Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, wingnut media represent modern-day brainwashing cult?
This post started as a series of comments on Dickday's recent post,
Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Liar and so is Joe Scarborough
I thought it was worth putting out as a blog entry.Someone here at the Cafe recently posited, quite accurately, that Fox and The Lump have such high ratings because EVERY ignorant knuckledragger watches or listens to them, while the other 79% of the population spreads their attention around to the other networks and wouldn't listen to Rush or watch Fox if they got paid to do it.
That "class" of people hooked on trash talkers like The Lump is very similar to a cult.
Robert J. Lifton's standard 8-point outline for identifying a cult can be quite accurately attributed to them.
1. Milieu Control; "they (cult members) can be warned under threat of punishment to stay away from the world's educational media,"
2. Mystical Manipulation; If a person leaves for any reason, accidents or ill-will that may befall them are always attributed to God's punishment on them... The organization is therefore given a certain "mystique" that is quite alluring to the new recruit.
3. Demand for purity; "The world is depicted as black and white, with little room for making personal decisions based on a trained conscience.
4.The Cult of Confession; Serious sins (as defined by the organization) are to be confessed immediately. (How many times have we seen conservatives criticize Rush, only to turn around and apologize fearfully the next day?)
5.The "Sacred Science" The cult's ideology becomes the ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human existence. The ideology is too "sacred" to call into question, and a reverence is demanded for the leadership. The cult's ideology makes an exaggerated claim for possessing airtight logic, making it appear as absolute truth with no contradictions.
6. Loading the language; The prolific use of "thought-terminating cliches," expressions or words that are designed to end the conversation or controversy. Such cliches are easily memorized and readily expressed. They are called the "language of non-thought," since the discussion is terminated, not allowing further consideration.
7. Doctrine Over Person; Human experience is subordinated to doctrine, no matter how profound or contradictory such experiences seem.... The person is only valuable insomuch as they conform to the role models of the cult.
8. Dispensing of Existence; The cult decides who has the "right" to exist and who does not. They decide who will perish in the final battle of good over evil. The leaders decide which history books are accurate and which are biased.
Check it out at http://www.freeminds.org/psychology/mind-control/eight-marks-of-a-mind-control-cult.html
You can see the similarities between say, the teabaggers, the birthers, the Palinites, and these identifiers of what constitutes cult members, it really explains the profane relationship between the Fox/Rush listeners and their cult idols.
Rush is a cult idol, and his listeners are brainwashed lemmings. I've said it before, but it probably sounded like your everyday barebones complaint.
Here I am attempting to put more meat on the bare bones. I meant it seriously, not just as a lament, but as a warning to those lemmings.
If you don't learn to think for yourselves, you can never be free from the likes of The Lump, and you will waste your lives parroting other peoples' pernicious words.
When Lifton wrote his seminal piece "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, A Study of 'Brainwashing" in China, on which the movie "The Manchurian Candidate" (hey, Rachel, me too...) was based, the Democrats wouldn't touch it because they were afraid of association with the word "Communist."
It was published in 1961.
But both the Republican Party and Madison Avenue (Mad Men, literally) found it very valuable. Anyone who doubts it is blind and deaf to the brainwashing we see and hear every day from the wingnuts.
Here's the Google online version of his book; if you think my little paraphrase of Lifton's whole work was scary, Flowerchild, wait until you read this, or some of it.
Long URL, but it leads to one of the most pertinent but obscure works of research in the past 100 years. If you want a glimpse into the dark places of the mind, and the pernicious people who tap them for power and profit, take the time to check it out.
My short take on it is that Totalitarianism, by any other name, would still stink just as bad.
Read the forward, Lifton recognizes that his work transcended it's original intent, to prove what I just paraphrased.
Here's the URL for browser pasters.
yes yes yes. Exactly. When you put together a comment elsewhere and it flies. polish it and publish it on your own.
very, very, very goooooooood. I hope you get a thousand hits. I love this as a tool for examining certain fundamental roles or rules in this society.
October 18, 2009 2:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
True confession, DD, most of my blog posts usually start as comments on someone else's post, then evolve into a full-fledged post.
Ideas are like newborn babies, after they are "born" they develop and mature with time. Some of them grow up into serious ideologies and solid concepts. I think the best term for this is "inspiration."
And let there be no doubt, some of our trolls have inspired many of us to inspirational writings.
It is one of the things I really appreciate about TPM, that we can all bounce ideas off each other until they take on a form and develop a theme, complete enough to represent a whole thought and not just as that fledgling idea.
