Hey I have to say this.

[DearAbby]

I honestly believe we as a country have to come to the fact, What FOX News/ Extreme right wing is doing is a form of Mind-control. They are using FEAR a very powerful primitive emotion, for desired results. It's propaganda at it's worst.


America we have to call it out. We have to expose it for what it is...It is not free speech. It's a crime. It is the theft of our country disguised as an election.

The 1% are blatantly purchasing our politicians with hundreds of millions of dollars...you know they are investing, it's just business. You don't drop that kind of dough, without expecting some payoff for it. HOW FUCKING BLATANT DOES IT HAVE TO BE?


IT'S A CRIME, the THEFT OF OUR COUNTRY!

[ManyShadesOf]

1. pretty blatant

how about boycotting all their advertisers?

[DearAbby]

2. How about just calling it what it is

A CRIME!

[freshwest]

7. Used to watch them to see what they were up to, but had to stop.

There was little to no pushback from those who knew what it was. Anyone who had read 1984 or heard any of the rallies where Goebbels and Hitler whipped up the masses, could see it was the same thing. Particularly from O'Reilly and Hannity. When Beck got on there, it was just further down the road. They've been caught repeatedly lying but their real power are their use of these methods, which I can only describe in a quotes for now. They use all these techniques, keep their viewers in a constant state of anxiety for effect. They know exactly what they are doing:

A vast sector of modern advertising… does not appeal to reason but to emotion; like any other kind of hypnoid suggestion, it tries to impress its objects emotionally and then make them submit intellectually. ERIC FROMM (1900-1980), To Have Or To Be?, 1976.

Anxiety leads to a narrowing of the field of attention, the so-called tunnel vision, and when people are anxious, they are unable to attend to the total situation as is necessary to enable them to act rationally, but impulsively do the first thing that comes into their heads, which is usually determined by what others are doing at the same time. J. A. C. Brown, 'Techniques of Persuasion'

[chervilant]

18. And, they serve up that

propaganda with a thick layer of Bernays sauce. (I wonder if it was even a coincidence that Bernays was Freud's nephew...)

[Beartracks]

25. That Brown quote is spot-on. n/t

[ManyShadesOf]

13. sounds great

how will you achieve this? let's go!

[FreeJoe]

3. No

They are wrong and we need to speak out against them. It is free speech and it is not a crime. If we try to criminalize people for saying things we disagree with, we become the evil we are trying to fight.

[DearAbby]

5. This is not free speech

This is a calculated means to an end, which is a CRIME. This is a theft disguised as an election. This isn't capitalism, its some mutated form of it. They have set themselves and spared no expense.

They are so confident of our reaction, they have us fighting over BIG GULPS while they systematically take over our country, and we foot the bill.

They stacked the court, they stacked the government, now they are mocking us.

[Curmudgeoness]

8. It is despicable, but it is no crime.

We already have seen what happens when "the other side" (whichever side you are on) decides that what you are saying is a crime. We now have restricted protests, as well as the labelling of environmentalist and other activists as terrorists.

As much as I would like these people to shut the fuck up and stop with all the lies, I don't want to consider it a crime. What our responsibility should be is to get the truth out and debunk all the propaganda.

[ManyShadesOf]

14. the lies and the crimes go hand in hand

the poster is calling for criminalizing propaganda, not "disagreements"

[JDPriestly]

20. It's OK to call people out as long as you don't force them to be quiet through government

coercion.

The right-wing uses their money to blare their propaganda across America.

We should be just as proactive in talking to people about the facts and debunking their lies.

Without money, we have to rely on people power. DU is part of the people power.

[Johnny Rico]

4. Darn that pesky 1st Amendment!

If it wasn't for the oh-so-inconvenient Constitution, we could just shut down any political speech we didn't like!

[DearAbby]

6. Propaganda isn't free speech.

[Johnny Rico]

9. Ah, but you don't get to make that legal distinction.

Would you really like the current Supreme Court to make the decision as to which Left leaning speech is "propaganda", and thus not deserving of protection?

