There are speakers who inspire, challenge, uplift, or educate, and their audiences are perhaps inspired to continue thinking about an idea, or to consider action. Good examples include our President, Martin Luther King, JFK, FDR, Lincoln, Edward Murrow, and many, many other inspiring and notable politicians, journalists, authors and religious leaders. These are people who change the world by giving life to a dream or an idea of what might be. They invite people to think.
And then there are speakers who incite and deliberately evoke hatred or play on base human fears. These speakers deliberately create a mob. A mob does not think. It is directed in its anger and frenzy at a target and then unleashed. An audience has its mind engaged. A mob has given in to base emotions, devoid of any complex thought.
In 1984, George Orwell paints a picture of a totalitarian state so extreme, it can be said to far outstrip the reality of any state in existence today. The novel resonates with the reader because like any nightmare the root of its horror lies in our own souls and the glimmer of possibility contained therein. It presents a caricature, but like all caricatures, one can discern the underlying features which exist in reality.
In one scene in the novel, an institutionalized "3 minutes hate" is mandatory viewing for all the good citizens. Its cynical purpose is to reduce the watchers to a howling mob, giving them unity in their hatred and fear in a completely unfocused, irrational state of mind.
When you examine FOX from this perspective, it's easy to draw parallels from the caricature... FOX chooses issues which can be easily distilled to a shouting match. It decides which side will play best to the audience which it is attempting to incite and then it provides a solid 30 minutes outrage and anger to that audience.
FOX is playing on white americas fear of change. Fear of change to a multicultural america. Fear of other customs and languages. Fear of a globalized economy where jobs move. Fear of other religions, of educated people, of change. At its simplest, fear of THEM. FOX plays on these fears with imagery, symbolism, and rhetoric, but FOX doesn't ever discuss whether or not there's really a rational basis for any fear.
The emotional qualities FOX elicits in its coverage unify its audience. This unity isn't based on any reasoned discourse..a parody of discussion reduces any issue to a binary question, with a right side, and a side reserved for scorn and hatred. The part of Emmanuel Goldstein was well filled formerly by the bespectacled Colmes.
Outrage generation is the business of FOX.
The result is a constituency that can be incited to act. In the case of 9/12, that action was prompted and supported by FOX Rodeo Clown in residence, Glen Beck. FOX will then cover the acting out and decide what the crowd is really angry about.
And so we have a 9/12 gathering where a mob has gathered, to protest everything from healthcare to the appointment of Czars, with a certainty that we are moving as a nation towards some type of socialist, communist or fascist government. The crowd is pro Joe Wilson and Sarah Palin and is against anyone who might be Hitler.
The scariest carry signs with not so subtle threats of violence and talk of revolution. Confederate flags and gun rights advocates are sharing a tent, and pictures of Obama in whiteface mix with Kenyan birth certificate fictions..but this is not to be construed as racist.
The FOX lead is that this mob has shown up as a reaction to healthcare reform.
THe irony is that the constituency that has lost the most in eight years of Bush and stands the most to gain from a progressive administration, is used and manipulated so cynically.
So we should be boycotting FOX. It's not entertainment. It's propaganda of the worst kind, designed to eliminate discussion, distort or ignore facts and replace them with anger, fear, and division..and we need less of this, not more.
FOX divides america, which is of interest to its corporate sponsors and owners. A divided america can't reform healthcare, or regulate its financial industry, or change the tax structure to something which might be called fair or reasonable. A divided america keeps the gravy train going for it's corporate masters. A divided America, in short serves the interests of the wealthy and corporations. FOX serves this minority, and uses the very people who are exploited by it as it's pawns and cannon fodder.
FOX divides America. Please stop watching.
