What is disturbing about our addiction to broadcast entertainment in this context is that many Americans think it is real. Robert Tilton made millions in the 1980s selling tickets to see God. The political apocalyptists on Fox News sell fear and paranoia.

The rhetorical lynching of President Obama taking place in the popular media today is perpetuated by what has been called the “bandwagon effect,” a well-documented phenomenon in behavioral psychology. In essence, it means that “people do and believe things merely because many other people do and believe the same things.”

In other words, people are much like sheep. That is why the result of the bandwagon effect is often called the “herd instinct.” The greed of the herd is behind our stock market bubbles. The fear of the herd is behind the crash.

As any good shepherd will tell you, compelling the herd to move in unison requires only the introduction of a stimulus, say fear, along the margins of the flock. The flight instinct takes over at that point, and the herder can just sit back on his horse and watch.

In the political arena, when the herd instinct reaches critical mass, elections can be won. That is why the best shepherds – political pundits on popular TV shows — are worth so much to those who live and die by elections. In today’s political climate it is the Republican National Committee who is in that position. (Bill O’Reilly is probably the best shepherd they have in the pasture. I’m surprised he doesn’t wear cowboy boots.)

Last month an RNC PowerPoint presentation was found in a hotel room in Boca Grande, Florida, where a group of party leaders had gathered to discuss fundraising strategies. The 72-page document, which was intended to be used to entice donors to open their wallets, contained cartoons depicting the President, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as the Joker, Cruella de Ville, and Scooby-doo, respectively. The presentation encouraged fundraisers within the party to play on the negative feelings among right-leaning Americans toward the Obama administration and their fear of Socialism to raise money.

Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the opposing team, the Democratic National Committee, responded this way: “If you had any doubt, any doubt whatsoever, that the Republican Party has been taken over by the fear-mongering lunatic fringe, those doubts were erased today.” He added, “Republicans across the country have cheered on crowds where these very images appeared.”

Criticism of public figures through political cartoons is an honored tradition in free society, so I don’t begrudge the RNC for that. What I am concerned about is not that the RNC has been taken over by “the fear-mongering lunatic fringe,” but that the results of the next election might be determined by a stampede of spooked sheep.

The RNC’s job is to raise money to win elections. Whatever they have to do to achieve their goals within the law is fine by me. Bill O’Reilly’s job is to attract viewers to his network by exercising his right to free speech. At that, he is a master. Your job, as a voter in the American electoral system, is to help decide who gets to sit around the government table and make decisions for the rest of us. You are not doing your job if you let others take that away from you.

Don’t be a sheep.

Criticism ranged from astonishment that I am not a Christian to fears that I might be a Buddhist (and the guy who said it is not from China).  One person, knowing that I had written an article critical of Fox News, proclaimed that I was wrong before reading what I had to say.

Yes, religion and politics are touchy subjects.  Especially religion. But the point I’d like to clarify with everyone, at least for those readers who have not already deleted my URL from their computer, is that my article wasn’t about religion.  It was about politics.

My message was that Brit Hume’s sermon did not do Fox any favors.  The network already has the attention of the religious right.  Hume’s moralizing only confirms to them that Fox is the “right” vehicle for their collective message.  The Republican Party already has the votes of the evangelical bloc locked in.  It’s the votes of those on the fence that are in jeopardy here.  And it’s the votes on the fence that will decide the next election.  My criticism of Brit Hume is that he is hurting his network and his political party (one would assume he is a Republican) by lending credence to the view of many that Fox, ostensibly a news organization, is “unequally yoked together” – to borrow a phrase from St. Paul – with a religious lobby.

This kind of marriage scares Americans who, liberals and conservatives alike, feel that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is an important piece of legislation.  This is the part of the Bill of Rights that says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

There is nothing inherently wrong with religious proselytizing.  As I said before, Brit Hume is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing as an evangelical Christian.  He is witnessing for Christ.  My point was that he could have picked a more appropriate venue for sharing his beliefs with the American public.  Until his retirement in 2008 he had been the trusted news anchor of the Fox network.  A person very close to me who happens to be a die-hard Fox fanatic said after viewing the video clip of Hume’s statements that she “didn’t know he was like that.  I always thought he was fair and balanced.”

The power and influence of Fox News is formidable.  Their winning formula of bombastic entertainment and caustic political commentary has Americans transfixed and in a lynching mood.  There is a fear among the level-headed that some modern-day Savonarola will ride that wave of rhetoric all the way to the White House.

Girolamo Savonarola

Speaking of paranoia, I would now like to address those of you who are concerned about my soul.

I am not a Buddhist. Brit Hume’s statements were directed towards Buddhists.  That is why Buddhism became a topic in my post.  I am not a practicing member of any organized religion, because I believe that one’s relationship with God (The Universe, All That Is, Mother Nature) is a profoundly personal, subjective process.  If I had to pick a religious institution to participate in – which I have no intention of doing — it would probably be a local congregation of the Baha’i Faith, since I am very intrigued by most of the founding tenets of their doctrine, or “platform,” to use a political analogy.  The Baha’i Faith’s website lists the following as their core beliefs.

All humanity is one family.

All prejudice – racial, religious, national, or economic – is destructive and must be overcome.

We must investigate truth for ourselves, without preconceptions.

Science and religion are in harmony.

Our economic problems are linked to spiritual problems.

The family and its unity are very important.

There is one God.

All major religions come from God.

World peace is the crying need of our time.

