FINE TUNING

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?