CNN FOUNDER COMPARES
FOX NEWS and CURRENT ELECTED
LEADERS to HITLER and NAZI GERMANY
"Hitler got the most votes" before World War II
- Ted Turner
MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 25 January: Gee...it was just over the weekend that MER once again reminded how in conversation and whispers, even in Washington these days, one can hear references to "fascism" and "police-state" realities from American intellectuals.
Here's what we said a few days ago in fact: "Rarely making it even mildly onto important TV programs or the pages of the U.S. corporate media, many in the American intellectual class privately now talk among themselves (or it is whisper) that their country now borders on being a neo-fascist crusading police-state. The terminology used privately even in Washington circles is now far more harsh and bold than anything in memory, and the situation itself far more flag-waving and ultra-nationalist than even during the early McCarthy Days of the Cold War when the technological capabilities of the State for repression and deception were far more limited than they are today. President Bush was as usual early to bed even on Inauguration Day as the bands played on at Balls throughout the city. But the next morning he began his second term with a Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral at which no less than Billy Graham proclaimed him Chosen by God and symbolically launched the next phase in the new American crusade to remake the world in it's own Christian-Judeo image. Oh yes...the Muslim clergyman who was suppose to attend and speak at the prayer service was not able to make it due to 'illness'."
Could it be that non other than Ted Turner, Founder of Cable News Network, Board Member of TIME Warner, and former husband to Jane Fonda, reads MER? Whatever, today Turner raised these issues in public in his own crafty way:
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TED TURNER COMPARES FOXNEWS TO HITLER
Tue Jan 25 2005 - Ted Turner called FOX an arm of the Bush administration and compared FOXNEWS's popularity to Hitler's popular election to run Germany before WWII.
Turner made the controversial comments before a standing-room-only crowd at the National Association for Television Programming Executives's opening session Tuesday.
His no-nonsense, humorous approach during the one-hour Q&A generated frequent loud applause and laughter, BROADCASTING & CABLE reports.
While FOX may be the largest news network [and has overtaken Turner's CNN in the ratings], it's not the best, Turner said.
He followed up by pointing out that Adolph Hitler got the most votes when he was elected to run Germany prior to WWII. He said the network is the propaganda tool for the Bush Administration.
"There's nothing wrong with that. It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy. Particularly when the news is dumbed down," leaving voters without critical information on politics and world events and overloaded with fluff," he said.
A FOXNEWS spokesperson responded: "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind -- we wish him well." |
