by Erin | Jan 27, 2014 | Featured, Fox News, Read More, Top
“Take heed to yourselves,…for grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”– ST. PAUL’S EXHORTATION TO ELDERS, ACTS 20:29,30.
Since his inception last March, Pope Francis has inspired millions with deeds of service and humility like washing the feet of youth inmates and, apparently, slipping out by night and undercover to minister to Rome’s homeless citizens.
He’s also inspired many of the “grievous wolves” of the right-wing media… to lose their minds in attacking and denouncing him.
Numerous pundits including Limbaugh and several on Fox “News” have jumped on the bombastic, anti-Francis bandwagon.
Why? To hear them tell it’s all about FREEDOM. And of course, SOCIALISM. You know, the usual smear job unleashed on anyone who has the audacity to notice and address with real concern the all too obvious economic and social realities of our time.
The Pope has challenged the idea that trickle-down economics works to create a shared economic prosperity and called into serious question societal values when we are consumed by markets and, well, consumption.
Not everyone thinks there’s a problem. Check out this billionaire literally celebrating the immense world wealth imbalance which leaves millions in crushing poverty. He describes the situation as: “Fantastic.” No, really. Watch.
I think the intensity of the vitriol directed against the Pope is a result of his having touched a nerve or two of special sensitivity to the propaganda profiteers. After all, they have spent decades using religion as a crude tool to divide people by whipping-up fear and hatred.
You can just hear them fuming behind the scenes: “And then along comes this popular Pope, who’s actually bringing people together for crying out loud, saying that Ideological Christianity is a “serious illness.
Illness, schmillness! Injecting ideology into religion is our bread and butter, jack! Why don’t you just stick to your Pope-mobile and what ever happened to the big hat anyway?
Then he says the church is “Obsessed with gays, abortion and birth control.” — He’s trying to take away all our best wedge issues!
This will not do.”
Last week in his Message for World Communications Day, Pope Francis hit even more directly on that nerve, saying that media communications should help us, “grow closer, to know one another better, and ultimately, to grow in unity.”
He warned that the pace of modern media can be too fast and “enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political and economic interests.”
It’s difficult given the Pope’s previous statements, and the increasing empirical evidence, not to see parts of this message as mostly directed at willfully divisive, myopic and misinformational right-wing media sources.
If you rely on Fox and most talk radio, you will catch all the latest smear and misrepresentation of Pope Francis and his words. But you wouldn’t hear his message and warning on media at all.
by Erin | Jan 22, 2014 | Featured, Fox News, RWM Hoax Scandals, Top
An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie. — A. Huxley
The right-wing media continues to throw out smoke screens in the form of debunked hoax-scandals in an attempt to deflect focus from Chris Christie’s NJ Bridgegate.
The latest is the claim that the mainstream media is giving more attention to Bridgegate than they did to the IRS scandal of last year.
The truth is that there was intense initial focus on the claim that the IRS was targeting right-wing/Tea Party groups but as emerging facts contradicted this claim, the media’s ADD kicked in big time and they checked out in search of fresh sensationalism.
The Hindenburg turned quickly into a toy balloon, deflating flatulently on its way to a dead stop.
Which is a problem because the early hyped reporting persists in public memory while the less sexy truth-of-the-matter is much less well known or understood.
The bold and simple story that ran wild was that the IRS had abused its wildly unpopular powers to put the big-government screws to right-wing groups; targeting the Tea Party for their political views in a tyrannical crackdown.
Wow, sort of confirms what the Tea Party has been trying to warn us about all along. TIME TO HIT THE ALL CAPS AND GO BALLISTIC!!!
Except that none of it was at all accurate.
The more mundane fact is that the IRS has the unenviable (and understaffed) task of making determinations as to which applying groups are eligible for special tax exempt 501c(4) status.
Having this status is not automatic, not a right. Under the law, It is a privilege conferred on organizations who are deemed to promote the social welfare and who do not unduly engage in partisan politics.
This system has been increasingly abused especially in the wake of the gutting of campaign finance laws, bringing on an avalanche of groups looking to set up as non-profits as a front for dark-money-funded political activity.
