Fox propaganda reaching surreal levels

[HamdenRice]

I almost never watch Fox news, but this morning I flipped past it several times. The level of their insane propaganda is reaching absurdist levels. They have taken it to a Dada-esque level.

I wasn't even listening to the sound, but the banner under the talking head at one point said something like, "Stock Market tumble and Middle East War: Russia and China to blame?" WTF? It is Russia's and China's fault that Israel has invaded Lebanon? I could see blaming Hamas, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, or even Syria or Iran or the Bush administration for its bizarre middle east policy, but Russia and China? Have they lost their minds? Do they even think anyone believes that crap? Then sadly I think of a few freepers I know and in fact they will swallow that and repeat it next time I see them. They have completely lost the ability to think.

A few minutes later, flipping past Fox, the banner read, "Kill the minimum wage and boost all paychecks?" WTF? Eliminating the minimum wage will cause wages to rise? Are they insane? Even right wing economists who favor abolishing the minimum wage do not say wages will rise; they say that more low wage workers will be employed -- a kind of trade off of wages for fuller employment.

Any freeper who believes this crap has simply lost the ability to think and reason.

[NoodleyAppendage]

1. Thinking and reason are antithetical to Faux News viewers.

People who consistently watch Faux News are IDIOTS...pure and simple. Typically, they are ignorant, pissed-off, white males in their late 50s, who are angry at the world and looking to scapegoat any group, government or minority as the source of their problems.

J

[itzamirakul]

33. The over 50 crowd is angry mainly because at this age they

realize that they will probably never be as great as they had thought they would be. They realize that without Divine Intervention they will probably never be "Bill Gates" or a famous rock star. They come to grips with the fact that they will never be rich or famous. They had their chance on the American Dream Merry-go-round and they missed the golden ring. Many of them are moving to the sides now and becoming observers.

And now they have to watch newer, younger, greedier, more selfish, less caring, technologically enhanced and advanced, video game trained members of society replacing them on the road to the great American Dream. And they are callous. And they are ruthless. Even more that the 50+ crowd was, "back in the day."

So they watch Fox, O'Reilly, Limbaugh,Hannity, Coulter and a bunch of golden-tressed, long-limbed bimbos and they are hypnotized into believing the opposite of reality. They have become convinced that what they are being told by these RW shills is the truth.

They believe that the reason they are not rich is because of the welfare system.

They believe that collecting higher taxes from the wealthy is not fair, because some day, they themselves may be rich.

They believe that most of their problems are caused by people who mostly look different from them.

They believe that it is acceptable to believe in a religious life and kill innocent people at the same time.

They believe so many falsehoods that they live in a world of confusion, surrounded by the Truth and yet refusing to see it.

IMO, that's the average Fox male 50+ viewer.

[ixion]

2. 'reason', in general, is anathema to conservatives

because it gets squarely in the way of their Delusions of Grandeur.

[pepperbear]

3. Yep! The old punctuation mark trick.....

Just add a question mark, but make it LOUD, and the "?" instantly transforms into "!!!".

It's never just news with them. It's all supposition and analysis.

[thecrow]

4. Seriously, we MUST invade Zimbabwe

and put an end to all this Russia/Chine interference...

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. I agree with invading them, but not for those reasons.

Mugabe has caused the suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands. It is a mini-Darfur, except Robert Mugabe happens to be president.

[HamdenRice]

13. As someone who has travelled in Zimbabwe

you are way off base. Mugabe is a now bad guy and there is suffering in Zimbabwe, but it is nothing close to Darfur. It's a much more complicated situation, for which the US and Britain bear a lot of responsibility, than most people can begin to comprehend.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. OK, I am certainly willing to learn,

do you have any sites you can direct me to?

I was refering to Mugabe's closing of shanty towns and forced relocation of over a million people. I was referring to the the armed gangs that break up opposition meetings, the closing of "illegal" shopping and trading areas, and the deliberate policy of starving regions that did not vote properly.

But, I am always anxious to learn more. Thanks in advance.

[HamdenRice]

17. Zimbabwe in a nutshell

This really should be in a separate thread, but here's the situation in a nutshell. Before majority rule, Rhodesia had a system of apartheid, but with far fewer white people that South Africa -- about 5% of the population. They owned 50% of the land, and all the best land. A typical white farmer might own 10,000 acres.

