GLB or T. The only choice such people have is to determine whether we wish to condemn ourselves to the conformity of the majority of people who are straight or live a life according to our own beings. Perhaps if we live life according to what we are, there is also the choice to be promiscuous or monogamous. There are those who wish to force all of us to make the choice of being straight, thus condemning us to a hell for which morons have no right to condemn one another.
Choices. TV Land today. Another conundrum established by the “majority” who are shallow people in America today, thanks to the education rug which has been pulled out from beneath Americans. If we to watching the drivel of entertainment, religion, sports, and politics delivered by the – what we are told to believe – huge multi-channel “wonders of the modern world” called cable and satellite television, we are personified as fools who don’t recognize “life is good” and we should appreciate these “choices.”
Choices? OK. So the technological modern “wonder world” provides remote control devices which allow us to “program” out the undesirable stuff. Believe me, I am so impressed by such technological “wizardry!” I can whittle my channel selections back to about a dozen or so channels – perhaps two dozen. Maybe. I can whittle my choices back to just a handful, out of how many total I am paying for? 200? 300? Did you catch the part about, “PAYING FOR?” I have the choice, for sure. But when I inquire about also having a “choice” for what I pay, the customer service reps are well trained to twist this all around and tell me about all the wonderful “tiers” of service. “You can get a through g channels.” But this does not include channel bbb. “Oh, well, says the rep, then you go to the next tier – for $40 more.” HOW EXCITING! For channel bbb, I can pay $40 and the rep never blinks an eye (or, I suppose there is a “blinked eye,” because the person is probably in India and I cannot see he or she) when stating this. What a FOOL I am, so I order $40 more, in order to receive the ONE channel I want. The rep is like the Jedi knight in one of the first Star Wars adventures who uses mental telepathy to convince a man he did NOT want a cigarette.
And then I ask about providing a package which fits my needs and at a lower cost, then give me options to pay for any other channel on a “pay as you go” basis (Comcast calls this, “On Demand”). Response. “But we do not offer this and you can get x,y, z.” But I don’t want “x,y, z.” Rep repeats: “But we do not offer this and you can get x,y, z.” But I don’t want your damn “x, y, z” for some astronomical price per month. How about if you CHANGE and offer what I propose? “But we do not offer this and you can get x,y, and z – perhaps at a special introductory rate!” Fine! Take your introductory rate and shove it where Santa Claus put the Christmas tree.
People – consumers – are crazy to accept this sort of crap from the cable / satellite television industry who all collude on prices. Try to get a better package in a so-called “competitive capitalist” market, something the FCC and Congress like to think we are getting (does the “opiate of the masses” come to mind?). Here is a twist on this situation. The conformity forced upon us by greedy, selfish, pension-raiding, executives who de-value human labor to make slaves: TV Land today is similar to what Karl Marx proposed as the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” We have all these shallow people, many without productive jobs, who make decisions for us. These are decisions based, not on reason, responsibility, and what makes sense for our HUMAN nature, but what makes sense for lining the pockets of executives – and that’s it. End of story. No other criteria whatsoever for deciding what the “opiate-inspired” masses should view on television.
Add to this the fact that Rupert Murdock has stated his intent to put local “free” broadcast television “out of business.” So, then we don’t have MORE choices, but less choices – in a supposed capitalist economy.
One more thing. In the midst of all this, the shallow, opiate-inspired consumer is mesmerized while being raped by cable / satellite. In other words, let us accept this stuff on television and PRETEND we REALLY have choices. But many of these same people balk at the ideas of Obamacare providing healthcare from pooled resources of the people. In one case – cable / satellite – Marx’s ideas are accepted. In the other case, Obamacare is falsely attacked for taking into account all the people being served with “multiple healthcare channels” from money we pool together (as we are doing with cable / satellite) and speak loudly and falsely about Obamacare. Let me figure this out. In the one case (cable / satellite), this is a WANT for our lives, not a NECESSITY. In the other case (healthcare), this is a NECESSITY for everyone.
Silly me. But I would prefer pooling a larger sum of money for healthcare – a NEED in my life – than to pool such a large sum of money in order to provide entertainment for my neighbors – a WANT, not a NEED. I know what happens with healthcare by the individual. Those 55 to 65 pay astronomical prices at a time of layoff and no money in an individual’s life. Those in the younger generation pay far less – individually. Again, silly me for noticing there is a better way – by RESPONSIBLY WITHOUT CORRUPTION – pooling our money and making it all more equitable for a NEED in our lives – healthcare. Perhaps then, we can reduce our overall USA per capita costs for healthcare, bringing these in line with other Western CAPITALIST nations.
I repeat: “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.”
Douglas W. Cornwell
Tioga Herald
Tioga Herald 
THREE-PENNY OP-ED: American Big Business is Supply Side Economics, not Capitalism
George W. Bush once said, “what’s good for business is good for America.” I never liked it when he said it in the past. It has gotten worse today. What he TRULY means is that what is good for supply-side economics in America is good for America. In other words, what’s good for fat cats at the top, with a love of money, taking and hoarding the money for themselves and working “trickle-down” economics otherwise, like WE THE PEOPLE are a bunch of slaves designed to get a pittance of money to live on. At least we get more than the Africans who were brought to these shores beginning in 1619.
What’s good for America is good business and capitalism with supply AND demand side considerations, with competition and regulation by government. This was actually what theologian and economist, Adam Smith, a contemporary of our Founding Fathers, said was best, due to the natural human tendency to be greedy and selfish.
For example. Local newspapers in America no longer feel compelled to compete, especially where there is a less dense population, such as the areas around Binghamton, Ithaca, and Sayre, PA. Three newspapers serve this area, but only ONE newspaper, from Binghamton, will deliver to an area situated DIRECTLY BETWEEN ITHACA AND BINGHAMTON, as the CROW flies. Communist style Moscow Pravda runs it all from Virginia and at offices of Gannett. They don’t find good delivery people, in the midst of a population which is crying out, due to the lack of money. So we constantly get screwed and feel po’d about the services and get no satisfaction. The lazy bums at the tops of the corporations simply write it off as no problem and insist we read it in digital copy. BS. Most people do not want to read it that way, but it is the way the freaking fat cats can horde more money, proclaiming that “they cannot make as much otherwise.” Sure. THEY, the FAT CATS cannot make more money, so they push a LAZY MAN’S way of delivery – electronically, which uses MORE energy to do so and they proclaim they are “saving trees.” BS. I have an answer. Publish on RECYCLED PAPER and you can save more TREES and use LESS ENERGY. You BS artists with a love of money.
Then there is Verizon Wireless in this low-density population area. We can look out of our yard and can see the Verizon tower. No hills to interrupt it. Hell. There were more high-rise buildings in Palm Beach County to block the signal there and we COULD NOT VIEW the damn tower from our home. But the service was far better and we seldom had connections in which people keep repeating, “Did you say something? Hello? Hello?” Constantly on Verizon Wireless in this little town in America. One can travel down the road and receive NO service at all. That sucks and I am here to say, “I am sick and tired of this BS and ain’t going to take it anymore.” Will anyone join me in saying this?
No one wishes to join collectively and say anything about this in loud voices. Instead we are forced to listen to the BS of QAnon or Proud Boys with their damn guns of the NRA. Instead, with regard to Verizon, which has a tower near my home, this is what people say. “Well, it gets worse when the leaves are on the trees.’ REALLY? In Florida with high rise buildings blocking signals there is one more thing. THEY HAVE LEAVES ON THE TREES 12 MONTHS OF THE YEAR, DAMN IT ALL. That is making excuses for big business and their love of money attitude which pays no attention to the DEMAND SIDE of the market and MEETING the demand. They put money in the pockets of Claudia Tenney, the bitch who won a congressional seat by only 100 votes and into the wealthy of fat cat Mitch McConnell who uses his money to sabotage efforts of Biden and the Democrats to accomplish something. While wimps among the damn Republicans GO ALONG out of fear of being attacked. Poor people. Feel sorry for such wimps.
Then there is Spectrum which also contributed heavily to BITCH Claudia Tenney who won by only about 100 votes. They are in denial about attacks online against their customers and do nothing. Their streaming service sucks big time as we get constant buffering all the time. CONSTANT. Are they interested in giving more than, “oh, we apologize,” and DO SOMETHING? Nope. The dopes of Spectrum with fat cats at the top, trying to preserve their supply side trickle-down economics, while in denial to the DEMAND SIDE of the market. At least in Florida, there was Laurie’s TV which provided us with a Community Antenna TV (CATV) option which was far better than the crap from a monopoly here. And get Haefele TV or others to COMPETE effectively with Spectrum with CATV? Forget it. We take more than just one step back in this situation, when one considers the BETTER service we received back in the 1960s and 1970s, due to LOCALLY OWNED cable television. We did not have hundreds and hundreds of channels, as what is provided by Laurie’s TV in Palm Beach County, but we on the demand side were happy. It was a capitalist competitive means, too, of selling homes in the community which had Laurie’s TV. Capitalist competition at the local level.
We’re mad as hell and ain’t going to take it anymore. Anyone with us, collectively, or do you continue to be a bunch of wimpish people afraid of confrontation and retribution and who won’t do one damn thing to maintain America’s capitalism and democratic forms of government?
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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, New Comments, Op-ed
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