On today’s BradCast, the GOP continues to unravel, in both its Presidential nomination process and its increasingly untenable stand against even holding a hearing for Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, and we speak to the filmmaker of a new documentary examining both the rise of the vast Rightwing media machine and how it has succeeded in tearing apart countless American families with its brilliant lies, conspiracies and rabid hostility.
First up, the quixotic search for a Donald Trump alternative continues for the GOP, as John Kasich’s fanciful quest for the nomination after winning only the primary in his home state of Ohio continues. That, while Ted Cruz, the only mathematically viable (and, yet, hated) alternative for gaining enough delegates to actually win the nomination, welcomes a notoriously discredited, Islamaphobic conspiracy theorist into his campaign as a national security adviser. Some “alternative”!
And, as if that’s all not embarrassing enough for Republicans, President Obama’s nomination yesterday of the very moderate and well-respected D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court is already proving problematic for Senate Republicans who have vowed to not even hold hearings for any nominee made by this President. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who has repeatedly supported and promoted Garland in the past, including for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, had trouble facing even the usually friendly questioning of Fox “News” in light of his party’s bizarrely ill-conceived campaign.
Then, speaking of Fox “News” and dysfunction, I’m joined by documentary filmmaker Jen Senko to discuss her new film, The Brainwashing of My Dad. The documentary details both the rise of the Rightwing media in the U.S. over the past several decades and her own father’s disturbing transition from a peaceful, loving Democrat into a hostile, angry ‘conservative’ after becoming addicted and, yes, brainwashed by Rush Limbaugh, Fox “News” and the rest of the “vast Rightwing conspiracy” machine that has torn apart so many families like her own.
While the film’s tagline is “The truth behind the right-wing media machine that changed a father…and divided the nation,” an alternative version for so many who will recognize, within their own families, the story of what happened to Senko’s father, might have been: “You are not alone!”
“When I started the Kickstarter campaign” for the film, she tells me, “people just started writing me every day, with these heartbreaking stories about so-and-so in their family wouldn’t speak to them anymore, or they couldn’t talk about anything without them getting angry. It was really shocking. That’s when I realized what a phenomenon it was.”
Senko explains how her suspicions about what was happening to her father over the years, thanks to Rush, Fox, the endless forwarded emails containing long-disproven conspiracies about the Clintons, Obama and the so-called “liberal media” constituted actual brainwashing, as described by a number of experts in the film.
We discuss not only the long rise of what Hillary Clinton accurately described, in 1998, as the “vast Rightwing conspiracy” machine, but Democrats’ own culpability in the scheme, and how it has all culminated in the ascendancy of someone like Donald Trump as the GOP frontrunner for President of the United States in 2016. The non-RW media, Senko notes, “keep saying people are angry because of the way the system is going. No. They’re angry because of Fox News and rightwing media — that includes emails from think tanks and so forth — [which] have told them lies.”
Without giving away the ending to her film, I’ll just note that it is both encouraging and underscores that, just perhaps, there is a way out of the ugly, angry mess that so many families — not to mention the country itself — now find themselves in after decades of being repeatedly battered by the Republicans’ well-crafted political lie machine.
And speaking of encouraging news, we finish up today with a bit of exactly that on St. Patrick’s Day, underscoring that, yes, progressive change may take a long time (a very long time, in this case), but it eventually comes and the struggle is always worth it…
Smiling Bill Clinton deregulated rules of ownership across the entire communications industry (for his pals at the golf course) and stabbed the American people in the back, knowingly and fatally….brainwashed people are essentially murdered for all intents and purposes, they’re nonfunctional in a rational world, their wiring’s been pulled, they’re NOT who they were, any more ever again….they are lost, and sadly we have them EVERYWHERE in all of our lives….god damn the corporate Clintons, god damn the corporate Democrats, god damn the corporate Republicans, god damn the corporate media and GOD DAMN America’s robber barons for their long calculated assault on the American public for their own financial and political subjugation….ALL of those aforenamed motherfuckers have pretended for DECADES to be adversaries, “fighting” for causes and constituents….blow me….just blow me….then why are they ALL at the country club together after hours, drinking and laughing together like old chums???….oh i dunno, maybe becuz they are???….in a Punch & Judy show choreographed hoax?…
Want to have some fun?….try a little trick of mine….whenever Hillary, or Hannity, or Obama, or O’Reilly, or Rahm or Reince or Debbie or Donald are moving their lips, kill the fucking sound and imagine ANY ONE of them interchangeably saying, “I realllllly don’t give two shits what you think I’m saying, just show me the money”….works like a charm, every time!….no more consternation and heartache getting all personally invested in a mercilessly rigged game being played at all of our interminable expense….zombie America indeed…
BTW, try that mental trick of mine with Bernie Sanders….it doesn’t work, now does it??….sorta explains why so many of us love the man and his campaign so much….it’s because he’s a genuine human being, speaking truth to power, and NONE of us have witnessed this before in the national spotlight EVER NEVER EVER!….if brainwashing is the internalization of insidious lies, then Bernie is the antidote, the Externalization of Honesty with we the people….
GO !!!
BERNIE !!!!!
GO !!!!!!!!!!!!…..and bless you
Liberal intolerance–reality without the clever and noble-sounding euphemisms–rears its head when balanced truth starts to gain ground. Liberals start calling Republicans “Hitler,” and various other verbal atrocities. And liberals claim to deplore hate language. The far left is tolerant of everybody…except people to their right: most people. In church we call that “hypocrisy.”
….i rest my case, your honor…
…I rest my case, your honor nailed it. Fox and the right wing media has become a cult and it has even taken over the churches. Yes, I have friends and family that have been brainwashed to the point it like talking to a brick wall as nothing will sink in. Point out a video of someone saying something and they come back saying it is someone speaking using their face. Even though it was all over different stations. Greed and Power at whatever it takes.
Brainwashing is tragically easy to recognize….when human dialogue reverts to instantly misdirected anger, hostility, defensiveness and trenchancy, something’s wrong….the steam gauge goes red in the human head from all the pulled wires and corrupted circuitry, making an actual or coherent response impossible….the messenger is always mistaken for the message, and all frame of normal reference is missing….
I really want to see this Jen Senko film, as deeply disturbing as i’m certain it will be to watch….in the meantime, here’s the trailer >>>
https://youtu.be/MYP1OBZfFK0
The general opinion of civil rights and criminal defense attorneys that I know is that Garland is more right-wing than Scalia on individual civil rights issues vs. the government. Scalia’s “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution resulted in some decisions that actually strengthened the bill of rights and due process protections, while Garland’s history involved taking the government’s position on such issues. Garland seems to be a poor compromise choice by Obama. Bernie has already said he would ask Obama to withdraw Garland’s nomination if Bernie wins the election.
I got a sunburn yesterday, after four and half hours at the Bernie Sanders rally here in Utah. But I couldn’t be happier!
All of the media outlets are in sync: there were around 14,000 people there. In fact, Sanders was so impressed, he’s coming back on Monday!
If you don’t believe me, look here!
That’s strange, haven’t they heard that Hillary’s already President?….it’s on ALL the news!….i guess Bernie is saying to us, “If you can’t join ’em, BEAT ‘EM!!”…
Ok then, let’s roll!!!