90% of what is shit in this country can be blamed solely on Reagan. The other 10% is lingering racism.
I think anyone who sponsors a bill should have 12 seconds to explain why their bill benefits the PEOPLE and if they can’t in that 12 seconds they get fried/electrocuted and the bill dies just like the sponsor did. If they suggest it benefits a corporation instead of the people then they get tortured before they get fried. But they still die, and it still fails.
Hey! That’s not fair
Some of it was Nixon too
TLDR
Conservatives (Regressives) are quite literally destroying this country.
Rush Limbaugh’s show was just starting to syndicate across the country, but radio stations who played his show, were supposed to balance it with 3 hours of alternate programming, and neither he nor the conservative radio station owners liked that. He spoke out often against the Fairness Act, and loudly called for its end. So once Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine, those stations went to work.
First they bookended Rush’s Noon-3 PM slot. I believe Hannity was before him, and Glenn Beck was before Hannity. Where I lived was a fairly neutral local talk show, followed by Laura Ingraham. Other show were gradually added until the station had 24 hours of conservative talk. There was enough demand that a second Conservative talk station came on, obviously without Trump as the tentpole, but they still survived.
Every city added Conservative talk stations, and the Conservative Propaganda Machine envisioned by Cheney and Ailes in the wake of the Watergate debacle, was underway. In the mid-90s, Ailes produced a half-hour TV version of Rush’s radio show, which was successful, although It didn’t last, because it was too much work for Rush, but it was proof of concept, and allowed Ailes to put together Fox News.
And that’s how Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, and Roger Ailes ushered in the Golden Age of the Conservative Propaganda Machine, following the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine.
Rush Limbaugh
I danced a jig in my cubicle when he stopped sucking down oxygen. One less piece of filth taking up space. Unfortunately, he gave birth to plenty of others.
The perfect example of “I’ve never wished for a man’s death, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”
Eh, who am I kidding? I wished for Limbaugh’s death for years.
Seems like this should be near the top of the list for Democrats to fix if they ever take power again. I mean, if they can muster the effort to make a list. Weird that they didn’t do this in 2009.
The 2009 fillibuster-proof majority was a lot shorter than people think. They needed 60 Democrats in the Senate to override fillibusters from the GOP, and Al Franken was engaged in a legal fight to take his seat in the Senate that took months.
By the Time Franken was seated, Ted Kennedy had stopped showing up and lingered for months until his death. His interim replacement wasn’t seated until right before the Christmas holidays. And then in January the Tea Party had replaced Kennedy with a Republican in a special election.
It’s a miracle they managed to rush through the ACA, but that’s also why it was a broken mess. It should have been fixed in reconciliation with a House version of the bill, but then it would have had to go back to the Senate. The House passed the exact, broken language of the Senate version so the GOP couldn’t fillibuster it.
And the GOP spent the next 7 years blocking any progress. Moscow Mitch sponsored a bill that the Dems backed, then fillibustered his own bill just to stop any progress.
Yes, thank you for reminding the class about how poorly the Democrats managed being in control and how they did not (and still do not) have a real plan with legislation ready to go. It’s always something out of their control, isn’t it?
It’s not weird at all, they’re beholden to billionaire donors, not voters.
It’s a pattern in US presidencies: Republican sets new policies, then the next Democrat quietly accepts their predecessor’s platform, even expanding on it as they see fit.
Clinton didn’t push back on the fairness doctrine or the housing finance reforms (giving us sub-prime morgages and the '08 crash) of Regan and Bush Sr.
Obama accepted the war in Afghanistan, the enhanced interrogation, and the PATRIOT act of Bush Jr.
Biden kept and expanded the tariff and trade war policy of Trump’s first term, and continued militarizing the border in an attempt to out-right the right.
Otherwise known as the ratchet effect.
I’m skeptical about the Fairness Doctrine. Not everything has a valid “other side”.
I’m also certain that it would be used as a tool of manipulation had it continued to exist until today.
