Sunday, September 5, 2010

Your Sister's a Muslim, Too--If Fox Says So

Pick your epithet--courtesy a bevy of liars
Newsweek comes to our house every week. I scan it; my wife reads it; my grandson reads it when he's over--we used to pass on copies to him, but I think he's got a subscription now to Time or something. (We're not passing copies along anymore, as far as I know.) Anyway, to the right there is the cover of the latest issue. Not too long ago, just last week, I had occasion to note the unbelievable fact that almost half--46%--of the Republican party believes that the president of the United States is a Muslim. One out of four people in this country don't believe that he was born a US citizen. A lion's share of the responsibility for spreading these lies belongs to Fox News and the hate-mongering radio: Limbaugh, Savage, and numerous other raving liars.

(Just as an aside, I don't think anyone could possibly imagined an engine of propaganda such as this network ever been allowed to put its stuff on the air. Say, 10 years or so ago. Have you ever watched Fox news for a few hours? It is absolutely unrelenting in its hostility to the White House and Obama. Whatever truth they present you have to find underneath mountains of lies, innuendo, half-truths, sneers, and self-righteous posturing – all, it goes without saying from the right of the political spectrum. Not the center, the right. And apparently, since this is the most popular news network in America, this bilge strikes a responsive chord with a large number of dreadfully naïve and uninformed people.)

This story, which offers a considerable number of direct examples, indicts the right wing media for propagating these half-truths and downright falsehoods about the president. Nor does it spare other people responsible, to wit:
The blame for this extends from Fox News and the Republican leadership, to the peculiar psychology of resentment in public opinion, to the ham-handed political response of the Obama White House. Whatever the cause, if smash-mouth tactics are validated by huge GOP gains in the midterm elections, then Big Lie politics may be with us for good.
What's really got me concerned is that the Big Lie has been in ascendancy ever since Fox News came on the air. This network is nothing but an organ of Rupert Murdoch pro-business, pro-military, far right conservatism. Its ludicrous motto – fair and balanced news – is actually, I think, a tongue-in-cheek in-joke for all of the fat cats, generals, defense contractors, and closet racists whose interests it serves. Fox news has never been fair and balanced since the day it started telecasting. But who would've thought that such transparent bullshit daily served up by this network would be the main determinant shaping the political life of this country? Amazing, isn't it?
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