Maybe we should just call this 'The Fox Election'
Everyone keeps saying the coming election is a referendum on President Obama. I beg to differ. I'm beginning to believe that it's actually a referendum on Fox News.
Because, well, let's be honest: The Republican Party would be dead in the water right now were it not for Fox and its ceaseless efforts -- primarily through lying and propagandizing 24/7/365 -- at reviving the conservative movement brand.
Voters aren't voting for Republicans or a GOP agenda. They're voting for the Fox agenda.
I was thinking about this while watching our fearless fearmonger in chief Glenn Beck waxing apocalyptic yesterday on his Fox show -- which, as Media Matters points out, Beck is using as his own Get Out The Vote operation. Beck's show was full of warnings about the dire threat posed to the Republic by progressives, and how this election will reverse that course and refudiate progressivism.
But the best part was the little promo that ran near the end of the show, with the following script:
Narrator: On November 2, 2010, you have a choice. You can stand up for freedom and liberty. Or sit back and let the American Dream become a nightmare.
It's way too late for politics. Instead, vote as if your way of life depends on it. Because it does.
Vote for government by the people, of the people, and for the people. Vote Democrat, Republican, or Independent. But whatever you do, vote for Honor. Restoration. The Constitution. Vote for America.
This is just about the endpoint of the campaign that Fox has been waging for the past two years -- beginning the day after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. Think about it:
-- The engine of their comeback, the Tea Parties, is almost wholly a Fox concoction. Without Fox's endless promotions of the various Tea Party events -- and Tea Party figures, including its corporate overseers like Dick Armey -- the "movement" would have been nothing, a brief blip on the screen.
-- Congressional Republicans managed to maintain their discipline in uniformly voting "No" on every Obama proposal that came down the pike because Fox was there as a threat to anyone who strayed. And Fox's ceaseless propaganda against every Obama proposal certainly gave PR sustenance to anyone who stayed within the fold.
-- Every Republican candidate on the planet -- with the exception of the truly execrable Dan Maes in Colorado -- has gotten lots of free airtime on Fox to promote their campaign. Their opponents -- not at all. And what's been interesting is how these candidates have been able to use Fox to get airtime while refusing to speak to their local reporters at all.
-- The entire narrative of this coming election has been dictated by Fox. Is it any wonder that the conventional wisdom now perfectly reflects what Fox has been dictating?
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not quite there yet. I'm especially not ready to hand over governance of the country to a propaganda news network.
But it's obvious that we don't really have a Republican Party anymore. It's now a wholly owned subsidiary of Fox News. And that's who this election is really about.
"24/7/265"? Really? Have anuddah cup o' coffee, deah....
LOL
- Pretzelogic in Philly, PA
And now for some feedback: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
George Orwell, 1984
No further comment needed.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
Well played.
"Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you." --Mr. Burns
Well Played.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
i think we are closer to "brave new world" or "a clockwork orange" than 1984.
the power for powers sake argument takes us closer to pure psychopathy, when i believe we are dealing with common sociopaths. problem with this analysis is that it ignores the reality of class struggle and turns tyranny into a psychological problem. the class struggle is the real deal and the wealthy know exactly what they are fighting for, to preserve their wealth, power, and privilege. i am not saying orwell's
scenario does not carry some validity, just not entirely accurate as to the facts on the ground.
Kudos! Applause! Echoes!
Orwell was terrifyingly correct in his warnings about government in 1984. His observations about power as an end is something most people fail to recognize.
Strictly speaking, I suppose, people who seek power for power's sake do so for the sense of well being and pleasure they derive from it, but make no mistake, it is that sense of power -- not the potential effect their power has on society -- that gives them that pleasure.
As I watched the Bushevik Administration defend its torture policies, it became increasingly clear to me that their rationales were trotted out strictly to keep the hoi polloi confused and debating. They were not torturing people because it would make the nation safer (it doesn't and they know it), because of the ticking time bomb scenario (which is unrealistic, and they know it) or because torture actually yielded good intelligence (it never did and they know it). They were doing it because they enjoyed it.
I know . . . you said "no further comment needed." You're probably right. So, I'll stop adding. ;)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x28xhz_monst...
somehow i think stock dividends, yachts, ferraris, diamond rings and such have quite a bit to do with the maintenance of the existing power structure. perhaps it is all just a manifestation of upper paleolithic psychology........ nah, it is greed given form in the capitalist system, otherwise we could just send all these people to therapy.
Basically Rupert Murdoch has launched a do or die effort to take over the US Government via The Republican Party in order to crush the internet and it's interactive threat to his old world media empire.
The internet is basically shutting down the ability of mass media to control the mob, to set the agenda, to charge for access to the minds of the passively mindless millions.
The interactive versus the passive, the shared thoughts versus the enforced thoughts, true public opinion versus what the public is told to think and, the voices of hundreds of millions of little people shutting down the broadcast voices of a handful of psychopaths and puppet narcissists.
...and the U.S. of A. is the henhouse? ...gulp. :-(
- Pretzelogic in Philly, PA
And now for some feedback: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
"... lying and propagandizing 24/7/265..."