This is one of those places where ideas actually take flight, and don't get lost in an echo chamber.
October 18, 2009 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Big Limbaugh Loves Us!
Hate is Strength!
War is Good! Health Care Bad!
October 18, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a very intriguing piece on Truthout about how the Left essentially "abandoned" media after the late 1960s and early 1970s:
http://www.truthout.org/1018091
October 18, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
maybe it was vice versa?
Especially after Watergate, lots of low-profit media was bought up by big-profit tobacco/oil/cotton congloms, which were the forerunners of the multi-nationals now managed by the world's finest book cookers.
Considering their bottom-line addictions, they surely did not buy those marginally profitable publishing and broadcast enterprises for any reason other than controlling public opinion.
So, did the media abandon the left or did the left abandon the media?
October 18, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously? The media abandoned the left? The media ARE the LEFT. All major media outlets (MSNBC, NBC, CBS,ABC,CNN, WashPost, NY TImes) are nothing more than the mouthpiece of the democratic party. And as far as cult figures, I have nothing more to say than:
"mmm mmm mmm Barack Hussein Obama"
October 18, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clever, It's good to see you realize Fox News is not a legitimate major media outlet, at least you are learning something here.
As for that "Cult of Obama", no doubt there are some starry-eyes adoring fans, but just the fact there's so much commentary, on Fox in particular, that the Left is disenchanted with Obama's pragmatism should be proof enough you are howling at the wind.
Cult members do not voice disapproval of their leaders. And I've heard more honest criticism of Obama from the Left than the Right.
And I do mean HONEST criticism, not Rushcult talking points repeated mindlessly.
October 18, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jep - do you realize that posts like this are just as much "trolling" like you accuse us of? Do you see the double standard where if I describe someone as a "wingnut" I am a troll in your eyes..but somehow it's legitimate for you to use such terms??
October 18, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gosh, Mr. Bulldog. That meme that the media are left is just plain goofy to me. Except MSNBC. And yes, I remember the poll of journalists, a majority of whom self-identified as either Dems or Librul, I forget which. But they are not the ones who decide which stories get aired, what research is done, and if and when there are investigative pieces beyond stenography.
The Sunday pundits have had as guests since Obama was elected a ratio of two to one Conservatives to Librils, almost never a Progressive.
The Washington Post and NY Times were once arguably slanted Liberal, but that may have been because they were Smarter back then. They have devolved into morbid parodies of their former selves! There are so many right-leaning news articles full of incorrect information, and for crying in a barrel, look at their columnists. I suppose the Librul Media thing will never go away for lots of you. The facts just dispute it.
October 18, 2009 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go fuck yourself. I loathe you and your pathetic attempts at misdirection.
October 18, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
You need to realize that reality has a liberal bias -- the earth is not flat, the sun does not revolve around the earth, evolution occurs (and is committed by farmers who do horse breeding -- more of one kind of offspring than another), and climate change is a fact.
Further, jury studies have shown that if people are informed that they have a bias -- say an inclination to believe handsome people more than ugly ones -- they over-correct. So the media is in part leaning over backward to be 'fair.'
We are all tired of the media saying he says she's pregnant, she says she's not pregnant so the truth must be that she is half-pregnant.
Some things are just facts.
October 18, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
That REALLY REALLY REALLY is a great piece you referenced, OG, it supports my theory that there was a very concerted and almost desperate thrust by conservatives to own the media, not for profit but for power consolidation.
Read between the lines a bit, I think it also supports my contention that the media abandoned the left, not the other way around.
The Left includes way, way too many average-income individuals to even attempt the type of buyout the Right accomplished with their millionaire minority.
Here's my favorite line, so far.
"In 1982, South Korean theocrat Sun Myung Moon, who was eager to buy influence in the U.S. capital, began pouring his mysterious fortune into a new Washington-based newspaper, The Washington Times, which was praised by President Reagan and his successor George H.W. Bush as an important voice supporting their policies."
That "mysterious fortune" was gleaned, in part, by brainwashed cultists, knocking door to door begging for cash for poor old Myung.
And the two most important words, side by side, in this article, are "BUY INFLUENCE."
So I think it might be more accurate to say It wasn't the Left "giving up" on the media, it was the Right buying it away from the 4th Estate.
October 18, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you shouldn't call it a "theory", JEP. If my memory serves me, when the College Republicans morphed into the New Right at the start of Reagan's ascendancy, media takeovers, vanity academic press, church into politics and so on were all stated tactics to bring about the ungreening of America. What a time to be a Republican! I think Scaife and Olin both had to purchase automatic check-writing machines to keep up with the revolution.
