THE HORROR 😱 An Opinion On Broadcast News In General and Fox News In Particular 🤔 by @JJManring

Virtually everyone has long-held beliefs, cherished “sacred cows,” that give a semblance of order to the make-up of their mental world. Whether these organizational belieifs are religious, political, racial, or any of the plethora of “settled thoughts” that act as traffic cops of the mind and allow us to filter and file everything that bombards us daily, those stimuli that might over-turn the apple cart of the mind should we not have them in place. Now imagine having one of the sacred cows of your life shown to be a worthless idol in a period of just a few seconds of objective thought. Imagine the horror of having the scales fall from your eyes, the bright light of truth shine upon one of your favorite beliefs, leaving it dust to be blown away by a gentle breeze. Imagine the pit-of-the-stomach feeling that such a realization would evoke. This is the conscience-altering scenario that awaits the vast, vast majority of Fox News viewers (my mother and stepfather included) when (if 😢) they finally, correctly come to the realization they have been fed a pack of half-truths and lies for decades.

I’m a retired air traffic controller, but in the late 1970s, early 1980s I was a restaurant manager. If you know anything about the restaurant business you know that restaurant managers work six days a week, 55 to 60 hours per week. On my one day off each week I had so much to do with keeping my life in order (paying bills, automobile maintenance, apartment cleaning, going to movies, et al) that for a long period of time — years, in fact — I never watched the news on television. (To be clear, it was not that I had no idea what was going on in the world, rather my connection with world events was at a macro level, many of the micro details passing me by.) When I finally did begin watching again (as it happens CNN HEADLINE NEWS) for that first time in years, I was horrified, thinking the world was going to come to an end at any moment. In my case it was less being bamboozled by Fox News (or any news for that matter), but rather I was plagued by an ignorance is bliss weltanschauung (or lack thereof). But I digress.

In the 1960s I recall watching Walter Cronkite every evening with my family. It was the time of Vietnam and heroin overdoses, with soldiers and young adults dropping like flies. I remember confronting my mother with the impending dread that I was either going to die in some rice paddy in the Far East or with a needle sticking out of my arm in an abandoned building. My mother told me that in all likelihood Vietnam would be over before I turned 18, and that it was not inevitable I’d choose a life of drug addiction and death. I was partially relieved, but I relate this story to show that I took what was reported in the evening news seriously, considering how events depicted might eventually impact my life. Now back to the topic at hand.

When I returned to watching the news, horrified at the goings-on in the world, I kept watching, day after day after day after day. It dawned on me that the world wasn’t on the precipice, but rather the news was sensationalized in order to keep me watching, and that I needed to keep things in perspective.

Now I equate my time away from broadcast news with the avid fans and viewers of Fox News. I imagine the horror that they certainly would be confronted with if and when they ever decide to turn off the Fox GOP Propaganda Channel and consume actual objective reporting, as flawed as it may be.

Just a thought, Mom, but I hope that one day soon you, too, will face the horror and embrace a modicum of objective truth about the world, the Republican Party, and the propaganda news channel that has turned your mind to mush.

An Afterthought or Two or Three:

THE UNINFORMED VS THE ILL-INFORMED

Which type of person is more dangerous to our system of politics, the uninformed (under-informed) or the ill-informed? (To Be Continued)

IN A SANE WORLD IT WOULD BE THE 99% vs THE 1% FOR REAL

It boggles the mind how many of the 99% side with the 1% (To Be Continued)

EVERYBODY LOVES A CONVERT TO THE CAUSE

Every movement that’s ever existed in the world has both their heroes and their heretics (To Be Continued)

    ✈️ John J Manring

    Written by

    Articles, short & long, about things political. Also notes on projects in the works posted to entice and solicit feedback from readers. In advance, thanks!

    Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
    Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
    Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade