I've seen this accusation on both the Left and Right of the political spectrum: some person, usually famous, will state a Political Opinion, and I will see a common reaction on the various online boards I look at , "well, So-and-So is obviously being paid by [insert name of Terrible Nefarious Political Enemy]!"

Well, no, probably not. Most people are perfectly willing to have incredibly stupid opinions without being paid. I say stupid random crap all the time, Q.E.D.,and have never gotten a dime from any political party, foreign government, or special interest group.

Conspiracies are a whole lot harder to start, control, and hide than one might think from what is shown in popular culture. I think that probably most of the "obviously paid stooges for XXX" are just idiots with no sense of reality rather than part of some carefully planned conspiracy. Which might just be the sadder situation.

That's all, just wanted to get that one off my chest.

And yet sometimes you see something so utterly retarded that it seems some conspiracy-monger must have planted it just to get evidence for their ridiculous BS.

The Foreign Ministry are incompetent dicks.

So you think O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, and Beck spout their BS for free? Cause... i'm sorry but you're wrong. They get paid obscene amounts of money to say the crap they say.
Forbes Magazine reported Bill O'Reilly as the 76th on a list of highest paid celebrities back in 2005, and this is just the first hit off of the first name in my google search.

As far as that goes though, even if they are getting paid to spout their stupid, it doesn't equate out to a conspiracy against the American public.

Of course, i also happen to disagree with your idea regarding conspiracies. Partly because you're usage of the term 'conspiracy' is somewhat loose and undefined, but also because your assuming a conspiracy has to be large and complex involving direct control over many individual's who are aware, and thus complacent, in the conspiracy.

Using Occam's Razor, a person (or a group with an individual identity) doesn't need to be aware that they're participating in a conspiracy to actually be doing so, nor does a conspiracy need direct control of all participants to accomplish it's goal(s).

Backing up to plipsig's post:


Bill O'Reilly would most likely continue to have his opinions even if he wasn't on TV spouting them. If his spouted position was changing as a result of the payments he was receiving, then it might count as a conspiracy. Most pundits maintain a large amount of control over the things they say on their own programs though. So, your reference to Forbes doesn't really show anything outside of the fact that people like O'Reilly's opinions and are willing to pay large amounts to hear him say them. If the reference had shown that he had received some large amount of payment from XXX on XXX and his opinion had changed from XXX on XXX to XXX on XXX, then it might apply.

Remember, if you're going to pay people to say something on your behalf, it's always smartest and cheapest to hire someone who already believes it. They're less likely to split off from your side if someone makes them a better job offer, less likely to say something embarrassing in public, and less likely to have a sudden attack of "My God, this is complete nonsense!"

So "Bob gets paid to shill for the Blahists" and "Bob believes in Blah" are not mutually exclusive.

I choose Forbes specifically because all I wanted to show was that O'Reilly was well paid.



I hinted at this, though didn't specifically mention it. Fox pays people who hold certain opinions to come on their network, and spout their propaganda. The opinion may come first, but after that comes the entrenchment. they're continued livelyhood depends on pushing a view point they themselves may not hold to be true. The individual Pundit may control the content of their show, but the network controls the individual content of the network. All this really accomplishes is establishing a process whereby plausible deniability can come into effect.

"Fox isn't pushing a extreme Conservative Republican agenda. The individual pundits control their own content. We just.... let them broadcast their opinions and give them millions of dollars to do so...."

The clause "until they disagree with our position" doesn't needed to be added because it's implied.

Glenn Beck is, I think, an example of what Fox does. He used to be on CNN (Headline News, actually, but same thing), and he was conservative, but reasonable. Then something changed - perhaps negotiations with Fox started? - and his show got more and more shrill, his reasonable conservative stances morphing into the more extreme stuff he is now famous for. Eventually, CNN canned him, the same day it was announced he was moving to Fox.

I don't think there's coincidence here. Fox offered him more money, he turned his commentary to be more to their tastes.

Money isn't the only contributing factor here. You also have the enormous factor of ratings. So, you have a set of opinions and a network not only agrees to pay you millions of dollars to espouse it, but you have ratings telling you that hordes of people like what you're saying? An interesting side effect of everyone agreeing with you is that it tends to reinforce the belief that you're right. So, if you're O'Reilly, you're happy with what you're doing, your employer is happy with what you're doing and your audience is happy with what you're doing. That's not exactly a conspiratorial position. That's a pretty good job.

I wouldn't put it past Fox to use that to its advantage but its hardly unusual to gather people that believe the same thing to accomplish a goal. Just about every non-profit organization (and most successful organizations) in history are built on the principle.

I'd like to make a distinction between a person of a particular political bent who finds that their opinion can be profitable, and someone who is hired to pretend to hold a particular position for vast amounts of filthy lucre.

Since the tone of the board seems to be a bit leaning to the Left...do you think that certain outspoken actors and singers are actually being controlled by Secretly Communist Hollywood Moguls [yeah I hear that one all the time, *sigh*, "no really, it's in their contract, they gotta say that..."] to speak out for progressive causes? Or do you think they are speaking sincerely, from their hearts? [whether you agree with them or not].

Do you think Halliburton/the Bush Family/NSA could pay off someone like Susan Sarandon or Sean Penn to say "oh well, that Dick Cheney, he's just a good ole boy having some fun, let's give him a pass on everything."? I imagine they'd spit in anyone's face who made that offer.

Not necessarily. It could be the other way around -- possible scenario: he first seemed reasonable when he was on CNN, because that's as much as far as he could push it. The longer he was there, the more he felt he could get away with. Maybe he thought he could turn the whole place more conservative, who knows, these guys have unbelievable egos. He probably went to Fox in a huff rather than them coming to him. They figured his tantrums would bring in better ratings and his stuff got more extreme because they let him get more extreme. If you can stand to listen to this guy for more than five minutes [you're doing better than me] you can tell he actually believes this stuff. I don't think even Bogart was that good of an actor.

Honestly, I think that Hollywood figures who "get politics" (much in the manner that a new Evangelical got religion) are idiots who want to improve the world but don't have the right life-experience to realize that genuinely improving the world involves less dreaming, less faith, less fun and more hard thinking, hard work, and hard choices. To quote one of the wisest living men:



There's a damn large difference between a liberal and an idiot, but Hollywood and hippies love striving to bridge that gap!

Tangently, Within the context of network television:

Money ≈ ratings

That said...
I don't think the problem with Fox News becomes aparent until you start looking at their shotty ethics. They frequently publish complete fabrications as fact (note: i'm not talking about the Fox Network pundits here). There's a pretty obvious line between making stories up and being selective about what you cover, and Fox News make's stuff up. At least the Daily Show openly admits that it's full of made up news, as opposed to trying to pass their stuff off as actual fact.



True, but it should be noted, Fox isn't a non-profit organization. They're a news network that's found that they can make an obscene amount of money serving as the propaganda machine for the conservative republicans. They protect their profits by refusing to report news that contradicts the conservative republican position, which ensures their audience's continued viewership.

I will say this one, solitary thing in defense of Fox.
Unethical behaviour doesn't qualify as a conspiracy for me, because, to me, a conspiracy implies intent to committ a criminal act. being Unethical isn't specifically illegal.



no. i think "secret communist hollywood moguls" are organizing events where progressive leaning actors are invited and encouraged to publicly share their opinions. the only money that really changes hands is the catering service.
You don't need direct control of someone to have them serve your political agenda.

Haliburton/Bush/NSA do not need to pay any famous person off to say "oh well, that Dick Cheney, he's just a good ole boy having some fun, let's give him a pass on everything." because there's some crazy person willing to do it for free. Their money's better spent putting it into making sure "Random person X" is simply loud enough to over power anyone saying otherwise.

Yes, but was that because he doesn't believe what he's saying now or because he thinks "at last, I can be free to say what I like saying?"

I certainly don't believe Glenn Beck when he speaks. His rhetoric is too unreal, his emotion too melodramatic, and his record too inconstant to convince me he is speaking what he truly believes.

On CNN, the man was consistent. He'd say some stupid things, but he was pretty consistent in what stupid he said. Now, he says whatever is most outrageous, and often contradicts himself, unprompted, on his own show, within five minutes.

I'm sorry, I don't believe the man is "finally able to say what he truly believes." True beliefs are less scatter-shot.

I don't really watch Glenn Beck much, if ever. So, I decided to wander around the internet a bit and see if I could find someplace on the internet where I could view his program. I haven't found one yet (if anyone knows one, please post it). Granted, I didn't see much more of him but this bit seemed appropriate:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-a ... -operation

The term 'opportunistic sensationalist' comes to mind. Although, that doesn't necessarily mean that he isn't buying into his own story. Just that he doesn't necessarily remember what he own story is after a better one comes along.