Frum: Fox News creates an ‘alternative knowledge system’

[Duct Tape]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/11/frum-fox-news-creates-an-alternative-knowledge-system/

Conservative columnist David Frum, who was speechwriter for former President George W. Bush, blasted Fox News on Sunday for creating an “alternative knowledge system.”

In an article published by New York Magazine in late November, Frum had argued that conservative media like Fox News and talk radio “immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend information.”

In an appearance on CNN Sunday, Frum cited claims made on Fox News that President Barack Obama was proposing a “new Christmas tree tax,” something that was found by both The Florida Times-Union and PolitiFact Oregon to be not true.

“It fed into a story about this Muslim-y kind of president trying to destroy a Christian holiday,” Frum explained to CNN’s Howard Kurtz. “To make this a ground for a cultural conflict, to create a sense in large numbers of people they are being persecuted and attacked at a time when the country is in so much trouble, that’s how this thing is fed.”

[JBoy]

1. I'm liking Frum lately

Still don't agree with most of his policy positions, but it takes some guts to speak out given the prevailing insanity on that side. And he always seems willing to argue his positions using generally-accepted techniques.

"Pretend information". That's exactly what it is!

[libinnyandia]

5. He did say that he would vote for the GOP candidate no matter who he or she is.

[jtrockville]

17. Well, to be fair, that's the boat most of us are in too.

Granted, Democrats aren't out there propagating falsehoods. But in many cases they aren't holding true to Democratic values. Yet we'll still vote for them because we deem them to be the "lesser of two evils".

Can't really fault Frum too much for that, since he probably feels Republicans are still the "lesser" evil.

[slay]

33. Good point

and i don't like the boat.

[AlbertCat]

39. since he probably feels Republicans are still the "lesser" evil.

We can, however, fault him for THAT. There's certainly no logical reason to believe such a "pseudo-fact".

[jtrockville]

43. Yes indeed - that's probably one thing we all can agree on.

[freefall]

48. Not necessarily.

I disagree. We have two wolves. One is dressed in sheep’s clothing and one is not but either one will eat you alive.

[jtrockville]

49. That's true. Touche.

[JHB]

25. Don't waste too much "like" on him...

...after all, he's spent his career doing his level best to put us in this position.

When you sell the brakes for cash as parts, put Leadfoot Larry in the driver's seat, and say "first one to the gorge wins!", you only have so much authority to lament unsafe driving as you careen over the cliff edge.

[lovuian]

2. It is more sinister than that Its Propoganda

and that is like Russia

but not to worry their readership drops more and more

[rocktivity]

3. But conservative "pretend information" was your SPECIALITY, Frum!

Last edited Tue Dec 13, 2011, 12:01 AM - Edit history (1)

You were a fully-functioning cog in that pseudo-"knowledge system," Mr. Axis of Evil, until you insulted the Rethug leadership and they gave you the heave-ho!

P.S. Remember this oldie but goodie, Frum? You tried to sing the same song to Rachel Maddow, and SHE gave you the heave-ho!

rocktivity

[CJCRANE]

4. K&R

[cyglet]

6. Propaganda is easier to say

and you can always tell the Fox News bots from everyone else.

And an existential question:
If you have "disagreements" with Fox News, is the "liberal media" still after you?

[meow2u3]

7. Translation into plain English

Alternative knowledge system = a pack of lies packaged as information.

This is the funniest--and most tragic--euphemism for propaganda I've ever heard. I don't know whether to laugh or shake in my boots.

[Larry Ogg]

22. Even the word "Propaganda" is a little too soft when your talking about...

deliberate psychological warfare, brainwashing, and mass deception.

Adding to that, there are many deceptive techniques used by corporate media that is Textbook Psychopathy.

Unfortunately, even though Fox News is the worst offender, it isn't the only fraud within the M$M, it just Taylor makes a fictitious reality that appeals to the most illiterate, naive, and psychologically clueless elements of our society; i.e. the ones you can fool all of time, aka the most conservative Authoritarian extremist / Republicans.

