It's worse than I thought

...And oh so putrid.

I have long known that Fox News was a conservative pipeline with a Machiavellian drive to spread right-wing dogma and garner support for its Grand Ole' Party by offering oft-quoted soundbites and manipulative rhetoric and by building elaborate thought-structures of ostensibly explanatory purpose, yet which are in fact shoddily constructed, extensively self-referencing, often built on cornerstones of falsehood, much of which is provable as such (though such honesty would be inconsistent with network objectives, and therefore appears nowhere and at no-time on the network); that with charismatic, persuasive, bold and recognizable public personalities forcefully and self-assuredly asserting these soundbites, talking points, and referencing and updating the fear and manipulation-bent structure/ideology/dogmatic construction/web of lies/machine, the network systematically and methodically chugs away toward its apparent goal of chipping away at the credibility of the current administration.

Incidentally, I have worked before with people who had their radios on constantly, tuned into Rush and Hannity and their ilk, a fact I mention only to lend at least some measure of credibility my analysis of their output. I can honestly say that it is a real challenge to me to remain objective while listening to what they say, and how they are saying it, both in terms of non-verbal communication and in terms of the terms themselves (i.e., decoding the rhetoric, shaving through endless layers of entrenched dogma, cutting through a sort of political slang in which phrases are used in such ways that imply frameworks that are in fact narrowly and faultily built, and which aught to be deconstructed and contextualized before any serious discussion can take place), the product of which is an urgent-sounding pounding on the listener's brain; these voices demand to be heard, and address their material with the relentless cunning and speed of, well, the best professionals in their field, propagandist loudspeakers, and to me, it seems, to be able to survive without being reactionarily reoriented in some way, one must have either strong and resilient beliefs that survive any harangue (not my cup of tea, generally speaking), or be extremely swift, deft, and sharp, able to engage in all manner of mental gymnastics and martial arts, capable of addressing each spin, twist, attack and maneuver without losing focus, calm, or bearing. It seems to me that this would require intense training for some time, and, had I these skills to the degree I think it would require to engage at this level, I might feel obligated to do so, though I would likely not be given much room to speak, at least on their airwaves. As it is, I'm afraid I have a terribly weak stomach for all this, and must leave such matters to others, as diverse as Noam Chomsky, John Stewart, and now Anita Dunn and her crew, to whom I wish clarity, honesty, and candor, along with ample doses of the patience and discipline it is going to take to sort through all of that fetid and noxious excrement.

This will obviously not meet the needs of the assignment, but was a prerequisite.