Our old pal A.C.D. writes in...
This article is okay, in and of itself, though the author is a fool to believe that the aging of the FOX viewership and its eventual dying off will lead America leftward. The military-industrial complex, Christo-Fascism Inc., Wall St., and a whole country full of angry white Libertarian racists won’t let us slip toward decency and humanity until something really awful happens… maybe when all our coastal cities are underwater and there are riots over potable water.
But what is notable about the piece is that the comment section, currently about 2000 strong, is one of the most poignant things I've ever seen on the Internet.
So many families absolutely torn apart by 24/7 Libertarian rage at things that don’t exist. So many middle-aged children saying “my father was a SCIENTIST”, “my father was a lifelong union member”, “my mother was the sweetest schoolteacher in town”, etc., and now they can’t even be at the same family gatherings because the conversation immediately gets yanked into niggers and faggots and wetbacks and socialists and fornicating sluts on birth control and Benghazi, ad nauseum.
I think of the hard-drinking playboy in my home town who has been avoided like ebola for the past six or eight years by all the decent people around the harbor, so odious now is the company of a once very-charming normal conservative. I think of my ex’s father, who now NEVER goes out in public without and NRA cap and some 2nd Amendment t-shirt on, and really can’t get through a conversation about Peyton Manning and the Broncos without railing against Obama. I see the e-mails my friends forward me from their mothers, asking me what in Heaven’s name they can do about her, how she’s making everyone hate her, and nothing they say to her will make her stop and try to be the decent human being she once was.
This truly is an American tragedy, and of course the one common denominator is Fox News. And as several commenters note, in many regions of the country it is on in every bar, every airport lounge, every doctor’s or hospital’s waiting area, every nursing home common room, every convenience store – so even if you’re not a bloodthirsty shut-in listening to it from awaking in the morning until retiring to bed at night, like my ex’s dad, it is a constant background buzz, that at some level must infect nearly every elderly person’s consciousness in Dixie, the Midwest, and the mountain states.
And it surely is an addiction, the rage it spawns, the daily fix of hate and vitriol. For just try to inquire politely if they might switch to the ballgame, and a half dozen old men and a handful of fat Libertarian younger guys dressed like Vietnam vets will shout you down, and tell the bartender not to put on the playoff game, so important is the latest Dipshit Blonde’s take on Vince Foster or Monica Lewinsky or this new musical genre called rap.
Obviously you needn’t read all 2000, just graze and nibble, but it is heartbreaking, worse than Alzheimers, the rage-ifying of our elderly, and their subsequent self-imposed social isolation.
- A.C.D.
Thanks, Ace. Excellent First Amendment material, here... just like the old Daily Dirt days! - Jerky
It is indeed a tragedy. I live in Georgia and Fox news is on every goddamn public TV set. Even every mom and pop store that can't afford a TV has Rush blasting on the radio for your listening pleasure. The sad thing is that most of the people I know who watch it are solid, decent blue collar folks but they've somehow been brainwashed into thinking anything non Tea Party related is the equiv. of taking a dump on the flag. And they will ALWAYS vote, unlike many people who know better.
ReplyDelete