The Complete Dumbing Down Of America

The biggest argument is that Fox News is indeed news, it is not. In fact, Fox is the propaganda wing of the right wing used in such a manner as to brainwash the American public into believing what they want to hear.

If you don't believe me, ask anyone who watches Fox news regularly if the information given to the American public by Bush in his SOTU adress' was truthful and honest. It has been debunked as a straight matter of fact that it was false, yet the people who watch Fox news all day never see this side. In their own mind, it IS a fact and not just bias because it's all they've heard.

It is a brilliant plan by Rove and the RNC, and it's worked to a tee. Unfortunately for Fox, all of their viewers will continue to listen to the extreme rhetoric and go through life with blinders on, they'll make money, but they're also exposed for the frauds they truly are.

It isn't the way I would like to see life. I would like to question the reasons for the decisions and actions of my leaders, not become so partisain I completely ignore the obvious.

Remember, you can turn channels.

And most here do, but that doesn't mean we can't still complain about it.

If you are not watching it, you can't complain about it. If you are watching it, and you don't like it, then you're a dumbass.

Gathering intelligence on the enemy.

It's like a train wreck - you don't want to see, but can't look away.

Cycloptichorn

I know - it is sick-making isn't it? Seeing such drek rise to the surface?

Problem is - you never lose a buck catering to the lowest common denominator - and the man sure knows what a significant portion of the public love to gorge on.

What I wonder is, does the thing create the appetite it fills? Or does it simply satisfy it?

Gossip and sensationalism has been around as long as humanity - and Elizabethan pamphlets fulfilled the same sort of niche.....I still feel as though these media barons have a responsibility to at least TRY to tell a straight story, though, even if amongst their drek and crap. Sigh.

Listen - you think you have problems? We have a media DOMINATED by bloody Murdoch. My city ONLY Has Murdoch newspapers. One reads them in five minutes flat since, since he managed to destroy the competition, he stopped even pretending to run a proper newspaper. It is awful. His national paper maintains some proper journalism, at least. But Channel Nine, his Oz network??? Eeeeeew!

I rarely watch Fox News but I do like Brit Hume, and O'Reilly can be entertaining. With Hannity and Combs it's all about the quality of the guests. I watch when Ted is on. Shoot 'em up Mr. Nugent.

I like the way you think, McG!!!

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell."

If you're stupid enough not to read sarcasm in Orwell's remark but take it literally, you haven't read much Orwell.

And then again to take an Orwell quote and twist it by using it in contradiction to it's original context would be a sign of the dumbing down of America.

Do any of the kids do math without calculators any more. Or are we a nation of pushbutton brainwashed apes?

I can call a spade a spade. I've had to listed ad'nauseaum about the so called "liberal" media, so if the neo-cons can say the "evil" libral media, I can call out Fox for being a propaganda machine.

About the "libral" media, sorry, but the reporters and the desk jockeys are liberals, but the program managers are all 6+ figure Republicans. Who decides what gets shown, and how much is dedicated to it.

I will admit, that Redstone networks have a propensity to lean, but Fox and Murdoch fall completely over. CBS are weebles (they don't fall down) but Faux News are the Humpty Dumpty of cable. It isn't news, only propaganda manufacturing itself about behind the fable known as news.

What's the sarcasm in what Orwell wrote, padmasambava?

The closer you get to true objectivity - something that cannot be attained but must nonetheless be strived towards - the more offensive it will be to conservative sensibilities.

One of the central traits of conservatism is profound myopia; a complete inability to see the world through differing perspectives. Reality is never as black and white as conservatives believe it is, and thus objective reporting is anethema to them.

There is an unintended (likely) irony in your black/white political characterization ILZ. ;-)

Long time no see.

Good God, I massacred spelling and grammer in that post. Anyway, yeah, please point out the irony. Nobody does it as well as you do, and I need to be handed my ass once in a while to combat my ever-growing ego.

It's GROWING?????????????? Now you HAFTA smile!

No can do.

Irony and sarcasm are not the same.

The quote about rough types who are necessary for our protection provides quite a contrast to the scenario of the Asian wars orchestrated by Big Brother to keep the masses stupid in 1984.

My comment suggested that in the context of Orwell's work it is likely to be a sarcastic comment. There is no irony in sarcasm. There is nothing ironic in the fact that people become cannon fodder usually to free up land and real estate so fewer will get a slice of the pie.

Few enough do anyway. In the context of 1984 we see an overpopulated planet and the usual method of dealing with it - war.

Orwell was clear about it. Should we all march in lockstep chanting hooray for Big Brother? I doubt we will. Half of us will risk being put in room 200 and subjected to something the new domestic intelligence office will guarantee to make our hair stand on end.

Please don't throw me in the briar patch would be a better alternative. Using war as a means of thinning populations in the guise of liberation is disgusting and unconscionable.

Need I say more? It's not ironic. But to suggest something noble is afoot when children are being slaughtered and to insinuate that it is being done to "protect us" thousands of miles away from an enemy with limited range weapons is obscene unless one were being sarcastic.

Forget irony.

Doh, I thought it was obvious.

You took a very un-nuanced position on conservative ratiocination, painted it in stark black/white terms... then criticized black/white ratiocination as being incompatible with the nuances of life.

I agree very much with the rejection of ratiocination that is more simple than it should be, but also thought that the generalization of conservative thought may well have fallen within that category.

[size=7]PS, "ass" is not in the filter.[/size]

Ack - even Craven is sort of supporting me - your ratiocination is very binary on this issue....