[Peace-discuss] Bush's news conference (and TV TURNOFF WEEK!)

[Ken Urban]

This brings to mind that TV TurnOff Week is fast approaching.  (April 19 - 25)  For those of you who don't know what this is, the idea is to completely turn off television (yes WILL is television, so is the weather channel) for an entire week.  You'd be surprised how much you life expands without the compressing force of television.

>From adbusters.org: ( http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/tvturnoff/ )

What happens during a seven-day experiment in life without TV? A whole new space to think emerges. You find yourself passing time in ways you never expected. And you start to wonder: when I reach for the remote, who is really in control? 
TV Turnoff 2004 is no ordinary social ritual. Sure, it's a statement against the dead-end couch culture. But when millions of people let the screen fade to black this year, they'll also be helping to build the Media Carta movement * the human rights battle of our information age. 

Fewer and fewer people control the media that shapes our worldview. And nowhere does this play out worse than on our televisions, where the corporate agenda reigns supreme. Last year, MTV, the factory of teenage-cool, proved the point perfectly. By refusing to air our spots, they let sponsors trump free speech. That's no recipe for a healthy democracy. 

With the Media Carta movement, we're fighting back * for the right of all citizens to access society's most powerful forms of communication. 

So, while your making your TV Turnoff plans for this year and looking through the action ideas, website links, reports, MP3s, Posters and updates * check out the Media Carta Campaign. Read the manifesto and pledge your support.



>>> "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> 4/14/2004 4:52:53 AM >>>
[It's four in the morning.  Naturally I can't sleep. I make it a rule
never actually to watch these administration figures lie, and I broke the
rule tonight: I watched Bush's "news conference." For those who had more
sense than I, here's a summary prepared (brilliantly) by the people at
<www.criticalviewer.com>.  --CGE]