October 18, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Neoboho;
Now that you mention "College Republicans morphed into the New Right at the start of Reagan's ascendancy," we should take a look at some familiar players in their fledgling days.
Wasn't that quite an all-star cast! 1981 was a banner year for future creeps-in-waiting.
Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist, Lee Atwater, Ralph Reed, Bobby Jindal and none other than KARL ROVE.
That college conspiracy was a crystal ball view into the Republican-dominated future we now suffer as our recent past.
They were accused by my old Iowa congressman at the time, Jim Leach, of taking their seed money from Sun Myung Moon.
Curious how all this talk about cults ties together seemingly disconnected pieces of a puzzle that is actually very well connected, still to this day.
And what a rogue's gallery!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x81512
October 18, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, so they weren't all there at the exact same time, but some of their tenures overlapped, so they were "together" to say the least.
October 18, 2009 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget Richard Viguerie, because he plays directly into the "cult" idea. I've read that his personality was so repulsive even his Young Republican peers shunned him, and he had zero chance of ever winning and election. So he becomes a fund raiser, and is eventually touted as the most effective direct mail fund raiser of all time. He was even interviewed in Playboy while at the height of his career, and asked what his secrets were. His answer was two guiding principles: 1) 9 times out of 10, people will do as they are told, and 2) people will donate 10 times the cash for something they are against than something they are for.
"People," of course, mean those who were on GOP mailing lists, which Viguerie used for his fund raising. So there you go - surrender to authority and fear of the "enemy'- things that no self-respecting cult could do without.
October 19, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you don't want to leave out the pseudo-Christian mafia and the other wonderful corporate organizations and marketing efforts to jump on the cult bandwagon and use it for making $$ do you?
Having been raised in semi cult fashion, I definitely see this as cult behavior and I know I repeat myself but I truly believe that 'The Family' os as I call them the pseudo-christian mafia is at the helm...
I do think they took some hits recently because of the ignorance, stupidity, and low world view of their leaders. Give idiots the idea that they are 'chosen ones' and 'above the law' and you get DeLay, Ensign, Sanford, etc.
I am very happy to see White House personnel condemning Fox as 'not news' because even if they get just a few people to question Fox's veracity it is a step in the right direction.
October 18, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right again, Synchro, that "consolidation" included the televangelists and fundamentalists tied to them. It came to profane fruition under Rove's misanthropic mis-guidance.
The televangelists are the new Pharisees.
Their pernicious influence from the pulpit and the podium has roused the wingnut rabble into mob formation.
October 18, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
JEP - nice trollish post you have here. Fits right in with your definition.
If I used words like "brainwash", "wingnut" or "cult" you'd throw around definitions of "troll" for me to read.
But of course it's OK for you to use them.
Nice double standard.
October 18, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your concern is duly noted.
October 18, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
For someone like you who lives and breathes financial markets, why do you put faith in the writing of Matt Taibbi?
October 18, 2009 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
MCB -still waiting for your post:
A follow up on your classic "Torture, It Worked" post...if torture worked, why are the IED's and VBIED's still going off in Iraq and Afghanistan, and why are Americans are still being killed in wars your hero George W. Bush started 8 years ago?
October 18, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice off topic post. But thanks for playing. If you'd like to start a separate post on how torture helped us get information out of KSM, be my guest.
October 18, 2009 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, you'd NEVER try to to derail a discussion thread, would you?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2009/10/rush-limbaugh-is-a-big-fat-lia.php#comment-3637809
October 18, 2009 8:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
You were the one who tried de-railing that discussion in the first place by swooping in and talking about what you have the rights to buy and then just launching into the ad-hominem attack about eating shit, etc.
Nice try.
October 18, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
We were discussing your ridiculous assertion that Rush Limbaugh had been deprived of his "right" to own a football team, and that players had no corresponding right to complain. I compared that to my right not to patronize businesses whose behavior I find objectionable.
If you can't see a connection there, you're even stupider than I thought.
October 18, 2009 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
You weren't discussing anything. You just ride in and start swearing at me. That's not a "discussion".
So stop spending so much time being a jerk and try doing some actual research to prove that the shorts killed Lehman like you assert. Stop relying on tabloid writers like Matt Taibbi to do your homework for you.
October 19, 2009 6:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
"You just ride in and start swearing at me."
Poor baby. You really are a hothouse flower, aren't you?
