Well, OK. They never went away. Let me explain.
First off, this blog is only 37 days old but there's been a great response. That has been very gratifying to me. I hope you'll keep coming back. Decline of the Empire (DOTE) has a point of view and I'm still in the process of telling you what it is.
This is not a partisan blog. I am not a Republican, I am not a Democrat. I am not a Libertarian. In a Declining Empire, we've got to transcend such mind numbing, divisive affiliations. It's not always easy to do. Liberal? Conservative? Progressive? Ultra-conservative? Left wing? Right wing? You can toss all these categories out the window as far as I'm concerned. If somebody wants to frame a debate in these terms, walk away.
I wouldn't be caught dead Inside The Beltway. Who in Washington, D.C., basking in their Imperial glory, playing their money & power games, feeding at the trough, could possibly understand what's really going on? Very few.
Wackos come in many flavors, but it just so happens that most of them—not all, that's for sure—are labeled "right wing" or "ultra-conservative" or whatever. But the people I'm talking about here, who are generously represented at FOXNews, are essentially not political at all. At heart, deep down, they are really just bat shit crazy. These loonies will tell you anything—I mean anything, no lie is too fantastic—to bump their ratings and feed their endless Narcissistic desire for power & celebrity. Some of them, including Rush Limbaugh or Larry Kudlow, have well known substance abuse problems. That should be a big tip-off to you right there. For more insight, consult the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). I keep a copy handy at home.
If I told you that an Imperial society had been in Decline for decades—just like ours—what would you predict about the evolution of that society? What would your default hypothesis be about the state of its political discourse? I'm sure you would predict that that discourse would be going downhill rapidly. And of course, that is exactly what we find—FOX is The Most Trusted Name In News.
Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country, according to a new poll out Tuesday.
A Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network. Thirty-seven percent said they didn’t trust Fox, also the lowest level of distrust that any of the networks recorded.
There was a strong partisan split among those who said they trusted Fox — with 74 percent of Republicans saying they trusted the network, while only 30 percent of Democrats said they did.
“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said PPP President Dean Debnam in his analysis of the poll. “But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”
We could not expect a different outcome. The only problem with this story is that Fox is not a "news" network. Anyone with just a minuscule awareness of the world around them knows this already.
BIll O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and other "commentators" on FOXNews, which is owned by Rupert Murdock, or Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter, are simply fatuous whack jobs. Scary creep Dennis Miller was funny for about 5 minutes in the 80s. Murdock knows that mean, stupid & deranged sells. FOXNews does not report the news, they are selling themselves by appealing to the worst in people. Round up the Muslims? FOXNews is all for it. Torture 'em? You betcha! We might hope that most people would be able to resist temptation, but apparently 49% of them have taken Satan's bait. With these people, the lights appear to be on, but nobody's home. These Americans want someone, need someone, to tell them what to think. That's what FOXNews does.
I know perfectly reasonable people who become apoplectic if they hear Rush Limbaugh on the radio. They want to argue with him! Tell him what's what, get him to shut the fuck up! One of the more useful Rules Of Life goes like this—
- Never, ever, argue with a crazy person
And why not? Because it's sure to make you crazy. So if you wake up & discover that you are surrounded by crazy people, get outta there as fast as you can!
Bat Shit Crazy
These FOXNews people are dangerous, but not because of their political "beliefs." They're a threat because they are loose on the airwaves whereas they should be straitjacketed in a mental ward. During the times we live in, these wackos are the most trusted people in America. That's a sad commentary on how far gone we are.
Now in 2010, with the political backlash against Obama about to get nasty, it will be all we can do to keep these lunatics at bay. It's the Return of the Wackos, and for you, it may be a lot like the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. I'm sorry to report that the outcome does not look good.
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