“Today’s Special Offer Will Not Last”

I despise 99% of everything on television today.  Yet, I watch, not frequently, but I do.  I admit to it.  I can’t seem to quit.

Why?   I’ve found that it is more than habit.  Television is telling us what’s coming. It is an eye to a dystopian future.

Decades ago, my dad called it the  “boob tube,” We laughed as a family, but we watched.  Not frequently, but enough to know it was different then.

Once upon a time, we caught a favorite program or two just to be entertained. They were family oriented, funny and harmless, educational, adventuresome, or enriching.  If a cowboy show had too much violence, Mom, Dad, or Grandma would turn to another channel or turn it off and grab a book to read. If I was bored by a concert my folks were listening to, I crawled up on the couch and fell asleep in somebody’s lap.    No harm and nothing was foul.  Today, it is very different.

Last night, I fell asleep while watching somebody cook an impossibly fancy dish in an incredibly short period.  I woke up hours later to the end of a commercial warning, “Today’s special offer will not last”    I was instantly awake!

THAT was the message I needed to share.

For a long time, I’d been analyzing screen content –  commercials, movies, even cartoons – for what they were REALLY trying to sell us.  I have seen for years that everything in our culture is being turned upside down, and we are expected to accept a new reality. Traditional values are no more, we are told.

If you watch TV, you understand this, whether or not you have put it into words. If you are not a TV watcher, good for you, but please read on to know what others are being fed while just trying for a bit of entertainment.

Whether from the “romantic” schmaltz on Hallmark Channel, commercials on any channel, or commentary from talking heads in the news and special reports, we can see what they are really selling.  It’s not the product on display, the couple in love, or the family situation portrayed.  We are being taught to accept the complete disappearance of our moral standards, which have served us well for hundreds of years.   The bedrock of our society is being crumbled.   Two examples stand out.   One is the treatment of our older citizens, and the other is a new, dystopian moral structure.

For example, once older generations were revered for their knowledge born of years of experience and loved for what they mean to us. No longer. Today’s media suggests they be ridiculed and shunted aside.

First, the ridicule, courtesy of a commercial for insurance.

Progressive Insurance (owned by George Soros, for those who know him…if you don’t, he is Evil’s central banker) has long been preaching disrespect for parents and the older generation.

“Progressive can’t prevent you from becoming your parents”,  says the announcer, “but we can get you good insurance.”   The spiel is accompanied by middle-aged and older people dressed in sloppy attire, acting “stupidly.”  Stupidly is then defined and denigrated – ridiculed – while we watch the actors doing just everyday things.

Or, heaven forbid, not being up on the workings of the latest electronic gadget. Shame on them, says Progressive.

Rely on us, not those old folks, and you will be fine.  This message has been playing on television for years.  My first reaction was, “you should be so lucky as to become your parents.”   But, that’s just me.

Then, the shunting aside of our elderly who once had a place in the home.

Caring for aging parents and family members is another rewrite of our morals and values featured on TV in all those commercials for senior living centers and caregivers.

Let’s put mommy or dad in the local senior home so that “we can go back to being his/her real family again.” Whaaa?   Domicile aging parents away from their homes?           If they want that, fine, but if not, too bad.   It is recommended by incessant brainwashing.  Yes, this is the new trend.

Once in a while, an overriding medical condition might require this, OR, the preference of the aging person(s), but mostly, it is because those old folks just take up too much of your time and/or space.    Perhaps the family has moved far apart from one another.  That can most likely be remedied.

Most of those same parents gave their lives FOR their families (and/or their country) and built their every day around caring for their offspring and probably an older relative. If the family home was large enough, everyone lived together. If not, seniors were helped to stay in their homes as long as possible.

Most of this assistance, if memory serves, was rendered by family members, not hired hands.  Special needs excepted again, of course. Perhaps, the parents should be consulted instead of a TV commercial ingested. OK. Maybe that’s my take, too.   I resemble that generation.

Today’s economy, purposefully ruined as it is, does make everything more complicated.  I’m not oblivious to the financial struggles people today are experiencing.  Also, thousands don’t even know both parents.  What this says about our degrading morals and values is left for another discussion, but you understand…    This, too, I realize.

The point I make though is that the removal of the older generation from our lives is done today as almost rote and perpetrated by messaging from that “boob tube.”

Did you know that colleges and universities teach actual courses in the new societal view of “aging”?     How don’t they (we!) know enough about electronics, computers, etc., to have any relevancy in a life so full of that stuff?    What about all the other life lessons?   Are the rules of the computerized world the only ones in play?    What happened to the reverence and respect thing?    As we all know, there is much more to success than knowing what keys to push or algorithms to analyze.

Then, too, there is the crumbling of our moral bedrock – as if disrespect for our elders weren’t enough!

There are scads of storylines in commercials and movies and even home-renovating shows which feature this.   Non-traditional marriages,   LBGTQXYZ (whatever) people (whom I call gender dysphoric),  and kids with sloppy behaviors.    (Yeah, I know, it’s all relative, but the screen is frequently filled with slobs. If Progressive Insurance can ridicule people for wearing “uncool” stuff, I can.  I like my definition of “cool”)

Whomever someone loves is NOT – and should never be – the subject of public scrutiny.   As to choices of genders and pronouns, here is MY message back at ’em:     The “nature” you now ignore, which gave us TWO genders, male and female, is the SAME nature; the world is being depopulated to protect!   You can’t have it both ways, kids. I’ll take reason and science. After all, CO2 is the stuff of life, NOT something to get rid of.  It’s what trees and plants breathe IN to produce oxygen for the US.   They’d know that if they’d had good old-fashioned science in school.

Then, there are the messages, endless messages, about drugs, drugs, and more drugs.  Every twitch of an eyebrow or flake on the skin is categorized as a “symptom” for which the viewer is counseled to request medication immediately.  We are learning the hard way about the purpose of many, if not most. Prescription drugs are a profit for the medical community rather than a CURE for us. Just listen to the rapidly listed side effects of your drug choices.  Cure dry eye, but cause cancer!   No thanks!

I could go into this in great detail, but I’ll spare you for now.  Just please understand that ALL of what we see on TV today is a message that our moral guideposts are missing. By subtle and not-so-subtle images on the screen, we are told that we must normalize and accept it all.  Forget church, forget family, forget what your kids are learning in school, forget what YOU’VE learned along the way. DO as the media message tells you.  Accept it all.   You are not to have a reaction or opinion.  Then you may go get some popcorn to watch the next show.

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Kat Stansell is the Grassroots Outreach Director for the American Policy Center. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduate of Denison University, Kat served the Village of Mettawa, IL, as treasurer and chair of the Planning Commission, where she got a good look at the process of civic vs. corporate interaction. She has been a local activist, working for several candidates and organizations. She has also written for newspapers and websites and organized events highlighting issues of the day.

 

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