Why Do Americans Keep Getting Suckered by Right-Wing Lies?

[OneGrassRoot]

November 21, 2010 | The Nation, by Danny Goldberg

Until progressives change the mind sets of the tens of millions who believe right-wing mythology, elections will be disappointing regardless of who is in the White House.

Ideas don’t happen on their own. Throughout history ideas need patrons.” —Matt Kibbe, president of Freedom-Works, a tea party advocacy group, quoted in Jane Mayer’s piece on the Koch brothers in The New Yorker.

Almost half of the public is either misinformed or subject to unanswered right wing narratives. If I believed that there was a chance of Sharia law being imposed in the United States I too would be gravely concerned. If I believed that most Europeans and Canadians had inferior health care to that of average Americans, I too would be against health care reform. If I believed that man-made global warning did not exist or that there were nothing we could do about it and that environmental efforts were responsible for unemployment I’d be against cap and trade. If I believed that prisoner abuse would make my family significantly less likely to be killed by terrorists, my thinking about torture would be different. And if I believed that the problems with the economy had been caused by too much government instead of too little, that my personal freedom was threatened by the government instead of large corporations, I’d probably be in a tea party supporter and a Republican.

Unless and until progressives change the mind sets of the tens of millions of people who believe right-wing mythology, who never read the New York Times or listen to NPR, who never watch any TV news other than Fox, future elections will have disappointing results for progressives regardless of who is in the White House.


Full article here:

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/148939/why_do_americans_keep_getting_suckered_by_right-wing_lies/?page=entire

[LiberalEsto]

1. Because too many Americans are stoopid

And the current education policies are making our children stoopider.

I remember my mother, an immigrant, complaining about how stupid Americans were after Adlai Stevenson was defeated by Eisenhower,

Mama was always right.

[gateley]

2. They get their talking point down and hammer it home regardless of the questions

that are being asked. I don't care what you ask them, to a person their response will be "we just want to protect American families and small businesses" or "we can't afford to jack up the taxes on American families in this economy" and keep repeating and repeating and repeating. So that's the only soundbite the public hears, the one the Republicans want to embed in their brains.

We don't do that. That's one of my biggest frustrations.

[Beartracks]

22. Wouldn't it be cool to have TRUE talking points...

... drummed into everyone's brains -- instead of the normal 24-7 Republican ones?

---------------------------------

[wackywaggin]

24. Exactly correct!! Mine too!

Heretic Wack :0)

[liberal N proud]

3. The American Fantasy

Formally called the American Dream. People are trained to idolize the rich and are protective of those idols in hopes that someday they too will shatter that shit ceiling and break into the ubber class.

[old mark]

4. Because many of us are poorly educated believers in magical thinking,

in other words, dumb asses.


mark

[glinda]

10. Poorly educated with an unhealthy dash of racism, hatred for groups.

[LibDemAlways]

5. Because they believe what they hear on FAUX news. It's not much

more complicated than that. Garbage in, garbage out.

[OHdem10]

6. Because there are no Democratic Voices out there correcting

the lies. You cannot blame the American People if
they only get one side.

[Dr.Phool]

7. We're dumb, pampered, and lazy.

It's too much to ask someone to read a book, or do a little research.

Fuck us. We deserve what we get.

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

8. Here's how I understand it

Liberalism is a gateway drug to socialism which is a gateway drug to communism which is of course, "godless".

[Doctor_J]

9. Because there is no retribution taken on the liars & hate mongers

No change in the mindset until there is a change in the dynamic. Unchecked media leads to Rwanda

[Tippy]

11. K&R...this article should be required reading for all

Progressive/Democatic minded folks

[OneGrassRoot]

13. LOL...I don't think anyone is reading the article, just responding to the title. :) n/t

[Tippy]

20. You think they are really...... not reading it???????

I really kind wish they would....

