Diatribe Media » propaganda

99 or 53, We’re Still All The Same

Aaron — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:53:06 +0000

: Source: We Are The 99 Percent

Ever since the Occupy Wall Street movement began, one of the ways members have told their stories is through simple photos of themselves holding writings of their life experiences and what makes them part of the “99 percent” of Americans who have been ignored, mistreated, and misrepresented by their government. Some of their heartbreaking stories include tales of vast amounts of medical debt due to unforeseen chronic illness and no insurance coverage, overwhelming college debt coupled with joblessness or no job prospects, and a shortage of work combined with short unemployment assistance, among many others. To read their stories, see We Are The 99 percent.

This week, founder of the right wing blog Red State, Erik Erickson began a Tumblr account dubbed the “53 percent.” The project attempts to be the conservative perception of Occupy Wall Street and solidarity occupations as a movement of whiners and layabouts who don’t want to pay their taxes and are looking for handouts.

First, the idea of the 53 percent is that a majority of US citizens pay more in federal income tax than they receive back in deductions or credits. Basically, the 53 percent are the people supporting the government and are complicit, even proud, to have the government operating in the manner it does.

The logic of the notion of 53 percent is skewed, as Alex Pareene at Salon points out: “Pretty much every adult American pays taxes. Workers who are too poor to pay federal income taxes still pay payroll taxes, and property taxes if they own their home. Even the unemployed pay sales taxes. The poorest Americans — people who make an average of $12,500 a year — pay, on average, 16 percent of their paltry income in taxes.” The idea to seperate federal income taxes from payroll taxes is semantically splitting hairs. We’re all still paying taxes, not only in the form of either of those, but also in things like sales tax. The argument is a false equivalency, like saying a renter doesn’t have the right to decide what happens in their neighborhood because they don’t pay property taxes. The landlord or management company pays those taxes, but does that give them more of a right to decide what happens on someone’s block, rather than a person who might have been renting for years in the same home?

Beyond the fallacy that millions of Americans don’t pay their taxes and want to whine lies the same bullshit Horatio Alger myths that have helped prop up a corrupt system for decades. The life stories between the 53 and 99 percent camps are similar, but the framework and rhetoric differ because the goal is different. One seeks to change the entire economic system for the better, the other seeks to prop the system up because some people bought into the Reaganesque idea that everyone who doesn’t succeed is lazy, uneducated, ignorant and outside factors don’t matter. Rather than examine the system, examine Wall Street, they would rather blame all of those welfare moms and drugged out dads who are siphoning their hard earned money because our Dear Liberal Leader wants to redistribute everyone’s wealth in a fascist way.

Marxist theory explains false consciousness as members of a subordinate class like workers suffer from false belief that their mental representations of the social relations around them systematically conceal or obscure the realities of subordination, exploitation, and domination those relations embody. Essentially, the self described 53 percent believe that they, the underclass, by their own claim, are succeeding in their capitalist dream because of their hard work and individualistic nature, not because of luck and assistance from others.

Everyone, all 99 percent, have the option of success: the big house, health insurance, the insurmountable debt that is implicit in the American dream because they worked hard. In spite of the system being stacked against them with government being run by corporate interests, by jobs being outsourced to increase company profits, they don’t believe they got lucky. They believe they earned it and complaining through social action like Occupy Wall Street and the 1000-plus Occupy movements nationwide, only proves how the lower class, the 99 percent, are shirking their own responsibility of being an American and rising above situations.

The issue is that the system is flawed.

Feminist author bell hooks writes “People who have not thought about or refuse to acknowledge this imbalance of power and privilege often want to talk about the racism of people of color. But then, that is one of the ways racism is able to continue to function. You look for someone to blame and you blame the victim, who will nine times out of ten accept the blame out of habit.”

Once again, we see the time honored tradition of the conservative right wing pitting the poor against each other in order to maintain the status quo. Rather than recognize the inherit flaws in the system which have directly contributed to the death of the American dream, they use the same people that system has fleeced against each other. The sad part is, the 53% are either unaware or proud to participate in their own economic demise.

Article by Aaron Cynic and Natalie W

Dooming Ourselves Deeper Into Debt

Aaron — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:41:06 +0000

The showdown over the budget and the debt ceiling continues to drag on and Congress is still attempting to cut spending down to nothing but defense, tax breaks for the wealthy and their own salaries. While politicians continue to rail against taxes and spending and the media hypes the “gang of six”, it seems that we’re quietly moving past an interesting historical marker. Ten years ago, former President George W. Bush signed the first round of tax cuts and the Treasury Department began to borrow billions in order to pay for them.