[Fozzledick]

27. I believe the precise technical term is "disinformation".

[Larry Ogg]

28. And in clinical terms it would be called pathological lying...

And I have found that those who understand the worst of human character, the word evil has a great deal of respect.

[tomg]

29. Of the various linguistic choices

offered, I think yours sort of sums it up best.

[Larry Ogg]

36. Thank you tomg, truth doesn't need to be complicated and confusing...

but the goal of deception is to be, always complicated and confusing.

[AlbertCat]

40. truth doesn't need to be complicated and confusing...

"The truth is rarely plain, and never simple"
-- Oscar Wilde

[arely staircase]

8. so many people are so gullible

and that explains the success of Fox News and conservatism in its current form. a perfect example would be the spam/forwarded e-mails I get at work. when they are political, they are always right wing. but even when they aren't of a political nature, they are almost always easily debunked - yet people forward them along with coments like "good information" "I did not know that" "good to know." The last of these was some BS about putting egg whites on burns. So people don't even bother to check out the veracity of medical advice before sending along to friends and coworkers.

[mwb970]

14. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how foolish people are.

But I am.

[The Wizard]

19. Wingnut emails

end with "send this to everyone in your address book. Let's keep this going."

[arely staircase]

34. "or you don't deserve the freedom they protect" when it's about "the troops."

i've actually seen that one several times. i generally debunk the things with snopes and send a reply to all. that is generally met with crickets.

[Stuart G]

9. K and R...outstanding post...someone inside admitting....."an alternative Knowldge system..."

[MisterP]

10. ditto Regnery and their "Politically Incorrect Guides" ("the hippies wanted a dictatorship!")

[Little Tich]

11. I agree completely with everything David Frum said.

FOX News deals with an alternate reality, which at no point actually corresponds with our reality, even if it's sometimes similar. I always get a bad feeling when I hear Bill O'Reilly say "The Spin stops here", when actually that's where the spin starts.

[eppur_se_muova]

12. But "cult" is shorter and easier to pronounce. nt

[eyewall]

13. It's an alternative to the truth

Because the truth has a liberal bias.

[Magoo48]

15. Did he say, "Pack of lies" ?????

[Scuba]

16. What Dorothy said...

“The heaviest restriction upon the freedom of public opinion is not the official censorship of a press, but the unofficial censorship by a press which exists not so much to express opinion as to manufacture it.”

Dorothy L. Sayers
1893-1957

British writer, essayist, playwright and translator.

[The Wizard]

18. Pox and their GOP patrons

have perfected the art of being the aggressor victim. When dealing with an audience of limited intelligence and no critical thinking skills, it's easy to get them to believe a myth.
They are abnormal, and suffer cognitive dissonance, loose associations, thought disorders, and possibly the vapors. Logic and reason are not part of their DNA.

[liberal N proud]

20. One day people will realize that FOX has fed them shit all this time

The question is, will the FOX agenda be completed before that happens?

[rdneal]

44. Don't hold your breath.

I live in tea party paradise and let me tell you, out here Faux News is the ONLY news people watch. The mere concept that Faux News might be even a little biased is sacrilege.

[JayceR]

21. The media is often called the 4th branch of government for a reason

Fox News and RW talk radio are destructive to society. They take radical, corporate agendas and funnel them through shills like Glenn Beck, John Stossel, and Rush Limbaugh until not a damned fact remains. Anything Fox News says becomes the dominant right wing thought. Outsiders are ridiculed, and if reality doesn't agree with them, they'll try their hardest to warp reality. (Remember how Fox News arrogantly tried to defend Sarah Palin's historical ignorance.) I'm not sure if the Republican party even has a clear agenda anymore. They've become the party of id, the party of savagery. If left unattended, I'm thoroughly convinced that within 50 years people will be worshipping their bosses as Gods, living in a zero-regulation gilded age hellhole. The 99% will live dull lives of thirty years mandatory church service after their 80-hour work weeks. Within 100 years, all human progress will be erased from the world.