Too bad if the abuse you suffer for your trolling behavior hurts your tender feelings.
You want rich scumbags like Rush Limbaugh to do whatever they want because they have a lot of money, while those with less should just shut up and do as they're told. That attitude is deeply offensive to me, so deal with the consequences of posting such offensive crap (even if you don't, heaven forbid, swear in the process) and stop whining about how mistreated you are.
October 19, 2009 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Stop trying to pretend that you have "discussions" - you just spew stuff at other people.
I'm not sure what you're talking about with the "those with less" line. Are you being sympathetic to the players? To the owners? They're not suffering.
Are you just some hack journalist for Bloomberg or the FT? Is that why you think Matt Taibbi knows what he's talking about? Is your "professional capacity"? Or are you a writer for Rolling Stone or Portfolio?
October 19, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Feel free to take the advice I gave the Toothless Chihuahua, above.
October 18, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you call someone a (supply your favorite insult) and they ARE a (favorite insult) that is not an insult, that is a description.
More seriously, it is not trolling to call someone a name IF you have the facts to back it up.
Rather than complaining about JEPO's language. you would be better advised to try and show how the Lumps followers did not fit the cult syndrome.
October 18, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most of the time whether someone is a is a matter of OPINION.
If you agree with that opinion you'll slap the writer high-fives. If you disagree it gets you made.
For example, if I posted "Obama is a wingnut" people on here would say I am a troll.
But if somebody posted that "McCain is a wingnut" that would be OK and I would be a troll if I disagreed with it.
It's not as black and white as you present it to be. We can both have facts that prove or disprove both of the comments above on McCain and Obama.
October 18, 2009 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reasonable opinion has SOME factual basis. The simple name calling is boring but when you get to the reasons for an opinion it get much more interesting.
So stop complaining about the name calling and state your reasons for declaring Obama a wingnut.
October 19, 2009 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was using "Obama is a wingnut" just as an example.
And even when there is a some factual basis, using terms like "wingnut" or "brainwashing cult" as done above is just incendiary and a sign that the author isn't willing to listen to other points of view.
October 19, 2009 6:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was being a little flip in taking up your Obama comment in that manner: what I intended to indicate is that I was more interested in you defending your reasons for whatever it is that you think than in listening to you say, for the thirtieth or so time, stop calling names.
When you call a bigot a bigot you are calling a name but you may also be telling the truth and when you us the term bigot you are indicating that being a bigot is unacceptable. It was both incendiary and effective during the Civil Rights movement to use this label to lay out the moral stakes.
So,again, it is all in the context.
October 19, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is it effective to describe conservatives/republicans as a "brainwashing cult"?
Like I said, if I used those terms to describe liberals, I would be assaulted on here as a troll. No matter what my justification. Say something that liberals disagree with and you're a troll. Period.
October 19, 2009 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're a troll for two basic reasons:
- you ask the supposedly "innocent" questions designed to do nothing but provoke an angry response (e.g., how can you deny Rush his "right" to own a football team, when anyone with a lick of sense knows it has nothing to do with "rights" at all); and
- 90% of your posts here are attempts to derail discussions with complaints about people's tone, or your own aggrievement that we don't agree with you (or, at least, don't disagree with you in the manner you desire).
You are all over TPM with your whiny attempts to derail and distract. You're not going to change anyone's minds here, and you're not going to be treated nicely unless you stop the obnoxious behavior. One really wonders what you get out of visiting this site, since you don't agree with anything posted here, and you find our method of argument deeply offensive to your delicate sensibilities. Do you really enjoy the abuse you receive that much that you can't give up trolling this site? And, if not, why don't you just go the fuck away?
October 19, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
My question about Limbaugh's right to own a team was not trolling. He does have the right to own a team. If he is qualified to be an owner (ie has a lot of money) then he should be able to engage in an honest discussion with the seller. BUT politics got involved and that's what I have a problem with. He has the same right to own a team that I do if I had the money. That doesn't mean the deal automatically closes, but he got shut out of the process for political reasons. The analogy I see is when the rich kid in high school whose dad had lots of connections got into Harvard even though I had better SAT scores, GPA, etc. That's politics.
Should I have said that Limbaugh should have the "opportunity to participate in a fair process" instead of "right"? Perhaps. But you could have simply pointed that out instead of your sarcastic response about eating shit, etc.
You are completely wrong about the trolling accusation. But when people call your bluff on idiotic claims like Lehman short selling, you can't argue your point so you fall into defensive mode and hurl insults.
