The hot bed, the breeding ground, the launch pad for the contemporary right-wing sedition movement has always been Rupert Murdoch’s publishing empire and specifically Fox News. It fabricates, promulgates, enrages and reenforces perpetually the full catalogue of American right-wing disinformation.

The key, the Jedi mind trick is that Fox News functions like a cult. You are not true believer, a true American patriot if you question what you see and hear on their broadcasts. The magic is accepting the rules of the theater, no matter what. The magic happens in the mind of the follower. It is the follower that validates what the org provides and more importantly, rejects those voices that question that which must be believed.

What does a true believer think and act like? Recently I responded to a post on X (formerly Twitter) about government security restrictions imposed on the Iranian national fútbol team here in the U.S. to play the World Cup tournament. Those restrictions were, in my view politically motivated and unfair. In that spirit I replied, “We're sorry for our stupid president world. We'll try to make it up to you soon.” What transpired was a mini avalanche of right-wing troll posts in what felt like a loosely coordinated bashing effort. Included in those uniformly acerbic posts was the one below, a perfect embodiment of the effects of living behind the Fox News curtain:

The way the iron curtain of information worked in the old Soviet empire was by blocking external or contradictory information. That was quite a bit easier in the pre-electronic media days. Newspaper publishers, radio or television broadcasters could be pressured to cooperate and the few intrepid truth-tellers who persisted could be marginalized or dealt with through other, often less pleasant means. The end result was an entire civilization with a worldview shaped by their rulers.

To this day despotic regimes like Putinist Russia, the People’s Republic of China, Islamic Republic of Iran and a number of other repressive governments when confronted by social unrest seek to control media access and particularly internet access as quickly as possible. It is also the reason Trump and his enablers have so aggressively targeted U.S. media organizations and critics. Despotism requires information control.

For a meaningful resurgence of democracy to occur in the United States The Murdoch empire and Fox News must be confronted. This is a difficult thing in a country where the first amendment is viewed as a national treasure. By what means do you confront the lies of a broadcaster, exactly? The Achilles heel of the Republicans is their reliance on simple solutions. Bombing the problem very often doesn’t fix the problem or make it go away.

Looking for a quick fix to the Fox News problem is probably wishful thinking. The solution lies in the will of American democracy advocates and our elected leaders. Moral confrontation is not a plug and play solution. It requires patience, determination, courage and plenty of good judgement. It begins by saying in simple blunt terms, J’Accuse…!

The lies, manipulations, disinformation and gas lighting must never be tolerated. At every turn they must face public denunciation, scorn and energetic opposition. This is a parasitic organization that cares nothing about the greater public good and acts in its own self interest with no regard for the harm it causes. To simply accept what Fox broadcasting offers because it appears on television is to accept the sedition and social brutality it promulgates.

Fox News postures itself as the advocate for traditional white American values. But of course this too is a pernicious lie. The very people most devoted to the ideologies espoused by Fox are in fact the ones most harmed by the so called policies it promotes. White, low income, under educated rural Americans are the the ones most directly harmed the policies and leaders Fox News hypes. The first off the cliff and the first to strike the rocks bellow.

J’Accuse...! you Fox News, your directors, your public speakers and your enablers of intentional public deceit, predatory conduct and sedition. All for the purpose of self-enrichment and empire. Let you be confronted at every turn until your despicable enterprise is no more.