The IRS was overwhelmed by an influx of newly formed Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status in the run up to the 2012 elections.
Opposition to social welfare is pretty much the Tea Party’s reason for existing. That and ad hominem political attacks against Democrats, especially against President Barack (where’s the birth certificate!) Obama. Why would such rabidly partisan groups not be subject to specific review?
Even the assertion, however, that they were singled out was blatantly false. Lost in the right-wing media screeching and theatrics was the fact that not a single Tea Party group was denied status (they were merely sent follow up questionnaires to their applications) while a progressive group was denied.
Indeed, an FBI investigation concluded there was no illegal activity as the IRS checked up on groups with “Occupy” and “Progressive” in their names with the same zeal as Tea Party applicants.
To sum up, the IRS was simply doing its job under difficult conditions. And despite the conspiracy narrative of the right, they did it in a balanced way and bent over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt as to the partisan nature of Tea Party groups seeking the tax free benefit of 501c(4) designation.
But since so many media consumers did not have the benefit of the full story and only heard the sensationalized conspiratorial version, it continues to be trotted out as a diversionary tool to protect Governor Christie from his reality-based debacle.
Here again, right-wing media voices are asking us to go on hunting unicorns and to give a big fat pass to the all too real elephant in the room.
We shouldn’t let them get away with it.
by Erin | Jan 20, 2014 | Featured, Fox News, MLK, Top
There is always a danger that we will come to gloss over the message and meaning of great figures in the process of raising them to a stature of eternal honor.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a man of conviction who sought to convict us. The great man’s words again and again turn our focus inward; to that quiet within, beyond the world’s noise and distractions, where at last — if you will listen — you must hear the voice of conscience.
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
That’s why it’s fitting that we observe King Day as a day of service: To answer the call of the inward voice to go beyond ourselves and engage with the world for the common good.
In stark contrast, the right-wing media megaphones keep the focus ever away from conscience-convicting self-reflection; instead pointing out at convenient scapegoats on which to heap scorn, derision and hatred.
King wrote this about the purpose of education:
“We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda… Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.”
King’s movement was built on the values that come from a frank confrontation with truth both inward and outward and the faith and courage to act for the truth.
What happens to a society that loses the value of truth?
The right-wing media engine ceaselessly manufactures fantasy versions of reality to suit their needs and agendas without regard to fact or conscience. They twist the search for truth and meaning into a cynical rhetorical shell game which diminishes the spirit of our democracy and culture.
King led a movement by towering example toward a great, inclusive vision. Right-wing media figures manipulate and employ heated rhetoric to whip-up forces of division which threaten to extinguish that vision’s light.
by Erin | Jan 15, 2014 | Featured, Fox News, Top
How the right-wing media manufactures phony scandals to distract, inflame
The right-wing media is offering folks a fantasy-land nostalgia tour of debunked, fake “scandals” to distract from the harsh reality of Chris Christie’s #Bridgegate.
On Monday, we talked about how voices in the right-wing media circuit –including the WSJ, Fox and Glenn Beck’s the Blaze — have been pulling phony discredited “scandals” out of their hats to distract from the very reality-based mess New Jersey Governor Chris Christie finds himself in with the Bridgegate affair.
When the right-wing media rushes to rework reality with sensationalized, agenda-driven storylines, it takes time for truth-seeking journalists to catch up with the facts.
Unfortunately, by that time the media has often moved on to the next shiny object leaving massive mis-information predominant in the public mind. Even when the truth comes out, it gets nowhere near the attention the initial front page reports received and is often buried back behind the horoscope.
The Christie scandal was not driven by a massive political message machine, rather it was uncovered by alert and persistent local reporters and the revelation of smoking gun internal e-mails of Christie staff members.
The trifecta of phony scandals being used as distraction right now (Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS) are all examples of how blanket repetition by the right-wing media machine and the complicit coverage given by more legitimate sources, push false narratives that take hold in the public mind and become “common (if false) knowledge” for millions of media consumers.
