29 January, 2014

My Fox News Nightmare: How I Tortured Myself with The Propaganda of Ignorance | Alternet

My Fox News Nightmare: How I Tortured Myself with The Propaganda of Ignorance | Alternet:

Even in my short time watching Fox I found poverty fading from my
mind as a problem. I was surprised one day when, during a discussion of
deficit reduction (something that they talk about almost constantly), I
found myself nodding in agreement that there was room to cut social
programs that had already been radically slashed. Fox couldn’t convince
me to care about the issues they are obsessed with (Obama’s treachery
and the deficit, mostly), but by simply failing to mention a topic like
income inequality, it managed to make me stop caring about the things it
would prefer that I ignore.



I have an optimistic view of
Americans. I think we are basically a kind and generous people—that if
we are confronted with suffering, we are willing to act, even to
sacrifice our own interests, in order to alleviate it. Perhaps, I began
to think, we are not becoming progressively crueler and more callous, as
it sometimes appears. Perhaps we have simply forgotten about the
suffering all around us because we haven’t been reminded of it lately.