[OneGrassRoot]

21. Me, too ;) n/t

[Andy823]

12. It's the media!

When all the people hear is right wing talking points day after day on the TV and radio, it really does brainwash them! Also as someone else mentioned already, the democrats aren't getting out and "CORRECTING" all the lies! One thing the right has going for them is getting out their lies ten times more than the left corrects those lies. If the democrats can get a better plan going so they can get their message out, tell the people the republicans are lying and then show them the facts to back it, they might do a better job of convincing people they are doing the right thing while the republicans are dong the will of the rich and big corporations!

[yurbud]

14. and top Democrats seem unwilling to challenge the GOP narrative and frame

but play within it, which is like tying both hands behind your back when a psychopath is coming after you with a chainsaw.

[bertman]

15. The average American family's TeeVee is on SEVEN hours a day. The righties that

I know have theirs set on FAUX for most of the day.

They see it, hear it, don't question it, believe it.

This was not accidental. It is a planned assault on our way of viewing our country. The Nazis did it with radio, newspapers, and huge rallies. They perfected the propaganda machine for their time. We captured their propagandists, protected them, integrated them into our 'system'. Behold the fruits of those labors.

From "Unknown Soldier" by The Doors: "television babies fed, unborn living, living, dead. Bullet strikes the helmet head."

If you have the stomach for it, try watching a couple of hours of FAUX News. It's an onslaught of lies, distortions, innuendo, right-wing ideology wrapped in a flag and called "news".

[XanaDUer]

16. My two cents...

1. Constant right-wing propaganda.
2. Breakdown of public education.
3. Magical Thinking - "Someday I'll be rich so let's keep these taxes low for me when I arrive."
4. Very materialistic society.

[COLGATE4]

17. Because you can't fix stupid./

[LongTomH]

18. This is a great paragraph.................

Progressives need to learn from the mistakes of Air America and Democracy Radio and invest in getting non-conservative ideas and narratives onto the talk radio frequencies where 40 million commuters spend their listening time. In the arts and entertainment progressives enjoy a cultural advantage, but the liberal political establishment tends to have a love-hate relationship with show business, which minimizes this potentially valuable resource. In an era when the mainstream media is weaker and more fragmented than in the past, cultural avenues are vital even though the efforts in the creative worlds inevitably have mixed results.

There are lots of great suggestions for Progressive alternatives in this article. Instead of just whining: 'We're so screwed!' we need to support Progressive alternative media.

[OneGrassRoot]

19. Word. :) n/t

[JohnWxy]

23. The Right wingers decided back in the 1980's that they needed to control the news being reported to

the public. to do this they needed to gain control over the communications media. ONe good book on this is "The Republican Noise Machine" (David Brock). They realized they had to control the news reported to the population, either through outright ownership (ABC, NBC, FOX News Channel-GOP tv) or through intimidation.

They have been wonderfully successful. CBS has been successfully intimidated so as to hire Katy "no intellectual threat" Couric as the evening news reader and by being careful to report most news in a way that will be deemed acceptable to the GOP/Corporate world.

PBS of course, has been entirely cowed and now acts as if they are vying to be FOX News-Light. (Rahm Emmanuel being interviewed by Jim Lehrer, earlier this year, in describing Obama's performance on the economy, noted that he started out with an economy that was in a deep hole. Lehrer, with a strait face asked: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec10/rahmemanuel_07-08.html">"Does it still work to blame the economic situation on the Bush administration?". Lehrer must have won some major Fascist Fellatio points for that unprofessional, smart ass remark (it was not a serious question).. keeping in mind that the near collapse of the Financial Sector nearly did put us into a second Great Depression.. making Emmanuel's point entirely valid!!)

the GOP have succeeded through intimidation and out-right ownership of networks to control the message to match GOP/Corporate Propaganda. M$M keeps repeating GOP talking points to shape the uncritical viewer's frame of thought. THe principle of the Big Lie works beautifully. Make up a BIG Lie, keep repeating it so the unthinking people begin to assume 'it'(the unstated premise) must be true, as everybody seems to agree it's true because they keep repeating the same 'conclusion'.

[ElboRuum]

25. Progressives Own No Media. Ergo, No Coverage Of Truth. No Chance To Sell Message.