Think Progress reports that on August 1, 2001, the AP ran a story on the Treasury announcing its intent to borrow $51 billion to cover the tax rebate checks handed out by the Bush Administration. In addition, the article highlighted the Democratic argument against the Bush tax cuts: “Democrats argued that President Bush’s $1.35 trillion 10-year tax-cut package, which includes the rebate checks, is too large, and they expressed fears it will sow the seeds for a return to days of government red ink.” Since then, we’ve lost more than $2 trillion in revenue.

Coupled with two very expensive wars and other spending, I’m asking the same question as Salon’s Andrew Leonard – what’s the point of a debt ceiling? GOP demigod Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling 17 times during his presidency. Leonard points out that we’ve raised the debt ceiling 72 times since 1962. So what’s the point of the fight now? Simple: The GOP needs a fight they can win on. The majority of the American public is opposed to the war in Afghanistan. Support to repeal The Defense of Marriage Act is high, most Americans believe immigration is a good thing and public opinion on the matter has remained consistent for a decade. The biggest wedge issue is the economy – the job market and the deficit are the hottest button issues. Thanks to old myths about welfare queens, new viral video stunts by right wing hack James O’Keefe and saber rattling from the rich about taxes, the right wing is driving the public conversation their way.

If we really want to save the economy, we need to drive the conversation towards the truth. More than two dozen public companies have more cash than the U.S. Treasury. The gulf between rich and poor in America is wider than it has ever been. More cuts to social programs will only increase the poverty of American citizens and drive us further into economic oblivion. If we continue to let ourselves believe everything will just work out if we leave things in the hands of neo robber barons, we’re dooming ourselves deeper into debt.

Defense Department Wants To Be Better Storytellers

Aaron — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 02:54:20 +0000

The folks at DARPA, the Defense Department Advanced Research Project, put a call out for those interested to attend a workshop held at the end of February to understand what role “theories of narrative play in security domains.” In other words, the Pentagon wants to learn more about storytelling, because a better understanding of “the role stories play in a security context is a matter of great import and some urgency.” To summarize, the Stories, Neuroscience and Experimental Technologies (STORyNET) workshop was held on the 28^th with three goals:

To survey narrative theories – understanding the nature of a story and what makes one up.

To better understand the role of narrative in security contexts – asking what role stories play in political radicalization and how they influence participants in politics.

To survey the state of the art in narrative analysis and decomposition tools – “How can we take stories and make them quantitatively analyzable in a rigorous, transparent and repeatable fashion? Are particular approaches or tools better than others for understanding how stories propagate in a system so as to influence behavior.” (emphasis mine)

The Defense Department has always had an interest in collecting information – from the mass data mining project that was the Total Information Awareness Office (defunded in 2003, with some pieces shifted to other agencies) to “capturing knowledge” for analysis and use with artificial intelligence. The Pentagon has also maintained a very cozy relationship with the mainstream media, embedding reporters in military units and providing plenty of its analysts to propagate its agenda. One would think the DoD already has a handle on storytelling.

While plenty of Americans might buy word from the Pentagon at full price, it’s the hearts and minds of the rest of the world DARPA could be after with theoretical workshops like STORyNET. Max Eddy at Geek System points out that crafting a good tale could help with messaging in Iraq and Afghanistan and Kit Eaton at Fast Company suggests such research could be good for influencing more favorable outcomes for the U.S. in the social revolutions spreading through the Middle East.

While we shouldn’t expect anyone from the Pentagon to craft the next Harry Potter anytime soon, the prospect of things like STORyNET workshops combined with other information collecting and propaganda mechanisms bring us one step closer towards our own Ministries of Truth and Peace.

(H/T to AEM and the Poetry Foundation for spreading the word first)

Chances Are, They’re Not Nazi’s

Aaron — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 23:56:59 +0000

Back in the halcyon days following George W Bush’s inauguration, detractors and opponents of many stripes referred to W and his administration as Nazi’s. Even before the days of borderline fascist government policies like the PATRIOT ACT or warrantless wiretapping and torture apologists, lefties and others handed out poorly Xeroxed pamphlets featuring W’s face with a Hitler mustache. Now, the jack boot is on the left foot, with hard line right wing conservatives dropping the Nazi card when referring to all things not Right as some form or another of Nazism. Most recently, Fox News chief Roger Ailes called the top brass at NPR “the left wing of Nazism” and said they have a “Nazi attitude.” Allies’ comments refer to the firing of NPR news analyst Juan Williams, after he told Bill O’Reilly that Muslims make him “nervous.”

