FOX News busted again, highlighting the threat of conspiracy theories and lies on our republic.
TAT readers,
What follows is something I wrote for family and friends on Facebook earlier today. I am also working on another full essay regarding our current and developing national crisis regarding the Iran war and where this is heading. I will likely not finish and publish this one before late tomorrow morning. That essay is the fourth in the series on this topic. The prior three were the following:
Introduction
The past couple of days and like many of you, I have been keeping an eye on the exposure of FOX News, caught lying again. To be frank, they and their ilk do this every day and all day… every single day of the year. I found myself thinking about this from a much broader perspective. The outcome of those thoughts, was this short article posted for family and friends on Facebook. As much as I detest the site, it’s also one of the best ways to cautiously keep track of family and friends spread all over the country and the world.
I also call out FB by tagging the NSA or National Security Agency, the FBI, NATO, The EU or European Union and Interpol. I do this to make them aware of the overwhelming number of bots, fake accounts, technical surveillance and data theft that FB and META allow to attack their subscribers. Other major platforms such as LinkedIn, X and of course the Truth Social and similar, are just as bad if not worse.
The article below, are those thoughts about where America is while under the influence of professional influence operators, that saturate these platforms and with little or not protection from the owners themselves. Their stubborn “profit at any cost” attitudes are not only illegal in many instances, but un-American and disastrous on countless levels. The only way this stops, is for all media consumers to do their own homework and source what is and is not true. The current right, makes no effort at all. The left, has lesser but also dangerous adherences to false conspiracy theories and narratives as well.
Only we can save ourselves and the republic.
The article that initiated this short essay was; Fox News apologizes for showing old video of a hatless Donald Trump at a dignified transfer ceremony, from the Associated Press.
Family and Friends,
Just to clarify what this Associated Press article is demonstrative of, is not a one-off occurrence. If it were up to me, I’d list Fox News as a State-Sponsor of Terrorism. This case is but one tactic that they and similar outlets like NEWSMAX, use to lie to their audience. I have been researching FOX for over a decade and hold them in the highest contempt for undermining and assisting in the Project 2025 strategy, to dismantle our constitutional republic.
Another wish would be to hold them criminally liable for hundreds of thousands of US deaths during the height of the COVID pandemic. They lied about vaccines, masks, reopening America too early etc., etc., etc., and were the primary narrators of the deadly evil of the first Trump administration’s immoral, for profit handling of the beginning of the pandemic. Meanwhile, it was a FOX News policy that vaccines were required for employees.
They were the primary narrators outside of Trump and the Republican Party, for the insane, “stop the steal” movement that ended in a violent insurrection on January 6th, 2021. They did this by syncing their conspiracy theories with Russian support and amplification of the conspiracy theories about the violent insurrection. They paid a nearly one billion dollar fine for those lies and are still settling and negotiating with other claimants.
The aforementioned issues are but a tiny sampling of their faux news coverage, that shaped a couple of generations of Americans, to believe in the false patriotism of “God, guns and Trump.” Republicans have been conned by over thirty years of subtle and eventually overt dishonesty about everything American. This is why so many Republicans are functionally ignorant about our constitution, the laws based upon that sacred and brilliant document. Now today, Republicans cheer when this evil administration regularly violates our laws and the constitution that is the foundation of those laws.
Now, with our style of American Democracy hanging by a thread, it’s time for republicans to acknowledge they have been conned, and rejoin our union as described by President Lincoln during his Gettysburg address as; “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Many of you will shout and throw metaphorical rocks at these statements, being highly insulted. I don’t care. Many of you will do the same because I have not singled out the opposite side of the aisle as well. While that I don’t endorse all that the other side strives for either and especially the way they go about their interests, they are not a threat to our Union. They keep their interests between our constitutional guardrails. Republicans do not.
Our republic wasn’t born attempting to squash debate and insist that we all believe exactly the same. That pursuit would be ideological in nature. Our nation created a framework where we could dissent against the government, each other or other nations and raise our voices in protest if we disagree. That’s the American way, not imposing the ideology of Authoritarianism, White Christian Nationalism, Oligarchy and Political Violence, or as I call them, “The Four Horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse.”
Last but not least, our brilliant and courageous founders, only expected that we be well and accurately informed, as citizens of our republic. Please think on this as you reevaluate your relationship with news media. The belief on the right and some on the left, that there is no “credible source” for media, is pure willful ignorance.
If we survive the current Trump/ Republican administration, we have enormous work ahead of us to rebuild faith in our style of government. That cannot be done on the backs of conspiracy theories and lies. It is up to every single voter whether they are willing to ignore our founders or to believe in anti-American propaganda from the current regime.
In all sincerity, I hope that this short article will afford readers a bit of insight regarding the dreadful threat we face from those willfully un and misinformed.
Back with the next essay, probably now tomorrow morning.
Paul