napoleon526
Emperor
I usually don't post many overtly political threads, but I came across an article in the Internet news magazine The Simon that does a very good job of describing the reason that so many people dislike FOX news.
Overseas Report: A Brit in Turkey Watches FOX News and Screams
By Philip Madden
As a British citizen who works as a teacher in Turkey, is married into a Turkish family, knows their mentality, and writes about them, I know how they feel about the West. Clearly, it is a love/hate relationship. Turks know that the West stands for many noble ideas such as democracy and human rights, things that are needed in order to progress Turkish society. Yet, at the same time, they hate it, especially American power and the ability of America to bully countries in the name of American interests.
It is incredible how a country as powerful and as large as America could fail to transform that advantage into a situation where Americans are truly in touch with the rest of the world. Instead, they have made themselves the most detested people on earth and have developed a we-dont-care-because-we-can-bomb-the-****-out-of-you-if-we-feel-like-it childish way of thinking.
Turkey is a country that, thanks to satellite, is able to get FOX News and CNN. There is a Turkish version of CNN called CNN Turk, which provides news in Turkish but is allied to Ted Turner. As a result, most Turks do not watch American CNN. So when the English-speaking section of Turkey wants to improve its English by watching some American TV, they turn to FOX News, and what they find shocks and appalls them.
Firstly, they encounter an American flag fluttering in the left-hand corner of the screen. This is not so strange; lots of Turkish channels also put the Turkish flag on the screen, especially on national holidays -- after all, Turkey is one of the most nationalistic countries in the world. But in the case of the American flag, it smacks of vulgarity. The fact that it is fluttering suggests the breeze of freedom (the American idea of freedom) is wafting over the Land of the Brave and that the purpose of this channel is to show the rest of the world that only in the U.S.A. can fluttering flags be blown by the breeze of freedom. Then the real trouble starts.
Every other word out of the mouths of opinionated hacks like Bill OReilly (the man you can count on to make an issue where there wasnt one before) and the odious Sean Hannity ("I am a Christian, but get a job, you bum!") seems to begin with "American" or "Our president says it is right to kill in the name of freedom." Turks then also have to listen to half-educated so-called experts give their opinions on Islam ("a religion based on war and slavery," according to Pat Robertson) and world economics. FOX News also does George Bushs dirty work for him. On the network, Russia is told to get back in the bread line after disagreeing with America about the war in Iraq. Although most of the world has a serious attitude about not insulting someone elses poverty, FOX News sends the message to the world that this is, in fact, an American tradition and a way to deal with people you are having problems with.
Turks see bigoted opinions dashed off as truthful insights; they see the Third World made fun of and insulted; they see an empty and heartless ideology held up as American culture. An example would be the three donuts who present the morning show, FOX & Friends. I watched in horrified silence as they said Angola and Chile did not have the right to influence the U.N. opinion-making system as they were poor, backward countries. We are the big kid on the block, they seemed to be saying, so we should decide what the rest of the world should do; if you are not part of the capitalist elite, then you are invisible and we can do what we want with you. The picture of a paunchy John Wayne, grinning his WASP head off as he single-handedly shoots down hordes of Third World complainers with his six-shooter came into my head.
Also on the same program, the weatherman, who looks like a supermarket manager rather then a newscaster, welcomed Turkey to the FOX News fold by making a reference to the rather ugly bird that shares the same name as the country. It was taken for granted that the Turks national pride mattered little and that they would still watch this channel no matter what crass jokes were made: Hey, we are Americans and everyone wants to be an American, right? In short, Turks see everything that is vulgar and immature about America, especially its willingness to show off its wealth and power in the crudest of fashions.
After 9/11, there was a range of emotions in Turkey, ranging from indifference to outrage. Who felt what depended on such things as education, outlook, political leanings, and a certain amount of individual compassion. Middle-class citizens of Turkey, who for the most part consider themselves to be secular and Western, felt on the whole sympathy. They, too, have to battle with Islamic fundamentalists in their country. (Women especially have to struggle to achieve the Western lifestyle they want in the face of a traditional Muslim Turkish culture that vetoes many things.) Most Turks are in a constant condition of doublethink. But they look to America -- American popular culture, that is -- as a symbol of a kind of freedom.
The story of the majority of Turks -- the poor, uneducated, superstitious, and Islamic -- is different. They did not condone the actions of the terrorists, but neither did they condemn it. They simply did not care because America and American values are elements that touch their lives in the same way as dreams do. They see Hollywood and pop stars and basketball players and wealth and big houses, but none of it speaks to them because they are the victims of globalization, forever trapped at the bottom of the pit, unable to move sideways because their country is an economic hostage of American multinationalism. For the rural, illiterate Turk, who is still controlled in his actions by Koranic concepts of salvation and damnation, the death of Americans has as much meaning as talking about characters in a film or a novel being killed.
This idea will not change until there is a more even balance of the worlds wealth. How can a peasant in a village in the east of Turkey who cannot find water to drink, who will die before he reaches old age, be asked to worry about American security when they support various regimes that kill and suppress his Muslim brothers? FOX News takes the opinion that the Third World has little to contribute to the world because not only is it economically poor but also spiritually backward. In other words, they do not have American ideals. This ignorance has lead to the demise of many dynasties in the past. Let them eat cake, you say, but then do not be surprised when they hate you and what you stand for and wish to see you burn.
Turkey was a country that was made to look like a Middle Eastern merchant by FOX News when the network talked about "buying off" Turkey in order to let America use Turkish land to invade Iraq. They did not talk about the moral strength of Turkey, a Third World country resisting the bribe of American dollars. The portrait of a prostitute that was painted by the American media still burns in the Turkish soul, and this week the announcement was made by FOX News in smug fashion, that 69 percent of Americans did not care that Bush lied to them about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
The whole purpose of the war was a lie, and 69 percent of Americans do not care. This says a lot about 69 percent of Americans. Turkey and the rest of the world was able to see a news channel being proud of the social irresponsibility of America, not to mention the moral one. (It was the Iraqi people who were bombed and killed and now have no water or electricity. FOX News takes the stance that they are not important.)
FOX News has made America look like a petty, uneducated country that cannot tell the difference between a left-wing, secular dictator and an Islamic fundamentalist, anti-socialist terrorist when they are both Arabs. They glibly dismiss the American-made sufferings of the Iraqi people by saying their country has liberated them and they should therefore be grateful. Meanwhile, Saddam has escaped and another war goes unfinished. But the media message of the right wing to the world is that your lives have no meaning when compared to American capitalist interests.
As the world gets smaller thanks to mass media and the Internet, the world also gets smaller for America to maneuver in. At the moment, she is not acting like a grown-up, and that could be a turning point as more and more countries reject America with disgust. This could be the beginnings of a rejection of red-white-and-blue values. The mass media, an American invention, is threatening to become Americas undoing.
What do you all think of this article? Do you agree/disagree/like pie?
Overseas Report: A Brit in Turkey Watches FOX News and Screams
By Philip Madden
As a British citizen who works as a teacher in Turkey, is married into a Turkish family, knows their mentality, and writes about them, I know how they feel about the West. Clearly, it is a love/hate relationship. Turks know that the West stands for many noble ideas such as democracy and human rights, things that are needed in order to progress Turkish society. Yet, at the same time, they hate it, especially American power and the ability of America to bully countries in the name of American interests.
It is incredible how a country as powerful and as large as America could fail to transform that advantage into a situation where Americans are truly in touch with the rest of the world. Instead, they have made themselves the most detested people on earth and have developed a we-dont-care-because-we-can-bomb-the-****-out-of-you-if-we-feel-like-it childish way of thinking.
Turkey is a country that, thanks to satellite, is able to get FOX News and CNN. There is a Turkish version of CNN called CNN Turk, which provides news in Turkish but is allied to Ted Turner. As a result, most Turks do not watch American CNN. So when the English-speaking section of Turkey wants to improve its English by watching some American TV, they turn to FOX News, and what they find shocks and appalls them.
Firstly, they encounter an American flag fluttering in the left-hand corner of the screen. This is not so strange; lots of Turkish channels also put the Turkish flag on the screen, especially on national holidays -- after all, Turkey is one of the most nationalistic countries in the world. But in the case of the American flag, it smacks of vulgarity. The fact that it is fluttering suggests the breeze of freedom (the American idea of freedom) is wafting over the Land of the Brave and that the purpose of this channel is to show the rest of the world that only in the U.S.A. can fluttering flags be blown by the breeze of freedom. Then the real trouble starts.
Every other word out of the mouths of opinionated hacks like Bill OReilly (the man you can count on to make an issue where there wasnt one before) and the odious Sean Hannity ("I am a Christian, but get a job, you bum!") seems to begin with "American" or "Our president says it is right to kill in the name of freedom." Turks then also have to listen to half-educated so-called experts give their opinions on Islam ("a religion based on war and slavery," according to Pat Robertson) and world economics. FOX News also does George Bushs dirty work for him. On the network, Russia is told to get back in the bread line after disagreeing with America about the war in Iraq. Although most of the world has a serious attitude about not insulting someone elses poverty, FOX News sends the message to the world that this is, in fact, an American tradition and a way to deal with people you are having problems with.
Turks see bigoted opinions dashed off as truthful insights; they see the Third World made fun of and insulted; they see an empty and heartless ideology held up as American culture. An example would be the three donuts who present the morning show, FOX & Friends. I watched in horrified silence as they said Angola and Chile did not have the right to influence the U.N. opinion-making system as they were poor, backward countries. We are the big kid on the block, they seemed to be saying, so we should decide what the rest of the world should do; if you are not part of the capitalist elite, then you are invisible and we can do what we want with you. The picture of a paunchy John Wayne, grinning his WASP head off as he single-handedly shoots down hordes of Third World complainers with his six-shooter came into my head.
Also on the same program, the weatherman, who looks like a supermarket manager rather then a newscaster, welcomed Turkey to the FOX News fold by making a reference to the rather ugly bird that shares the same name as the country. It was taken for granted that the Turks national pride mattered little and that they would still watch this channel no matter what crass jokes were made: Hey, we are Americans and everyone wants to be an American, right? In short, Turks see everything that is vulgar and immature about America, especially its willingness to show off its wealth and power in the crudest of fashions.
After 9/11, there was a range of emotions in Turkey, ranging from indifference to outrage. Who felt what depended on such things as education, outlook, political leanings, and a certain amount of individual compassion. Middle-class citizens of Turkey, who for the most part consider themselves to be secular and Western, felt on the whole sympathy. They, too, have to battle with Islamic fundamentalists in their country. (Women especially have to struggle to achieve the Western lifestyle they want in the face of a traditional Muslim Turkish culture that vetoes many things.) Most Turks are in a constant condition of doublethink. But they look to America -- American popular culture, that is -- as a symbol of a kind of freedom.
The story of the majority of Turks -- the poor, uneducated, superstitious, and Islamic -- is different. They did not condone the actions of the terrorists, but neither did they condemn it. They simply did not care because America and American values are elements that touch their lives in the same way as dreams do. They see Hollywood and pop stars and basketball players and wealth and big houses, but none of it speaks to them because they are the victims of globalization, forever trapped at the bottom of the pit, unable to move sideways because their country is an economic hostage of American multinationalism. For the rural, illiterate Turk, who is still controlled in his actions by Koranic concepts of salvation and damnation, the death of Americans has as much meaning as talking about characters in a film or a novel being killed.
This idea will not change until there is a more even balance of the worlds wealth. How can a peasant in a village in the east of Turkey who cannot find water to drink, who will die before he reaches old age, be asked to worry about American security when they support various regimes that kill and suppress his Muslim brothers? FOX News takes the opinion that the Third World has little to contribute to the world because not only is it economically poor but also spiritually backward. In other words, they do not have American ideals. This ignorance has lead to the demise of many dynasties in the past. Let them eat cake, you say, but then do not be surprised when they hate you and what you stand for and wish to see you burn.
Turkey was a country that was made to look like a Middle Eastern merchant by FOX News when the network talked about "buying off" Turkey in order to let America use Turkish land to invade Iraq. They did not talk about the moral strength of Turkey, a Third World country resisting the bribe of American dollars. The portrait of a prostitute that was painted by the American media still burns in the Turkish soul, and this week the announcement was made by FOX News in smug fashion, that 69 percent of Americans did not care that Bush lied to them about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
The whole purpose of the war was a lie, and 69 percent of Americans do not care. This says a lot about 69 percent of Americans. Turkey and the rest of the world was able to see a news channel being proud of the social irresponsibility of America, not to mention the moral one. (It was the Iraqi people who were bombed and killed and now have no water or electricity. FOX News takes the stance that they are not important.)
FOX News has made America look like a petty, uneducated country that cannot tell the difference between a left-wing, secular dictator and an Islamic fundamentalist, anti-socialist terrorist when they are both Arabs. They glibly dismiss the American-made sufferings of the Iraqi people by saying their country has liberated them and they should therefore be grateful. Meanwhile, Saddam has escaped and another war goes unfinished. But the media message of the right wing to the world is that your lives have no meaning when compared to American capitalist interests.
As the world gets smaller thanks to mass media and the Internet, the world also gets smaller for America to maneuver in. At the moment, she is not acting like a grown-up, and that could be a turning point as more and more countries reject America with disgust. This could be the beginnings of a rejection of red-white-and-blue values. The mass media, an American invention, is threatening to become Americas undoing.
What do you all think of this article? Do you agree/disagree/like pie?
