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Fox in the Hen House

October 20, 2005

One of the recurring themes at Perrspectives is the growing Achilles Heel of the conservative movement. Dormant for two presidential elections, the yawning chasm between economic and social conservatives is reemerging, and with it, a serious threat to the Republicans' majority status.
In the wake of its Schiavo disaster and the revolt over the Harriet Miers nomination, conservatives are coming to blows yet again. This time, the battleground is television content. The family values merchants at the Parents Television Council (PTC) issued their list of the 10 Worst Shows for family viewing.
The PTC's biggest offender? The Fox Network. The same people who bring you Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and the rest of the culture warriors who serve as the media appendage of the Republican Party. It was O'Reilly after all, the accused sexual harrasser and falafel fetishist, who proclaimed:

"Children are exposed to a constant media barrage of degenerate behavior, and if they want a break, commercial television now offers them a variety of 'reality' programs where they can watch people eat bugs and demean women...call me crazy, but I don't think porn stars are great role models for American kids."

Fox itself shows all the fissures of the coming conservative crack-up. Four of its shows top the PTC's list. And its earlier hit Melrose Place featured porn star Traci Lords on the show. At the same time, Bill O'Reilly concluded of the Janet Jackson Super Bowl breast display, "our popular culture has collapsed."
In a repeat of last year's Terrell Owens Monday Night Football imbroglio, the Religious Right sees a culture at risk; the laissez faire free marketeers want media markets, concentration and ownership unfettered by the heavy hand of the government.
Unfortunately for them, they can't have it both ways.

2 comments on “Fox in the Hen House”

  1. You have the Ayn Randies versus the Torquemada loving fundies. Let's eat some popcorn and sit and watch the Republican party self destruct.
    How do we get a progressive agenda done today?
    The answer appears in your wallet. I imagine each of you have studied the union movement. The union movement has brought us the 40 hour work week and the minimum wage. The union movement had focused on the individual employers to get these benefits.
    Today corporations have taken over the Republican party and even write the legislation that hurts ordinary people.
    We need to form our own ad hoc union and instead of going on a work strike we need to go on a purchasing strike. We need to target some of the major contributors of money to the Republican party as they pull the levers of power and they have the most to lose and they can get the pressure every day instead of the officeholders that only run every 2, 4 and 6 years.
    We need to go on strike against Walmart, Wendy's, Outback Steak House, Dominos Pizza, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Eckerd, CVS and Walgreens, GE and Exxon/Mobil.
    We need to call these companies and thell them we have gone on strike against them until they get the RNC to hold a press conference announcing that they will accede to our demands of a TEN dollar an hour minimum wage, an unemployment insurance benefit that will last 1 year instead of 6 months, a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare of 80 percent coverage and no privatization of social security and increasing the social security payroll tax,removing the 88,000 dollar a year FICA taxable income limit, and vote by mail throughout the US with paper ballots and an independent civil service that registers people to vote and counts votes. We need this and more. You make the demands, you go on strike. You have the money and the Republican contributors either do as we want or they go broke under our purchasing strike.
    Call to action. Stop the Republican Party.
    http://tinyurl.com/8ghl8
    http://tinyurl.com/b97vk
    Where Republicans tread, innocent people end up dead.

  2. right on Buck, Exxon made 10 billion bucks in profit for the 3rd quarter of this year, no there not ripping us off, Maybe they can pay for the walmart employees medical benifits


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Jon Perr
Jon Perr is a technology marketing consultant and product strategist who writes about American politics and public policy.

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