This fucking election best better fucking work out in our favor...

[H2O Man]

105. I think it

has played a major role in creating the confusion, by spreading misinformation, disinformation, and purposeful outright lies. Day in and day out, television mixes these with small pieces of fact and even smaller grains of truth.

And of course, television is a passive form of "entertainment." I say that as someone who does watch television, and generally for entertainment purposes. There has rarely been a significant amount of "breaking news," for example, that one learns more about, almost immediately, due to television coverage.

To rehash a point that I've focused on here on DU many times, if one removed television and radio, turned off the bright, colorful lights and the loud music, tossed out the cell-phones and internet, hid the booze and other drugs, there would not only be a massive reduction in the loud laughter and excitement of our culture ..... there would be millions of people who would be lost, scared, and depressed. They would not have a clue. The very idea of reading books, much less the concept of the Power of Ideas, is lost to them. And those behind the curtain -- the very people who, by no coincidence, selected Willard Romney as the republican party's nominee, despite the widespread disapproval and contempt that even republicans hold him in -- find it much easier to deal with merry bands of fools, than with a single, solitary conscious person. They are capitalizing upon the ignorance and sheer stupidity of the masses.

I must say, however, that I remain an optimist. For as Holderlain said:

"Danger itself
Fosters the rescueing power."