Not literally, of course… but as you can see from nipped and tucked Scientoligist Greta Van Susteren’s year-end look back at the race to become the Republican presidential nominee, there is not ONE single mention of Ron Paul in the entire 7½ minutes of video. Why, it’s as if Fox News made it appear that the garrulous old libertarian coot some predict may actually win next week’s semi-important Iowa caucuses wasn’t even running in the campaign at all!
While it’s a well-established fact to most liberals that Fox News is anything but “fair and balanced” as it cynically claims to be, unfortunately there are still many witless viewers out there who actually consider the network a purveyor of “news” rather than what it really is – a slick propaganda delivery vehicle for the GOP establishment – i.e., vested interests of corporate fascists and the wealthy elite.
Perhaps witnessing the hostile reaction of Fox News to the potentially disruptive candidacy of Ron Paul will disabuse them of the notion that it actually believes in the libertarian ethos, the anti-liberal rhetoric of which it so fiercely spouts whenever it usefully serves advance their purpose; which, in fact, isn’t to destroy government at all, but instead to hold it even more firmly captive and continue utilizing its various powers as a practical means of effectively siphoning off absurd amounts of wealth from the many to an increasingly select few.
Factoid: Just six members of Walmart’s Walton clan are worth as much as the bottom 30 percent of all Americans (90 million people).
Red Tory v.3.0.3 
Somehow I doubt that there are many people that don’t understand what FOX news is.
The thing that is so sad is that they don’t care. Once media, even FOX, has speculated about something others are able to use it as a way to comment on the issue and repeat those statements as if they had credibility.
It’s a farce.
And, you are right, it’s all about corporate influence. The only problem is the corporate influence does not respect party lines either — journalism is pretty much dead. The only difference is that most other sources of “news” aren’t fabricating pure crap but instead are too gutless to practice actual journalism.
I dunno, there are still many who view Fox as the real-deal “alternative” to the pervasive “liberal media” (which itself is a joke). We see the same dynamic playing out now with respect to the way Sun News TV is generally regarded by “conservatives” vis-à-vis what they’ve coined as the “consensus media”… (e.g., the communist “state broadcaster” CBC and those radical socialists at the Bell Global conglomerate). Never mind that Sun is a division of the Quebecor group that controls countless news outlets across the country directly and disseminates “news” through its own QMI agency.
As for the “hall of mirrors” effect that the media has… yes, there’s no question about that.
Factoid: Just six members of Walmart’s Walton clan are worth as much as the bottom 30 percent of all Americans (90 million people).
Hey let’s burn them at the stake and split their money up among the 90 million!!!!
RT, what’s your point?
I suspect that some left or right wing think thank should be working on ways to show that the Walton’s would be better off economically, in terms of return on investment, if they used the money to fund grass-roots entrepreneurial growth.
This would raise the productivity of strategic areas of concentrated under-performers, increase the ability to people to buy Walmart’s goods, improve the economy in general, and through on of those often touted virtuous cycles further enrich the Walton’s.
Instead of all the political whining and hand-wringing we simply need to show the rich how upgrading the participation of the poor and under-classes would add to their wealth, their countries wealth, and the economic power of their country (a strong economy is a national security issue).
I smell a blog post coming up…
Fox just might find itself playing catch-up with it’s viewers in the not too distant future. The media is very much the ring master, but to the extent that is not the whole story and the tight rope walker can still capture the imagination of a people is hopeful.
Trainman: I would have thought that my point was completely obvious. It was simply to illustrate than when talking about unprecedented levels of income disparity and the insane concentration of wealth that presently exists in American society (the foremost example amongst global economies), it’s more than just empty rhetoric – this is but one very clear and quite real demonstration of that fact.
But thank you for leaping to the assumption that it was intended as an incitement to ruthlessly burn the hapless Walton heirs at the stake and then redistribute their money to the unwashed masses.
That reaction perhaps illustrates the utterly deranged mindset of people who inexplicably defend the status quo… Rather than admit there is a glaring dysfunctionality in the system that needs to somehow be addressed, you’d rather just simply demonize anyone who’s in the least bit critical of the failed neo-liberal experiment that is effectively destroying the middle-class and hollowing out the economy solely for the benefit of a privileged elite.
AMS: I suspect that some left or right wing think tank should be working on ways to show that the Walton’s would be better off economically, in terms of return on investment, if they used the money to fund grass-roots entrepreneurial growth.
Perhaps. But as charming as that notion is, I rather doubt it could ever take root. For one, such an effort would require… some personal initiative, creative drive, and “can-do” spirit of entrepreneurship on the part of the wealthy individuals in question (qualities not usually present in the pampered weaklings that are the sons and daughters of privilege). Moreover, it would require a communitarian sense of social obligation to make an effort to help “lift all boats” in society which is a moral imperative strikingly absent amongst today’s class of oligarchs – drummed out of their heads as it has been by over the past 35 years or so by a pseudo-libertarian ideology that instead relentlessly praises the virtues of selfishness and greed.
This would raise the productivity of strategic areas of concentrated under-performers, increase the ability to people to buy Walmart’s goods, improve the economy in general, and through on of those often touted virtuous cycles further enrich the Walton’s.
Henry Ford recognized this “virtuous cycle” at the same time he was implementing the assembly line – you need to pay workers sufficiently to enable them to buy the products you make. Today’s industrialists have completely lost the plot in this regard. Likewise, the financial sector that once existed to re-invest the depositors’ money or wager bets in productive capital ventures that would create wealth in the “real” economy have instead been incentivized over the years to engage in an arcane gambling casino that makes money off the trading of money and produces nothing of value.
Instead of all the political whining and hand-wringing we simply need to show the rich how upgrading the participation of the poor and under-classes would add to their wealth, their countries wealth, and the economic power of their country…
Too late. The oligarchy has already “written off” 90% of the country as not worth bothering about. The “middle-class” is tapped out; their incomes flattened to the point of constantly hovering on the brink of imminent bankruptcy, their lines of credit all but exhausted. As for the remaining working poor and destitute… well, they’re beyond hope. Now they’re busying themselves with looking for greener pastures around the world to “freely” exploit.
I’m glad that Ron Paul is being ignored. His extreme non-interventionist foreign policy is based on racism and antisemitism. He called Israel an apartheid state.
Obama is a far better President than Ron Paul could ever be. He at least understands the importance of America’s role in the world. Like Christ Matthews (another great progressive) said, Obama is all about American Exceptionalism.
I’d rather that Romney win the nomination. Because in the off chance that Obama might lose the election, at least Romney is sane and not extreme like Ron Paul.
Many conservatives have said they’d support Obama over Ron Paul. Ron Paul’s foreign policy is extreme and unrealistic.
I’m having difficulty determining whether your comment is serious or cleverly sarcastic.
Personally, I don’t see anything “extreme” about Ron Paul’s foreign policy positions, although they may well be described as “unrealistic” given the dominant role of the military-industrial complex in Washington.
Ron Paul’s “non-interventionism” is based on Constitutional principles and sentiments expressed by many of America’s revolutionary founders, not on “racism and anti-Semitism” as you falsely assert. There are many people that have called Israel a de facto apartheid state, including many Jews that live in that country.
“Christ Matthews”? Not sure when Tweety got deified. He’s an amusing and somewhat loony gasbag, but hardly a “great progressive”…