When talking about a phony scandal created by the right-wing media, I do not mean to suggest that there is not some issue involved, often tragic or dangerous, that requires attention and responsive action. The right-wing media disinformation strategy, however, makes proper analysis and responsive action to important issues next to impossible.
The right-wing media machine spins false narratives around complex issues and events that make it more difficult for the core issues to be addressed. They pursue this irresponsible strategy because they place a greater value on advancing their agenda than they do on truth and the common good.
The most effective way to spread a lie is by starting with a kernel of truth and spinning your web of deceit out from that kernel.
The right-wing media loves repeating the catchy phrase “Fast & Furious” over and over, but in reality, they were Fast & Loose with the truth.
On Monday’s show, we started a discussion about the phony scandal that arose from the federal Alcohol Firearms and Tobacco Federal law enforcement agency’s operation in Phoenix called “Fast & Furious” — so called for the suspects’ fondness for street racing. We ran out of time before fully covering the subject. That’s the thing about these fake scandals… they exploit the fact that a story takes some time and explanation if you want to get the full picture and that is used as an opportunity to paste their juicy false narrative over the more mundane facts of the matter.
An important point here is the value of dedicated journalists to stick to a story and deliver fact-based reports as they work to uncover the truth.
That’s why we wanted to focus on this case. It’s ironically named because what was fast and furious about it was the gush of lies that rushed out and were stuck on repeat until virtually everyone had an incorrect picture of the actual facts.
But jounalist Katherine Eban produced a report for Fortune magazine getting principal players on record for the first time. Her piece was 6 months in the making and it showed that what everyone thought they knew was wrong. One of the folks she interviewed was ATF Phoenix supervisor, Dave Voth. Now why in the world would no one have talked to him before? The supervisor of the Fast and Furious case itself. How would you expect to have a complete picture without getting his story?
Even the DOJ and the Obama administration gave up on trying to get the facts out because the prevailing belief became so strongly set in the media, they focused instead on countering the political nature of the attack. The first casualty of war, including political war, is the truth.
The tragic event that set off the firestorm of attention on the case was the murder of border patrol agent Bryan Terry in a remote part of Arizona. Two recovered weapons’ were traced back to Fast and Furious suspect straw purchases from gun shops in Phoenix.
The right-wing media pushed multiple, increasingly conspiratorial narratives:
- The ATF allowed gun walking, that is, allowed weapons to be straw purchased in Arizona and then to be transported to criminals in Mexico as part of an intentional strategy to “build a larger case.”
- The ATF supplied and/or purchased the weapons themselves, and engineered their transfer to criminals across the border.
- The ATF getting weapons into the hands of dangerous criminals in Mexico was a conspiracy to produce violence and mayhem to create a rationale for a big government gun grab in the U.S.
But what did Katherine Eban uncover in her intensive 6 mos investigation? Click here to listen and find out.
When you read Eban’s painstakingly researched account garnered from the testimony of five law enforcement officers involved in the case but previously unheard from, you see a story turned 180 degrees from the conspiracy notions repeated by media sources. A story is revealed of dedicated professionals trying to stop the flow of guns across the border, but who are stymied in their efforts time and again by prosecutors who consistently insist to them that toothless and gutted gun laws would make prosecution impossible and who call for degrees of evidence that are largely infeasible.
In one instance agents tracked a man receiving food stamps who dropped more than $300,000 for 476 weapons but the prosecutors refused to give go ahead for an arrest. Agents are, of course, tasked to work within existing law and can be sued if they go against prosecutors’ assessment of legality and seize guns.
How did the story get so twisted???
Reporter Eban details how a far-right anti-ATF, fringe-gun-group, called the Sipsey Street Irregulars, picked up an item about the F&F case and the death of Agent Terry from a website run by a disgruntled ATF former employee. The SSI is run by a one-time militia member who supports armed revolt against the government. From the anti-ATF site, the SSI passed on allegations directly to Republican lawmakers who ran with them.
