America the Divided

From a response to Bobby:

The level of partisanship in this country has become toxic.  It is impossible for otherwise pleasant people to simply discuss the issues of the day without rancor and accusations.  Especially on the Right, disagreement is labelled socialism or even treason.  Quoting, or even showing an unedited video of, a Republican's comments is regularly declared to be "unfair" or "gotcha journalism".  So what happened?

Two problems contribute to the situation. Number one: people do not care about facts -- they care about emotions. It is difficult and hard to think. It is so easy just to feel angry and bitter. This is why propaganda has always been so effective throughout the ages. If you've never actually watched the Pox Propaganda Channel, you should!. The entire message, all day long, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is 1, be afraid and 2. be angry. There is no other message. 

In other words, your comment about people not wanting facts and only caring about emotional nonsense is accurate. 

The other problem began, of course, under Ronald Reagan, like so many of America's problems do. He began the process of deregulation. Among the things he deregulated was control of the public airways. In days past, once a year, everyone who broadcast on the public airways, and please note those airways belong to you and me, not to the big businesses that now dominate them, every broadcaster was required to prove to the FCC that they were providing good balanced programming, "in the public interest". This programming had special categories for news, children, and other public matters. Agreed, children's cartoon programs were often presented as  "educational". But at least there was a system and it was given more than mere lip service. 

Today, of course, the businesses own the airways. At least they do according to themselves and Congress and the FCC. It's as if corporations moved into your yard and began erecting advertisements and painting them all over your house. It's actually your property but they're using it the way they want. And if you're touchy about that, saying that your home is private property,  let's say that they are moving in and putting advertisements on every piece of public property, every park, every school -- and the principal of the school has no control whatsoever over what the corporations put on the walls of his school. I will repeat, those airways belong to the American public! They are not the private property of corporations. 

Finally, let me point out that while the Pox Propaganda Channel is obviously nothing but propaganda with not merely a disregard for, but an absolute hatred of facts, the so-called liberal media are terrified of being called liberal . Therefore they are, in fact, deeply prejudiced toward the Conservatives and against facts. It is a remarkable victory for an extremely corrupt system. 

Consider this response from Fox to the killing of Trayvon Martin.  "It took Fox News a while to get onto this story, but when it did, it identified the real victim – the National Rifle Association". The editorial (from the NY Times) goes on to report that Fox feels the NRA is suffering from being blamed for the obvious impact of the stand your ground laws which have caused a 300% increase in "self defense" killings.  An innocent 17 year old is dead, but Fox feels sorry for the real victim, the NRA!  Worse, you can bet that Fox viewers, as always, will believe what they are told to believe.

http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/shoot-first-claim-self-defense-later/

Hope lies in the American people.  It seems they are finally fed up and that the 99% movement will succeed. By the way, I'm fairly confident that it will. If Obama will not stand up and be the new FDR, someone else will