Lies! It's all lies!

Still applicable unfortunately

  Who here has heard the Green Day song "American Idiot"? I'm assuming a fair number of you have. It was incredibly popular around 2005 and was damn near impossible to escape for a few years there. If you haven't heard the song before, the gist of it is that the singer feels America is becoming a slave to propaganda and a hidden agenda, and he doesn't want to be any include here because of true they are.

One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It's calling out to idiot America.
-Green Day, American Idiot (2004)

   I can share the feeling. I've been thinking lately that the far right has become so swayed by their talking heads that there really is no longer a way to change their opinions. Anything that a liberal says will be deflected as "posturing and lies put forth by the liberal media to further their evil objectives". What can we do?

Faux News

  I don't think that there is an easy answer to this question. One certainly can't blame the viewers for the lies put forth by their media idols. Those same viewers are probably your friends and family. Heck, my grandparents are avid watchers of Fox News and while I disagree with their politics completely, I'm not going to hate them for it. They're still my family. And I beg you to do the same. Even if your family member is the most rabid conservative, forgive him or her. Family matters far more than your political values and you shouldn't let them break relationships.

  No, I don't blame the viewers. I think that there are probably some complex sociological variables that have led to the Faux News legion. Of course, I don't claim to be a sociologist either. I'm just a college kid taking a soc class who sees a lot of what he learns in his lectures being paralleled in the real world. And what I see is a lot of people who are facing economic downturn, poverty, unemployment, and a general sense of fear for the future. They want to blame someone, and so the talking heads come waltzing in and lay the blame on the American Jewish population or the American African population, or some other minority group. They want a scapegoat.

  I just worry when I see conservatives label anything with a liberal spin as having an "agenda". We don't need that kind of fear and suspicion being applied to each other. There is a conservative political site "Liberty Mind" that actually refers to liberalism as madness. The site calls it authoritarianism. I know this is not the only site that uses that term either. Liberals are coming to steal your guns. Liberals are coming to steal your rights. Liberals want child molesters in the women's room. Liberals want illegal immigrants to take your job right out from under you. These are all arguments made by the political right against liberalism. But the real key goals of liberalism are just supporting the less fortunate through programs of government aid, protecting minority groups and groups that are commonly discriminated against, and ensuring that there are proper protections for consumers. I'm sure there are more ideas, but these are the one's you're most likely to hear about. Does any of that really sound all that bad? We don't want to flood the world with criminals and hang the common man out to dry, we want to give everyone a chance to have a good and happy life. We want everyone to be able to be the common man.

Not perfect, but still a better option

  So what can you do to help? Start by keeping family close even if you don't agree with their politics. I know I'm harping on that, but it's going to be a requisite in the coming years. Then try to keep your view as wide as you possibly can. Don't settle for reading one news outlet. Try three or four and follow all of them. You still can't guarantee that you won't be fed false news or misreported facts, but you increase your base of knowledge to draw from when judging the credibility of the news you read. And don't watch Fox. There are far better news outlets available with far more credible reporters.