Fox News Channel came to Canada’s cable and DBS systems about a month ago (just in time for the hurricanes). Watching this channel has taught me more about the total brainwashing of a large portion of the US population than anything else I have seen.
My personal favorite is Bill O’Rielly (oh really?). The guy runs a show called “the no spin zone”, and his first topic every night is “talking points”. Now, I don’t know about you, but talking points usually are a partisan list of topics to be used when addressing the media to put the right message out there. That anyone can (with a straight face) accept “no spin” and “talking points” at the same time boggles my mind (where is that smilie?).
Middle of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA and Brown were having a nap, the President headed to California to get a guitar, and O’Reilly is on the air blaming the governor and the mayor of New Orleans for FEMA not showing up.
No spin, indeed.
FOXNC and it’s “presenters” for the most part pick a very conservative / republican line to almost any story that comes up, only being critical of of Bush or others around him as a last resort, when they see that they are alone on the “pro-bush all the time” stand. Then they will make very weak and sanitized “Bush didn’t do enough” statements, and try to find a scapegoat to explain it (see Brown).
Between the crew of FOXNC (many of whom also do ultra conservative syndicated radio shows) and people like Rush Limbaugh, it is surprising that most Americans can go to the bathroom without help. These guys pile the crap on so thick that it is beyond understanding… Limbaugh still blames Clinton weekly for the economic mess in America today. “Dittoheads”… a nice way of saying don’t think, just agree with me.
The massive divide between reality and what a large part of the radio, press, and TV medias are putting out there only helps to encourage this mentality, and teaches people to pat themselves on the back for a job well done even if the job wasn’t well done.
It has been a very sad last 10 years watching much of America slip into a self righteous abiss.
Alex