At majority rule, brokered mainly by the UK, Zimbabwe was promised funds for land reform to transfer land from large scale white farmers to small scale black farmers. White farmers were promised they would be paid only in dollars or pounds, not the local currency, so they could leave the country if they chose.

For a decade and a half, Zimbabwe carried out one of the most successful land reform programs in history. It turned out that small scale black farmers were infinitely more productive and efficient that large scale over capitalized white farmers. By the late 80s, early 90s, black farmers were producing more crops than white farmers. All indexes of social welfare in the land reform areas showed that small scale black farmers had dramatically improved their lives. This was the view of the British overseas development organization (like our US AID) which funded the land reform program.

Zimbabwe, however, did have corruption, and Mugabe gave some farms to political supporters rather than peasants. This lead to a long, acrimonious disputes between Zimbabwe, the US and UK. Finally the US and UK decided to throw out the baby with the bathwater and suspended all funding for land reform.

It was at that point that Mugabe began threatening uncompensated seizure of white farms. Mugabe turned his greatest accomplishment -- one of the best land reform programs -- into his worst catastrophe. The new uncompensated program was chaotic, unplanned and disastrous. So when you hear that the transfer of land from whites to blacks is causing the economic meltdown, that's very simplistic. Small scale black farmers are actually better for the economy because of their scale and efficiency. It is the rapid transfer outside of a coherent land reform program that's causing the problem.

A coalition of the remaining white population and pro-democracy blacks began contesting Mugabe's party. But despite its good intentions, this coalition is having difficulty attracting a big majority of voters because too many Zimbabweans are still afraid that the whites who are backing it are trying to take back power and stop land reform. Meanwhile, Mugabe has become more and more isolated, paranoid, and destructive in his economic policies.

It's a bad, complex situation all around, but it's not the simple story that the mainstream media portrays.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

20. thanks for your thoughtful and informative post.

I suspect most global situations suffer from the same pisspoor treatment by US MSM.

[itzamirakul]

34. Thanks for the great summary. It makes the situation in Zimbabwe

far more understandable and also makes it much easier to explain to others.

Each one teach one...

[readmoreoften]

39. Thanks! I always thought what I was hearing sounded racist!

All I heard was "the rich white farmers were forced out" and the "the poor black farmers couldn't figure out what to do with it" so now they're all starving. I knew it was a bunch of racist nonsense, but I couldn't find the info to set the story straight. Thank you! I'll pass the info on!

[Hubert Flottz]

5. I was in two different doctor's offices last week and FOX was on

the TV in both waiting rooms.

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. It would be better suited for the bathrooms.

[leveymg]

10. I ask them to change the channel

They always do. :hi:

[Hubert Flottz]

14. I guess they think if they make sick people even sicker they can

make more cash!

Doctors got some pretty good tax breaks from Bush, so I guess they're on his side and the country be damned.

[thecrow]

30. Kaiser Permanente centers, too...

and they won't change the channel!
Who is funding this, I wonder?

[lutefisk]

12. Also stores & restaurants- "brainwashing by FOX news ticker"

There is also a widely available application that, with one mouse click, installs the FOX news ticker on one's computer display. I am shocked every time I see FOX or CNN being played on monitors in public places. I don't watch that propaganda at home, and it is appalling to see the boldness of the lies they spin... people are being indoctrinated by this crap almost everywhere they go.

[chat_noir]

7. Dumb Fux

Northern Sun: Products for Progressives

[otohara]

19. It's Not About Fox Anymore

it's the poor idiots who keep watching Fox News garbage. Like voting for Bush twice! Unforgivable!

Love the Fux art

[grannylib]

9. Freepers can't lose what they've never had..."thought" and "reason"

are anathema to them.

There are only Reich Wing talking points, WH memos, lies, filth and deceit.

"Fact" is the filthiest of all four-letter "f" words to a Freeper.
"Fuck" is obviously OK as long as it's uttered by an unelected VP on the floor of the Senate.

[earthside]

11. CNN, MSRNC Not Far Behind

Actually, I haven't turned on the boob-tube yet today.

But if this is the direction Faux is taking, you know that CNN and MSRNC won't be far behind.

Of course, KKKarl Rove, the radical Republicans and the neocons are seeing this war as similar to 9/11 --- a rationale to proceed with other parts of their imperialist agenda. They really do probably think "how lucky can we get!"

