Can the Fox-Bots Be Cured?

Before my beloved Father-in-Law died, my ‘challenging’ Mother-in-Law was one of my more inspiring (and intimidating) role models. She’d occasionally vote Republican (which Dad ALWAYS did), but more often went Democratic for reasons of weighed value to more inclusive values and concerns for all citizens, even if the system’s not perfect. She became an ombudsman fighting for the rights of nursing home patients, she sat on the local zoning board, and she was never afraid to give elected officials – any denomination – a piece of her ample mind whenever they deserved it.

But then the love of her life died, and she’s been lonely ever since. In clinging to something of him and his views of life, she became addicted to Fox News, which – it has been noted many times – is the most successful mass propaganda/mind-control experiment ever deployed by partisan human beings against members of their own species. It has turned her into a regular O’Reilly puppet, victim of subliminal programming, a hater of all who are different or disagree. She was someone who never had a hateful bone in her body in all her years before reaching her late 70s and falling to this addiction.

She’ll be 86 this year. We’ve got to go visit and do what we can to get her some help around the house or live-in care, since she’s too stubborn to do it herself, too independent to go to “The Home,” and still in possession of most of her mental faculties Fox hasn’t yet stolen from her. It’s very sad to see this wonderfully smart, able, strong and loving person become a grim, insulated hater. She hates gays, immigrants, blacks, Muslims, Democrats, the French… anybody Bill O’Reilly tells her to hate. Which – even more sadly – now includes her own children. My husband and I (confirmed liberals) as well as his younger brother, who is a conservative Baptist preacher with his own SBC church! Very strange.

She’s alienated her family, her friends… people she’s known for decades or for their entire lives. I believe it’s a crime to prey on people like Fox does. It does real harm to real people, and they’re doing it purely for the profit. They should be stopped, a treatment for the mind-disease they’ve caused should be high on the list of urgent NIH projects.

I’ve wondered in these last few years if there’s a possible class action lawsuit out there to be filed on behalf of regular people’s aging loved ones who have been twisted and corrupted by the Fox Network’s propaganda hypnosis. I’d sure sign on, she’d be an excellent witness who could make any jury cry.

In this vein, Marcos Moulitsas of Daily Kos offers some actual reality in his blog post, Wolfson and a whole lot of stupid. According to an article in The Hill, regular viewers of Fox News are way harder-core Republicans than the broader base of all registered Republicans are. In fact, self-identified conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners and supporters of the Iraq war all give George Bush fewer votes of confidence than the Fox-Bots do.

There’s nothing “Fair and Balanced” about Fox News, and nobody pretends so other than the hypnotized ‘bots, or they wouldn’t have copyrighted that slogan as a trademark instead of an actual description of their coverage.

For those of us who have ‘lost’ loved ones to the hatred spewed 24-7 on this insidious propaganda mind-control outlet, the harm is much worse than just a relative who doesn’t agree with our policy choices, it’s real, very hurtful damage to the few years those loved ones have left. Years which might have been spent just loving each other, spending time with the family (without spewing hatred), growing old gracefully and accepting the inevitability of cycles of life and death on planet earth.

So. If there are any class action lawyers reading this who would care to take ‘em on, there are a great many estranged loved ones of abused Fox-Bots out there who would join. I sure know I would.

Links:

OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism
SourceWatch: Fox News
OpEdNews: Fox fair and balanced

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Filed under Corruption, Hate Speech, Media, Politics of Hate, Propaganda, Republicans, Slime Machine, Talking Heads | Comment (0)