Am I proselytizing? I don’t know.  I’m not a member of the Baha’i church nor am I certain that I agree with all of their professed beliefs, but I am in agreement with most of them. I will say that I am not actively trying to recruit people for this organization nor am I fishing for souls to do my part in protecting them from Hellfire.  I am simply offering information that I find intriguing to the handful of readers who stumble upon my website.  What you do with the information is a personal matter.

You may argue that I am proselytizing because I have chosen to highlight on my blog the beliefs of the Baha’i over the beliefs of another religion, say Islam.  Well, give me time.  All great thoughts will have their moment in the sun on my blog, as long as the American Taliban are not allowed to infiltrate the FCC and make blogging a target of religious censorship.

I don’t knock Brit Hume for being a Christian.  I respect his beliefs as much as the next man’s beliefs.  As an evangelical Christian he is using his chosen pulpit to serve God in the best way he knows how.  He truly BELIEVES that Jesus is the only way to Heaven.  He truly BELIEVES that Tiger Woods will sail through this crisis much easier if he would only repent and ask his (Brit Hume’s) savior for forgiveness.

The problem is not that Hume decided to express his heartfelt convictions in the hopes that he might help a fellow human being along on the road to redemption.  The problem is that he did it on Fox.

Fox News has been the highest rated cable news network in the United States for a number of years.  Last month (January 2010) it was the highest rated basic cable channel in primetime.  Also last month a leading polling firm reported that Fox News was the country’s most trusted news network, with 49% of respondents saying they trust Fox News. For those of us who strive for thoughtful, open-minded governance, believe that smart people should run the country, and who value cultural diversity and freedom of religion, these statistics are frightening.

Late last year Fox News was accused by White House communications director Anita Dunn of being “either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”  It is no secret that Fox has, at the very least, a conservative “slant” in its reporting coverage. And recent opinion polling seems to indicate that it is slanted more to the right than its competitors, MSNBC for example, are slanted to the left.  An October 2009 Pew Research poll revealed Fox News to be the most ideological network in America.

If these things are true, Fox News will play a huge role in upcoming Congressional elections and in the next race for the presidency.  With so many Americans depending on the network as their only source of information about the world around them, the brain washing delivered each day by conservative pundits on such programs as The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck will have a profound impact on the balance of power in Washington.

This, of course, does not make liberals happy. In fact, it scares the Hell out of them.  The thought of self-righteous, fundamentalist , militant oligarchs (think of a Dick Cheney – Pat Robertson ticket) deciding our fate is enough to turn a moderate liberal into a socialist, and a centrist republican into a voting democrat.

The majority of those who have not yet been blinded by the glare of Fox’s headlights can still see the truck coming.  Not everyone is willing to follow the other lemmings over the cliff.  The voters who are going to decide the next election are the fiscal conservatives like me who are willing to concede a little tax here and a little privacy there in order to prevent a slide toward theocracy or fascism (now picture Dick Cheney wearing a monocle).  It will be decided by people who do not know which candidate they will be voting for until they have actually seen the debates.

I have a feeling those who refuse to watch anything but Fox News already know who they are voting for.  They don’t know the candidate’s name yet, but that’s not important.  They’ll listen to Fox about the time the election comes around.  Then they’ll know.  And ain’t nobody gonna change their mind.  “Now get off my property!”

A great deal of attention has been paid to Tiger Woods’s lack of expression and insincere body language during the delivery of his recent public apology for infidelity. I admit I don’t know anything about body language cues beyond what I picked up tonight from Wikipedia, but take a look at the expressions and body language of the panelists in the Fox News Sunday clip above.  Run it back and forth in slow motion and observe.  At the beginning of the video, Chris Wallace and the others seem to be in a jovial, bantering mood.  By the end of Brit Hume’s short sermon their attention has been averted (disbelief), their fingers are locked together (contemplation), and there is stony silence (I’ll go out on a limb and say this indicates speechlessness).

Not only did Hume scare away a few thousand potential Republican votes with his proselytizing lecture, he managed to greatly insult Buddhists everywhere.  As a Buddhist, Tiger is not seeking forgiveness and redemption from a supernatural being, but from his fans, his sponsors, and his wife. Buddhists rely on attention to their own actions and compassion for the feelings of others to keep them from getting in trouble. The Dalai Lama himself, in the United States this week to meet with the President, summed it up this way when asked about Tiger’s indiscretions: “Whether you call it Buddhism or another religion, self-discipline, that’s important.  Self-discipline with awareness of consequences.”

Tiger Woods doesn’t need to pray for forgiveness because Tiger Woods is not a Christian, he’s a Buddhist. His path to redemption is not the same as Brit Hume’s.

I’ll give the last word to Karen Maezen Miller, a Zen Buddhist priest who has a simple, unpretentious website from which she expounds in a simple, unpretentious manner.  This is what she had to say about Woods and Hume.

Both of them are equally eligible for redemption. Atonement starts with apology: the simple act of seeking forgiveness for the harm caused by one’s own selfish ignorance. Atonement is central to all great religions and all religions are great. They teach us to transcend the false supremacy of one’s own ego. No matter what faith we profess to have, our own persistent self-righteousness gives us the occasion to atone many, many times a day. Forgiveness, in a sense, is easy. I would imagine, though, that the next step in Buddhism would be equally difficult for either of them: to forget oneself.

… It’s clear that Woods doesn’t practice the selfless compassion that is at the heart of Buddhism. It’s equally clear that Hume doesn’t practice the selfless compassion that is at the heart of Christianity. Sadly, I call the situation fair and balanced.