Right-Wing Pundits Strive to Keep Americans Dumb

Bill O'Reilly

I do not understand the American right wing. I don't understand how people who make less than $100,000 vote for policies that benefit millionaires, and I don't know why people who are on their third marriage constantly prattle about family values.

Much of the commentary coming from the right wing is baffling because it is glaringly inaccurate. Some would say it is blatant lies. Liberal media watchdog group Media Matters is constantly kept busy fact checking and stating the errors from the right-wing noise machine.

In many cases, it is obvious that the commentary is incorrect, so I must conclude that this is done deliberately. Right-wing commentators must know they are talking nonsense, but they continue to say it because they need the great unwashed masses to believe, and act on it.

For example, Americans are lead to believe universal health care is an evil socialistic plot . This message is constantly repeated in the right-wing media, yet European countries like Sweden, Norway, France and Britain, have socialized medical systems which are far superior to the U.S. The United Nation ranks France as having the most efficient health care system in the world. (The U.S. is ranked no. 37.) In addition, you don't see Canadians scurrying across the border to use our profit-driven health care system.

I was reminded of the fallacy of the right-wing media when watching Bill Maher's "Real Time," often the most intelligent hour on television. Right-wing commentator Margaret Hoover, a great-granddaughter of President Herbert Hoover, said that you could not compare Andres Breivik, the suspect in the Norwegian massacre, to Muslim terrorists. Hoover said that unlike Al-Qaeda, Breivik was not connected to an internationally terror network.

Huh? How can a commentator with a national stage spout such nonsense? There is a long trail of evidence showing that Breivik had connections with Islamophobes in America, such as Pamela Geller, author of the blog Atlas Shrugs, and the neo-fascist English Defense League in Britain. Geller has gained prominence for her virulent hatred of Muslims. She has also been given a platform on FOX News to promote wacky views such as accusing Jewish Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan of supporting Nazi ideology.

Commenting on Breivik's ties to the international Islamophobe network, Max Blumenthal writes: "Judging from Breivik’s writings, his hysterical hatred of the Labor Party’s immigration policies and tolerance of Muslim immigrants likely led him target the government-operated summer camp at Utoya. For years, the far-right has singled Norway out as a special hotbed of pro-Islam, pro-Palestinian sentiment, thanks largely to its ruling Labor Party In 2010, for instance, the English Defense League called Norway a future site of 'Islamohell,' where unadulterated political correctness has ruled the roost, with sharp talons, for decades.'"

And Slate.com writer William Saletan states: "In a manifesto posted online, the admitted killer, Anders Behring Breivik, praised Geller. He cited her blog, Atlas Shrugs, and the writings of her friends, allies, and collaborators—Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, Islam Watch, and Front Page magazine—more than 250 times."

To add insult to injury, FOX News blowhard Bill O'Reilly said that the liberal media was eager to brand Breivik a Christian. According to O'Reilly, "no one believing in Jesus commits mass murder." Of course, as Bill Maher pointed out, anyone with a superficial knowledge of history can reel off a long list of "Christians" who have killed large numbers of people.

This is ridiculous. O'Reilly and other right-wing commentators must know what they are saying is BS. O'Reilly is not a stupid man, before he went down the FOX News hole, he was an Emmy-winning journalist and he also has a master's degree from Harvard -- one of those Ivy League colleges that he lambasts.

In a Playboy magazine interview Deepak Chopra says that O'Reilly is not as ignorant as he seems, and just plays a bigot on TV. And this may be true with other FOX commentators. A few years ago, Gretchen Carlson, a Rhodes scholars, said she had to go and look up what the word ignoramus meant.

So if we assume that FOX News commentators know what they are saying is incorrect, what is their goal? To keep the ignorant in the dark, if that is the case, they may be a method to their madness and it seems to be working.

A 2010 University of Maryland study described FOX News viewers as "the most consistently uninformed." The study said that FOX News viewers were more likely to believe blatantly incorrect statements like Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11 and President Barack Obama was largely responsible for the deficit. (All the facts point to the Bush tax cuts, two underfunded wars and the Medicare drug benefit as causes of the budget deficit.)

Is it any wonder that FOX News viewers constantly regurgitate these lies? And maybe that was Roger Ailes goal all along. Ever since his days in the Nixon White House he has dreamed of creating a propaganda network that broadcasts directly to American living rooms. Maybe FOX should change its motto to "We report the propaganda, you decide to believe it."