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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:14:19 GMT
All The Hatred in 3 Minutes of Conservative Radio
aninjusticemag.com/all-the-hatred-in-3-minutes-of-conservative-radio-71de3890b255
The airwaves are supersaturated with rage, propaganda, and lies
Walter Rhein
Aug 20, 2020 · 8 min read Image courtesy of Walter Rhein
Do you ever find yourself wondering why so many people are steadfastly committed to information that is patently false? To make matters worse, most of these people rely on identical syntactical constructions as they incessantly repeat their inaccurate statements. From this observation, one can conclude that a large portion of our population is regularly subjected to the same, nefarious social programming.
I wouldn’t normally listen to conservative radio. However, I was flicking through stations the other day and I heard a fragment of a statement that piqued my interest. Unaware of what I was getting into, I paused on the station and allowed myself to be subject to three minutes of conservative propaganda. I found it to be a stunning display of hatred, lies and propaganda.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:14:40 GMT
Conservative radio
I quickly discovered that conservative radio talk show hosts have a terrible ability to supersaturate the airwaves with endless variations on the same core concepts. They seem desperate to pack every second of their airtime with multiple repetitions and variations of their verifiably false and fundamentally flawed philosophical positions.
Unfortunately, as transparent as their tactics are, these tactics also seem to be highly effective. Conservative “thought” leaders seem more inclined to bludgeon you into acceptance of their position rather than appeal to any higher intellectual quality. Based on the voting record of the United States, their methods seem to be working.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:16:19 GMT
The fairness doctrine
I’m old enough to retain a deeply rooted assumption that there is some government mandate against using the radio to propagate outright lies and misinformation. Unfortunately, that presumption went out of date around 1987. There once was a time, however, when the government did make an effort to protect its citizens against the malicious use of radio waves.
“In the Radio Act of 1927, Congress dictated that the FCC (and its predecessor, the Federal Radio Commission) should only issue broadcast licenses when doing so serves the public interest. In 1949, the FCC interpreted this more strictly to mean that licensees should include discussions of matters of public importance in their broadcasts, and that they should do so in a fair manner” (Matthews, 2011, para. 4).
The fairness doctrine is the part of the part of the Radio act that was designed to help prevent radio from being used as a propaganda tool to manipulate the American public. Predictably, the fairness doctrine has been under attack for decades, and it was eventually repealed in 1987 thus leading to the rise of conservative radio talk shows.
www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fairness-doctrine-in-one-post/2011/08/23/gIQAN8CXZJ_blog.html
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:17:21 GMT
The phrase that piqued my interest
I alighted upon a conservative radio program as I was scanning through channels and caught a line that claimed Kamala Harris was the 4th most left-leaning Senator. The host went on to explain that Elizabeth Warren was number 7, and Bernie Sanders was number 10.
Immediately I knew that information couldn’t be true, but I assumed there was some nuance to the evaluation that the host hadn’t yet revealed. I took my hand off the dial to wait for the explanation. I’d heard Harris was more liberal than Biden, but it had been my impression that she was ideologically closer to the middle. The host’s announcement had actually made me hopeful that the DNC might have finally begun to be more accepting of progressive positions.
However, the host did not offer any facts. He just prattled on using a bunch of religious “end of days” imagery about how Capitol Hill was about to be overcome by a tidal wave of leftists. Then he paused for a commercial break and I got an even better idea of the dark land to which the random currents of fate had deposited me.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:18:37 GMT
The creationism advertisement
The next stupefying tirade that met my ears was a defiant and hostile advertisement about a creationism course for homeschooling classes. I was expecting the announcer to make some vague and subtle statements about the merits of studying creationism, but instead he had the nerve to engage in defiant and absolute declarations about how evolution was false.
“Evolution didn’t happen,” he said, “there is no evidence in the fossil record. What did happen was creationism.”
I felt a surge of compassion for biology teachers throughout the country who attempt to teach accurate scientific information, and come up against a hostile and well-funded pack of barking attack dogs who make it seem like they’ll eat you alive for even entertaining the idea.
I also felt bad for students who were doomed to fail their biology classes based on their programmed dismissal of a foundational concept. How can a civilized society accept such concentrated and widespread attacks on advanced learning? It would have been no less offensive if the announcer had said, “Hey kids, don’t study and don’t show any respect to your teachers.”
We can’t have this.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:19:45 GMT
The fear of LGBTQ
I had barely recovered my breath from the creationism advertisement when the advertisement segued into an attack on the LGBTQ community. The host started frothing at the mouth about how Harris’s allies in the LGBTQ community were going to come in and sabotage American life as we know it.
The constant hate attacks from conservatives on the LGBTQ community are always difficult to stomach, but this variation was highly disconcerting. There is already a strong assault from the GOP which undermines the LGBTQ community’s basic rights to survival and happiness. This radio personality was taking the next step and marching into the territory of fear mongering and overt aggression.
