Look, we all know Fox News/Limbaugh/Beck/etc. are stupid and continually invent new threats for us to be scared by so we're not scared by (and doing something about) the things that actually threaten us. And why they do it is very obvious -- it's not our wealthy Wall Street owners and advertisers that caused this economic meltdown; no, it's actually the guy picking tomatoes for $3 an hour.
Over at Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi puts together a really good argument about how this simple economics game (protect your investors and scare up viewership at the same time) is only a few steps removed from the Radio Rwanda broadcasts that launched a genocide with pretty much these same tactics.
Is Fox News inciting genocide? Not at the moment, but as Taibbi points out, if you continually tell people they're "under siege" by "illegal hoards" who want to "kill all white children" and that the government "will not stop it" (all actual Fox News quotes), what kind of conclusion do you suppose heavily armed people might come to about what they have to do to protect themselves? Hint: it might involve not being nice to people...
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