October 19, 2009 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm pretty much hurling insults at you because you're a troll. Your argument re Limbaugh is ridiculous. There are two sides to every transaction. If one party chooses not to sell a business enterprise to another because that other is a pustulous, racist gasbag, and most of the employees affected are racial minorities, that is, to use your lingo, the seller's "right."
Furthermore, if an elected official has not administratively or legislatively prevented the sale to Limbaugh, then you are stretching the meaning of "politics" beyond any reasonable definition. You want Rush to own a football team and you don't like unions or football players. That is, again, your "right."
But the fact that you are a racist douchebag who licks the boots of others because they have more money than you doesn't make what happened vis a vis Limbaugh and the Rams unfair.
Rush makes a massive amount of money demonizing minorities to racist crackers like yourself. That there is a large segment of Americans who refuse to engage in a voluntary business transaction with him as a result is an inevitable result of his racism. It's not unfair; it's completely within the "rights" of everyone involved.
God forbid that someone actually use moral principle as a consideration when conducting their business.
October 19, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you can't see how politics got involved in the Limbaugh situation, then you've got blinders on. The owners of the Rams did not say that they didn't want to sell to Checketts/Limbaugh. Instead the union got involved and put pressure on Checketts to remove Limbaugh from the consortium. You know that politics was responsible for DeMaurice Smith getting involved. I would bet a lot of money that he got some phone calls from Sharpton as well as Obama and Rahm. I do like players and I do like unions as long as the unions keep the players interests in the forefront. Instead the union decided it wanted Limbaugh out because he's a conservative. If somebody cares about players, they would want owners that can pay the biggest salaries. I don't think it matters what the owners' political views are. Clearly you do.
Like I said, go back to studying why only Lehman wasn't saved. Any self-respecting person who claims to be in the finance industry would never look to Matt Taibbi as a reliable source.
October 19, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"try and show how the Lumps followers did not fit the cult syndrome."
I would seriously like to see that argument, but evne the trolls know when credibility is unattainable.
But one of them could at least TRY to argue the point and not the passion.
But they are surely among us, not proliferating, but pontificating profusely to make it appear as if they are more than one hired hand with a couple sockpuppets.
They must be tuning up for 2010.
October 18, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to quibble (but I will :-}) Number four about confessions would need other examples. Apologizing to Mush-baugh isn't Confessing; it's just reacting to the irate phone-calls they get if they wander of the reservation a little. And it isn't good enough to mention Sanford-type confessions, because they only confess after they are caught red-handed (or something) in sex scandals.
And not to be even more cranky, I'm going to have to go with Glenn Beck having more of a cult following than Limbaugh. His viewer numbers are far outstripping Limburger. Viewers are hot for his rabit anti-goverment message; maybe Rush is too old-school for the Modern Put-God-back-in-Gummint and Give-us-back-our-Freedom crowd.
My hubby had to go to Walmart last weekend, and said he came around the corner to shelves and shelves of the new Beck Book staring at him.
Walmart shoppers may be his demographic, but for us it's the only store left in the county to shop for most things beyond groceries.
Otherwise, I can dig it!
October 18, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lots of good points, the only exception I woul make is simply that one of the distinguishing characteristics of a cult is that cultists are initiated into some "secret" that non-initiates are not privy to. The secret usually is some piece of information that is supposed to save the cult members from some undesirable fate.
So if its a cult (and maybe it is) what secrets are they guarding?
October 18, 2009 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
They don't share a secret, just self-appointed superiority, in an unspoken mutual masturbation society stroking one another's delusions.
.
See #5 above. In this case, they don't actually have any secrets, but they share an arrogant mutual belief in their correctness, and anyone who defies their contrived "insider" group-think is essentially the outsider.
October 18, 2009 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
A lot of them seem to believe that if everyone follows God's laws correctly we will be spared things like Katrina.
Wouldn't bother me if they felt that their own behavior controlled that outcome but they seem to feel that God won't save them from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and hence they have a right and a duty to make the rest of us behave as well.
October 19, 2009 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don, I've read a few lists of cult characteristics, and the "cult secret" doesn't seem to be among the items. Obviously this is true with some cults - but is it true of all? At any rate, this conversation seems to me to be about the exhibition of "cult-like" behaviors and organizational dynamics, rather than trying to argue that the GOP is a cult.
Years ago I had a terrible argument with my ex-brother-in-law, who declared that the Beatles represented good and the Rolling Stones represented evil. In the context of this discussion, I would say that my opponent's position was cult-like (my position was that both groups rocked).
October 19, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink