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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMy Fox News Nightmare: How I Tortured Myself with The Propaganda of Ignorance
I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU, so here's what happened when I watched 3 hours of Fox every day for a month.One October evening, in the midst of the 2013 government shutdown, I watched Bill OReilly work himself into something of a state. He sat at his desk, his hands palms upward, fingers slightly curved, as if cupping something in them. I want Hagel. he said, staring into the camera. I want Hagel. I want him. A casual observer might interpret this moment as OReilly expressing his fierce but tender desire for Chuck Hagel, the Secretary of Defense. More experienced OReilly viewers, however, will recognize it as a signal that the unfortunate Hagel had plummeted downward in OReillys estimation from pinhead to evildoer. (There are only three kinds of people in Bill OReillys world: good hardworking Americans, pinheadspeople who are not actually malevolent but who are too stupid to understand the way the world really worksand evildoers.)
I know these things about OReilly because, for the entire month of October, I watched Fox News for approximately three hours every day, while at the same time strictly abstaining from any other sources of information about current events. The reason I engaged in this self-induced Fox News torture was that it had become clear that the right-wing media in general, and Fox News in particular, were constructing an alternate reality than the one I live in. Fox is, of course, a great driver of public opinion.
On this occasion, in which the government shutdown had resulted in death benefits not being paid to the families of soldiers killed in action, the problem was so egregious to OReilly that it could not possibly result from pinheadedness. No, instead there must have been heinous forces at work, and one of the devils minions was Chuck Hagel.
Bill OReilly, it should be noted, is a man whose mind is entirely undarkened by doubt. I have seen him refuse even to consider the arguments of a Notre Dame theology professor who took exception to his interpretation of the life and message of Jesus. When Juan Williams told him that Jonathan Gruber from MIT had calculated that 80% of American citizens would find their health insurance unchanged under Obamacare, OReilly responded, I dont believe that for a second Thats what some pinhead says. Thats not a fact.
Much more. Worth the read. AlterNet
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My Fox News Nightmare: How I Tortured Myself with The Propaganda of Ignorance (Original Post)
Unknown Beatle
Feb 2014
OP
unblock
(52,202 posts)1. argh! you toy with me with your broken link!
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)2. The link is working fine.
I just tried it three times and it worked each time.
unblock
(52,202 posts)8. the other links work for me, but still not yours.
renate
(13,776 posts)3. try this one
dionysus
(26,467 posts)4. there there, all is well;
underpants
(182,778 posts)5. +
Marking for later read.