I'm sure Rupert would be very upset to find out you think they take 100 days a year off.
I've never liked the 24/7/365 phrase anyway.
Shouldn't it be 24/7/52?
24/7/365 all denote a day. 24/7/52 would be day/days/weeks
You can still not like it ( I hate "man up" myself), but it makes more logical sense the way it is.
24 hours a day
7 days a week
52 weeks a year
aka...ALL THE TIME.
10 years a decade
10 decades a century
10 centuries a millennium
Ten to the N.
There's some sort of grammatical illusion going on here. My brain is even attracted to "24/7/364."
But no, it's not a consistent progression. "24/7/365" is not "day/days/days." It's "hours/days/days."
"24/7/52," by contrast is not day/days/weeks, but "hours/days/weeks," and thus the more "logical" (or at least consistent) progression.
But hey, it's all silly. The way the brain understands language and syntax is not strictly logical. Double negatives do not sound like positives to the brain. Many people hear, "I could care less," and the meaning in their heads is the opposite (i.e. "I couldn't care less.")
And what the brain perceives when it hears "24/7/364" is not "day/days/days." What the brain seems to be perceiving is "24 hours a DAY, 7 days a WEEK, 365 days a YEAR." So, I think, the brain strangely focuses on "days/weeks/years," which is why it seems consistent, but actually is not. (Hell, even "days/weeks/years" skips "months.")
:)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
I wrote this late at night. What can I say?
Fixed.
Fox and the GOP never would. Just say you were using THE math and it was on purpose.
Late night or otherwise, this is a damn fine article. Fox is indeed the master now. Even David Frum said so.
I had a brainstorm .... someone should add a laugh track to the GB shows/snippets.
Otherwise, I just don't have the stomach for them. I think this would make them much more tolerable, perhaps humorous
I like it!
I don't get mad...I get STABBY...
The question is who are you more afraid of...the caricature that Fox has painted Democrats to be...or the reality that is represented by the Teabagger Party.
Perhaps there is an Enthusiasm Gap to this. I am certainly not excited by the slate of Democrats being offered in my state(North Carolina), but I am scared for the future of the planet should the ignorant, hateful and downright stupid slate of Teabagging Republicans win election.
I'm not too proud to say that NeoNazis pretending to return America to the theocracy it never was makes me frightened.
When we elected a bad actor to the presidency, I thought we had gone as far from sanity as a nation could. After all, what could be worse than a man who claimed that trees caused more polution than cars. After creating the worst deficits in our history he wasn't vilified but deified by the fiscal conservatives.
Then we elected a Texas oil man who couldn't make money as a Texas oil man and believed that his absence at National Guard meetings was equal to that of a viet Nam vet with a Silver Star. He couldn't pronounce Nuclear but he could start wars.
How low can we go if we elect a Teabagging Palin?
Yeah, I'm going to vote because of fear. But my fear is well founded.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
A most excellent post, Mr. Neiwert.
I don't get mad...I get STABBY...
Great post David Neiwert. If it was not for lies, cheating, distortion, intimidation and secret cash the republicans would never be elected.
And what ever happened with Beck last week, who had to travel across the country because of some dire health scare? Just more hype and BS?
The future of the Republic was at stake after twhat the Republ;icans did under Bush. And now they want to go back to the Bush agenda. WTF!!!!! The only ones who will benefit with Republicans in office are the wealthy... Or so they think. For some reason they cannot grasp the fact a health middle class and a secure middle class is good for the wealthy. Instead they ship jobs offshore and screw the middle class every chance they get.
As I just posted over at Americablog, the right apparently want America at 3rd-world status. Doing in the middle-class is the quickest way to get us there.
But, why? I do not know...
I don't get mad...I get STABBY...
Third world-ers work cheaper... :(
- Pretzelogic in Philly, PA
And now for some feedback: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
"The Republic is at stake"
This is the same meme being used by the left to justify voting for shitty Democratic candidates.
Here's a newsflash. The Republic is not at stake. The Constitution is much more resilient than that.
Everyone go get get your binkies and your blankies and relax.
"Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes has cost me the election, and yet if I were to have them killed, I would be the one to go to jail. That's democracy for you." --Mr. Burns
won't wreck the country, you're nuts. If you don't think they're going to take disenfranchisement of civil rights to a whole new level YOU'RE WRONG.
Mexico has a very small middle class. It has rich people too.
3 of them were found decapitated in Juarez last week because they failed to pay the ransom on time.
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
Does Glenn Beck talk about secret software counting our votes for private corporations or is that above his pay grade? Weakling.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Yeah, I'm dying to go back to the days that Glenn Beck loves much, he of the brush haircut,horn-rim glasses, and watching a tube television I shitcanned years ago. The great 1950's, when Ike was prez:
Let's go back to racial segregation (Which by the way, Glenn, Ike sent federal troops in to protect the young students).
Let's go back to when women knew their place -- and were paid less than men for the same work.
Installing a puppet government in South Vietnam after the French got their ass kicked, leading to seeing 58,000 of my friends names carved on a wall in Washington
Automobiles that had no safety appliances but the brakes. No seat belt, no airbags, no collapsing steering wheel. (I lost an uncle in a car wreck in 1955 where his chest was crushed by a rigid wheel and there was no such thing as Jaws of Life).
