Tuesday, September 29, 2015

CNN GOES TO THE DOGS

This morning was an ugly morning on CNN news. They had two guests, Armstrong Williams, and Jeffery Lord. Armstrong Williams is the business manager of Presidential candidate Carson and Jeffery Lord is a political commentator who has a history of pushing fringe right wing politics. CNN has hired Lord as a commentator, which has an important message for ex-CNN watchers. I say “ex-watchers” because liberals should flee in droves. All anyone has to do is look up Jeffery Lord on the internet; he is a disaster. The message is simple. Our country, including CNN, has been lost to big money. The news media is a monopoly controlled by the radical Republican right, just as they control the congress. Where station ownership is not enough, Citizens United takes over and controls the programming with ad buys. Recently I visited relatives in northern Minnesota. What a shocker. I had noticed that they are part of the crowd that reposts radical right wing garbage. During the visit, it became clear they repost this material because they believe it. The most recent reposting on Facebook, as an example, was about Hillary Clinton deleting her personal e-mails and always lying. This is equivalent to what I heard on CNN this morning, which was that Reaganomics is a stunning success. I could parse both of these statements and in doing so prove beyond any doubt they violate all sense of personal liberty and are big lies, but I realize it would do not good. In addition, they often get into cycles of telling groundless things as if they were somehow the truth. For example, Obama is a terrible President. They have no answer if I were to ask them why they said that. They have no idea of domestic or foreign policy. The other day, not in northern Minnesota, one relative asked me, “Who is this guy Boehner was, you know the one who resigned?” OMG. The person who asked the question is one of the people who think Obama is a bad president. The question is why they think this way. Don’t bother to ask because they have no answer. My relatives are all intelligent and hard working people. So why do they believe the things that are obviously against their principles or are outright lies? I do not know but suspect part of it is bandwagon logic. As I sat listening to their conversation, I did not feel I could point out that they were telling each other the same lie. Should I set there and try to explain to a person who thinks Reaganomic, or trickle down economic and union busting is good when worker productivity is increasing while wages are staying the same, or decreasing. Should I try to explain to farmers who hate unions but got together for a massive tractor ride to Washington to show politicians that farmers matter? How can I explain poverty to farmers, who think liberals all sit on their backsides and collect unemployment checks after their jobs go to China? How do I explain that an AK 47 in the hands of a drunk in a bar in the city is not the same a gun in the hands of a farmer or sportsman? These are the same people who scream “like hell” when the price of would fall if the government stopped subsidizing gasohol. They hear on the media repeatedly to hate government; government is bad and the rich controls the government. Don’t the know it is the rich who are telling them that. Do you want to be the one to try to explain to them that they are the government but if the government is not there to govern the rich will, which is where we are now? URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

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