Right-wingers have adopted the outrage-machine over the last several decades, with the unceasing intention of dominating the media and influencing public opinion with a right-wing bias. The highly-funded choral and print network they have built is impressive and relentless at the same time. Almost all are petty, embellished or fabricated, but many imagined.
The really outrageous – most causing or involving death or injury — seem to be presented perfunctorily, fitted with “corporate lenses,” or consigned to more obscure treatment, even by mainstream media. Here is a small sample:
- Considered cowardly by many, George Zimmerman re-listed for auction his gun. The listing is titled “George Zimmerman’s Gun used 2/26/12.” Of course, on that day, it was used to kill unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin. His listing gave a starting bid of $100,000. The gun had been returned by the Justice Department, hopefully not for Zimmerman to reuse.
- Bitterly outrageous was the fact that the judge who presided over Zimmerman’s acquittal had, in an earlier case, sentenced Marissa Alexander to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot through the ceiling when her enraged husband threatened her. Marissa had no prior criminal record. Due to the public outcry, her twenty-year sentence was reduced, but she is still serving two years of house arrest while Zimmerman is free to threaten girl friends and keep and sell his “once-alleged-murder” gun.
- Too many Fundraiser organizations steal and cheat from the charitable funds for which they supposedly raise money. Among them is Robert Bruce who pleaded guilty to defrauding the charity he created to benefit the people of Newtown, following the massacre of children. He stole about $28,000.
- The GOP seems to have absolutely no concern for millions of Americans, in this case, almost 3 million, denied Medicaid health insurance coverage, this, in about 19 states. Now through a skirmish in court, Republicans are trying to cut off roughly $4 billion in annual “cost-sharing” subsidies for the poor, thereby gutting healthcare for legions more.
- Donald Trump has managed to hate-target a whole religion, undocumented immigrants, blacks, and those critical of him. All seem to function as scapegoats for greed and inequality brought about by the fellow rich who have bilked the people and helped tank the global economy.
- Pharma interests running rampant over patient’s needs for their own greed and profit, and we should include politicians allowing it in payment for campaign funds. For example, Martin Shkreli raised prices for Daraprim, a cancer and AIDS drug, by 5,000 percent.
- Corporations hiding money and operations overseas to avoid taxes. GE, Boeing, Verizon, Bank of America, Citigroup, Pfizer, FedEx, Honeywell, Merck, and Corning paid no taxes in at least one of the last five years. Some even got tax credits.
- Republican Governor Rick Snyder still not providing clean water, usable for any purpose, to residents of Flint, Michigan after his administration poisoned the water supply for the whole city, this to cut costs.
- Governor Paul LePage vetoed a bill that would allow pharmacists to dispense an anti-overdose drug (for those with opioid prescriptions, or not) without a prescription for drug-users or family. He said that allowing addicts to keep naloxone on hand “serves only to perpetuate the cycle of addictions.”
- There was more than one mass shooting – that left 4 or more wounded or dead – per day in the US in 2016.
- Less recently, George W. Bush’s Iraqi War wasted billions of taxpayer dollars and killed and maimed millions – military and civilians. His conduct of the war brought civil war and helped plant the seeds of ISIS.
These are just a few of the outrageous and reprehensible actions of companies, individuals and politicians over the last few years. Direct actions or inactions have led to death or injury to scores – in some cases millions — of people. In light of real tragedy, the petty outrage of Republican-supporting media like Fox News is almost ludicrous, though it is a daily occurrence. None of the real outrages, needless to say, is objectively reported, if featured at all, on Fox News.
Fox News, for example, notes every action of President Obama, straining to find reasons to proclaim outrage over every action, either framed in bias, embellished, manufactured or distorted.
Last January, when the president shed tears when relating murdered first-graders in Newtown, a prelude to an executive action on guns, Fox News hosts huffily called it fake.
Then in March, right-wing media bitterly criticized President Obama for sending Michelle Obama to Nancy Reagan’s funeral, not attending, himself. “That’s petty, petulant and low class,” Fox News McFarland said. Of course, it was not mentioned that George W. Bush declined to attend the funeral of former first lady Lady Bird Johnson in 2007.
Headlines on March 24th Fox News, “Your president dancing the tango in Argentina just days after 34 were slaughtered in Brussels terror attack … and the outrage from critics is coming very quickly.”
Right wing media is so busy pushing the war against anything progressive that real tragedy could literally slap them in the face, and either they would ignore it, repackage it or call it fake.