This may go down in history as one of the biggest con jobs swallowed hook, line and sinker by your United States Congress and fed to an unsuspecting public. The Digital Television conversion transition has lived up to my billing as being a scam, backed by sheer ignorance and blatant lying. And as is usually the case, the taxpaying citizens get the shaft and are left to pay the bill. This is just one more reason to oust every last politician in Washington, never to see such stupidity and crooked thievery again.
Just about one year ago, I told you that the DTV conversion and transition was a joke and a lie. I have listened to talk radio hosts rail about how people should just buy the converter box and stop being so cheap. I’ve read commentary about what a great thing this is and also those who didn’t think the taxpayers should be picking up the tab for all those converter boxes, etc., but nobody would tell the truth that soon millions of viewers would be left without television reception.
Here’s the con job. As I said before, I recall watching the Senate Committee hearings when representatives of the broadcast industry met with members of the Senate to discuss who should pay for this conversion. I must say that there is no way the taxpayers should have picked up the $4 billion-plus tab for this ripoff. If the broadcast industry believed they were going to provide a better product, which they haven’t, then they should have made the announcement they were switching to digital broadcasting and as any good private industry would have done, convince the consumers that their new product was worth investing more money in. Problem is, their product is junk and they knew it from the beginning.
The broadcasters convinced Congress that it was the responsibility of the government to pay for this conversion because the government uses the broadcasters for the Emergency Broadcast System. Open mouth and take the entire bait in and swallow real hard. That’s what Congress did, never looking to see what they were swallowing.
I also recall the broadcasters telling the Senate Committee that “nothing would change” for those who can just get a converter box for their non-digital televisions. NOTHING WOULD CHANGE, they claimed. Anyone who can watch analog TV now can simply add a converter box and be able to not only watch TV still but enjoy higher quality pictures, they said. This of course was a lie but your ignorant and lazy Congress never bothered to investigate that claim, they just passed on the $4 billion bill to you.
I could care less whether the television broadcasters go out of business or sell popcorn and peanuts. To me they should be a private business able to make private decisions in running their business however they see fit and let capitalism control their industry. But they chose not to do that. They chose to formulate a bunch of lies and sell them to an inept Congress, one that has not one clue as to what goes on around them nor do they care. They know that next election they can do what all successful politicians do and that’s lie their way into another term in office only to continue ripping off you and me.
As I predicted a year ago, here’s what happened and why I continue to be mad. I had discovered that here at my camp, I couldn’t receive a strong enough signal through my rabbit ears to be able to watch the new digital broadcasts. I was told and did some investigating on my own, that if I put up a roof antenna I would be able to get a strong enough signal. In all honesty I knew from doing some research that I was on the fringe, as would be hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of other Americans.
I coughed up over $100 and climbed up on my camp roof and put up the antenna. It was just two days before the big switch was to be thrown saying goodbye to analog television broadcasting. When I completed the job, I plugged my new cable into the back of my TV, minus the converter box. Wow! I was able to watch three channels that were still broadcasting an analog signal – PBS, NBC and ABC. The local (actually not so local) CBS affiliate was already broadcasting only a digital signal. The pictures I received where actually quite good except for one which was still somewhat ghosty.
To make a bit of a long story shorter, once the switch was thrown, as they called it, I am now down to one channel that sometimes I can watch depending on the weather I guess. If the wind blows, it appears the movement of the trees disrupts the signal and the image freezes, breaks down into small strips and square or rectangle boxes and the sound skips and breaks up as well.
“Nothing will change”, those lying, deceitful and wicked people sold Congress. Your pocketbook was pilfered for a mere $4 billion and now I’m willing to believe that millions of Americans are in the same boat as me. One day before the great switch over, one local television studio was putting out a public service announcement warning people that if they lived in certain areas (the list was long), they would not be able to watch over-the-airwaves broadcast television anymore. One day!!! Why weren’t they telling us this one year before the great switch over?
If the broadcast industry and the United States Congress had made the announcement a year ago that everything was going to switch over to digital and many wouldn’t be able to watch TV anymore, I would have grumbled about not being able to watch TV while at camp. But I was lied to and I was conned out of my share of $4 billion. The broadcast industry got what they wanted, being paid for on the backs of taxpayers and Congress has proven to us once again what a dysfunctional, inept bunch of ignorant slobs they are.
Remember these things next election season. It’s the only way we can change this crap.
Tom Remington
