Posted by Mark NC on October 27, 2011 at 12:33 pm.
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It seems that every day Fox Nation is widening the gap between their reporting and reality. Today they featured this article about an Iraq War veteran who was seriously injured at the Occupy Oakland demonstration:
Notice that the entire article consists of a single line that says only that Scott Olsen, a “24 year-old former Marine suffers fractured skull after struck with projectile during protest.”
What did the Fox Nationalists leave out? Well, just that the projectile that fractured Olsen’s skull was fired by Oakland Police. And after other protesters came to Olsen’s aid, the police lobbed a tear gas canister into the middle of the crowd who were trying to help him.
This is Fox Nation’s way of attempting to malign the protesters as violent by publishing misleading and incomplete stories. They are relying on their audience being dimwitted sheep in order to get away with this sort of deception. Obviously they know their audience very well.
Continuing the “Fox Nation vs. Reality” series, this episode has the Fox Nationalists declaring that things are “Ugly For Obama In Ohio.”
And to support their declaration, Fox Nation referenced a poll by Quinnipiac University that shows Obama out-polling every leading Republican challenger. Obama beats:
Over the last few months, Republican governors and state legislatures have been busily implementing laws ostensibly designed to prevent voter fraud. It has been a project largely directed by the rightist American Legislative Exchange Council and financed by the Koch brothers
For the sake of clarity it should be noted that “voter fraud,” as defined by Republicans, occurs when any votes are cast by minorities, students, senior citizens, or Democrats.
Now in Florida, the first casualty of this discriminatory and unconstitutional policy has been targeted and become subject to severe penalties. The fiendish scofflaw is, Jill Cicciarelli, a teacher in a New Smyrna Beach high school:
“The teacher who heads up New Smyrna Beach High School’s student government association could face thousands of dollars in fines. Her transgression? Helping students register to vote.”
This is the completely predictable result of the abuse of power exercised by Governor Rick Scott and the GOP in Florida. It is inconceivable that anyone could defend fining a high school civics teacher for doing her job: teaching students how to participate in the democratic process. Instead, her students are learning more about the sort of tyrannical regimes that the GOP is modeling itself after.
When the law was first enacted, the League of Women Voters was forced to suspend voter registration efforts in Florida due to the risk the law placed on their volunteers and administrators. Republicans are fully aware of what they are doing. They know that third-party voter registration organizations have been successful in expanding access to the polls to the very same disenfranchised citizens that the GOP wants to suppress. GOP strategists also know that the incidence of voter fraud in America is statistically null. So if there isn’t any fraud to combat, and the citizens who are hurt are likely to vote Democratic, the only conclusion is that Republicans are exploiting their power to deny Americans they don’t like their Constitutional right to vote.
This gross inequity is not limited to Florida. It is an attack on democracy that is spreading across the country by Republicans and their lobbyists.
The GOP has commenced the process of criminalizing voting. They are constructing obstacles far greater than those of the Jim Crow era. Historically repulsive methods of voter suppression effectively kept many citizens from voting, but these new methods could cost honest citizens thousands of dollars and threaten them with incarceration. It’s downright un-American. For more on this disturbing trend watch Rachel Maddow’s expose from last July:
Glenn Beck spent a good chunk of his morning radio program today lambasting the Occupy Wall Street movement. It’s a pastime that he has become obsessed with, and his obsession grows every day as OWS gets stronger and garners more support from the American people. Today’s tirade centered on the news that former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke said something nice about OWS.
Duke: “I cheer the men and women on the streets condemning international banks that hold America hostage. […] Finally Americans are rising up and it feels great.”
Duke’s remarks were focused on the movement’s opposition to giant, multinational banks and the power that they wield. While the protesters are concerned that a small minority of wealthy individuals and corporations have an inordinate amount of influence over our society and government, in Duke’s acutely bigoted brain that means Jewish domination of world finance. The two parties could not be further apart. OWS wants fairness for all and democratic rule. Duke wants all Jews stripped of their status and deported – or worse.
Beck made much of Duke’s commentary and concluded that the unsolicited and unwelcome “endorsement” proved that the Occupiers were anti-Semites aligned with Duke’s repulsive agenda. What then would Beck have to say about Duke’s endorsement of the Tea Party?
