Is Now the Time For You to Cancel Your Cable and Stop Newspaper Delivery?

I’d like to give a nudge today to everyone out there to do something that I did back in 2009 and have never regretted since: cancel your cable TV service and stop your newspaper delivery.

If enough people did this, it would decimate the Democrats’ most powerful propaganda tools: the Comcast-owned networks of NBC and MSNBC, CNN, and the other dinosaur media outlets that comprise the Left’s Ministry of Truth (Minitrue, for short) that serves Barack Obama with cultish devotion.

Since you can’t just cancel MSNBC and NBC or CNN, you’ll need to cancel your cable TV service altogether. This would be quite a life adjustment for a lot of people, so if it’s something you need to think about and consult other affected family members about then please do that. But just having the conversation about making this change is a step in the right direction. Let me tell you that three years ago when I did this I didn’t think I could live without cable TV. I grew up in inner city Cleveland in the 80s and 90s when cable service wasn’t even offered to anyone living downtown…you could only get it out in the suburbs. Whenever we’d visit relatives in the ‘burbs I’d greedily soak up as much MTV or Nickelodeon as I could and would marvel at all the movies and other things on what seemed like unlimited channels. This was, of course, before the Internet, streaming movies, and all the other ways to access content in the year 2012. Back in Cleveland in those days, I just had my books, VHS cassettes we owned, and whatever the six channels that were available via broadcast antenna decided to show.

Cable came to downtown Cleveland around the same time I went away to college and I paid for Comcast subscriptions in every apartment I ever had as an adult from that point forward…until 2009 when my good friend Abbey back in Ohio asked me if I wanted to do something life-changing with her. Abbey is a dynamo and every once in a while sets out to eliminate something caustic from her life…and she set about removing TV as an influencer because she didn’t like some of the bad habits her little son Remy was picking up from what she called “the idiot box”. This all came to a head when lil’ Remy saw someone smack another person on TV and call that person a bad word and then later Remy did the same thing to Abbey…and she decided she had about all she was going to take of this.

Her call to me asked if I wanted to join her in this and see if I could do it too, because together the two of us were always trying to think of new ways to save time and money and balance household budgets. In 2009 I was single and working a lot of crazy hours as a freelancer and consultant in Chicago and was rarely home, so I sat down and calculated what I was spending on TV at home and it was outrageous considering the amount of time I actually watched it. I had stopped watching MSNBC and CNN completely during the 2008 elections because they were clearly part of Minitrue…but had also stopped watching FOX, too, because while it’s much less skewed to the Left than the other “news networks”, it still has a lot of pro-Democrat bias to it (honestly…sit and watch it…and you’ll see this if you look for it; FOX is not the enemy of the Left that Minitrue always claims it is).

For a while after cutting the cable, I missed networks like BRAVO and LOGO and the stupid stuff I used to watch whenever I was home. The first three weeks after canceling Comcast I felt strange and lost. It was like when I had to give up all caffeine for a while because it interfered with a prescription I needed for some health issues…and my body rebelled against losing this thing it was used to. I remember it being so dead quiet in the house because the “idiot boxes” that I had in the living room, kitchen, and bedroom were all dead, dusty surfaces now. That was remedied by dragging those TVs one by one down to a local electronics store that bought them off me. The timing was great because this was around when I would have needed special gizmos to convert these older sets into the new digital receivers or whatever that had just come out that year. I never had to bother with any of that since I sold the sets and netted a couple hundred bucks for unloading the dead weight.

In the years since I unhooked from cable, I’ve actually managed to see everything I want by just being a little creative and using the Internet as my sole content-provider. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, and I certainly don’t miss the old $160/month cable bill. This is how Justin and I watch everything that matters to us without cable TV:

* Hulu.com — subscription is $8/month and it has most of the TV shows I like to watch and would have been recording on TIVO back when I had a TV

* Netflix.com — online subscription is $8/month and replaces the need to flip through channels watching movies that might be on

* Amazon Instant Video — has movies for $3 each (sometimes just $1 on weekends!) that have just come out on DVD…which is like renting a movie back when there were video stores. We probably watch between one to three movies like this a month instead of going to movie theaters (something Justin never liked to do and I have to admit I am not comfortable doing in a big city like Chicago since the Dark Knight Rises shootings)

* EW.com and TelevisionWithoutPity.com — for the rare instances where something is on a network like HBO that doesn’t release content to Amazon Instant Video the next day after it airs, I just read the recap of the episode online and get the gist of what happened. This applies to shows like True Blood that don’t come on Amazon until a year after they aired on HBO, right before the new season starts in the summer. Dexter on Showtime is like this too. Honestly, though, reading the recaps is enough for me because it’s like reading a book and then next year the “movie” comes out and I can see it acted out on the screen. I need to keep up with a lot of shows because I feel pressure to know what’s happening in pop culture…and reading a recap takes me about 15 minutes instead of an hour to watch something.