It would be quite strange. “Here is all the research that being gay is something you are born as. You can also just choose to not believe that and think they are demons.” Like how would you both sides half of the current “discourse” without just saying actual lies? There is no proof of immigration being negative but if you hate brown people that’s a negative?
It was also targetted at public broadcasters, it would not have affected Fox as a cable-only channel
and yet still better than the absolute cesspool that yall have right now… both sides is better than basically 90% propaganda because at least it shows that not everyone thinks the same
Whatever flaws the Fairness Doctrine had, it was clearly preventing what we’re experiencing now.
Bring it back.
The FCC is currently trying to apply Fairness Doctrine to late night shows in retaliation for them having James Talarico on.
Fuck “both sides”. The problem with US media is that it’s all for-profit corporations.
“Than ever” you know we had a war where we killed each other over the right for rich jackasses to own people, right?
And you still practice slavery. Who really won?
I know, I hate neo-confederates
Ronald Reagan Ruined Everything.
It’s really true. He was packaged and sold and is now touted as some hero.
It’s a good thing he was an actor. If he hadn’t came down with Alzheimer’s he may have gone to prison for selling drugs and missiles.
I know the Fairness Doctrine was a good thing but it kind of sounds like false balance to me. Of cause it’s better to put a climate change expert next to a climate change denier instead of only listening to the latter but wouldn’t the Fairness Doctrine also make it more difficult to only interview the former? Or would that fall under News? Maybe I’m missing something here.
The main reason it’s overrated is that it only applied to broadcast networks. It wouldn’t do anything to hold Fox News accountable, since Fox News is on cable.
It might have helped with the Sinclair style bullshit in local news but they’ve lost a huge amount influence to the internet anyway.
Exactly.
And who determines whether it’s “news” or not when it’s something seen as controversial? Oh, the corporations that own the channels/shows? What could go wrong?
The biggest detail I think you aren’t seeing is that the fairness doctrine made ‘Opinion Pieces’ on air much less attractive as a host, as a producer, etc. So generally they just WOULDN’T present anything that wasn’t just news unless it was a political debate and the two sided conversation would be natural.
So it was false balance but now it’s worse? Is that a way to put it?
It was a real balance that was usually more trouble than it was worth, so they just didn’t produce content that needed to be balanced. They did current events and breaking news, weather, stock markets, that sort of thing. Just facts.
Not so much of the commentary we have today. They just said what happened that day, they didn’t suggest how you should feel about it. That’s the worse part about now.
Yeah, it would make it so you had to legally put a climate change denier on.
So you do a segment that says “here’s a scientist with noting to gain from deceiving you and, by legally required contrast, a climate change denying corporate shill whose profit motive in lying to you is jarringly obvious.”
You still have the lunatic there to rile up the audience, but you don’t ONLY have the audience riling lunatic on.
No you wouldn’t. This is a common misconception. The law allowed for the reporting of facts without having to have a wacko on there denying them. Every time a journalist mentioned gravity, they didn’t have to have someone come on and say that gravity didn’t exist. They weren’t constantly having to have people come on claiming that heliocentrism was false with every morning show.
Who determines what’s “fact”?
Because climate change is pretty indisputable, but the corporations that own the news have a vested interest in continuing to dispute it.
that’s a pretty shit argument… you could say the same about almost any law… this is why we have the legal system. who determines what’s fact? judges and juries… and you have laws in place in order to sort things out before the courts need to get involved
libel and deceptive advertising are exactly the same: who determines what is fact? courts… and people tend to do the right thing to avoid prosecution for the most part
and then you have anti-SLAPP laws to protect against frivolous lawsuits
So you do a segment that says “here’s a scientist with noting to gain from deceiving you and, by legally required contrast, a climate change denying corporate shill whose profit motive in lying to you is jarringly obvious.”
Why would you do this when you yourself work for a massive corporation with vested interest in pretending it’s not real?
