You would think that after 75 or 80 years of soaking up vomit from the airwaves, humanity would awaken to the fact that television commercials are insulting, degrading, obscene, immature, and offensive. They also invade our serenity and wreak havoc on our sensibilities. Individually and collectively, each of us is now entitled to a) throw a brick through our TV sets, b) dump garbage on the door steps of all active commercial TV stations, and c) short-sheet the beds of every TV sponsor of ads before beating all of them into submission with broom sticks, bowling balls, and very sharp objects. The only reason why I have not taken any of the aforementioned actions is because I make maximum use of my remote’s on/off sound control. Otherwise, I would also be a roving zombie out and about looking for products to buy that I don't need, don’t want, and that I cannot resell for a penny on the dollars I wasted on them.

The boob-tube mockery does not end with the means to hawk all those products that we import from China and other countries that hate us. It also extends to the pulpit wherein stand the perpetrators of the good life as models for the next life after this one ends. Preachers of every stripe love to join in and take all weary-watchers to the cleaners when they make appeals for cash with which to upgrade their private jets, call-in their tailors for another dozen of those $3,000 suits, or shovel the first lump of dirt for another personal mansion in the $25 to $50 million dollar neighborhood. Yes, TV preachers love domains with golden streets, but not those that they proclaim pave the highway in heaven. With the help of the TV screen, doing good for us is a lot more about doing well for them. It would not surprise me at all to learn that this bunch of hyenas identify, catalog, and are now tracking every wealthy shut-in hellbent on milking them for countless millions of dollars. You know the preachers by their expensive dental work, by their silk shirts, their diamond rings, their $50,000 watches, and by the cast of misfits masquerading as cripples and lame ducks who get to rise up from their wheelchairs each time this band of thugs take to the airwaves.

But my next favorite group of girls and boys to attack are those who love to suck multi-billions of dollars from our pockets to theirs are the professional athletes. At the top of this list are those who love to play with their balls. I’m referring to baseballs, footballs, basketballs, tennis balls, golf balls, and even the sharpies who roll their bowling balls merrily down the lanes. Nobody really knows who the winners are until after scores are tabulated. So it is not until their games are played and ended that you get to watch your hard-earned bucks fly away to an invented fiction. Aren’t you thrilled to know that the money you paid via the sponsors mesmerizing TV ads went first to the sponsors, and then to the TV boys and girls, and then to the players. And what did you get for your money? Perhaps a glove you don’t need, a cap you don’t wear, or a can of beer that tastes like piss. But you get to set back and ogle the multi-million dollar homes, or line up like lemmings to get one of these “heros” to scribble something on your hat, but only after you drove 100 miles and paid a $150 fee to get in to the arena—if you also made a reservation and bought season tickets.

The last and most heinous group of all are those who hide from TV cameras. They pick your pockets and mine every minute, of every hour, of every day. They are the ultra-rich—the inheritors who build nothing, contribute nothing, and pay no taxes—yet they live in regal splendor in 8 or 10 different homes each while watching their $135 trillion pile of inherited dollars double in value every 10 years from unearned dividends, rents, interest, and capital appreciation, thus keeping you and me and the 165 million poor locked in our places. 840 of them are billionaires; 233,599 have assets of $30 million or more. They own the TV stations and the networks that protect them from us.

It’s a rigged game.