Duke: “The Tea Party movement is a great sign that the people are finally waking up.”
Obviously Duke seeks to latch onto any convenient movement in order to promote himself. Self-promotion is an endeavor with which Beck should be well acquainted and it’s something he has in common with Duke.
Furthermore, if anyone has a commonality of purpose with Duke, it’s Beck. They both hate New York and all it represents. Last February Beck said that Reform Jews are “almost like…radicalized Islam.” In January he produced a program in which he listed the nine people whom he said most contributed to the 20th century being the Era of the Big Lie. Eight of them just happened to be Jewish. His attacks on George Soros as a tyrannical “Puppet Master,” (another common derogatory insult aimed at Jews), are infamous. And Beck has even perpetuated the intentionally incendiary allegation that Jews killed Jesus. He has been denounced by the Anti-Defamation League for his “bigoted ignorance.” And who can forget his complaint that President Obama “has a deep-seated hatred for white people.”
The fact that Beck didn’t know about Duke’s easily discoverable affinity for the Tea Party is typical of his lazy, fact-free practice of character assassination. But what’s worse is that the Duke video that Beck posted on his own web site, TheBlaze, featured this picture of a Tea Partier while Duke was praising those who protested Wall Street:
Did Beck even bother to watch the video he posted? Or is he just so fixated on slandering his enemies that he doesn’t care that he looks like an idiot? He certainly doesn’t have much respect for the intelligence of his audience, but at least so far as that’s concerned, he has good reason.
This afternoon Glenn Beck posted a video promo for his GBTV presentation of who is behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. The promo featured Beck disclosing that he has been asked by presidential candidates, members of Congress, the business community, and faith leaders, for confidential briefings on his unique insights into the movement. He responded by saying that he would not provide the briefings, but that he would lay the case out tonight on his television show.
That’s so sad. Glenn Beck thinks that he still has a television show. He thinks that by calling his web site GBTV it actually makes it TV. It’s a pathetic little utopia that he inhabits.
I intended to review Beck’s presentation on the Occupy movement, but after watching it I was struck by how redundant it was. The entire thing was a rehash of his sermons from the past two years of his Fox News soap opera. It was immediately apparent that Beck has a grab bag of rogues that he repurposes for any crisis. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Global Warming, or the Arab Spring, or social justice, or terrorism. The same band of clandestine plotters are responsible for every horror that invades his psyche. Here is the abridged list:
Unions
60’s Radicals
Anti-Semites
Anti-Capitalists
George Soros
The Obama Administration
The Tides Foundation
Center for American Progress
To this first-level manifest, Beck adds personalities that include Van Jones, Francis Fox Piven, Cass Sunstein, and Saul Alinsky.
And now that Beck has been cast out of the mainstream media that enriched him so abundantly, he is escalating his attack on his former keepers. He now charges that “the media knows and supports the destruction of capitalism.” Of course they do. Obviously the media has no interest in the formation of wealth or the consumerism that drives the billions of dollars spent on advertising and entertainment. It’s an irony that only Beck can see.
Beyond that twisted vengefulness, there was absolutely nothing new in his dissertation on Occupy Wall Street. And whether he is inciting fears about radicals from 50 years ago or Soros connections that never actually connect to anything, he delivers his delusional assertions with a sarcastic smirk that he inserts in place of evidence. He just needs to curl his lip and utter a mocking “Oh really?” and he has satisfied the standard of proof required by the dimwits who pay the tuition for his Internet seminary.
In some respects this is a brilliant gambit on Beck’s part. For someone so intellectually lazy, he doesn’t have to do any actual research to construct a new thesis of evil. He just picks a handful of those on his list of prefab villains, throws them up on the blackboard and waits for the chalk dust to settle. Then he sells the same leftovers to his flock in new wrappings over and over again.
There is one problem, as he discovered with his old Fox show. Even sheep get bored and wander off the ranch. That’s why his ratings were cut in half by the time he was canceled. And that’s why he must be feeling so unappreciated now as he garners less attention than than that woman…oh what’s her name? You know, Bristol Palin’s mother.
Offered without comment because…well, because it says it all:
Geraldo Rivera to Occupier: “So what’s your goal?”
