Reflecting on last week’s farewell to Bill Moyers<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>, a reader <\/P> It’s good to hear from people like Larry the Lip. One thing it tells me is I’m not just preaching <\/P> This is not something particular to Hitler, or Germans, or communists, or class hatred, or Radio was only a few years old by the time Hitler and Goebbels discovered this social The equal time laws in America served as a safety valve to check the media’s susceptibility to We are now at the point where millions cannot live without Limbaugh. Part of the reason the Can there be any doubt that Larry the Lip would disagree?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-fw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nlet me know what he thought. Larry Lippman writes: <\/P>
\n
\nHey Jan, I can understand (sometimes) that in the battle of ideas,
\nwell-meaning and even bright people can have a different idea of what ought to be. But adulation
\nfor the sanctimonious, sans clerical collar Bill Moyers is a little over the top. Your bullshit
\ndetector needs some fine tuning.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nto the choir. But the truth is another reader, Bill Osborne, made a lot more sense reflecting on
\nMoyers via George Orwell<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>: <\/P>
\n
\nIf people would read books like William Shirer’s “Rise and Fall of
\nthe Third Reich,”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> they would learn something about the conflagrations that
\ncan be created when the mass media is used to exploit hatred and fear. These social forces, when
\npropagated through the mass media, can quickly become virulent and swallow up all voices of
\nreason.
\n
\n
\nfanatical religious groups. It is the nature of mass communication, which has an inherent potential
\nto conflate hatred and fear and set in motion self-reinforcing cycles that unify people in
\nmadness.<\/P>
\n
\nphenomenon. They quickly saw that media-enhanced hatred could be channeled to gain and
\nconsolidate political power. The neocons have learned this, and now all reason is being
\ndestroyed.<\/P>
\n
\nvirulent hatred. We usually took time to consider the other voice. People will someday realize that
\nwhen Reagan eliminated the equal time laws, he caused grave damage to our country. Once the
\nmedia begins to make hatred a standard mode of operation, there is almost no way of turning
\nback. Our only hope would be to return to the equal time laws, but that is obviously not going to
\nhappen. <\/P>
\n
\nmedia has these susceptibilities is that hatred and fear are not only virulent, they are addictive. I
\ndo not think the neocons fully understand the darkly inexorable forces they have set in motion. I
\nthink the day will come when we finally realize something has to be done. Our success in
\nreturning to a wiser path will be a test of the American character.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n