Reflecting on last week’s farewell to Bill Moyers, a reader
let me know what he thought. Larry Lippman writes:
Hey Jan, I can understand (sometimes) that in the battle of ideas,
well-meaning and even bright people can have a different idea of what ought to be. But adulation
for the sanctimonious, sans clerical collar Bill Moyers is a little over the top. Your bullshit
detector needs some fine tuning.
It’s good to hear from people like Larry the Lip. One thing it tells me is I’m not just preaching
to the choir. But the truth is another reader, Bill Osborne, made a lot more sense reflecting on
Moyers via George Orwell:
If people would read books like William Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of
the Third Reich,” they would learn something about the conflagrations that
can be created when the mass media is used to exploit hatred and fear. These social forces, when
propagated through the mass media, can quickly become virulent and swallow up all voices of
reason.
This is not something particular to Hitler, or Germans, or communists, or class hatred, or
fanatical religious groups. It is the nature of mass communication, which has an inherent potential
to conflate hatred and fear and set in motion self-reinforcing cycles that unify people in
madness.
Radio was only a few years old by the time Hitler and Goebbels discovered this social
phenomenon. They quickly saw that media-enhanced hatred could be channeled to gain and
consolidate political power. The neocons have learned this, and now all reason is being
destroyed.
The equal time laws in America served as a safety valve to check the media’s susceptibility to
virulent hatred. We usually took time to consider the other voice. People will someday realize that
when Reagan eliminated the equal time laws, he caused grave damage to our country. Once the
media begins to make hatred a standard mode of operation, there is almost no way of turning
back. Our only hope would be to return to the equal time laws, but that is obviously not going to
happen.
We are now at the point where millions cannot live without Limbaugh. Part of the reason the
media has these susceptibilities is that hatred and fear are not only virulent, they are addictive. I
do not think the neocons fully understand the darkly inexorable forces they have set in motion. I
think the day will come when we finally realize something has to be done. Our success in
returning to a wiser path will be a test of the American character.
Can there be any doubt that Larry the Lip would disagree?