Does anyone doubt if this war goes on for very long or takes a catastrophic turn that Bush/Cheney/Rove will get the U.S. involved militarily --- for the express purpose of the 2006 elections?

[emdee]

15. One lady told me....

that I should watch Hannity. I told her that every time Hannity told her what liberals think, she should call me and double check because usually he was lying. She had such a shocked look on her face. This all came about before the '04 election after she saw my Kerry/Edwards sticker. The last thing she said was, "Well, I'm a Christian." I said, "So am I."

It has been very unreal but I believe it has been an ongoing effort for years by PNAC and they've finally met their goal. It started with one Rush Limbaugh and has ended up with what we see today.

emdee

[The_Casual_Observer]

18. Just imagine what sort of assholes are cooking this shit up.

There are actually people (if you can call them that) sitting in cubicles, surrounded by little photos of their pathetic families and old birthday cards pinned to the sack cloth bulletin board, writing up this absolute un-vetted bullshit.

[HamdenRice]

27. Correction -- there aren't

There are people sitting in cubicles at Fox with pictures of their spouses and kids NOT making this stuff up but waiting for the fax or email message from Karl Rove, and then cutting and pasting onto the news banner.

[The_Casual_Observer]

28. I don't believe it for a minute. This is "creative" writing of the

most odious self serving variety, the more slanted the item the more praise they get from the supervision. There is no fax paper trail to rove.

[liberaliraqvet26]

21. Its been like this for a while now.

[Joey Liberal]

22. Faux News is scary n/t

[eleny]

23. It's been "Iran, Iran, Iran"

[DFLer4edu]

24. My one and only experience with faux was a lot better than this

This was a couple years ago when they were talking about saying the pledge of allegiance. Their fair and balanced counter argument to their propaganda was a teenage girl saying she didn't want to pledge allegiance to an inanimate object. AN INANIMATE OBJECT. I just sat there in disbelief. It's a good thing I don't have cable.

[OnyxCollie]

25. I was flipping through the channels in the hotel room and happened to land

on Fox. This was early last spring, whenever the Oscars happened. In less than five seconds, the screaming head criticized George Clooney for speaking out against Chimpy, saying, "We do believe he's making a terrible mistake doing this and jeopardizing his career." Even such a brief exposure to that vitriol repulsed me.

[Neurotica]

26. Finding FOX on TVs in public facilities always makes me crazy

I routinely ask if it is corporate policy to show FOX, or if that is the individual store's or office's decision. I questioned a local McDonalds one time and was told that the TV should actually have been featuring CNN (a slight improvement). Employees promptly switched the channel.

Knowing that this is a pet peeve of mine, my brother and sister-in-law played a good joke on me last summer. We had all gathered at a hotel, and my brother and sister-in-law had eaten breakfast early and started for home before everyone else had woken up. They sneakily turned the TV in the dining area to the FOX news channel and left, laughing hysterically. My father and I, upon noticing that FOX was on, grumbled through our entire breakfast about the idiots that watch pretend news and propaganda. I continued to complain to my husband on the long drive home, as did my father to my mother. Only later did we find out who had actually put FOX on the TV!

[chat_noir]

29. Fux News

[RagAss]

31. 50 % of of the population has an IQ of 100 or less.....keep repeating

that and it all makes sense.

[DFLer4edu]

32. The average IQ is 100

never ceases to amaze me!

[ProgressiveEconomist]

35. The worst is their ham-handed politicization of financial news.

I've watched their Saturday-Morning financial programs off and on for years. In the past couple of years, more and more time has been devoted to the latest WH taling points, and less and less time to analysis of financial market trends. Market analysts who say, "This has NOTHING to do with outcomes in the financial markets" are quickly replaced with those willing to "go along with the program".

Some of the show hosts used to be on-air for CNBC. How far they have fallen.

[Seabiscuit]

36. Look: all you have to know is KKKarl Rove = Fox News.

The details are superfluous. Why even pay any attention at all???

[TheFarseer]

37. I've heard some wacky conspiracy theories

about Russia and China orchestrating the whole thing in Israel/Lebanon/Gaza. Russia is doing it too push oil higher. China is doing it to distract us so they can take Taiwan. It's complete non-sense.

[earth mom]

38. Faux & CNN are brainwashing America.

It's obvious that freepers have lost the ability to think and reason-if they ever had it in the first place. Just listen to them. They spout Faux News chapter and verse. :puke: