Bill Moyers: "Facts Still Matter ...Fight the lies and misinformation; support truth!"

[kpete]

Bill Moyers: "Facts Still Matter ..."

Monday 14 February 2011

by: Bill Moyers, t r u t h o u t | Speech

.......................

I won't spoil it for you by a lengthy summary here. Suffice it to say that, while "most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence," the research found that actually "we often base our opinions on our beliefs ... and rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions."

These studies help to explain why America seems more and more unable to deal with reality. So many people inhabit a closed belief system on whose door they have hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign, that they pick and choose only those facts that will serve as building blocks for walling them off from uncomfortable truths. Any journalist whose reporting threatens that belief system gets sliced and diced by its apologists and polemicists (say, the fabulists at Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the yahoos of talk radio.) Remember when Limbaugh, for one, took journalists on for their reporting about torture at Abu Ghraib? He attempted to dismiss the cruelty inflicted on their captives by American soldiers as a little necessary "sport" for soldiers under stress, saying on air: "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation ... you (ever) heard of need to blow some steam off?" As so often happens, the Limbaugh line became a drumbeat in the nether reaches of the right-wing echo chamber. So, it was not surprising that in a nationwide survey conducted by The Chicago Tribune on First Amendment issues, half of the respondents said there should be some kind of press restraint on reporting about the prison abuse. According to Charles Madigan, the editor of the Tribune's Perspective section, 50 or 60 percent of the respondents said they "would embrace government controls of some kind on free speech, particularly when it has sexual content or is heard as unpatriotic."

No wonder many people still believe Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, as his birth certificate shows; or that he is a Muslim, when in fact he is a Christian; or that he is a socialist when day by day he shows an eager solicitude for corporate capitalism. Partisans in particular - and the audiences for Murdoch's Fox News and talk radio - are particularly susceptible to such scurrilous disinformation. In a Harris survey last spring, 67 percent of Republicans said Obama is a socialist; 57 percent believed him to be a Muslim; 45 percent refused to believe he was born in America; and 24 percent said he "may be the antichrist."

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But you, my colleagues, can't give up. If you do, there's no chance any public memory of everyday truths - the tangible, touchable, palpable realities so vital to democracy - will survive. We would be left to the mercy of the agitated amnesiacs who "make" their own reality, as one of them boasted at the time America invaded Iraq, in order to maintain their hold on the public mind and the levers of power. You will remember that in Orwell's novel "1984," Big Brother banishes history to the memory hole, where inconvenient facts simply disappear. Control of the present rests on obliteration of the past. The figure of O'Brien, who is the personification of Big Brother, says to the protagonist, Winston Smith: "We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves." And they do. The bureaucrats in the Ministry of Truth destroy the records of the past and publish new versions. These in turn are superseded by yet more revisions. Why? Because people without memory are at the mercy of the powers that be; there is nothing against which to measure what they are told today. History is obliterated.

Fight the lies and misinformation; support truth!

..................

The Internet fight for democracy is a public fight. Come on in!
http://www.truth-out.org/bill-moyers-facts-still-matter67571

[Solly Mack]

1. KnR

[haikugal]

3. K&R

[malaise]

2. I miss Bill Moyers every Friday night

Thanks for this - lovely Valentine's present.

Rec

[yurbud]

4. it's hard to believe he was allowed on TV.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. K&R n/t

[Demeter]

6. WHY Do People Live in a State of Denial?

Because they are protected from the consequences?

Because they have no contact with the greater outside world, but live in a sheltered enclave?

Because they have no use of their faculties: sensory or analytical?

Because they haven't the capacity to weigh two models for conformity to reality?

I have yet to see any work on this most important issue. If we don't know WHY people cannot interact appropriately with the world, how can we hope to bring them back into reality?

This is a very important question for my family, as we deal with autism on a daily basis. Trying to bring the afflicted into more effective interactions with the outside world is a daily task for us. I'm not saying that the Denialians are autistic, but they sure act like it.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Moyers always has a gentle yet firm way. This makes me think though,

When he suggests that research shows

"we often base our opinions on our beliefs ... and rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions",

could this cut both ways? Am I also twisting facts for my own beliefs? I hope not, but this gives me something to ponder.

[Junkdrawer]

8. Yet another Truther...

Doesn't he know that demanding the Truth is a contemptible activity?

[Kurovski]

10. He should just find the middle.

That's where I'd put my money. Right on something everyone can agree on.

[kentuck]

9. "Control of the present rests on obliteration of the past"

They are obliterating the truth right before our eyes.

[dotymed]

11. IF President Obama would

REINSTATE THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE, we would stand a chance against the revisionists. Since it's repeal, the courts have already decided that "NEWS" programs have no requirement to tell the TRUTH. What does that tell you?

[blackspade]

12. Love me some Bill Moyers.

[BrklynLiberal]

13. I wish I had his passion and determination. I am physically and emotionally exhausted.

[drokhole]

14. I encourage anyone to look into the concept of "reality-tunnels"...

...conceived by Timothy Leary, but really expanded on by Robert Anton Wilson - specifically Wilson's books "Prometheus Rising" and the "Cosmic Trigger Series." They're both incredible reads (Cosmic Trigger has 3 volumes), otherwise I'm sure you could find some clips of Wilson explaining it on Youtube. He explains how our "reality" is not only shaped by the culture we live in, but the language we think with (and how every bit of information we receive is funneled through that tunnel). We all operate within our own reality-tunnels, whether we realize it or not. His aim was to help us realize that, and to try to broaden our own reality-tunnels by looking at the world through other reality-tunnels. Not to say you have to agree with what some bumfuck Birther might think - just that, in their actual "reality," Barack Obama most certainly is a Kenyan Muslim Socialist. It gets much deeper than that (as does he, he's highly knowledgeable in neurology, history, and quantum physics), but I can hardly enumerate it all here. It's really a fascinating topic.

One of my favorite concepts of his was that we all have our own belief systems (which he referred to as BS). He warned - don't believe entirely in anybody else's BS, and don't believe entirely in your own BS.

That, and he realized that the letters in RONALD WILSON REAGAN permuted was INSANE ANGLO WARLORD, and GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH was HUGE BERSERK REBEL WARTHOG.

[Bozita]

15. I'd love to see Bill running for that open Senate seat from TX next year.

[pmorlan1]

16. Great thread

Another great thread I can't vote for because it's past 24 hours. Thank you for posting.