Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
How-To Guide: Hoodwinking Voters, Part One - The Disinformation Age
This pre-2008 election article reposted by permission of Razer Raygun, Razed By Wolves
"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates...because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter.
It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions.
The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public." ~~October 2, 1988, LWV trustees statement, issued by unanimous vote.
The Disinformation Age - Part I
By Carlton Meyer
Sep/12/2008
A common computer adage is “garbage-in, garbage-out”; i.e. putting bad data in a computer produces bad information. This same rule applies to humans. It doesn’t matter if people are educated, intelligent, and logical. They will make bad choices if fed bad information. This happens frequently in American elections because voters are misled by a continual flow of disinformation. Ask any American which country provides the world’s best health care. Very few can provide an informed guess, yet most will exclaim that the United States has the best health care system. This is far from the truth, yet years of corporate advertising, corporate sponsored news programs, and speeches from corporate sponsored politicians have spread this disinformation. Even educated elderly people will parrot the line that socialized medicine doesn’t work, although they eagerly use the government’s Medicare program.
A frequent example occurs when seemingly intelligent Americans state that the media is "left-wing," as though CBS and CNN are run by hippies living in a flophouse.
The American media is owned and controlled by billionaires, who have many other corporate interests. They have little concern for working Americans. This should be obvious, yet these billionaires hire television and radio commentators to complain the media is "left-wing." It is in their interest to keep viewers ignorant and distracted by threats, like terrorists and liberals. American writer H. L. Mencken recognized this decades ago when he wrote: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."[1]
This problem worsened as the American news media no longer attempts to report facts that disturb viewers in order to boost their ratings. Fox News leads the way by hiring young models to deliver happy news or titillating stories about missing children. Walter Cronkite often notes that there are no anchormen anymore, just news readers.
Those attractive faces on television do not write or even edit news stories like he did. They read teleprompter news written by people who are part of network entertainment divisions.
News is designed to entertain Americans, not to inform them...
In Full @ WarandPeace.Ru (Was: Sanders Research, dead link)
Saturday, November 13, 2010
"They're Just Bastards" - A Tribute To Edward Abbey
”Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.” -Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness 198>
An interview with author and unwilling activist Edward Abbey [Wikipedia]
Phoenix Arizona PBS 1982, on 'progress', politics, the environment, and more.
[This presentation is 23:34 minutes. Pop Out Player?]
Download this video from Indymedia (Windows R-click, AVI, 46.2Mb)
Sources: Interview Part 1, Part 2, Tom Russell
A man named "Edward Abbey" came walkin' up to me
He pulled his 'Seagull' from his mouth said I smell lawyers here
The politician running dogs they crawled away in fear
Yippie doo rahy doo
Yippie doo rahy day
I wish Edward Abbey was walking 'round today
For the more 'Pacific'... Wendell Berry In Defense Of Edward Abbey
Documentary - Edward Abbey: A Voice In The Wilderness
Be like Ed
(Description... Personally uploaded to Archive.org. Download, un-zip, click on the file "inttxt.html")
"We aren't trying to overthrow EVERYTHING... ...but certain specific things.Business POLITICS Poverty, and Oppression." ~~Herbert Marcuse
Friday, March 26, 2010
Health Care "Reform" - The Democrats Lower The Bar... About Two Inches From The Ground
[OK, so 16 million more Americans may receive MediCare. That's all well-and-good for those millions of 'Baby Boomers' retiring, or soon to retire (like myself). But that's insignificant compared to the number of people in the US who will still go without any health insurance, no less any preventative health services. // Razer]
Stan Goff, Feral Scholar. Short, Sweet... Punchy Summation.
Pig in a poke. The original word was poche, French for ‘pocket.’ Or bag. The old trick was to sell someone a suckling pig, which was wriggling inside a sack. When the buyer gets home and unties the sack to inspect the family holiday supper, voila!, it’s a stray cat. Gotcha!
Obama’s health care bill is a pig in a poke.
The expansion of Medicare to 16 million people is, on balance, a good thing… for now, and smart politics. That’s a lot of votes. Couple of other sops.
But overall, this is the pig in the poke. We can spice that cat up someway…
This bill legally compels people to purchase insurance. From private insurance companies. I hope this proves to be unenforceable. This is theft.
No caps on premiums.
No standardization of benefits.
No restrictions on benefit denials by insurance companies.
Taxing of health benefits.
Obama’s rejection of his pro-choice constituency with his executive order.
The list is very long, and the way it’s now set up, the states will be engaged by a race to the bottom, officiated by Big Insurance.
Bad news all round, but hey, the Dems lowered the bar until they could make the specious claim that they changed history. The leap over this bar was about two inches off the ground.
War and theft.
Vote.
Nothing changes that isn’t changed within arms reach.
Those people don’t care about you. They care about their positions and power, and they’ll eat shovels full of shit to keep their positions and power. That’s their secret. [Source]
Monday, February 1, 2010
The ABCs of Anarchy: A great way for kids to learn the non-corrupted meaning of the word Anarchism
.H/t: Roxanne Amico, Spiritmorph Studio
A is for Anarchy, B is for Black Bloc, C is for Critical Mass, D is for...
Labels:
Anarchism,
Anarchy,
Children,
Disinformation,
Education,
Myth Busting,
Political Education,
Politics,
Propaganda
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Visitors To Auntie Imperial's News & Blog Review
Thanks For Stopping By
Posts
Auntie Imperial Says:
