Suspension of disbelief is the reason why Fox News can get away with broadcasting bullshit

I'm don't have an extensive education under my belt. There's a lot of stuff out there, that had I learned about it in school, would be more obvious to me now rather than less so. Which to some, may make me out to be a Captain Obvious.

So please, bear with me, if you don't mind.

Anyway, tonight as I watched Rachel Maddow's "Mind Over Chatter" segment as she explained why Fox News should not be considered a legitimate news channel, I wondered why Fox News Channel is allowed to get away with their obvious and willful disregard for anything resembling something as simple as "The News".

How can Fox News' paid employees can engage in broadcasting, what any reasonable person would consider complete fabrications on a massive scale, stories and commentary that would seen grossly out of place if they were broadcast of the other major news outlets?

Well, the answer as I thought of it, was pretty simple. It's because any viewer of Fox News is asked to engage in the same suspension of disbelief processes that are asked of viewers of fictional programming like Star Trek and Leave It To Beaver.

Thank the Goddess for Wikipedia, for when I wondered if suspension of disbelief was, if fact, the culprit, I looked up the meaning. I came across this excerpt:



If anything, this exemplifies your basic fan of Fox News. How they can sit there and watch all of that bullshit, believe in it and regurgitate it to their outraged and bewildered friends and family. They are willing engage in suspension of disbelief of outright fantasy on the level of badly written science fiction, because Fox News Channel masturbates their own fucked up value systems.

Suspension of Disbelief is the fuel behind all of Fox News Channel's talking heads. None of their utter crap is meant to convince people who are fully in charge of their own mental stability. A person who is right in the head knows exactly what is broadcast on Fox News, which is complete bullshit. It's no accident that some of the people who are fans of Fox are the same people who say outrageous shit and act like people who a few fries and a burger short of a Happy Meal.

These are crazy people.

The other fans of Fox News, the one who are not so outwardly nut jobs, are greedly assholes and horribly inhuman dipshits. These fuckers are not to be trusted for anything. They're disingenuous, many are cheerleaders of economic, political and military violence, and they know full well that the purpose of Fox News is to provide a convenient outlet for their own fucked up reasons for living.

These walking-talking turds who hate Democracy and everything this country stands for, in order to line their own blood drenched pockets with as much money as possible.

Everyone else, the people who aren't whacked out nut-units or greedy and heartless Scrooge jockeys, say, "Damn skippy", when White House describes Fox News as what it is, which is opposition research for the Taliban-inspired, right wing driven mother fuckers in the Republican Party.

That is the real legitimate purpose of Fox News. There is no real reason to say that they aren't anything otherwise. It's not to go to war against them, or to exclude them from exercising their legitimate press credentials.

It's an admission that Fox News has an agenda. And that agenda is to be the mouthpiece for anyone who opposes the Democrats, a Democratic President, the supporters of Democrats and the Democratic President and anyone else who deigns to not be a right-wing, mouth breathing, money-grubbing Neanderthal with a moral compass stolen from Cracker Jack box.

Frankly, I must admit to you that I find it amazing that Fox News Channel keeps up this facade that they're "Fair and Balanced", when there is nothing on that channel that says that they really are.

That, in fact, I think they would garner more respect for an honest admission that everything shown on that sewer dispenser is one-sided claptrap, made to make the Democrats look bad and the Republicans look, uh... human.

But, until then, we all have to play this little game of their making.

Because, after all, that's what Suspension of Disbelief is all about, isn't it?

Just seriously threaten to impose the Fairness Doctrine on Fix News (I mean real serious). You need to make Roger Ailies shit in his pants.

But Obama won't do that. He has no spine. He did not smash Goldman Sach's into the ground and make the banks form into dozens and dozens of regional and community investment banks that reinvest seed capital into local small businesses.

So Roger Ailies will get away with murder until Obama gets some spine. Personally, I like some parts of Fix News, but I am smart enough to my news from real sources like Democracy Now and Rachel Maddow.

"Fairly Unbalanced" is more apropos!

The fact that Faux News bills themselves AS news is totally fucked. They have a point of view, and that view is far to the right of many people. Fine. I don't like it, but I can deal with it.

What I DON'T like, and what I CAN'T deal with is their insistence that everything on their network is "fair and balanced," and is news. Most of it is opinion. Just admitting that could make them more "honest" (though that's also stretching it, IMHO).

Do you believe that your card is in the breast pocket of my partner across the stage?

No

Ya wanna bet $200 that its there?

F**k NO!!

Of course you don't because if you have to put something of value on your belief.... reality enters and you make the right decision. Because my partner of 25 years or so had better G*DDamn well have your card in his breast pocket. ITS A TRICK!!!!!

I've tried this in political debates. Obama said.... Obama tried to.... No one has ever taken the bet. Maybe I should start with $10 instead of $100. :smoke:

name one RWer's book that has lasted more than 18 months in the bookstores: Limbaugh's works weren't even in print for 2 years, and Coulter is the only one whose titles have "taying power"

Corsi, Beck, and Malkin have to pump out something ever 6 months, since their last book is barely even a bargain book

everyone becomes last month's flavor with RWers: name one conservative writer popular in 2007 whose books are still in bookstores!

By contrast, Toxic Sludge Is Good for You endures since 1995, and Palast, Moore, etc. are readable long after they're off the headlines. "Highbrow" (in a manner of speaking) conservatives like Hayek or D'Souza, or "academics" like choad kings Gingrich and Thomas DiLorenzo always may have 2-3 copies on the shelves, but they're not part of the flash-in-the-pan, keep-them-angry FAUX crowd.

and THAT is the secret to the Maoist Palinoids: they have no attention span and hold onto every issue very loosely--but they get VERY angry about it: remember the friggin' War on Christmas?! They were as noisy on that as they were about abortion or global warming--and where is it now?

Just wondering ....

Would the right-wingers allow lies or disinformation toward the GOP?

Would they question the legalities of foreigner, Murdoch, owning American airways?

Would they question the pretense as to why he became an American citizen just so he could take control of the American airways to win and politically control the public's hearts and minds?

Would they rant and rave about another foreigner, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns more than 5% of Fox?

Would heads explode when the tea-baggers learn that this is the prince who in 2001 suggested U.S. policies in the Middle East contributed to the September 11 attacks.

Would Palin complain about Murdoch and Fox pallin' around with terrorists?

Would the Congressional leaders against Muslim interns in Congress get bent out of shape over a Muslim owning a part of Fox?

Would the GOP in Congress create a bill to disenfranchise Murdoch for citizenship under false pretenses?

And, another bill to disenfranchise the Saudi prince?

Would the GOP try to find a bill to force Fox to change from FNC (Fox News Channel) to FEC (Fox Entertainment Channel)?

Would the GOP then find a way to pull their press credentials?

It's hard for me to think like the GOP, but I do wonder what they would do and how they would act.

I do wonder how they would approach this if the shoe was on the other foot.

But in reality, all Americans should be concerned about a news channel that lies and spreads disinformation - because that same channel at any point in time, could change the type of lies and disinformation to fit another agenda.
:shrug:

"Fox is the only station that tells the truth".

They tell their viewers that they are intelligent. Why would any news station have a legitimate need to stroke their viewers like that? Consistently.

I made a point to watch a week's worth of Beck, and other Fox programs several months ago, and that seemed to be a recurring theme: Fox viewers are intelligent to see through the left's lies and disinformation.

It was also unbelievable to me that Beck had decided to give history lessons to his viewers so that they may understand how the left destroys America & how history repeats itself.

IMO, the Fox's team of television actors masquerading as trustworthy news is dangerous to society.

to make a lot of noise and get violent mostly about baloney and distraction issues.

Give them things to do and say, because they have this need to be instructed by authority figures.

Meanwhiles, the wars on the enemies get to drag on as the undisputed security blanket. Blessed are the war-profiteers, they then must imagine, after getting fitted by fixed noosed.