Occupier: “My goal here is to occupy everywhere possible. I think what you’re seeing here, Geraldo, is a large amount of people that have been deeply and profoundly fucked by the system.”
Geraldo felt compelled to apologize for this honest and accurate analysis.
You would think that one thing Fox News would regard as exempt from their routine campaign of smears and lies is motherhood. You would be wrong.
On Fox & Friends this weekend (video below), the curvy couch potatoes played a video of Stacey Hessler, a mother of four from Florida who is participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest. Co-host Clayton Morris declared that Hessler had abandoned her children, a lie that was repeated on screen with a graphic that said “Mom Abandons Family to Join Occupy Wall Street.”
The truth is that Hessler made a principled decision with the support of her family to take action on a matter of great importance to her family and the nation. She did not abandon her family. They agreed with her desire to take a stand and assured her that they would take up the slack in her absence, along with sympathetic neighbors and friends. Fox could have simply reported that Hessler traveled to New York while her family remained in Florida, but to repeatedly use the loaded term “abandoned” is an obvious attempt to smear Hessler and deceive viewers.
But the abuse didn’t stop there. The on-screen graphic changed intermittently to say ‘From Mom To Mob.’” Morris made a repulsive, and utterly false, insinuation that Hessler was “living with a waiter” while in New York. Co-host Alisyn Camerota, in her role as an unqualified TV psychoanalyst, said that Hessler was “having a mid-life crisis,” and that she may be subconsciously protesting her husband who happens to be banker (and supports the movement). And co-host Dave Briggs was furious about a statement that Hessler made that he read on-air:
Hessler: “Military people leave their families all the time, so why should I feel bad? I’m fighting for a better world.”
Briggs complained about Hessler “equating what she’s doing with military service.” He charged that that was “more disgusting than any of the filth down there on Wall Street.” What Briggs fails to grasp is that there is more than one way to fight for your country. And there is more than one enemy. The damage to our nation caused by Wall Street is unprecedented. It is precisely the sort of damage intended by Al Qaeda when they selected the World Trade Center as a target. The difference is that Wall Street’s assault was far more harmful on a financial basis. Al Qaeda was probably ecstatic as they watched what our financial elite had done to this country.
The Fox gang went on to discuss an Associated Press poll that showed that 37% of Americans viewed the Occupy movement favorably. Instead of recognizing that more than a third of the country was supportive, a remarkable statistic considering that the movement is only a month old, they chose to focus on the 56% who had an unfavorable opinion. What they never addressed at all was that the same poll showed that the Tea Party fared much worse with only 28% viewing it favorably and 68% unfavorably, and that’s after two years. Another poll by CNN reports that 32% view the Occupiers favorably and only 29% unfavorably. Further noting that…
“…opinions are clear about Wall Street itself. Eight in ten say Wall Street bankers are greedy, 77% say they’re overpaid, and two-thirds say Wall Street bankers are dishonest.” […] “54 percent say they absolutely do not trust Wall Street bankers and brokers to do what is best of the economy.”
The American people are smarter than Fox News thinks they are. And all of the propaganda and smears has not helped Fox to undermine the will of the people. Nevertheless, Fox will continue to engage in the malicious fraud they call “news.” But their desperation is becoming ever more apparent as they sink to maligning patriotic mothers fighting for a better life for their children.
[Update:] Another new poll by the Pew Center for the People and the Press shows support for the Occupiers (39%) greater than opposition (35%). However the Tea Party is more opposed (44%) than supported (32%). Even independents are positive about the Occupiers (43% for/35% opposed), while they shun the Tea Partiers (49% opposed/30% for).
Cyber-vigilantes Anonymous have announced a new campaign to punish Fox News for belittling the Occupy Wall Street protesters as “filthy,” “disgusting,” and “dirty,”. Operation Fox Hunt aims to shut down Fox News’ web site on November 5th. The video announcement (below) says in part that…
“Fox News is now a target of Anonymous because of their continued propaganda against the Occupations. Those such as Sean Hannity are attacking the credentials as well as the character of the Occupiers and this can no longer be allowed. […]
“Anonymous will not only shut down Fox News, we will also engage in a propaganda campaign of our own to show them how it feels to be chastised. Fox News, your time has come.”