At this point I was stunned at how vehemently and how often conservative representatives reinforce and repeat their hate based propaganda. I’d already heard attacks on science, liberalism, and homosexuality. The host maintained a terrifying rage energy and switched back and forth from one core conservative belief to the next without missing a beat.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:21:11 GMT
The attack on reproductive rights
I had just about run out of energy trying to keep up with all the slippery slope arguments and other logical fallacies, when the host slowed down and affected a tone of deep concern. He introduced his next segment as “disturbing, terrible news,” and then went on to claim how the Satanic temple was mounting a legal defense for its “abortion ritual.”
Now, I’m not affiliated with the Satanic temple, but instantly it seemed clear that all is meant by designating an “abortion ritual” was to establish a legal argument to protect reproductive rights under freedom of religion. Here’s how the Satanic temple explains their position:
“The ritual is not intended to convince a person to have an abortion. Instead, it sanctifies the abortion process by instilling confidence and protecting bodily rights when undergoing the safe and scientific procedure” (Satanic temple web page)
announcement.thesatanictemple.com/rrr-campaign41280784
The argument as to whether religious freedom can be leveraged to protect abortion rights should be the basis for a variety of interesting and necessary legal discussions. There are already numerous areas in our society where religious groups receive exceptions from the laws that govern the rest of our nation. For example, the Supreme Court’s decision on whether it was discrimination for a baker to refuse to make a cake for a homosexual couple.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-passes-on-new-case-involving-baker-who-refused-to-make-wedding-cake/2019/06/17/f78c5ae0-7a71-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html
It’s interesting to consider that the baker decision might have created the precedent for the legal protection of the Satanic temple’s abortion ritual.
Rulings like this cannot be made carelessly because all decisions for a higher court can be leveraged to defend other positions. However, all of these concepts were far beyond the purview of the radio host. He just wanted to froth at the mouth about the evils of Satan.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:22:41 GMT
Gun rights
The final pivot was right into gun rights. The host started screaming and yelling about how the moment Biden and Harris get into the government, “gun rights as we know them will disappear.” Again, this is an absurd position to make as no liberals have ever called for anything more than common sense gun laws. Even the National Firearms Act of 1934, perhaps the most restrictive gun legislation ever passed, is not a ban on automatic weapons, but rather a set of stringent requirements that allow legal ownership.
www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/national-firearms-act
But conservatives harp on a completely manufactured fear that the government will repeal the Second Amendment with such frequency and frenzy that most passive listeners are dispossessed of their ability to recognize it’s a fraudulent claim.
I also found it comical that literally seconds after a making an appeal to preserve all life, the host, without a shred of irony, switched over to a demand that all US citizens should maintain the right to possess powerful tools to kill one another.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:23:37 GMT
I switched the radio off
I only listened for three minutes, but they were the longest three minutes of my life. I needed to sit in silence for a moment and get out of the eye of the maelstrom just so I could process what had happened.
Conservative radio combines an astonishing amount of hatred with an overwhelming stream of lies. It’s an aggressive tirade, enhanced with volume, seasoned with speed, and injected directly into the cerebral cortex of the listeners without their knowledge or consent.
Most rational individuals are probably unaware of the level of insidious propaganda going on right under our noses. We flip through radio stations, but it doesn’t take long to notice when you’ve hit a conservative show because they literally suffocate their audience with minor variations on the same talking point incessantly.
Reasonable people quickly change the channel. Conservatives don’t.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:24:29 GMT
Propaganda radio is bad for our nation
A few minutes spent listening to that garbage subjects your soul to enough corruption to dampen your spirit. What must happen to a truck driver who listens to those malicious rants on full blast 18 hours a day? If conservatives are willing to believe video games have a corrupting effect, can they truly deny the negative impact of hate radio?
We can’t imagine what the head space of a typical conservative is like, but unfortunately we can see the results. The conservative base is defiant, angry, dismissive of facts, and unwilling to engage in the briefest moment of self evaluation.
In short, they’ve surrendered their autonomy. Why are we allowing venomous entities to corrupt our fellow citizens by broadcasting a never-ending sequence of lies on the radio? Words are dangerous, we can’t allow this to continue.
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 7, 2021 1:25:31 GMT
We must call for an end to hate radio
It’s easy to live in a bubble, switch the radio channel and pretend that everything is fine. However, our country is governed by the will of the people. When ignorance and false information leads individuals to select terrible candidates it ends up having a direct, negative impact on everyone’s life.
Freedom of speech does not protect your right to scream “fire” in a crowded building, and it shouldn’t protect your right to lie through your teeth. We already have laws against libel and slander, but it seems as if these rules are rarely enforced. Radio programs with an agenda shouldn’t be allowed to broadcast blatantly false information that undermines our public institutions and incites hatred against innocent and law-abiding individuals.
We need to bring back the fairness doctrine and make a greater effort to ensure that all public figures from radio hosts to the president suffer consequences when they lie. These regulations are already on the books. Perhaps abandoning their enforcement has contributed to the current state of division in our nation. Don’t lie. People who claim they uphold “traditional values” can’t possibly object to that sentiment.
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