[AlbertCat]

42. Outsiders are ridiculed, & if reality doesn't agree with them, they'll.... warp reality

The very definition of a religion.

[PassingFair]

23. "Other ways of knowing."

I've heard of that somewhere before.

[ShockediSay]

24. try Right Wing Propaganda, just like the fascists knew and loved

"...all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated ...."

Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler

[roseBudd]

26. I highly recommend David Frum's blog site Frum Forum.

http://www.frumforum.com/where-was-the-gops-middle-class-agenda

[smokey nj]

30. Frum didn't have a problem with Fox when they were catapulting the propaganda for

his old boss.

[ihavenobias]

31. K & R n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

32. Where's he been?

the whole GOP and conservative movement in general operates a 24/7/365 "alternative-knowledge-system" and has been for decades.

[rocktivity]

38. Frum was an employee of the rightwing think tank American Enterprise Institute

Last edited Mon Dec 12, 2011, 11:58 PM - Edit history (1)

who apparently had no problem with his writing this barely a week BEFORE the 2008 election:

(WashingtonPost.com, 10/26/2008)...(T)he McCain campaign has Palin-ized itself to make the most of its last asset...(T)he base has responded..(b)ut there's a downside: The very same campaign strategy that has belatedly mobilized the Republican core has alienated and offended the great national middle, which was the only place where the 2008 election could have been won.

I could pile up the poll numbers here, but frankly, it's too depressing...McCain's awful campaign is having awful consequences down the ballot...

But he was "terminated" by AEI just days after this was published about healthcare reform being passed:

(FrumForum.com, 3/21/2010) Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s. It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster...A huge part of the blame...attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves...We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat...

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about...(how)...our overheated talk...has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead...Rush Limbaugh...said that he wanted President Obama to fail...What...is equally true is that he also wants Republicans to fail...If Republicans succeed...Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads...

Frum was free to criticize the "alternative-knowledge-system" -- and even in the voice of a moderate conservative -- as long as he wasn't criticizing the REAL system. Spitting in the eyes of McCain and Palin when he was supposed to be glorifying them wasn't grounds for termination; stepping on the toes of Limbaugh and the Rethug leadership was. And he's said that he's going to vote Republican no matter what anyway? I don't trust him any farther than I can throw an elephant. Cue the DU "Cry Me A River" String Quartet!



rocktivity

[Proud Liberal Dem]

47. He seems to be trying to have his cake and eat it too.

He sounds all high minded and principled by being willing to criticize his own party (and he mostly seems to speak "the truth" about it IMHO) and its descent into total Tea Party-induced madness but yet he decides he's going to continue voting for them anyway. Either he's too stupid to notice the contradictions between the two things he's saying or he's simply using it to get attention (I'm guessing the latter).

[MarkCharles]

35. That is one of the best analyses and video clips I've seen.

Thanks for posting.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

37. As in alternate reality? nt

[indepat]

41. At least those who "immerse their audience in a total environment of pseudo-facts and pretend

information" are not pseudo-hypocrites: nothing is pseudo about their hypocrisy, mendacity, and disingenuousness.

[mmonk]

45. My favorite line:

Fairleigh Dickinson University found last month that “some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.”

[usrname]

46. Time to call a spade a spade:

The correct word is "lie". It's a lie not an alternate knowledge system not propaganda. It's out-right lies.

[Yavin4]

50. Why Use Fancy Phrases Like 'alternative knowledge system'? When one succinct word will do...

PROPAGANDA.

I think that George Orwell was a prophet.

[benld74]

51. Alternative Reality System is better terminology to utilize!

[The Genealogist]

52. Fancy words coming from the anti "PC" right wing

I think all of us here are used to RWers coming up with PC stuff they don't call PC. This is a fine example of this. "Alternative Knowledge System" sounds to me like I am about to hear a pseudo-scientific rant. But instead, I now know that I am going to hear "RW Propaganda" when someone uses this RW PC term.