Reality TV? You ain't seen nothin' yet

From the huge worldwide anti-war protests in February 15, and the mainstream media's ignoring of it all, to the surprising coverage of the implications of USA Patriot Act II in the nation's editorial pages, from the New York Times to the St. Petersburg Times to the St. Louis Post-Dsipatch to the Arizona Republic all warning against it, there is a huge amount of columnizing I could do here about the clear and present danger the Bush administration is to the American, and especially, the world's, people. You want links? Then go to the following sites and browse:

• Antiwar.com
  
• Alternet.org
  
• Etherzone.com
  
• LewRockwell.com
  
• Truthout.org
  
• WorldNetDaily.com

where all of the sites (except WND, which amazingly opposes the coming police state but supports war on Iraq--and can't seem to find the direct relationship between the coming war and the coming fascism) provide regular links to not just antiwar pages but anti-police state as well, and show how war probably will lead to destruction of freedom at home as well as human life abroad.

Yep, I could be writing about all that but I've been there, done that, and have warned in so many recent articles that war and fascism go hand in hand. Doubtful? Then study some history.

And now, as Monty Python used to say, for something completely different. Except that it's just a different angle on the same thing, for reality TV really is becoming the American mindset.

I am NOT going to site links to study after study about how reality TV has come to redefine American "couch-potato-ism" and indicts the true state of the "fat, lazy, stupid" American, not to mention the fact that it proves once and for all that Americans will either do anything--from eating horse rectum to pretending to be a millionaire when you aren't even middle class--for money, or gawk at those who do, too chicken to do it themselves (or too smart not to). Oh, and, BTW, I hate to break it to you who think this is strictly a US phenomenon, this kind of thing plays well in Russia, Japan, Britain, and Mexico (the show on Univision, "Sabado Gigante", is actually typical of Mexcian TV--watch it sometime if you can get it on your satellite or cable), for instance.

I'm not going to cite studies here because no study points out the popularity of reality TV more than the fact that networks like FOX come up with new ones almost every week, which they wouldn't do if the genre wasn't enormously popular. No study is necessary.

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