It seems somewhere along the line the word “Nazi” devolved to something of a schoolyard insult like “dork” or “geek” on the political playground. The fetish American partisan politics has for labeling the opposition party didn’t just show up around the year 2000. Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Reagan all had their detractors shouting “Nazi.” (1)

Maybe a portion of America zoned out when history teachers covered WWII, but Nazi’s didn’t terminate contracts, they terminated people. Nazi’s committed genocide, tortured, brutalized and murdered millions, attempted to conquer the world and committed countless other war crimes and atrocities. While many of the Nazi’s of WWII are long dead, their legacy survives in plenty of folks who don swastika armbands, pray to Odin and assault those who aren’t straight, white and proud. (2)

Often, when the Nazi card gets played, it’s when comparing the actions of a person, organization or government to that of the S.S., or Stasi, or KGB, or other dictatorial secret police organizations. When someone calls an opponent or rival a Nazi – it’s usually referring to some injustice related to the stifling of opinion or dissent, curbing civil liberties, or other behaviors common to most totalitarian societies. In other words, most of the time, Nazi actually means “fascist.”

The right may have a harder time using the term today, since so many U.S. policies and practices stemming from neoconservatives in the last few decades (3) skirt the fascist line pretty closely. But still, not many active politicians or other Americans advocate eugenics, deny or advocate another holocaust, or hope for an Aryan master race to rule the world. Why then, should anyone throw around a word representing something so vial to describe anyone who disagrees with a point of view?

The American political system has become so hyperbolic and so histrionic, we’ve lost some context for things that are truly evil. Comparing partisan politics and the actions of media moguls to that of the behavior of butchers and genocidal maniacs isn’t helping prevent another Hitler from rising to power. If anything, it’s further numbing our understanding of what real Nazi’s were. It’s time to retire the accusation from our political discourse.

Full disclosure – I’m sure I’ve called plenty of people Nazi’s in the past, so I’m just as guilty here.
The Nazi legacy also lives on in the U.S. thanks to the CIA and other American intelligence officials giving former Nazi’s safe harbor.
See the following: PATRIOT ACT, Torture Justification (arguably though, a pretty Naziesque behavior), Pre-emptive war, COINTELPRO, the Information Awareness Office.

Could Decision Points Rewrite History?

Aaron — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:53:48 +0000

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern published a brilliant and damning piece regarding former President Bush’s upcoming memoir, Decision Points. In his essay, McGovern points out W’s little talked about “damn right” remarks he made when authorizing the waterboarding of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Not only did W sign off on the form torture as an acceptable practice, but added “damn right” and asserted that the torture saved lives.

McGovern not only points out the glaring falsehood in that assertion, but shows exactly how the torture of prisoners became a recruiting tool for insurgents in Iraq. In addition, he rightly states that the under-reporting of the torture issue in the media, coupled with plenty of support (or shoulder shrugging) of the American public at large implicates us all. The essay comes on the heels of Bush’s related comments regarding the “lowest point” in his presidency, when Kanye West hurt his feelings by saying he didn’t care about black people during Hurricane Katrina.

While both these comments may seem only tacitly related, public reaction to statements made surrounding Decision Points so far tells a much more damning tale of W’s presidency and our response to it. During the time leading up to Obama’s election, plenty of the public was fed up with disastrous and criminal policies of the Bush Administration – part of the reason why Obama was voted into office. A mere two years later and we’re already willing to rewrite history. Should we feel sorry for W because Kanye made some unscripted comments about his handling of one of the worst natural disasters in American history? Is it right to call that the “low point in the Bush administration?” What about intelligence failures leading up to 9/11? What about launching a war that killed hundreds of thousands based on false pretenses? What about tanking our economy? What about legalizing torture, something even Reagan, demagogue of the right wing, condemned?

Decision Points will be an opportunity for the Bush administration to not only build a more positive post presidential legacy, but to indemnify its criminal actions and whitewash history. As the Bush administration comes back into view with this book, it is the responsibility of the media and the American people to tell the truth about the last 8 years, not to let history be rewritten.

Post Election Propaganda

Aaron — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:00:20 +0000

The right wing firmly believes that their victory in the house and the few senate seats they took away from Democrats was the equivalent of a tsunami of support and this is Real America’s mandate on the Obama Agenda. As I pointed out over at Chicagoist, the “tsunami” was really more of a few big waves. Several races were tight, Democrats held onto the Senate and at least 50% of America stayed home. Still, facts and nuance get in the way of the GOP PR juggernaut that believes the last election is a sign from on high that America will coronate Sarah Palin in 2012. Gaining 30 more House seats than Republicans lost in 2006, when the pendulum swung in the opposite direction is a “mandate.”

