Do freepers/right wingers know they are in an information bubble?

[yurbud]

To get confirmation of conservative beliefs, you are limited to commercial talk radio, fox news, and a handful of newspapers and PR firm/think tanks.

The rest of the world, the consensus of academia, the foreign press, and first hand experience of those exposed to the effects of unrestrained conservative policies would tell them that they are dead wrong.

Do you think they know or care?

[htuttle]

1. No, they don't

That's why it's a bubble.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Yes they know. And no, they don't care.

[annabanana]

3. they have no idea..

And if you show them anything contrary to those sources.. It's "that damn librul media" or "damn furriners"

....impervious unless or until something gores THEIR ox.. That is the only opportunity for enlightenment.. Yet there are some for whom even THAT does not suffice.

[Bassic]

9. Stupid fucks indeed

[atommom]

4. Most have no idea. I have family members who watch TV news and

RW talk shows, listen to talk radio all the time, and are very proud of themselves for being so "plugged in" and "informed." But when I try to talk about current events with those people, I find that they have no acquaintance whatsoever with the non-spin version of the truth, just a lot of memorized RW talking points. And when I try to present the other side, they respond by doing what they've been taught ... repeating the same talking points, only louder. :eyes:

[yurbud]

11. what's scary is that's how religious belief works too...

I was involved in the born again stuff, and as I was leaving, I talked to people about the stuff I was studying and thinking about and was shocked to find out that even pastors and people who taught the Bible for decades didn't know anything beyond the cliched formulations--not only did they not know the other side, they didn't know the deeper reasoning of their own side.

I often talk to righties who don't know who people like Grover Norquist are--how do you talk to people who don't even know who's making up the words coming out of their mouths?

[atommom]

14. Exactly, and that's why the combination of conservative Christianity

and Republicanism is so damned effective. The same unquestioning belief is required in both areas, and the RW spins the religion and the politics together very skillfully. People who might otherwise question the Republicans wouldn't dream of it now, because they see it as a question of "moral values" and proving themselves worthy through faith. :banghead:

[blue sky at night]

5. ON yesterdays opinion pages...

of our Local Paper, The Akron Beacon Journal, it was 100% against Bu$Hco in the LTTE section. My repuke mother claims she never reads any of it...the truth is just too hard to bear for her. BTW, she missed my letter about KKKarl, Duh.

[Cats Against Frist]

6. If the answer wasn't "no," then it wouldn't have worked in the first place

Do they know? No. If they knew, would they care? No.

It's like Christianity. You say, "well, the monks and the Catholic Church doctored the books," and the person says: "well, do you think God would have let them alter it, to where it wasn't giving his word?" In other words, the Bible delivered, is the Bible intended.

It's very similar with this. The right wing has so carefully woven a web (maybe like a diving bell), that, if one tries to get out of it, before one can surface, he or she runs into a different channel that takes him or her back into the web.

"Do you know you're in an information bubble?" did ya learn that at your fancy-pantsy communist college? (Never mind that the think-tankers have an alphabet of letters, after their names. "Do you understand that your psychological predisposition to splitting and projecting is the reason that you're so readily accepting of logical fallacies that promote false binaries? Now, that's just gobbledy-gook. Learn how to drive a backhoe! And, of course, there's always divine providence to fall back on, with such eloquently logical observations like: "God will see us through the Hurricane," forgetting that GOD WAS THE ONE WHO SENT THE GODDAMN HURRICANE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

They have these people not only so tightly wrapped up in an "information bubble," but in a mythical narrative, inside the bubble -- so they don't even know they're in the bubble.

Now, as a postmodernist, I don't necessarily believe in "absolute truths," particularly ones to be found eminating from the mouths of diamond-mine owning preachers, Tom DeLay, dry-drunk Connecticut Cowboys, pension-robbing corpo-fascists, oilmen and coke-riddled women with adam's apples. Yet, at the same time, I don't accept anything else, as gospel, either -- including that which comes from liberal college profs (and I am one -- or was one -- I'm off, this year). That, to me, is a smart way to deal. Freepers open their mouths up, and let other people shit into their brain cavity. They are all-accepting -- so long as that information is crafted to elicit an emotional response, based on fear, fear of the "other," low self-esteem, a sense of entitlement, a sense of powerlessness, mythical and mystical beliefs, and the degree to which the information allows them to play out their totalitarian psychological traits.

What's funniest, to me, and I know that I type about this all the time, is, that on the self-esteem note, the freepers are so connipted, all the time, about what the sushi-eaters of the left think about their NASCAR-watching asses, developing a rock-solid defensive and indignant posture -- the victim of which is mainly, truly, the coffee and soy milk industries -- COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS to the fact that the right-wing Ivory Tower holds more contempt for them that the most elitist left-winger, on his most elitist day. At least we don't think that freepers are too stupid to be given the truth, be trusted with logical, or important thinking and decision making, or that they're puss-buckets to be used to engender our "ends." Maybe we don't like them -- and maybe we think they're stupid -- but we don't hate them the way their own handlers do. That's for damn sure.

[mcscajun]

7. Nope...they think We are the deluded ones...

...refusing to accept the 'new realities of the post 9/11 world' and relying on the pabulum spoon-fed to us by the 'liberal media' who all hate Bush and hate America.

Reality check? Compassion? Sorry, their accounts are overdrawn.

[ComerPerro]

8. Thats because everyone else has been infiltrated by the Bush haters

So, their little "Bubble" is the only thing that tells them the truth.

Or, at least, the truth for the reality that Bush has created and that they choose to live in.

[Brewman_Jax]

10. Maybe

but I've found that freepers/RW's require a reality disconnect and factual ignorance to function. "Don't bother me with facts!" they yell.

[Jade Fox]

12. Anything the don't like they decide is a lie made up by the Liberal Media.

Not be too smart, they don't seem to realize there are the other sources
like the ones you named to back up info.

[ComerPerro]

13. Well, thats the trouble with living in a world of delusion and lies

they find that most reports run counter from their perception of reality.

[progdonkey]

15. just a few days ago...

I'm friends with this girl from Texas who's a full-blown Republican, but really because she's just very uninformed (not misinformed, where she has the facts of an event wrong, but rather where she doesn't even know an event has occurred), and she's very entrenched in Republican Texas. She and I met when we were studying in Germany (she was doing a one-month program).

I'm telling you all this to set up the situation. After the floods, I mentioned I had been watching the ZDF news broadcast detailing Bush's visit to Biloxi. My friend asked me "what's Germany saying?" and I told her that the reporter in Biloxi said that, as far as she and other she's spoken to could observe, aids workers had come and left with Bush, and that nothing was being cleaned up, there was no help for the residents outside of a single emergency medical station, etc. Instead of even attempting to give me some Republican spin, or detail how ZDF is unreliable, etc., her reply was simply, "Well, what the fuck do they know?"

Here was a news report from a reputable news agency (yes, it's German so it admittedly doesn't defer to Bush in the least) leveling certain charges at Bush that fit in perfectly with Bush's past performance and with his general response to Katrina specifically, and the only thing she could say was to just call it bullshit and leave it at that.

I mean, I've been on the receiving end of embarrassing news (real or not) about Democrats, and I always try to find out where it's from and either try to defend them or admit, "Yeah, they fucked up." I can't imagine myself ever saying just straight up that, for instance, the field reporter for a reputable news agency who's actually on location doesn't know shit when they state simply what they've seen.

(If anyone wonders why I'm friends with her, she's very nice otherwise. She just has blinders on when it comes to Republicans--Bush especially. One of her best friends was a Marine who died in Iraq, so I figure she just can't allow herself to believe that he died for nothing and that she voted both times for the guy that sent him off to die for nothing.)

[yankeedem]

16. Xenophobia is a big part of the bubble

Any info from foreign sources is automatically discarded. Since they are "socialist" whatever that means to a freeper, they can't POSSIBLY understand or report on the US.

Interesting that two of their biggest media sources are Fox (Australian Rupert Murdoch) and the Washington Times (Korean Rev. Moon).

[StefanX]

17. Dailykos.com has more readers than all the top conservative blogs combined

Conservatives are a minority living in a bubble.

[degreesofgray]

18. freeper: what, me informed?

What I see a lot is righties who attack the source of the information but not the information itself. Anything that even remotely criticizes their point of view, "their president," or that causes any questioning, consternation, or confusion to occur, must naturally emanate from an unreliable, untruthful source.

What's most frustrating to me is the unrelenting parroting of the party line that the media is slanted, biased, or what have you, to the left, when in fact the MSM in the US is quite obviously corporate and compliant, despite the recent signs of life in Katrina's wake.

dog

[tabasco]

19. Propaganda works.

Our corporate rulers spend a lot of money on propaganda and it reaps big rewards.

Welcome to DU !

[yurbud]

20. yep--to them attacking & smearing is the same as questioning & criticizing

I would usually point out policies of Clinton's that I didn't like, or questions that were asked by others about things like his health care reform plan. I have even done this in person. I have told a righty friend issues I disagreed with Clinton on and why, and which questions I think it was legitimate of the right to ask of him, and asked if he could do the same for Bush. He refused to even entertain the exercise.

It seems that it is not just specific positions but this Red Guard attitude that unites the right. John McCain is very conservative on a lot of issues, but is as reviled by them as he is respected as a worthy opponent by the left (at least until his embrace of Bush for the 2004 election).