* TheMovieSpoiler.com — this is a great site that posts spoilers of all the movies out in theaters. Usually, they have write-ups the day something opens. I read what happens in all the movies that come out but now almost never go to see any in actual theaters. The only time that Justin and I will go to a show is if I snag free tickets through my friends in marketing here in Chicago or if I win them in some of the little contests I always see on entertainment sites and enter. This way I know what happens in the movies months before they come out on Netflix or Amazon streaming.

* Free TV Project — be careful with this one, but it’s the last resort effort if I REALLY need to see something immediately and can’t find it anywhere else and it’s something I am not satisfied just reading a recap for. This is a site that has links to various streams where you can watch something like True Blood almost as soon as it airs. The only thing is, you should never use it with a PC. I think this is where I’ve caught some viruses on PCs…but it works fine with a Mac. You just look up the show you want and then try to find a reliable stream to watch the episode online. I very rarely do this since I’m afraid of ruining my computer…but it is there as a last resort if I feel like I will just go nuts if I can’t see something important that was on HBO and I don’t want to wait a year to watch it when it comes out on Amazon streaming.

I honestly see no need for a newspaper subscription because I get all my news online. Occasionally, the Chicago Tribune gets delivered to us for some reason and will pile up on our doorstep when someone in the building moves out or an address is read wrong by a paperboy and suddenly the newspaper is there in the morning. Justin and I look at these things like they are messages in bottles flung at us from far into the past. They are gross to touch and leave sticky ink on my hands and the propaganda in them is so strong I can’t read more than a few articles into them without laughing at the North Korea/Saddam’s Iraq depths that Minitrue sinks in trying to rewrite history and current events to best suit Democrats.

Honestly, if you are paying to have lies delivered to your door every morning please stop it. Let the Left subsidize their own propaganda and don’t contribute to it. I’d love to see all daily papers go out of business coast to coast and would enjoy the irony that the party who supposedly worships our environment is the one that wastes forests of trees every year churning out rank propaganda that’s flopped onto people’s doorsteps.

I know getting a newspaper every day is a generational thing and that people 40 and older have made this a part of their lives for decades. But, cable TV was a big part of my life too…and I saw quickly that I was able to live without it. I am so happy I followed Abbey’s lead and cut the cable…and love that I saved a small fortune these last three years (which has really come in handy paying for the servers and other costs of running this site). In a way, the money I would have spent helping to fund the Left’s Ministry of Truth ended up going into efforts here at HillBuzz where I try to counter that propaganda on a daily basis…which was a better use for that cash in my life.

I’m sure you can find better uses for what you spend on cable TV and newspapers in your own lives, too. Canceling your magazine subscriptions is smart as well. Unless it’s a reliably conservative publication that provides no propaganda service to you, just stop paying for it. I’m someone who happens to love Vanity Fair even though it’s degenerated into nonstop Leftist propaganda but I refuse to pay for it anymore…so I just go to the library near the end of the month and spend an afternoon there reading the issues I would have had delivered to me. Since I skip anything that’s pro-Obama or Minitrue-approved, it doesn’t take long to read the articles I really enjoy. A lot of them are available for free online too.

Please think about the little, hidden ways you help Democrats every day by funding the things that help keep them in power. MSNBC is actually very close to financial collapse right now and many newspapers are about to go under. A nice nudge by conservatives who are sick of Minitrue shoving Democrats’ talking points at us via these corrupt, vintage media outlets could decimate large numbers of the propagandists the Left depends on to win the culture wars in this country. For instance, just imagine if everyone who considers themselves a Tea Party American would just cancel their cable and newspaper subscriptions and instead follow news via reliable online conservative outlets. It would be Doomsday for Minitrue in a matter of months.

Sit down and be amazed by your annual savings if you really did decide to cut your cable TV and eliminate newspaper delivery.

And if you do so, please tell the person you speak with to do this WHY you are canceling. Tell them that you got sick of the Ministry of Truth pumping out nonstop pro-Obama and pro-Democrat propaganda and you decided enough was enough.

But since Minitrue has lost all credibility with most people I think it will have already been too late.

PS: If you know of other ways that people can see shows they want to watch if they don’t have TV, please chime in below in comments with those. I know there are other options besides Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, etc. but I’ve never used those and would like to know how you see things online without a cable subscription.

Defund the left...this from Ann Barnhardt:

If you do not now understand that the media is enemy number one of you, your family, this culture and of God; if you do not understand that the media is SATANIC, then you are either terminally stupid or you are hopelessly addicted to the satanic filth, agitporn and lies yourself. Pick up the phone, call the cable or satellite company and TURN THE SHIT OFF NOW. Oh, and by the way, I found out how much you are paying for each cable channel. It is roughly $0.12 per month per channel. I saw this figure in a recent story about Algore's Stalinist propaganda channel, Current TV, which they are now trying to sell. Current TV goes into 60 million homes and has annual revenues from their cable and satellite royalties of $86 million. That is $0.12 per subscriber per month. So, you are offering that "pinch of incense" of $0.12 per month (at minimum) for every channel that is included in your cable or satellite package, including the sodomite channel, including MTV, including MSNBC, whether you watch it or not, and even if you block it on your cable box. Your money is still going to these outfits every month, and in doing so you proclaim that "caesar is lord". St. Polycarp, pray for us.