John Boehner told ABC news that this election was the “most historic election in over 60, 70 years” and went on to say “you would think the other party would understand that the American people have clearly repudiated the policies they’ve put forward in the last few years.” As I pointed out before, this election was indeed historic, simply because of the sheer amount of money pissed to the wind on campaigning. To say that this election is the most historic in decades because of a decent Republican victory is hyperbolic. If anything, the 2008 election was more historic, not only because Obama is the first African American president, but because voter turnout was higher than it had been since the 1960’s.

The post electoral rhetoric spewing from the mainstream media highlights exactly how well GOP propaganda works. Since the moment Obama won the election in 2008, right wing PR operatives consistently shout the same message – the country is going to hell, it wasn’t their administration’s fault, our suspiciously different looking president has a hidden agenda to steal the livelihoods of Good Hard Working Americans and they are the only people who will “take America back” for the righteous. They’ve been running a campaign since inauguration day and the victory in the House is due to the fruits of a coordinated and well financed attack on anything not Republican.

Unfortunately, the propaganda train isn’t likely to pull into the station anytime soon. Already, Obama is planning to capitulate to the whims of the right, based on comments from folks like Senator Mitch McConnell, who accused Democrats of “ignoring the American people.” Democratic lawmakers must “change course” because the blustery right spent the past two years saying they would do everything in their power to make Obama fail. Essentially, the government is only broken when Republicans aren’t running it, because they will break it in order to force people to believe they’re the only ones who can lead. The propaganda war for the White House in 2012 began long before the polls opened in the mid-terms. Sadly, we’re in for some long years ahead.

Fox and Friends Redefines “Terrorist”

Aaron — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 23:15:10 +0000

Courtesy Wikipedia

No one should believe that Fox and Friends is a bastion of journalistic integrity or even slightly interested in fact checking. However, the morning show took the cake in redefining those two terms this week when co-host Brian Kilmeade, declared “Not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists are Muslim.”

So, I suppose this would mean that the following terrorist organizations are somehow secret Muslims:

Provisional Irish Republican Army (Catholic)

Ulster Defense Association (Protestant)

Real IRA (Catholic)

Sons of Freedom (Christian)

National Liberation Front of Tripura (Christian)

Babbar Khalsa (Sikh)

The list could go on. If you spend more than ten seconds even on Wikipedia, you might learn that there are even Hindu terrorists targeting Muslims.

Fox News said Brian would “clarify,” which probably means he’ll mention one of the organizations at the top of the list, like the IRA and talk about events that happened ten or twenty years ago. My guess would be that somehow, he’ll fail to mention more recently active groups, like the Hutaree. In March, 8 Hutaree “Christian warriors” were arrested in connection with a plot to kill local police officers in the hopes of touching off a larger confrontation. He’ll also probably assert, as others have, that he was referencing the 9/11 attacks specifically. If that were true though, why this sentence that follows his assertion: “And that is ridiculous that we got to keep defining this – the people that equate Timothy McVeigh with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, which is growing and a threat that exists.”

Is Brian tacitly implying that McVeigh was not a terrorist? Is he implying that acts of violence perpetrated by Good white Christians motivated by political and religious ideology intended to induce fear in governments or societies (you know, the definition of terrorism) is somehow less evil than terrorist acts by Muslims? Is he perhaps suggesting that we develop a new classification of terrorists – one where we give men like McVeigh or the Hutaree sympathy? I thought terrorism was terrorism and to be opposed no matter the color, creed or national identity of the terrorist. I would like to believe that he’ll “clarify” on Monday, but I’m not holding my breath.

Time To Wise Up, America

Aaron — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:05:38 +0000

John Kerry pointed out a few weeks back something anyone with a minute understanding of media studies should already know: “We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what’s happening.” Not surprisingly, far right talking heads seized the moment to tell the electorate that Kerry called them stupid and he’ll be shuffled out of office in the great Republican Revolution quickly approaching in November. Clearly, it’s Democrats that are out of touch with the electorate and Kerry’s quip is another “nail in the coffin.” Once Real America takes back Washington, we’ll all be sailing through calmer waters, I’m sure.

I guess we'll have to start all over again with the electrical college

Soon after, Rick Shenkman at Salon called American voters on their ignorance. Shenkman points out scary statistics like how only two in five Americans can name all three branches of government.