Oil companies and the government installing the Shah and making sure the elected leader of Iran was disposed of so they could control control the oil
Yeah, by all means. Let's go back to your white-bread America. /snark/
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
They only want to go back to the 1950's in their delusional heads. The real one is a rabbit hole most Americans would be terrified to go down.
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
I have been listening to people call Fox the propaganda arm of the Republican Party when it has been obvious for quite awhile that the message goes the other way.
Actually...the Republic is already dead. The corruption (as in "putrefaction," as in "rotting corpse") in Washington is too far advanced to be reversed or remedied, and the plutocrats have won.
I am actually convinced we are heading toward a great catastrophe, possible a world war, as so many forces of dissolution reach peak crisis levels--global economic struggles, global shortages of oil and drinkable water and arable and habitable land, (especially as coastal areas start to flood as a result of the melting of the polar ice caps), political repression everywhere, etc. Counterpunch has an important article today on its site discussing the unavoidable spread of drones that will be used by all actors in wars, and what this means for us.
I don't see anyone in Washington or headed toward Washington who we can assume will turn aside the inevitable cataclysm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC4WXown03c
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Good Try
You changed "primarily through lying and propagandizing 24/7/265" to "24/7/365"
It should be 24 hours - 7 days and 52 weeks 24/7/52.
Just Sayin'
Scroll up. :) There's a thread above about this.
And why does everyone skip "months?" I mean, if we really want to be consistent (do we?), shouldn't it be 24 / 7 / 4 / 12 ?
24 hours a day ---> 7 days a week ---> 4 weeks a month ---> 12 months a year
Just sayin' ;)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
Yeah but some months have more then 4 weeks ... so to include weeks it would have to be written:
24 / 7 / approx. 4.33 weeks / 12 / 365
... Just doesnt roll off the tounge like 24/7/365
"Vote for government by the people, of the people, and for the people. Vote Democrat, Republican, or Independent. But whatever you do, vote for Honor. Restoration. The Constitution. Vote for America."
WTF does that mean? Glen, seriously you have a clinical mental disease. I thought that's what we had all been doing for the last 220 years.
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
that, assuming the GOP/teapublicans, or whatever you want to call them, take the House and possibly even the Senate, nothing whatsoever will get done over the next two years, despite the dire situation that everyone, minus only the most deluded and psychotic among us, recognizes we are in. And, of course, Obama and the Dems will be blamed for all of it. If the GOP does take over control of Congress and drafts some crazy legislation, then Obama is going to have to veto it, which will do nothing but feed a narrative about how the Dems are obstructionists, are getting in the way of our pro-, I mean REgress and that they are deaf to the "will to power", err, I mean will of the American people. If this happens, the Dems will lose more seats in Congress in 2012, along with the White House and we'll be right back where we were 12 years earlier, except that the country will be in even worse condition than it was in 2000, with higher unemployment than we have today and an even larger, grand canyon-sized income gap between the masters of the universe and the rest of us. After 8 years of Bush, 6 years of which saw GOP majorities in Congress, I naively assumed that many Americans would actually be honest and hold the GOP accountable for where we are today. Instead, all I heard was "Community Reinvestment Act," Chris Dodd and Barney Frank," "Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac," "TARP was Obama's idea," "the stimulus is responsible for 100% of our deficit" and on and on. I feel today like we would need 30 years of all Republican rule--White House, Congress, all of the Governor's mansion's and state legislatures--before the majority of Americans are willing to hold the GOP responsible for the state of our nation
Mateo
...how do we get rid of Fox and prevent this from happening again?
This election is about the republicans. It is about their horrible display of their racism, their fascism, their ignorance, and their plans to destroy the working class. It is also about FOX News.
It has only been two short years. This is the republicans' big chance to declare Democrats a failure, grab the country back and quickly re-write history.
You can see how desperate they are. I understand that. If we continue to support Democrats for just another two years, we will deny the FOX republicans this huge victory.
Get out and Vote Democrat now, and we can crush FOX, Limbaugh, the Koch brothers, and the Tea Party. This is a very necessary first step. Just as important as the 2008 election for the progressive cause.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
makes more sense.
all the more reason NOT to cast a blind lot into a sea of political madness.
if every vote counts, and i vote democrat, and then some right wing repub fascist passes a nazi style arizona immigration law, does that piece of legislation not apply to me since I didn't vote for him or her?
i just dont get it.
americans need to be active members of their society, and that standard is set too damn low these days.
EX.
BP has constantly been under fire over the years for several unethical business practices, and YET, americans just love giving their hard earned fed notes to it's franchised locations. And im sure SO many people voted for politicians in the past decade who spewed partyline rhetoric about tightening EPA standards and more oversight on energy companies. Nevertheless.... BOOOM!! OMG! There's OIL EVERYWHERE!!!!
BOYCOTT THEM!
civil disobedience is so much more effective then voting :)
just my two cents....
probably only worth one...
Stay Frosty People
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