Just a little reminder of very important conversation to look back on, as we head into full-on election season mode:
http://www.youtube.com/...
Check it out: it's President Clinton ON Fox! He is discrediting Fox and trying to reveal -via the interview, ballsy as he is- the context in which Fox operates: a right-winged agenda, intent on baiting a God fearing public into actually believing that Fox is the news and that it is NOT feeding straight propaganda to its viewers, while also highly invested in helping to sway the outcome of previous and upcoming elections. Bringing fear and god into anything resembling a news report should of course put us on notice that it is not news. Perhaps it's a new way to serve up propaganda, but there is no serving up of 'news'. It isn't related to any kind of journalism beyond the color yellow. It reminds me of a more radically instructive or activist version of the televangelism we saw in the 1980s. These days, AM talk radio is more the home of evangelical market/audience, and Fox news has stepped into the "tell us what to do" breach on our t.v.
Please consider this interview - especially the words and questions Chris Wallace uses. This interview is in no way presented to find out anything. It's presented by Fox news in order to reify an agenda using Clinton's own words, but it backfires. When C.Wallace questions Richard Clarke's 'loyalty' it is a brief but powerfully cynical moment. He is so game to denigrate Clarke's storied dissent, right on cue, in order to discredit a strong voice that didn't coordinate with Fox's agenda. In the very small amount of time that Clinton gives him to speak, he is right on point with the Fox (tea)party-line.
Please folks, especially my Fox friends, try not to forget: this is NOT the news.
Do not let this machine continue to lead people to vote against their own interests (again), or make you believe that most conservatives or republicans even think this way. The goal is to divide and conquer through misinterpretation and dumbing down of issues through fear and a false sense of 'country.' It's disheartening to see it working.
Please folks, especially my ANTI-Fox friends, try not to forget: this is not all necessarily being swallowed gullibly by every Fox viewer. And yes, I'm saying that mostly because I have to believe this. I'm posting this interview to keep hopeful, to remind people that perhaps Bill Clinton broke through the 4th Fox-fire wall a little bit. I'm posting it as a reminder for us to pursue information -even just enough to see another side of the story. Let us resist the lazy path of conspiracy and cynicism that Fox is serving up. Let's also please resist the lack of faith in people, i.e. each other, that Fox capitalizes on, in order to keep churning out the Fox. As far as Fox is concerned, the most dangerous thing we can do is talk to people with very different political beliefs than our own. But we all need to help to educate each other, not just repeat what we hear on t.v., or lazily blow off steam about the radical dummies in the ill-ection. Let's please put communication above political expediency, "entertainment value," and volume. Let's talk and listen for the love of country, not fear of what 'the other side' is up to. It's on us to do more and dig deeper into what's going on. Not just respond glibbly to this side or that side when we jump on line, re-affirming our ever-more righteous opinions. We must take Fox out of the equation as a source of information. But we must also understand how Fox works and why. We need to see it simply as the threat to our democracy that it is. Its mission is to influence rather than report to us. So learn what Fox is doing and why. Then we can move forward, without it distracting either 'side' too much. Obama killed Osama and shifted the war more to Afghanistan, rather than Iraq. Bush started Iraq and tried to make it about Osama. Come On. Fox could never and will never say either of those two things in an honest comparison of the two leaders or in terms of the war, the economy or loss of lives. Both 'sides' know this, and it's important that we talk about it. Both 'sides' need to remove their reliance on and fear of this source of bad news.
http://www.youtube.com/...