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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jen Senko
Read between
December 13 - December 20, 2021
has also been shown that with education, people develop “metacognitive skills.”32 They become better able to monitor and reevaluate their own thinking. So more education is somewhat of an inoculation against fake news.
Fascinating!
nurturant parent model assumes a respect for a child’s intelligence, so they may be more likely to offer guidance rather than orders, or they may be more likely to pick the child up if they cry. They want the child to feel secure and comfortable talking about their feelings and thoughts, but at the same time, they want them to have self-discipline.
children. Empathy is the center of this.
The good news is that more people than ever before recognize how dangerous and destructive far-right media is. So what can we do about
The first and most important thing to remember is to have hope.
lean on my favorite quote from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”1
Raise awareness of far-right media’s effect on people whenever you can, however you can.
Ask business owners or public places like bars, doctor offices, gyms, and restaurants to turn off Fox. Explain it is divisive and will offend half their customers. Have zero tolerance. (If it’s difficult for you to say something, you can buy and leave FoxOff cards from FoxIsToxic.org.)
If you have older parents who spend a lot of time at home watching Fox or listening to fascist “conservative” talk radio, try to disrupt their media habits.
Tell your TV provider to #UnFoxMyCableBox.
I cannot see this happening, though. If, say, Dish Network, were to remove FN from its subscription bundle, hoards of Fox Zombies would switch to a competing company that *does* provide it. Besides that is just a way for all the RWNJs to cry-baby about how they are being "censored".
Boycott advertisers that engage with far-right media.
Fact-check news you see online, especially if it’s information that seems to fit with everything else you already believe. Don’t post or forward news articles without understanding where they come from and what their biases might be.
Watch your language. Do not call Fox News and the like “conservative media.” Call it what it is: far-right, extreme-right media—even fascist media.
Fox Propaganda or Fox Noise or hate-for-profit media, and use the term corporate media instead of liberal media.
Educate yourself on how to talk to Cult Republicans through HearYourselfThink.org. They give workshops. Or read Steven Hassan’s book The Cult of Trump. In order to evaluate if a group is a cult, Steven Hassan came up with what he calls the BITE model.
Do not call the Cult Republicans conservatives or Republicans. Call them Cult Republicans or the extreme Right.
Do not use Republican talking points, and don’t fall for gotcha questions or whataboutism with right-wingers.
This list is by no means comprehensive. New ideas are being discussed by media activists every day. You can find the latest ideas posted on thebrainwashingofmydad.com.
But the FCC under Ajit Pai voted in 2017 to deregulate broadband/cable companies like Comcast and Verizon (which essentially kills consumer protection).
The new DOJ also dropped the lawsuit the Trump DOJ had against California for implementing net neutrality for their state.
The biggest legislative impact would come from reversing the Trump administration’s moves to gut media ownership regulation.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which loosened the rules for cross-ownership, was a gift to media hogs, resulting in a narrowing of perspectives and information on which we form
political opinions. We must reinstate ownership caps and enforce antitrust
who would be in charge of determining what fairness means.
real reason right-wingers may be afraid of a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine is that it could affect their bottom line and/or ability to influence people in the way that has proven to be very effective—through the addictive nature of anger and fear, the telling of blatant lies, and being the only bully on the block.
So for instance, we all know by now that much of Fox News isn’t really news. It’s opinion and propaganda.
A federal judge in September 2020 ruled in a defamation case against radical Fox host Tucker Carlson that he can’t be sued because he is not a credible source of news.8 Then “news” should not be part of the name of the network.
Another way to combat right-wing bias would be to strengthen nonprofit media.
to help create independent alternatives to corporate-run media outlets.
Instead, giant corporations get to write off their ad expenses.
Simply by understanding how media is made, they are then taught not to passively consume it.
Return to the truth. Always repeat the truth more than the lies.
Journalism is about the truth, objectivity and accuracy.
One of their ideas involves the establishment of an international nongovernmental organization that would create a rating system for disinformation. Some examples that already exist are Climate Feedback, Snopes, and PolitiFact.
For example, Facebook could flag an article that’s based on false information as an unreliable source,
Yes…however, part of the brainwashing of Republicans is to think this is censorship and that it’s bad. And I have seen Cult Republicans dismiss Snopes and Politifact as “liberal”. And part of this is that many Cult Republicans do not think/know that their beliefs are far right. My person didn’t think his beliefs are far right; he thinks they are moderate conservative.
One of the most insidious things that has happened at great speed in the past decade is that many of us are blindly being owned by algorithms.
Also in 2016, Trump’s “campaign used data from Cambridge Analytica and other sources to identify Black voters who they thought could be dissuaded from voting. To do that, the campaign identified groups of users as Black, as
voters, as living in swing states, and, finally, as persuadable. They flooded their Facebook feeds with negative ads.”
Gross
new videos with automated recommendations at the end of previously watched videos can radicalize and suck conspiracy theorists further down a rabbit hole.
us Americans, freedom of speech represents our freedom and democracy. But the very thing we value as representing our democracy is being abused to destroy it.
Unfortunately, lies and “alternative facts” have been allowed to creep into the American concept of free speech.
My mother was able to repair our relationship with my father through love, patience, humor, and, I admit, a little trickery.
But instead of blaming those you can’t save, realize they’ve been bamboozled by a very sophisticated propaganda machine—which makes the conspiracy theorists blame the very people trying to save them.
final note of hope, I am also including a collection of testimonials from other families who successfully deprogrammed or found reconciliation with loved ones and were able to reclaim their relationships.
But President Obama had just come into office, and the economy was in the toilet. I felt it was safe to discuss the economy because clearly President Obama couldn’t have had anything to do with it—it was too soon. My uncle got very upset and started to rant about the president.
told you to get out!” As he got to the bottom of the stairs, he raised his right hand, and I could see that he was holding a small pistol. He walked closer to me. I was shaken and said, “What are you doing? I’m going to call the police!” He dropped his hand and shot two rounds into the floor,
Christ, people!
was a Republican at the time. Had voted for Bush Sr. in 1988 and 1992. Most of my fellow Republicans at that time still saw this stuff as fringe, if not outright lunacy. Those were the golden days that reasonable Republicans now look back on with despair today.
more extreme and often offered with little or no evidence to back them up (Hillary Clinton regularly has her political opponents assassinated, the Syrian refugee crisis is a secret Muslim plot to “infiltrate” the United States, and of course the “war on Christianity”).
I try to keep myself open to connecting in what ways I can, but most often I find myself seeking the comfort and familiarity of those I can relate to without so much anxiety—my
I was positive that once Hillary Clinton won and became president in November 2016,
Strangely, when Clinton lost and Trump one, the one thing I thought would be a relief is that my person could finally just STFU about how horrible the Clintons are. I thought the tension in the household would go down dramatically because it went the way my person wanted. But that did not happen. Nearly the entire purpose of RWN is to *constantly* keep the base in a state of fury. It doesn’t work otherwise.
