Occupy Boston’ protesters gather outside ‘fascist’ Fox affiliate

[Playinghardball]

Source: Raw Story

Video has emerged of Occupy Boston protesters yelling outside the local Fox affiliate’s station on Monday. The protesters walked through downtown Boston towards Fox-25′s studio, shouting “Fascist media, corporate media.”

Despite being in the shadows of Occupy Wall Street, the Occupy Boston movement has attracted over 3,600 followers on micro-blogging website Twitter. Last week, in a protest hosted by a different group, 3,000 people marched towards Bank of America in Boston. Twenty-four people were arrested in that protest.

Fox News, of course, is a much different operation than local Fox affiliates, which generally aren’t subject to the politics of News Corporation’s national network.


WATCH: Video from Youtube, which appeared on October 3, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MUVKIpMxPoc

[SlimJimmy]

1. I'm just curious. Do we call everything we don't like as Democrats,

fascist? It seems like a very broad brush to me.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Fascism = corporate/money control of politics/government.

Although in Fox's case it's corporate/money control of media with its own obvious self-aggrandizing agenda, it's a close fit.

"I'll allow it." :rofl:

[Kurovski]

6. No we don't. We fight over everything.

So Who's we? :) Dems are all over the place. Rarely is there complete agreement. We are moving toward facism, and do so during different eras. The job of any democracy is to watchdog against its opposite.

fas·cism   
noun
1. a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

Facism can be seen as a close cooperation between Govt. and Corporations at the expense of individual freedom. (corps are not people in reality)


Controlling the press is a huge part of facism.


This mioght be helpful. One should warn against the signs:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

[SlimJimmy]

9. So, is Fox News, or MSNBC for that matter, a governmental system led by a dictator

having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc?

I don't think so. And I don't think any fair minded progressive thinks so either. I believe we use the word much too often to describe something that would more accurately be called "far right wing political spin" - not fascism.

[Kurovski]

10. No, but FOX fits that almost to a T. So, while it's hyperbole, I'm

not gonna lose sleep over it.

My point was that it be important to recognize elements in a democracy that resemble it.

During the Cheney/Bush years the media was bullied. One man died from an anthrax attack. We were told to "watch what we say, what we do" by the white house. Corporate media decided to fire dissenters to the administration's war plans. It was...outrageous. Never underplay the chance for a government to become a dictatorship. Germany was a democracy, filled with brilliant creative people, not a nation of dimwitted psychotics and sociopaths. It's very important.

[SlimJimmy]

14. Have you seen what this administration has done reference access by the press?

It's not pretty. I know it's easy to bash the *bush administration for this, but I see many of the same traits in this administration. I won't turn a blind eye just because I happen to be a Democrat.

[Kurovski]

12. "You won't have a shutdown of news in modern America - it is not possible."

From the (Bush era) article...


8. Control the press

Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf (no relation), a blogger in San Francisco, has been put in jail for a year for refusing to turn over video of an anti-war demonstration; Homeland Security brought a criminal complaint against reporter Greg Palast, claiming he threatened "critical infrastructure" when he and a TV producer were filming victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Palast had written a bestseller critical of the Bush administration.

Other reporters and writers have been punished in other ways. Joseph C Wilson accused Bush, in a New York Times op-ed, of leading the country to war on the basis of a false charge that Saddam Hussein had acquired yellowcake uranium in Niger. His wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a CIA spy - a form of retaliation that ended her career.

...You won't have a shutdown of news in modern America - it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it's not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can't tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit."


--Things are in place that are bad for a democracy, Obama has been in no hurry to change them. We argue about it here on DU all the time, as you are probably aware...

[SlimJimmy]

13. The quote below could be applied to many administrations, both conservative and progressive.

I still don't think the article makes a strong case that any modern press organization is fascist.

"... a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth.

[Kurovski]

15. At minimum, the press could once sort out a teapot dome, a watergate.

An Enron, a Silverado, the savings and loan scandal.


We couldn't get the truth about election 2000 straight, electronic voting that hides the voting process, let the truth about Iraq come out, report the scandal that unfolded before our eyes resulting in the economic disaster we're living, it goes on and on...so we disagree. Enormously.

Tremendously. Even a Democratic president has told us that their will be no investigations into wrongdoing, which is in itself a scandal.

It's too frightening for some, and for others participating in the denial is a way to a living.

(And as an , aside we haven't had a progressive admin since the 1940's.)

[SlimJimmy]

16. I understand your points and am in general agreement. But I would certainly

consider the Johnson administration to be progressive. Think "Great Society" programs.

[Kurovski]

17. In my eyes, Viet Nam was badly done. But there were elements.

Heck, Nixon created the EPA!

thanks, Dicky, where ever you are! :)

[PETRUS]

18. A viewpoint and argument to consider

http://www.examiner.com/la-county-nonpartisan-in-los-angeles/american-fascism-by-political-definition-the-us-is-now-fascist-not-a-constitutional-republic

The definition of “fascism” has some academic variance, but is essentially collusion among corporatocracy, authoritarian government, and controlled media and education. This “leadership” is only possible with a nationalistic public accepting policies of war, empire, and limited civil and political rights.

*snip*

The US openly lied about reasons to justify an attack upon Iraq, destroying any semblance of argument of “self-defense.”

*snip*

American corporatocracy is dominated by Enron-like cartels, headed by banks receiving the transfer of TRILLIONS of our tax dollars to pay-off their gambling debts in exotic derivative markets the federal government regulates only in more empty rhetoric.

*snip*

We still have Internet press where authors such as I can point to the obvious, but with documented government-organized opposition in PSYOPS to ridicule challenging voices while counting of public cognitive blindness to keep the fascism unconcealed.

[Bandit]

19. While not having a "dictator" per se, the Republican Party

definitely wants to Dictate.. They are extremely authoritarian and do not believe in Democracy.. Remember they have 2nd amendment remedies to Demacracy....They dictate how it will be and they control the House.. Yes with the help of Fox News they are steadily moving toward facism by every definition of facism...

[SlimJimmy]

20. They have no more or less amount of power to persuade than MSNBC or CNN.

They are very very right wing (no doubt) but are no more a threat to democracy than Al Jazeera-English. I really find it fascinating that some here on DU continue to call everything they differ with politically, fascist. Until the first amendment to the Constitution is suspended, I will continue to support the right of all news outlets to have a voice in the political discussion.

[Dreamer Tatum]

22. Yeah, like they did from 2001-2008.

Please. They got voted out, and they left peacefully. Where are the reeducation camps we swore they were readying? When was martial law declared? When did Bush nuke anyone?

[Dogtown]

24. Is Farben AG a dictator?

You can be a fascist w/o being the Furher....

[SlimJimmy]

25. Not really. And running around waving your hands in the air saying so

doesn't make it true. Fascism is a dictator acting as the government stifling all dissent (normally through military means) and strictly controlling the mass media. Fox news does that? MSNBC, CNN, or PBS?

Not even close

[Dogtown]

26. Citation?

Who mad up that definition?

I find it surprising that thousands of history books and documentaries describe companies like Farbin as Fascists, yet you hyperbolically describe me in your ad hominem attack as "running around..."

Perhaps you need to censor those documents before you lecture us.

Or, get an education.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fascist

[SlimJimmy]

27. Is Merriam-Webster a good enough cite for you?

As I said (in my own words) A government led by a dictator which uses force (usually military) to suppress resistance. Consider yourself *educated*.

often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism?show=0&t=1317913632

[Dogtown]

28. Cherry picking.

HEADED by a dictatorial leader.

Your source also states:

"Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces fasces"

Note the word "group".

From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

fascism, political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of central, southern, and eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945 and that also had adherents in western Europe, the United States, South Africa, Japan, Latin America, and the Middle East.


So we see that companies, corporations, media outlets, et al *can* be fascistic without any prerequisite for an extant political dictator; in fact, they almost certainly must needs precede the installment of a dictator in order for that dictator to take power.

I'd suggest Quell Shampoo, it's much more efficient than merely picking at those nits...

[SlimJimmy]

29. Don't like that I correctly defined it, so you bring in all the 1900's anachronisms.

Old story, old facts, and not appropriate to modern definitions or societal norms. Besides that, I think you're confusing a collaborator or sympathizer with a fascist government or regime.

By the way, what the hell is the below supposed to mean? I can't make a bit of sense from the sentence structure you provided.

"they almost certainly must needs precede the installment of a dictator ..."

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. This warms my heart

:)

[gratuitous]

4. It's very odd . . .

In spite of the best efforts of the popular media, so many people seem to fix on certain things like Fox News as part of the problems bedeviling America. We're told over and over again that the mass media are alternately incredibly liberal or completely ineffectual, and yet people insist on holding poor Fox accountable. Shoot, there are even some allegedly liberal voices who will stick up for Fox and lecture us on the inappropriateness of giving Fox any grief for their relentless programming and bias.

Thank goodness sensible people ignore such things. If the local affiliates aren't really part of the News Corporation empire, then let them speak their own peace.

[Lint Head]

5. I understand what you're saying when you say

"Fox News, of course, is a much different operation than local Fox affiliates, which generally are not subject to the politics of News Corporation’s national network."

The operations are different but the politics are the same. I know some of the news readers that work at the Fox affiliate in my area. They may as well be Murdock's maids and butlers. They tow the line and spread the same propaganda. It may be in a more subversive and subtle manner but they absolutely do. I cannot speak for Fox affiliates anywhere else.
They do it using local spin related to local issues. They are definitely dangerous to democratic values and I don't mean the party.

[IndyPragmatist]

8. Actually, this station is owned by NewsCorp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WFXT
WFXT is a television station owned and operated (O&O) by the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in Boston, Massachusetts.

[KamaAina]

21. Many Fox affiliates are owned by the infamous Sinclair Broadcasting

which makes Faux look like Pacifica. :eyes:

Many others, like the one in Boston, are owned and operated by Faux itself.

[butterfly77]

7. I have been waiting for them..

to protest the one in New York,but this is good too.

[Kurovski]

11. In a year or so, they'll storm it, take it over, and force Fox And Friends

to conduct on-the-air gay weddings.

I just know in my heart that that is some kind of fear somewhere in America.

[FrenchieCat]

23. Yeah!

Finally. :applause: