I’m Taking the No-Cable Pledge: I will not watch MSNBC, FOX News, or CNN or any other cable news network until after the election.

I have decided to take a pledge. Now, I’m not normally a pledge taker, but for the sake of my sanity I am willing to make this one exception because I think my own peacefulness might just hang in the balance. I’m calling it the “no-cable pledge.” Here it is: “I pledge that I will not watch MSNBC, FOX News, or CNN or any other cable news network until after the election.” I want you to take the pledge, too. Here’s why…

Cable news is completely toxic.
Cable news personalities and pundits tell me only two things: who I should fear and who I should blame. If I watch FOX News I become angry at the Democrats. If I watch MSNBC I become angry at the right wing of the Republican Party. If I watch CNN I just become indiscriminately angry. This much anger and blaming is toxic to the human person. Who needs that?

Cable News is not really news.
Cable news is more opinion than news. 24 hour news channels are not trying to perform the essential function of informing our society. Cable news networks show us 24 hours of equal parts political blood-sport and political infomercials, and watching it is like purchasing a ticket to the Roman Colosseum. I miss Walter Cronkite.

Cable news will poison your mind.
Cable news trains us to hate people that we would not otherwise hate. They need us to hate each other because they are not unlike the ectoplasmic slime from Ghostbusters 2, they feed off hatred. (Too much with the Ghostbusters 2 reference?). It almost seems as though cable news channels don’t care if hatred destroys our society as long as their ratings are up. Even in small doses, that sort of imbalanced, distorted thinking will poison our minds. My brain (you brain, too), doesn’t need to deal with this.

Cable News will never change until we refuse to watch!
We all have differing political opinions, but at the end of the day we are all neighbors. Even those of us with strong political opinions genuinely care about even the people who see things differently. We are not enemies. Folks on the other side of the aisle are not the devils they are made out to be on the news channels.

There is a simple fix: Simply turn them off.

I’m taking the “no-cable pledge,” and I invite you to do the same. I will still read print journalists and some of the online stuff – though I’ll be careful there as well – but I will not watch cable news on television or online. If I need a newscast fix I might watch one of the major network newscasts, or PBS. I’m done with MSNBC, FOX News, and CNN until all the votes are cast.

Help me spread the word by sharing this on Facebook & wherever you are plugged in to social media. Copy the lousy icon I made & send it around. Talk it up, people! Let’s take the pledge, and spread the civility and peacefulness!