"Television is an instrument which can paralyze this country"
- William Westmoreland
About this Quote
William Westmoreland's quote recommends that television has the possible to have an unfavorable effect on the country. He suggests that television can be used to manipulate individuals's viewpoints and beliefs, and can be used to manage the population. Television can be used to spread false info and propaganda, which can result in an absence of vital thinking and an inability to make informed decisions. Television can likewise be used to sidetrack individuals from essential issues, and can be utilized to develop a false complacency. Tv can be utilized to produce an incorrect sense of truth, and can be used to create an incorrect sense of unity. In other words, tv can be utilized to incapacitate the nation by producing an incorrect sense of security, sidetracking individuals from essential issues, and controling individuals's viewpoints and beliefs.
"Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam"
"The printed page conveys information and commitment, and requires active involvement. Television conveys emotion and experience, and it's very limited in what it can do logically. It's an existential experience - there and then gone"
"Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone"
"Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols"
"I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens"
"Janet Reno, during her confirmation hearings, said she would come down harder on porno, and lately she's talked about how violence on television has an effect on violence in the real world"
"I think it's brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I've ever seen is called television - but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent"