Quit paying their salaries, folks. Television just isn't as important as the country.

#1 Cancel your cable. You’d only be supporting the MSM that lied and defended Obama to the tooth and help secure his re-election. I cancelled my cable and saved $1000 from going to Hollywood and the MSM.

#2 Get some business card printed up that say “Obama’s government has taken all of my money and I am unable to leave you a tip. You might try calling the White House at: (phone number) and ask Obama for your tip.” Leave this on the table whenever you go out to eat at restaurants or places where tips are customarily given.

#3 Before hiring anyone to do work on: your car, lawn, house,etc. Ask them who they voted for if they either won’t tell youor say Obama, tell them “Sorry I cannot trust your jugdment when it comes toimportant matters, how could i trust your judgement when it comes to my car...”

This is just wrong. If you can afford to go out for dinner you can afford a tip. Your waitperson is working, just like you, they have a job and are doing it.

You want to punish the Liberal elite, stop going to movies, Buy Ford instead of GM or Chrysler, don't contribute to PBS and NPR. But don't take it out on someone that is working.

Having the power out for 5 days cured me of my TV addiction.

About an hour after the power came back on, I found the TV shows and commercials very annoying and weird, I turned the danged thing off.

This is just wrong. If you can afford to go out for dinner you can afford a tip. Your waitperson is working, just like you, they have a job and are doing it.

You want to punish the Liberal elite, stop going to movies, Buy Ford instead of GM or Chrysler, don't contribute to PBS and NPR. But don't take it out on someone that is working.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Most of them don't even make minimum wage an hour as it is, it has to be made up in tips.

i dropped cable 2 yrs ago - netflix only - great to watch several shows in a row - no commercials / no bias / no spew

choke the bastards at the wallet

That said - I want to see the day hastened when the govt goes after the free press

If anyone is using the "free press" product, you are part of the problem

“Since you can’t just cancel MSNBC and NBC or CNN, you’ll need to cancel your cable TV service altogether.”

Uh, I have a nifty remote control that allows me to avoid the propaganda channels. I haven't tuned into the above 3 propaganda outlets in years.

Why would I listen to propaganda, AND in the process, miss out on the real news? I don't understand why ANYONE would waste one minute listening to Chris Matthews, Candy Crowley, & their ilk. You might as well be getting your news from an expensive astrologer.

I don't consciously expose myself to disease & pestilence. Why would I expose myself to mental & emotional disease & pestilence?

Journalism is supposed to be about exposing the TRUTH & all of it. Given that, these propagandists are NOT journalists, & should be ignored as one would ignore any pathological liar.

Can someone tell me how to get internet without going through AT&T or Comcast.

That's my question,too. I've checked into Hulu and Netfix, but they require a high-speed internet connection, and I only have DSL through AT&T. We don't have cable, never had, don't want it, so all AT&T's "special offers" are of no use to us. Is my only option internet through a cable company?

I already did that, perhaps as far back as ‘07.

One thing I have to stop my wife from doing is spending money at “Whole Foods”. I think she’s on board now with “boycott the left”. They want to do it their way? Let ‘em. We don’t have to willingly participate.

They’re going to find out why socialism always fails - because you can’t make people like it.

I just wanted to chime in an say I fired Comcast and the local fish wrap 7 years ago and I feel no worse for it in any way. In fact I think my health is better not being a daily consumer of the skewed, doom and gloom product offered up for sale by ALL networks.

This decision is reinforced every time I am exposed to network television. 8-10 mind numbing, intelligence insulting sales pitches that degrade the main programming in every break, no thanks.

If you can’t imagine life without TV just know it’s possible, and by reading a book, getting up and doing something with family you’ll actually be better for it.

Can I get 4G with my TracFone? I think I know the answer.

Do I have to buy a smartphone and then sign a contract with a cell phone provider? And do I hook the phone up to the computer?

These may be stupid questions to you, but I honestly don’t know anything about these new-fangled phones. We have Trac-phones that cost $100/year, and they are off unless we want to make a call.

The device isn’t really a “phone” at all.
It’s called a “hotspot”.

It connects to the cellular network and acts as a WiFi.
Then your computer can connect to it wirelessly.

If your computer doesn’t have WiFi ability, you can get a plugin USB WiFi antenna pretty cheap.

The problem may be that it is pretty pricey.
You might look into “net zero”.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=net+zero+hotspot

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