To the Editor:

Al Gore's new Current TV cable/satellite channel has been on the air for over three weeks now and it is boring, repetitive and is a truly vile addition to the vast wasteland world of television. Current TV features lots of slick flashing commercials which hype Current and Google, one of its leading corporate sponsors. Google is a leading search engine on the Internet, but there is little for the typical television viewer and Internet user to learn from seeing "top ten" Google search results displayed on television. Who bloody cares? What a waste of time...

The supposed innovation of Current TV is the featuring of viewer-submitted short video segments (here ominously called "pods"(remember the "pod people" in the 1950s science-fiction movie?)) on a wide variety of subjects. Random viewing of this channel reveals a selection of dull videos about some self-absorbed materialistic twenty-somethings that included a guy and his large athletic equipment collection. Again, who bloody cares?

The relevant political and social content of Current TV is very close to zero. If there are occasional snippets of political relevance, they are buried in a blizzard of commercials, promos, retros and miscellaneous mindless fluff along with more ads for Current and Google. The announcers are bland and vacuous. Current is sort like MTV without any music videos or the Weather Channel without any weather forecasts. There is no theme or order to the video presentations. I imagine that the television ratings or rankings for Current TV are near the bottom along with the most obscure home-shopping and religious channels.

It is depressing that the backers of Al Gore's Current TV channel had to destroy the thoughtful NewsWorld International channel, which gave us news from Canada, Germany and other out-of-the-American Empire sources. The NewsWorld International was the least fascist of any of the existing American cable news channels.

What American television viewers lack and yearn for is an intelligent progressive liberal cable/satellite news channel, sort of a video version of the Air American Radio Network, which currently features a hard-hitting daily lineup of Jerry Springer, Al Franken, Big Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Jeanane Giraflo, Sam Seder and Mike Malloy (broadcast on 960 AM in the San Francisco Bay Area). This group of perceptive radio-talk show hosts could be the foundation for a new progressive liberal cable television network.

Current TV does not talk about current events or what is actually happening in the real world today, heaven forbid. Obviously, even the name "current" is a lie, because this channel does not cover current events. Current TV is part of the corporate media's plan to distract and befuddle you, so that you can't think about, react to or protest the current stupidity of the incompetent Bush regime.

Al Gore has already demonstrated his knack for rolling over and playing dead-Democrat for the vicious boy-king Bush and his GOP gang of thugs who stole the 2000 election in Florida. Now, with a chance to bring some liberal progressive news to America with his Current TV channel he instead goes off on a silly tangent with his hip hip hip cool cool cool video snippets/pods of mental fluff. Unless the Current TV ownership and management quickly make serious changes to make their programming more relevant and more socially and politically conscious, Current TV will come crashing down as one of the biggest television flops in the early 21st century.

The basic trouble with establishment Democrats such as Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein is that they are much too corrupted by corporate campaign financing to be able to seriously stand up for the citizens of this country. They are only too happy to play along with the Bush bunch and support their barbarous imperialistic invasion, occupation, torture, murder, imprisonment and detention in Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq.

Cindy Sheehan is a refreshing alternative to these pathetic establishment Democrats. How many Democratic Senators do you see standing with Cindy Sheehan at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas and demanding that Mr. Bush tell her the "noble cause" that her son died for in Iraq. Will these Democratic Senators stand alongside Cindy Sheehan and support her demand for an immediate and total withdrawal of U. S. military forces from Iraq? Don't hold your breath. Cindy Sheehan is an inspired and inspiring leader; she would make an excellent President.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

21 August 2005.

End.

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