Then, John Dodson, a disgruntled Phoenix ATF employee with an axe to grind, was interviewed by CBS. The CBS interview contained cherry picked segments of e-mails ripped from their original context, to present a wildly distorted picture of what was going on in the Phoenix ATF office. A message from Voth to the staff was twisted to make it seem as if it referred to gun walking when it was really about a schism in office morale pertaining to working a wire tap. The full e-mail can be read in Eban’s report.
Recently, we’ve seen the same CBS called on to correct a story on green energy wherein the interviewee complained his words were presented in a cherry picked fashion, giving a twisted impression of what he actually said. And of course just weeks before that 60 Mins host, Lara Logan was suspended for presenting a completely bogus story on Benghazi which featured an interview with a totally fraudulent eye-witness who actually wasn’t an eye-witness at all. CBS has become, going back to F&F, an increasingly reliable amplifier of right-wing media hoax, misinformation and conspiracy.
And of course, joining with GOP politicians and CBS, the right-wing media bully chorus was loudly pushing the fraudulent “gun walking” Fast and Furious narrative.
The insanity here is that right-wing forces that have targeted the ATF with Fast and Furious conspiracy theories are the same voices that have insisted that there can be no restrictions whatsoever on gun purchases, including no restrictions on the very kinds of straw purchases that were the focus of the ATF operation in Phoenix.
So the right-wing voices that have successfully weakened gun laws which led to the prosecutorial barriers the ATF in Phoenix faced, then turned that very situation into an opportunity to run a smear campaign against the ATF for being legally hamstrung from stopping the guns from moving.
The heated scapegoating of the ATF also served as a way of shielding right-wing media voices from their culpability in the ensuing violence caused by lax gun buying laws they support.
Just days after the Sandy Hook school shooting tragedy in Newtown, Rush Limbaugh repeated on his show in unhinged detail the full Fast and Furious hoax, insisting that it was an outright big government conspiracy to take your guns. This was a convenient diversion for his listeners and it fed into the sick strain of Newtown conspiracy theories that had begun to slither up from the feverish and fetid swamp of the right-wing blogosphere.
It’s high time to drain the swamps of baseless conspiracy and to take a stand against right-wing media mind pollution.
by Erin | Jan 8, 2014 | Featured, Fox News, Top
But not as cold as the brain freeze of global warming denialism.
The Incestuous Amplification Feedback Loop of the right-wing media is in full gear to cry “Hoax!” on Global Warming science because it’s very, very cold in the United States right now. Of course, they don’t need a particular reason to cry hoax, but they do become all the more shrill when they are trying to glom onto something they perceive as useful to their misinformation agenda.
The right-wing noise machine is ever ready to exploit a complex issue to advance their agenda, no matter how important it may be that the public have reliable information on that issue.
Limbaugh told his listeners that the term “polar vortex” is a sinister creation of “the media.” He was immediately debunked and called out by senior Accuweather meteorologist Bernie Rayno, who said the term has long been in use and who also said “now, any time anybody tries to have a debate, it turns into being politicized,” he said. “Whenever you politicize something, you contaminate it.”
Many other sources of right-wing media static like Drudge and Malkin have been crying the same denier line of nonsense and, of course, Senator Inhofe reliably amplifies this crazy talk [listen here] while sounding like an addled, partisan weatherman nattering on about every time it snowed on Al Gore in the last decade.
Here’s a fun pop quiz: How much of the Earth’s surface does the United States represent?
That would be 2%. How much time is the right-wing media devoting to the unusually warm temps in Scandinavia or the dangerous, ongoing heatwave afflicting Australia?
No, no, don’t look there! Look out your window, it’s snowing and your pipes froze last night. There must be no such thing as Global Warming! Or other countries either I guess.
Let’s say your bath tub represents 2% of your house and the tub is filled with ice. Meanwhile the rest of the house is on fire and the fire is spreading fast. Should you not call the fire department because the temp in the tub at that moment is freezing?
There’s a reason why it’s called GLOBAL warming and not your hometown warming.
But the propaganda of the right-wing media machine is all about getting people to narrow their vision, narrow their understanding and narrow their minds.