While I can’t condone actions that disrupt web site operations, Fox News certainly deserves to be chastised for their blatant misrepresentation and bias with regard to the Occupy movement (and pretty much everything else they put on the air). Their standard approach to reporting is to slander those with whom they disagree and serve as press agents for their ideological allies. They specialize in puerile insults and character assassination. It is impossible to watch Fox without hearing them call the protesters (or the President) Marxists. And that’s probably what they’ll call Anonymous if they even bother to report this threat.
Stay tuned. November 5th is just two weeks away. And as comment a-j notes beloew, it is also Guy Fawkes Day.
Posted by Mark NC on October 23, 2011 at 10:34 pm.
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Slime-Life Records is assembling a collection of Herman Cain’s personal faves from the wild world of Rock and Roll. It promises to be a blockbuster explosion of exhilarating music featuring some of the all-time greatest artists. Thrill to hits like…..
…999’s raucous social commentary, Homicide
…and The Godfather’s tales of Birth School Work Death
And what Cain collection would be complete without the Herminator’s own rendition of Imagine
In the past week Cain has exhibited his knowledge of foreign policy (Uzbeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan), announced that he would negotiate with terrorists, and declared that he is pro-choice. Too bad this joker has zero chance of getting the nomination. It would have been a great race. Maybe Mitt Romney or Rick Perry will consider putting him on the ticket. And speaking of Rick Perry, be sure to pick up his latest release, One of the Good Ol’ boys:
Nothing will make me happier than when the utterly delusional notion that the media in this country is liberal has been refuted, defeated, exterminated, and cremated.
While most observers are already aware of the fact-hating editorial policy of Fox News, at least they did fire Glenn Beck earlier this year (although only because his increasingly hysterical ravings were making them look bad). What people may not have noticed is that CNN is taking up Fox’s slack.
This morning on CNN viewers could have awakened to see two of Beck’s surrogates bloviating on the events of the day. Amy Holmes, an anchor on Beck’s GBTV was a guest commentator on Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz. A couple of hours later, Will Cain, a repoter for Beck’s The Blaze appeared on CNN’s Your Money.
For CNN to feature two representatives of Glenn Beck’s insignificant and failing Internet venture is unbelievable. Is that the best they could come up with? Was CNN unable to find any reputable commentators from distinguished networks, newspapers, or universities? Or maybe their attempts to book members of the John Birch Society fell through.
Elsewhere, NPR made news by firing the host of an opera program because she had taken part in an OccupyDC protest. According to NPR, Lisa Simeone was sacked because her activity “has the potential to compromise our reputation as an organization that strives to be impartial and unbiased.”
Never mind that Simeone hosts a music program and does not cover politics or any other subject that could pose any kind of a conflict. Unlike NPR’s Mara Liasson who is a political reporter as well as a commentator on Fox News. Somehow NPR justifies Liasson’s fraternizing with Fox on matters that are explicitly political, but Simeone can’t introduce classical music after having exercised her Constitutional right to free speech on her own personal time.
Conservatives assail CNN as the Communist News Network due to their perception of it as unabashedly liberal. NPR is a perennial target of right-wingers in Congress who seek to defund what they considered to be a hopelessly biased mouthpiece for the left. At what point are these fallacies laid to rest? Do we really need any more proof than when CNN hosts two Glenn Beck flunkies on the same day, or NPR fires an opera program host because she is a liberal outside of work?
The Occupy Wall Street movement has done a great job of defining the 99% of Americans who are being rolled over by the !% of wealthy, corporate interests who are dominating our political culture. Something the Occupiers need to remember and focus on is that the media in this country is also wealthy and corporate, and they are Platinum members of the 1%. Wall Street firms and bankers spend billions on advertising and the media rewards them with positive coverage and the sort of ludicrous editorial decisions noted above. This needs to be addressed and corrected if we are to see any substantive improvement in the massive social and economic disparities that are threatening our nation’s welfare.
Never mind that Simeone hosts a music program and does not cover politics or any other subject that could pose any kind of a conflict. Unlike NPR’s Mara Liasson who is a political reporter as well as a commentator on Fox News. Somehow NPR justifies Liasson’s fraternizing with Fox on matters that are explicitly political, but Simeone can’t introduce classical music after having exercised her Constitutional right to free speech on her own personal time.