However, after boldly stating the tyranny of what everybody knows, he lamented Kerry’s comment, because it’s cannon fodder for Republicans during election season. To an extent, Shenkman’s right – voters don’t like the snooty elite (re: anyone not having Tea or otherwise voting Republican) looking down their noses, calling them stupid. Republicans should stop throwing down the populist card. Smarter voters would be a good thing and voters should get the facts.

Before huffing and stomping their feet, sensitive Americans should probably do 10 minutes of Googling the history of propaganda:

“Because the masses are notoriously short sighted and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats, our statesman are forced to deceive them into an awareness of their own long-run interests.” – Thomas Bailey, Historian

“The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.” – Edward Bernays, grandfather of “public relations”

Unfortunately, no politician wants voters to have all the facts. Unfortunately, people are easily manipulated by pretty words, catch phrases and good looking politicians.

Millard Fillmore looks pretty dashing, now that you mention it

Unfortunately, people would rather be upset and outraged by sentiment rather than find their own opinions based on lengthy research. Take, for example, a recent survey from Gallup. Respondents were asked to describe the federal government in one word or phrase. Gallup found that “Overall, 72% of responses about the federal government are negative, touching on its inefficiency, size, corruption, and general incompetence, with the most common specific descriptions being “too big,” “confused,” and “corrupt.””

Such results aren’t shocking at all, but the big elephant hanging out in the corner would like to remind everyone playing that YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT. I’ve said it before, but in the supposedly freest country in the known universe with the best Democracy money can buy, the average citizen should not only make informed choices when selecting a representative, but engage themselves in something more than the spectacle of betting on who’s winning what district.

If you happen to be offended by John Kerry’s statement, perhaps before assuming that the Washington elite wants to rub your nose in their intellectual blue blood, you may want to first check your own political knowledge. Furthermore, you might want to engage yourself in building the kind of world you want to see, rather than simply checking a box and complaining later. Otherwise, we all really do get the government we deserve.

Champions Of Their Checkbooks

Aaron — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:51:21 +0000

The GOP, tea party activists and other assorted right wing conservatives love to appear as champions of the “common man.” They throw out words like “main street” in a folksy drawl while talking about the troops and sacrifices other Americans make, bemoaning the scary modern age while pining for the better days of yesteryear. They’re down home, good ole people representing the grand ole party and the America where paw kept his shotgun on the mantle and ma baked cookies after she spent all day making dinner. Their clean pressed designer suits give them the look of trusted preachers, the folksy twang erases their college history and the more they talk about loving the troops, the less we ask about their military service.

Creative Commons search approved!

Anyone who can tell the difference between Leave It To Beaver, Little House On The Prairie and reality knows that the halcyon days conservatives seem to pine for weren’t all that rosy for many Americans, particularly ones who weren’t white, Christian or wealthy. The latter of that trifecta is probably the most curious of the three, since conservatives and the hard right have a huge support base among people in the middle, working and poor classes of American society. Thanks to the rise of the right on AM radio, cable television and various internet outlets, they’ve done an amazing job spinning the idea that anything to the left of Reagan or Old 41 may as well be hard line Communism. Democrats are the same thing as socialists, who are the same as communists, who may as well all be terrorists. Everyone in Washington is part of some shadowy liberal elite who planned on taking over the United States government with their leftist university professors in order to steal the working man’s money and give it to poor lazy jobless undeserving people.

The ridiculousness of that conspiracy theory aside, I’m left wondering how the right purport to speak for the financial interests of Joe Six Pack. According to varied statistics, the “average” American household makes somewhere around $50,000. How is it then, that the talking heads of the right can accurately describe life on main street, when they’re really living on easy street? By boiling public blood over taxes that go to pay for schools, roads, care for the elderly, the military, infrastructure, etc they’ve successfully been able to make fast cash:

Sarah Palin took in around $166,000 in 2007. Since she quit her job as governor, she’s raked in $12 million between her book and speaking engagements.

Glenn Beck made an estimated $23 million in 2008.

In the time it took to type and hyperlink this sentence, Rush Limbaugh earned more money than many Americans make in a day. He makes $33 million a year.

Michele Bachmann made $174,000, a sum modest in comparison. In addition, her holdings in her federally subsidized family farm are worth $250,000.

On tax day, the hard right will be out in force, complaining about taxes and the federal government while the heads of the hydra continue to fill their coffers. Palin recently quoted conservative Jonah Goldberg, who said “Americans now spend 100 days of the year working for the government before we even start to earn any money for ourselves.” Would government really be better in the hands of people who would trade that 100 days worth of earnings and let the almighty market decide what we pay for civil services?

Written by Aaron Cynic