[DearAbby]

11. They have already used it to stack the court.

It is there already, Johnny. The crime is complete, ending phase...a in your face, mock Election...er...Auction.


This was a crime. Propaganda.

[ManyShadesOf]

15. lies are lies. journalism is dead. monopolies suck

the lifeblood of the nation. you like being lied to? where is the "Left leaning" FAUX news, pray tell. Our Limbaugh and hatemongers?

[DearAbby]

16. What better way to control

than to control information? It has been done all throughout history.

Read about how the catholic church controlled the message/information for a thousand years. We call them the DARK AGES. They sure as hell didn't want to give up that power, they burned people at the stake for printing a bible in common language. They went to some serious lengths to keep that information within the Hierarchy.


Television is a very powerful medium. Edward R Murrow's speech about the medium was very insightful.


Complete Murrow Speech From Good Night, and Good Luck:

[ManyShadesOf]

17. well put

how to fight back?

[DearAbby]

19. We need courageous people within the Media

Fox has been made credible by those outside it. It can only come within the medium itself. We need a courageous people to state this and hammer it home, then we need to be there to cover their backside.

As it was then, it will be now. They won't give that power up easily.

[ManyShadesOf]

22. that might mean

revisiting what passes for journalism education these days. professional standards?

AND the good news. YOU can do this! with the internets! your blog and presence here and other stuff that gets that energy out there.

[RZM]

24. It most certainly is free speech

Sorry, but what you're saying here amounts to little more than a justification for using authoritarian measures to crack down on free speech. Fox and whatever other conservative outlet have every right to get their views out there. I'd much rather live in a country where they can do that than one where they can't.

This argument always ends at the same place. Today you would empower people to go after Fox. Tomorrow others would use that same power to go after you. That's how these types of things work.

[lib2DaBone]

10. Well said. Yes it is .... (beyond) blatant....

They know EXACTLY what they are doing.

They know the power of Television.. it goes all the way back to 1958 and Vance Packard.. "The Hidden Persuaders"

Check out this video. Look at the base of the flowers in the first 60 seconds.. the white area says "SEX".

How many movie theaters ADMIT flashing a picture of a dry desert for one nanno-second...before the Refreshing soft-drink snack bar commercial?

Now that the Communist Chinese (oops.. sorry.. I mean Job Creators) have purchased the AMC Movie Theaters here in the USA.... what subliminal messages can we expect when we go to the movies?

[DearAbby]

12. +1

[SleeplessinSoCal]

21. It's more than business. It's cruelty. And there's a long standing study to show why.

"....That year, the headline of an article in the October 26 issue of The New York Times blared, "Sixty-five Percent in Test Blindly Obey Order to Inflict Pain." " Fortunately, further study shows a more humane reaction.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200203/the-man-who-shocked-the-world

[DearAbby]

23. I have read that

You can be sure they have too. They know us inside and out, spared no expense. They are moving in on the last jewel.

[DearAbby]

26. America needs to see the human toll

on this. This horrible crime. It is treason. To actively sabotage your own country, to endanger her for Party Power, is treason.

[spanone]

27. in america, you're free to lie

[DearAbby]

28. Not really. Propaganda is already against the law.

It's just we as a Nation are afraid to actually apply the law. It seems when you get above a certain income level, a certain social standing, you are above the law.

Edit to add: You can now purchase the politician of your choice. OH wait, you can't play with the big boys...this game is closed to "COMMONERS"


You have just been rendered irrelevant. How is that "free speech" now?

[WillowTree]

30. Please cite what specific law criminalizes propagandizing.

This should be good.

[raouldukelives]

29. If you disagree with the OP

Invest in the stock market. They love using your money to make it all happen.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

31. Agreed. I only believe in free speech when you're not falsely claiming to be a news organization.

Any corporation claiming such a classification should be heavily regulated to ensure the integrity of what is being broadcast.

Blatantly lying to millions of people, without being able to accurately corroborate your information should be illegal.