Warning labels for analog televisions, so unwary shoppers know they've only got two years before broadcasters kill off analog, have been proposed by US politicians.

Come February 19, 2009, millions of television screens will go blank right across America as broadcasters finally abandon analog and go fully digital. There's so much confusion out there about terms such as "digital" and "high definition" that a lot couch potatoes are in one hell of a shock.

Politicians aren't renowned for their grasp of new technology either, and the right wing Republicans who put forward the idea probably can't even program their VCRs (that's what servants are for). But they do know people. Cut off millions of registered voters from their drug of choice and they'll take it out at the polls. It's probably no coincidence that the death of analog broadcasting comes only months after the 2008 elections, giving politicians almost four years to sort out the mess.

The poor, uneducated underclass - those who that can't afford a new television every few years or even a digital set top box - are the real danger. A daily shot of junk food and junk television keeps them sedated enough to tolerate the terrible conditions the United States inflicts on its poor. The gap between the haves and have-nots is growing and nothing will be a stronger symbol of this than millions of blank television screens.

Television is the soma that stops consumers from waking up, it stops them from seeing they're part of the Matrix. Work, shop, breed, die. Don't think. The Romans used gladiators at the Colosseum to distract the people from what was really important, today it's pro wrestling beamed into your lounge room from Madison Square Garden.

The problem isn't restricted to the United States. Australian politicians have even proposed giving set top boxes away, they're so afraid of the backlash when analog broadcasts are phased out in a few years time. I say "a few years" because they still don't have the guts to call a hard and fast deadline. It was supposed to be 2008, but they've stuffed up the introduction of digital television so badly that now it will be at least 2010, probably 2012.

Australian Communications Minister, Helen Coonan, had the audacity to call herself a "friend of the consumer" on television recently, ensuring "we won't be left behind in some sort of digital dark age". Lucky I don't keep guns in the house or I'd need a new television. The dark age is coming for analog television and if politicians don't handle it well, they'll be the ones left out of the picture.