Fox News runs fair, balanced propaganda segment

By Dan Brooks in Contemporary Media 1 Comment

Fox and Friends hosts Steve Doocey, Greta, and The Wang

The genius of Fox News lies in its insistence that it is not a propaganda network. It’s right there in the tagline: fair and balanced, a motto which Fox News staffers and on-air personalities obey with unshakable fidelity, as indicated by their smile-like facial grimaces above. Fox News is neither fair nor balanced. Its whole marketing strategy is to flaunt a conservative bias, which is a smart way to secure one of two demographics in the United States that continually feel persecuted by an imagined mainstream.* That’s clever, but what’s brilliant is the constant, monolithic insistence that the network is not just honest and ethical, but the only honest and ethical news source on television. It’s an audacious doubling down on a proposition that everyone, Fox fans and critics alike, knows is a lie. That makes it thrilling to the conservative faithful and infuriating to everybody else, with only old people and your barber in the middle. But today’s discussion is going to ignore the existence of those Fox News viewers who actually believe the network is fair and balanced, on the grounds that such people are too dumb to influence the physical universe, much less American culture. Evidence after the jump.

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Trump reminds us that money is, is not speech

By Dan Brooks in Public Discourse 0 Comment

Donald Trump and the classiest fuckin' golf club in the world

Those of you looking to divide the Republican Party into old and new need look no further than the public feud between George Will and Donald Trump, whom Will called a “bloviating ignoramus” on television Sunday. Trump responded that Will “may be the dumbest political commentator of all time,” and Will admitted that he was wrong and retired. No, wait—that second part didn’t happen. Instead, Trump flew to Las Vegas and participated in a fundraiser for Mitt Romney, where Romney stood next to him and tried to imply that Trump was dumb with his eyes. The Republican nominee also announced that he “accepts” that President Obama was born in the United States.

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DHS forced to reveal internet surveillance keywords

By Dan Brooks in Fascism 0 Comment

Big Brother is watching you copy your essay from Wikipedia.

Thanks to our old buddy the Freedom of Information Act, the Department of Homeland Security has released a long list of keywords it uses to monitor the internet for information about natural disasters and terrorist attacks. “Monitor the internet for information” sounds a lot better than “spy on you,” which is what DHS might be accused of doing were their words not so stupid. Wave, drill, and infection all make the list, which means I am now caught in the dragnet for last week’s sentence, If this recent wave of infections doesn’t clear up soon, I’m going to drill a hole in Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. That’s what my type of internet radical is into—being super-pissed at the DoT. We’re everywhere.

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Friday links! What’s your excuse? edition

By Dan Brooks in Friday Links 0 Comment

So it turns out mono is the best disease ever. You can’t really do anything about it besides rest and drink fluids, which I was doing anyway. Other than encouraging you to look at pictures like this on the internet, the symptoms are not that bad, but it remains a name-brand illness. When you say you have mono, people pity you like, immediately. I’ve been using it for everything. Late to the movie? Mono. Haven’t shaved in nine days? Definitely mono—too tired, skin weak. Thirty-four, jobless, unmarried—how do you think I got mono in the first place? Today is Friday, and I’m pretty much taking the day off for reasons you can guess. Today’s link-round up is half-assed—some might say mononuclear—and smug. I’m ill, literally, and every stupid thing I do is okay because of it. What’s your excuse?

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Sweet vindication

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized 2 Comments

El mono!

Last night I found out that I have probably had mono for the last two months, which is what I get for living as a cad. To paraphrase Wayne Campbell, I thought I was just really bored. It was a weirdly satisfying diagnosis, and not only because mono is the one where you don’t do anything. I was pleased to learn that the last several weeks of lingering illness and PoS syndrome were not just in my head—in fact, they were in my lymph nodes—and that my mysterious illness is something college students get and not, you know, Crohn’s Disease. Mono is bad news, but it’s specific news and I know what it means. I submit that the possibility of a problem is often worse than the actual problem, and knowing what hit you invariably softens the blow. On that note, here is an article that pretty well demonstrates the much talked-about growth in income inequality over the last twenty years. While certain parties warn us of the impending socialist welfare state, the USA has progressed toward a less even distribution of wealth at a more diligent rate than at almost any time in our history. And you thought we were just bored.