I have been trying to watch FOX News back to back with MSNBC and CNN all within the same hour, but throughout the broadcast day for the last few weeks. It is a painful exercise to say the least and it is obvious that FOX is not speaking about the same world the other outlets are speaking about. The divide seems to get stronger at night when shows are named after people and the goal seems to be to outrage the base with what “the other” side did and is doing. During the day there is at least a nod toward genuine journalism – not after dark (except here in the west where nationally, night starts before the sun goes down).
But I started this exercise on viewership because of things claimed by remarkably misinformed conservatives of my acquaintance whom are my neighbors, and friends, and family (some of them have been influential in my life since the early 1960’s). And it is not just FOX News and conservative radio. They get these e-mails forwarded to them (and huge lists of other like minded folks) that make the most ridicules claims, offer zero support for their claims, and are authoritative in nature so weak minded folks swallow it hook-line-sinker as FACT!! These e-mails are the new urban legends using a pre- social medial platform to keep the info tight in the hands of those who will never question it, fact check it, or give it to anyone who would.
I had forgotten, but an uncle back east and a friend from college days used to include me in their blasts of forwarded nonsense (and occasionally a cousin from Florida). The premise is always the same, in the 1950’s right before any of us were alive or at an age of reason, America was great and things were as close to perfect as technology would permit. And by-the-way, if we didn’t waste so much time in the 1960’s and since then on civil rights and war protests, and ‘devil music’ and women’s lib (yes they still refer to it that way), and all the other distractions – well, we would have flying cars and liquor without hangovers by now. But as revisionist and absurd their claims about the past were, their claims about the present and the slippery slope we find ourselves upon now are worse. I got to the point that I was deleting them unopened, but occasionally I would mistake one for genuine communication because it did not have an inflammatory subject line.
On two separate occasions I tried to fight the ignorance, and in both instances it was exactly as fruitful as trying to teach a horse to sing – except one of those times ended with a death threat. The first time I took a swing for the fences was during the Obama administration when I got an e-mail that started: “Ole’ Lee sure got it right this time. Listen to this….” It was supposedly authored by Lee Iacocca and was a scathing review of Washington and how the current administration was driving the train not only off the tracks – but into a ravine and congress was doing nothing to stop them!! I read it and it was a pretty good argument, but some parts just didn’t fit, plus it sounded familiar. It took me about three minutes to find out that Iacocca had written the rant and published it in a book, but he wrote it about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. I went to the library and checked out the book and re-read it (I had read it before) and put many sticky notes and sticky arrows throughout the book and walked it down to my uncle’s house which is just a five iron to the west. I told him that I was trying to be fair, and I would give him a week to read the book and send it to his brother in West Virginia and for the two of them to send out a correction or retraction or some acknowledgement that Iacocca was NOT criticizing Obama, but rather Bush. To his credit, he read the book (and apparently DID discuss it with his brother) but when I followed up he said that Iacocca was really washed up and his opinion didn’t matter any longer so he was not going to take any corrective measures. He handed the book back to me and draped his other arm around my shoulders and told me that Lee Iacocca was now senile and pointing out his errors like I wanted to would be in bad taste and asked me to drop it. He completely missed that I thought the author was right on and that HE needed to set the record straight.
Sadly, when the great American and industrial giant that he admired so when he thought he was criticizing Obama turned out to be criticizing Bush - - well, he became a sad old man confused and befuddled. If you are going to make an appeal to authority, wouldn’t it be nice if his (or her) authority was based upon something other than agreeing with your preconceived decisions?!?
This is already too long so just a brief synopsis of the death threat. About a year and a half later there appeared a letter written by a “decorated Marine Sergeant” who claimed that the real America was gone and decent white men could no longer have a voice in democracy because of all the Cadillac driving welfare mothers and draft dodging queers (ect. Ad nausium). Having learned not to ask the link to me to do shit to correct this, I replied all. I asked them not to include me in this kind of hate speech – this racial and misogynistic white supremacy masturbation. I pointed out some inaccuracies and asked them to think with their minds before posting and stop and think before their knee jerk reactions were committed to paper.
That led to the people who forwarded the thing to me being suspect for a while for sharing their secrets of hate with outsiders, but for me it was two weeks of asking me rather impolitely if I wouldn’t be more comfortable in China or Russia. I replied to a few and asked them to convince me their position was correct but was told that since I was a brain dead liberal it would be a waste of time. Several weeks later, I received an e-mail from someone who wrote something to this effect: “I don’t know how you got your hands on my letter, but it was not intended for the likes of you (since you are one of ‘them’ it was implied). It ended by saying if I ever dared to cross his path he would gut me like a pig and enjoy watching my blood spill on the ground. I dropped it, but I was half temped to see if I couldn’t make his head spin a little first. Finally decided he was too crazy to play mind games with.
After all that, the point is FOX news just legitimizes the crazy shit some of these people already think.
(And for the record, I have been a life long Republican who feels betrayed and abandoned by my party. The few Republicans I could admire are dead or retired, but the same uncle mentioned above told me on several occasions that they are all just RINO’s and he wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire in his carport. Have to admire his Christian charity, don’t you?)