Enlightened centrism doctrine? Is that really a good idea
One of my least favorite things about the culture I currently live in is that people believe, without a doubt, that there are two sides to every issue. Every news story, every decision, every fucking thing needs ”both sides” to weigh in. And the world gets dumber and less interesting and more myopic. There are hundreds and thousands of viewpoints on any given topic, but if we get a couple of the most inane then we’re totally covered and the world goes on being “fair.”
This has to be one of the most harmful lasting cultural effects of the internet… Every moron with an opinion deserves a platform now apparently.
I mean I get that not kicking babies in the face might seem like a clean cut issue, but have you ever discussed it with a pro baby face kicker? Obviously there’s two sides to the story here!
I know some babies that need to be kicked in the face.
Like Trump?
Not only that, but it gives the other side a dangerous amount of legitimacy if we treat “both sides” as equally valid.
There are a lot of beliefs and opinions that are just bad and should only be ridiculed.
Insane that Reagan died of old age (more or less) and not by lethal injection. People like that don’t get such happy endings in most of the world.
Thanks, OP.
I’ve been talking about the Fairness Doctrine for years now.
Ehhh. Yes to the Fairness Doctrine… No to Reagan causing FoxNews.
What everyone doesn’t understand, or has long forgotten, is that FoxNews is subscription cable only. The entire FCC framework of equal time and information and television programming “in the public’s interest,” was predicated on broadcast TV controlled and given permission to use the public’s airwaves…
The main concern back in the late 40’s was inappropriate content on TV and of course communist propaganda and the risk that children could be exposed to both. The FCC oversees broadcasters only. Hence Brendan Carr being an absolute bootlicker for Trump and going after them - he’s even threatening to suspend the licenses of the 5 broadcast TV stations that Disney owns over ABC’s news reporting of Trump.
Cable as a subscription only service is beyond that reach since adults BUY access to it. At the point where it is a purchased product, the user - the parents - assume all risk to themsevles or their kids. Ancillary to this, it’s why as a broadcast network FoxTV has NO nightly national news programming: They would have to create TWO separate newsrooms - one following FCC standards, (such as they are…) the other - FoxNews - not… No how, no way is the Murdoch clan going to do that.
Now the cable news is another matter, corporate ownership being all settled with the outright purchase of networks like CNN and others, so now the angle that I’m seeing now is Trump putting youtube creators on his “list,” which is all the government can do to them at this point.
The loophole was that no one imagined cable TV as a thing in the 1940’s.
Fox was a pubic OTA broadcast in the 90s
Still is.
However, it does NOT have - as a national broadcaster with their own TV series productions - a national evening news, like ABC, NBC, PBS and CBS do. Which is an actual shame as they do have some crack news reporting from the journalists at the local TV stations.
Fox Broadcast Company (it’s original name) was created AFTER Ronald Reagan relaxed the limitations on foreign ownership of TV stations that allowed Murdoch and News Corporation to buy their first 6 channels in the US, (a decision that was called into question a decade later - in the mid 90’s - and the then FCC response was that the law wasn’t clear to begin with.) also, Rupert Murdoch immigrating to the US and being naturalized didn’t hurt.
FoxNews as an “infotainment” propaganda channel was created in 1996 with Roger Ailes and their stated goal was to “explain to working families how politics and policy affects them…” which of course, was really telling Americans to vote Billionaire.
30 years later, this current administration and the d-bag in the White House… is the result.
Fuck.
So, between Hitler and Reagan, if you were to time travel…
Always remember, you got to take them out before they become famous.
No one cares about soldier Hitler or actor Regan dying. People do care when they have political support.
Go to Europe, off Hitler in a trench during The Great War then catch a boat to America.
Eh, that’s kinda easy - I wasn’t born until the 1970s, so going back far enough to kill Hitler would drastically change history and endanger my own chances of ever being born. Reagan, on the other hand, began ruining my future well after my birth.
