For a while, a bit more than a decade ago, I was starting to get sucked in by Fox. I completely understand why some people become obsessed with it. It really is like a cult.

@SteveB It wasn't any one specific thing. As a young woman, I didn't pay attention to politics at all. I was pretty politically dumb. And I had a lot of ignorant ideas. I also had some progressive ideas. I didn't know what political party I was affiliated with. By the time I decided to try to figure it out, I was working at a local TV news station - a FOX affiliate. One of the friends I met there was a fan of the Drudge Report, and I checked that out. He also gave me a Rush Limbaugh book. I read the book and connected with a lot of it. I had already been a fan of PJ O'Rourke and it seemed up that alley, but not as funny. So I started watching FOX because I was already a bit inclined to believe it was more trustworthy. And when the hosts got nasty, I found it strangely satisfying. I can't really explain why watching it felt so empowering but it did.

So what changed? This was all happening around the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. I had always liked Clinton, and I was finding myself put-off by the FOX coverage. And little by little I was finding points of disagreement with people like Bill O'Reilly. I had also picked up some other books on politics and was expanding my understanding of the world. I don't really remember what they were, but I was branching out.

Also, at work, behind the assignment desk where was a bank of TV screens that monitored all the other channels. I could stand and watch, in real time, how each one covered the Clinton issue, and what else they were covering. I had really bought into the "fair and balanced" slogan and thought that I had been watching the "most trusted name in news." But little by little I started catching them in hype, and hypocrisy, and I just started weaning myself off it. I remember that I used to like Tucker Carlson's show, and Rachel Maddow would often be a guest. And I was finding common ground with her more than Tucker.

It took a few years of reading magazines, websites, and books from a variety of perspectives, and watching a variety of news programs to finally "find myself" politically. FOX was where I started when I decided to educate myself about politics and national events, and at the beginning, I thought it was making me smarter. But branching out shook that notion.

@carlyhorton I can so relate.

@astardrifter I'd like to hear your story

@carlyhorton later when I'm sober.

It's that goddamned constitution. If we would get rid of it, there'd be no constitutional crisis ever again.

@Duke Yeah! Pesky Founders and their high-minded ideals. Bunch of damned radicals. Nothing but trouble.

@KKGator I want my Queen Mum...

@Duke lol

@Duke The Constitution definitely needs an overhaul and it better be us who do it. The Koch Brothers are trying to get a convention off the ground right now.

@SteveB you know it's entertainment when a news show puts celebrity gossip over world news or one of their top "news" pieces is to interview someone who has written a new book or starred in a movie.

@SteveB that was a legal decision so thet conveniently do not have to report truth

Sorry, Sinclair is spinning up. They are to the right of Fox - buying up local stations to make their propaganda seem more believable.

@jeffy You are right about Sinclair. On the other hand, Joe McCarty was a BFD and then overnight he was made into The Black Scourge and was hated everywhere.

That says alot

But with 49% of people not voting - these nut cases become a major issue.

@SteveB Yes Steve, not many people are aware of this, At that time we hippies were viewed as liberal communist and the radio AM stations had a ton of liberal talk shows. Then came FM and Nixon was not happy he was being unveiled, It indeed was Roger Ailes who created Fair and Balanced news from the WH.

@EMC2 Long live us liberal hippies!

You're absolutely right about the origin of Fox News. It was created to be a propaganda outlet and it certainly is. It's worse now than it ever has been, and I keep thinking that they HAVE to finally jump the shark eventually, but they never seem to. It's stupifying. But I disagree that Fox is Trumps mouthpiece. I think Trump is FOX's mouthpiece. Trump doesn't have an original thought in his head. He has absolutely no idea how anything works, and he relies on Fox to tell him how to feel and how to react.

No, you're talking about broadcast news. Printed news (NYT, WaPo) are barely staying afloat.

all tv is about money

@astardrifter NYT and Wash post are seeing a huge spike in subscription sales. These are the most loyal investigative journalist newspapers . The Post is the one who broke Pentagon papers and Watergate,

@EMC2 That's why I subscribe to both.

@astardrifter And to think such excellence is news is referred to as fake by the illiterate world.

the news is bias and people are corrupt

Most media is owned by Republicans. They are Republicans because they share the same vision - absolute greed. Even NPR is getting taken over held hostage by the threat of budget cuts there are more and more one sided nonsensical fabrications spread to fertilize the increasing ignorance in this country the Republicans are creating - look what they are doing to the Department of Education. This is bad.

I wake up every day hoping that's true. I am eagerly anticipating the elections this year. We have got to get this disease under control.

@Condor5 it really is a disease too. I'm assuming you've seen my theory of human consciousness working as an organism evolving?

@MadHadderoll actually, no, I have not seen that, sounds fascinating. Where do I find it?

That has been the pattern for all of American History, the problem I fear is that if the pendulum swings too far to one side, will the chain then break?

I think it's different this time. The Republicans have a corporate memory of their failures and are systematically correcting all their prior mistakes. Get rid of the fairness doctrine, gerrymandering, voter suppression, electronic voting machines, foreign influence and probable vote tampering. Democracy is hanging by a thread right now.

@Davesnothere it's suppose too. Nature doesn't see murder or morals - feast or famine.

@MadHadderoll I don't see what Nature has to do with the structure of our democratic process

@Davesnothere human beings are animals.

@MadHadderoll while that is true, democratic society is not a by product of "natural law", but of social mechanism.

You seem to be putting forward a notion of social sociopathy. Global Thermocuclear War as a simple by product of nature, and not the foolhardieness of human invention and lackof control.

Seems like a cop out to me.

@MadHadderoll Yes and a maple tree is a plant.

@Davesnothere Are animals not social creatures? Do they not communicate in their own hierarchies? Social sentience does not prevent murder, rape, economic disenfranchisement, slavery, bigotry, etcetera. Are you assuming that there is not a social sociopathy? Do you believe humans are inherently good? We're inherently savages, and just because we're intelligent enough to build tools does not mean we are above our station.

@Davesnothere "social mechanisms" as if "free will" is a reality - everything you or I are is just a build up of chemical reactions that sure, we can discover and learn to manipulate - however, these systems that make us up are still primal at this time.

@MadHadderoll While that might be true of your or mine as far as a chemical reaction is concerned, it does not follow that it would be so for the social process, wherein you have multiple people with multiple "programed" reactions, which then interact.

If your premise was correct, then everything would be predictable by an algorythm would it not?
Seems a vast oversimplification based on the neuroscience of our brains.

Why would you assume I make such assumptions about humanity? They also have nothig to do with the issue at hand. You won't find much argumment fromme that the barbaric is thinly clad in humanity, take away electric from the populace and watch what happens.

But I fail to see how your extrapolating those ideas as some agurentee that any social construct is designed, by nature, to fail. That would go against the survival instinct.

@MadHadderoll it is an interesting way to look ath things though, an interesting conversation. Rather pessimistic rather than realist.

If you embrace such an idea, what prevents you from such deep depression you just give up any hop[e for any future other than nuclear winter?

I've been reading books about Scientology and watching Leah Remini's show about it, and all of the cult-like tactics and appeal of Scientology are so shockingly similar! In my opinion, Fox News is a cult.

@SteveB You're right. He does. Luckily, that influences an increasingly smaller segment of the populace.

@SteveB Every empire on earth was created to last a 1000 years. Then reality squatted on top and something else happened.