The media ate my brain

I watch TV. I do. But short of the chosen fare, Comedy Central, every other channel gives me the willies.

I find myself wondering things like, “Am I the only one who thinks Bill O’Reilly is a common fool? The only one who feels oddly voyeuristic when Discovery films some remote, native ethnic group living out their lives? The only one who thinks twice about having children because the pull of MTV might be too strong for my parenting to counteract?”

For whatever reasons—a great education, an amazing family, or just simple fate—I have been blessed with a critically thinking mind. I do not take the teachings of corporate media at face value. (In fact, I’m more likely to believe the broke-ass independent media. What have they got to lose?) But a strange thing happens when my “critically thinking mind” is exposed to the TV. In my state of disbelief at how base Media Culture has become, a vast and foggy gray begins to surround me: isolation.

One would think, at 25, that my peers are as open-minded (or close to it) as I. Sadly, that is not the case. I marvel at how little people my age know about what’s at stake these days. Media Culture is certainly to blame. With three different CNNs, why would anyone need to go elsewhere to get informed? And with their new “format” (the sidebars and ticker-tape) there’s enough on one screen to fill your head up permanently, leaving little if no room for other possibilities. Infotainment has become downright aggressive.

When did we give up our minds? When did we choose to forfeit? People vote less, the middle class is vanishing before our eyes, our children are obese, and hello—the waters are rising every day. I feel like William Blake’s “Voice of One” standing on some precipice in the wilderness screaming at the top of my lungs.

Media Culture was moving in as nourishment was moving out of our local markets. But there are little signs of resistance popping up everywhere. Of course, I’m looking for them, but they are there none the less.

Organic and Natural Foods is the fastest-growing segment of the “grocery” industry.

People are choosing to take back their bodies. In forgoing the partially hydrogenated, high-fructose corn syrup-ed foods, I have taken back my body. (Sure I pay more, but if our dollar signs don’t vote for us, nothing does.) I eat moderate meals, with no freaky ingredients. I try to buy from vendors as locally as possible. I don’t have a problem with my weight; I don’t over-consume, and I like to go outside. I am convinced that the health of my body allows my mind to be more resistant to the ever-growing forces of invasion.

Those forces of invasion—globalization, neo-colonialism, agri-terrorism, Coke—whatever name we give them, they are ever-present. Whoever said, “Constant vigilance is the price of freedom,” wasn’t kidding. Just as Ancient Rome distracted its citizens from their discontent with coliseum displays of blood and vice, so too with our current empire. When Bush stole the throne in broad daylight, people should have been rioting in the streets. But we were too busy waiting to see who would be eliminated from Survivor that week. “Sorry democracy, you’re boring. I’ve got some dis-reality TV to watch.”

Shit isn’t slipping past me though. By not being in a constant sugar stupor, I am vigilant. (I went to the movies last night—large water $3.95, large Coke $2.75 … with free refills.) Neo-colonialism can’t succeed without our cooperation. Hollywood can’t convince the rest of the world to buy like us, if we don’t “buy like us” first. Media Culture has led us to believe that Happiness is now excessively shiny, airbrushed and well-dressed. Since that, of course, is not the case, we buy, buy, buy to fill a void that isn’t really there in the first place.

As Morpheus in The Matrix says, “This is a revolution of the mind.” As the Los Angeles band Ozomatli says, “They are provoking revolutionary circumstances.”

The time really, truly is now. The next “election” of our country will make or break our planet. The situation, as far as I can tell, is that dire, that severe. My hope is that as people turn to more preventative measures (as their health care opportunities melt like late-spring snow) their minds will be cleared of the haze of un-health. And in the clearing, they will make choices again.

After all, the FCC vote did get "rolled back" by the senate at the insistence of us.