Mediain't

The reemergence of a semi-regular commenter is timely, with respect to an article I just read. The commenter is deeply saddened by what she sees, on her version of the news. Liberals running wild, defecating on cars (no, really!), punching people in their noses. This, she thinks (because she's been made to) represents America since Barack Obama took office. Wild gangs of liberals. Everywhere. Turding Toyotas, screwing in parks.

And the press. The press. The liberal media, keeping the real truth out of sight. Other than on right-wing radio and Fox "news," not a drop of ink, not a pixel, a fleck of spittle, on Benghazi. Liberals, by the threat of crapping on their Cadillacs, have kept everyone in Congress from looking into it. Lazy people, taking money from the pockets of the rich. To buy insoluble fiber. To increase their defecability.

The lady is sincere, and I alternate between sympathy for her and frustration. Were she to look out her window, check out the malls, she might be reassured: life goes on pretty much as it has for decades. Roving ranks of Pontiac-poopers are rare. Were she to see past the fog of her news sources, though, she might become concerned about the actual direction in which her party would take us if they could: further aggregation of money and power in the hands of a very few; feeding at the trough of the military industry while ignoring the needs of education, infrastructure, environmental protection -- all in the name of maintaining the lowest tax rates, in decades, on the wealthiest among us. Her misdirected but heart-felt fears are exactly the desired result of years of Foxorovian propagandizing; and the proof of the perfection of it all is that she has no clue how she's been played, and never will. As planned.

Which brings me to the article to which I referred: part and parcel of the disinformation campaign has been the steady denigration of all media sources except for their own. The literally Orwellian, Politburo-proven effort at convincing people -- masses of them -- that lies are truth, that war is peace, that Fox is fair.

Congratulations are in order. The conservative movement that rules the GOP has successfully undermined a vital American institution -- journalism. Otherwise, Republicans didn't do well in 2012, losing an election, and are at a public-opinion disadvantage in the year's final act, the fiscal cliff talks. But at least they came out on top in their ongoing propaganda campaign against the news media. ... As Gallup notes, it "poses a challenge to democracy and to creating a fully engaged citizenry." 

[...] 

The right's war against journalists has been constant and ongoing for years, and its tempo has stepped up in recent times. Public antipathy toward the news media has nothing to do with people's individual observations. Not many have the time to do a minute analysis of media coverage. It has everything to do with a juggernaut of conservative anti-media propaganda that has grown more and more powerful. ... This is the permanent mantra of conservative talk radio. Fox News thrives by preaching to GOP stalwarts, with the slogan "fair and balanced," implying everyone else in the media is not. On the right, a well-funded industry has taken root, with books and websites dedicated to condemning the media.

There's fault to go around, though. Whereas the media are hardly a liberal bastion, they're generally lazy as hell, and easily cowed. Ironically, the outlet that claims fairness and balance and produces none of it, has somehow made actual reporters from actual news sources, who at one time might have believed in the concept, think they have to pretend there are two equal sides to everything, whether it's climate change denial or teabagger know-nothingism. Fox does none of that; but since its viewers think they do, and since they've convinced everyone that the "mainstream" media are biased, they've gotten a twofer: pushing propaganda; getting no pushback.

I don't want to pick on her, but, geez, her claims are so perfectly predictable: and she's the avatar for the whole Tea Party. If it's on Fox "news" it's embedded in her brain, like Toxoplasmosis... It's probably true that somewhere somebody shat on a car (although Fox has a record of making shit up, maybe literally in this case). It's also true that Benghazi was a tragedy. But does car-crapping represent liberalism, in Congress? Has the "truth" of Benghazi been suppressed? (Could it be that since Congress has the power to investigate and, other than that self-promoting idiot Darrell Issa, they haven't, it has something to do with the fact they'd rather not be told about the effects of their cutting $150 million from Obama's requested funds for embassy security? I'm asking because Fox "news" isn't.) Did Fox give as much coverage to the falsehoods leading to the invasion of Iraq as it has, nonstop, to Benghazi? Did they press for prosecution for war crimes by torturers, care about coverups of it by the CIA? Why? Or why not?

The lady has drunk the Koolaid and found it to her liking, because the rest of the world isn't. If climate change is real, it'd need attention. If the real problems of this country weren't a couple of people screwing in Zuccotti park, but the fact that our infrastructure is falling apart and Rs refuse to pay for it, want to gut education and environmental protection and on and on, then it'd cost money to do what's needed. And that's decidedly NOT the agenda of those to whose control she's ceded her mind. They want more money and power, and they want to keep it for themselves. More and more of each, in the hands of fewer and fewer. To get there, they need people like the commenter to look the other way, to buy what they're pushing, to not look behind the curtain.

And, boy, does she! And, boy, do the teabaggers.

Sometimes I listen to myself and think, wow, the guy sounds like a raving lunatic (thank god for Louie Gohmert). Oligarchy! Military-industrial complex!! Right-wing propaganda!!! But isn't it true? Do 400 people in this country control as much wealth as the bottom 70%, or don't they? Are their tax rates lower than they've been in decades, or aren't they? Do Rs want to spend more on military and less on infrastructure, or don't they? Do their proposals give more money and power to the very rich, and less of a future for everyone else, or don't they? Are these things more threatening to the future of all of us than the false controversies in the mouths of the RWS™, or aren't they?

And, have they caused people to be less concerned about that than about soiling a Subaru, dunging a Dodge, fecing a Ford, or haven't they?

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