When MSNBC or Fox News Airs in Public Places, How Do People React?

by Frank Waddell, University of Florida

"Hate Was Their Handshake"

by Nomad

Recently I stumbled across a fascinating book called "Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America." One of the things you quickly learn from reading the book is that the techniques used in politics nowadays were used in the past- albeit primitively, by today's standards. The modus operandi never really changes.

In the years just before WWII, Armenia-American journalist Arthur Derounian (using the alias John Roy Carlson) went underground to investigate and to expose the various organizations that supported fascism and Nazi causes.

When it was published, the book served as a warning that fascism could flourish just as easily in Chicago and New York as it could in Rome or Berlin.

Hybrid Warfare: NATO Investigates Putin's Troll War against the West 1/3

  by Nomad

The role that social media outlets, like Twitter and Facebook, play in managing and influence public perception has really come to the forefront since the 2016 US election. Few would argue that social media's influence in this presidential election is stronger than it has ever been.
Immediately after the election, NPR pointed out how social media have changed our national political conversation, turning it into "a loud mess." The advent of fake news transformed what should have been a public discussion into a battle of conspiracy theories.

Experts are now studying whether it was some natural effect or whether all of the confusion was actually stage-managed by unseen hands?

NATO and Social Media 

In 2015, well before the election, one of those who took a keen interest in this subject was NATO, specifically the Strategic Communication -Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE). This agency was asked to conduct a study on how social media has been transformed into a weapon of hybrid warfare.

The report that emerges presents a frightening snapshot of the methods, targets, and effectiveness of this new type of warfare.  

Ever since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, for example, we have seen fake identities and accounts being created in order to "disseminate narratives through social media, blogs, and web commentaries in order to manipulate, harass, or deceive opponents."

Here are Five Orwellian Quotes for Trump's "Post-Truth" Presidency

by Nomad

When tiny Donnie Trump, future President of the United States, was a two-year toddler, a world-famous author named George Orwell passed away of tuberculosis at the age of 46.

Orwell's best-known book, "Nineteen-Eighty-Four" painted a grim dystopian image of the future, in which lies and truth were reversible and the definitions of both were under the absolute control of an autocratic state.

The slogans of the ruling party in the novel are all about controlling the message and allowing no dissent, even to the degree of stating something as obvious as 2 plus 2 equals 4 or the size of a crowd.
Allies could suddenly become enemies and long-vilified enemies could in mid-sentence become welcome allies. The "facts" could be anything that suited the leaders and this required citizens to hold both truth and lies - the most transparent- are having equal value. (Thank God, this was just fiction.

Terms found in the novel such as "Big Brother", "doublethink" and "newspeak" have become part of our political language.

Nineteen Eighty-Four has been translated into more than 65 languages and sold millions of copies worldwide, giving George Orwell a unique place in world literature.

Practically ever since that book was written, Orwell's insight into the ways a government can manipulate the truth has served as an alarm against an increasingly totalitarian world.

Hammers and Guns: How Fox News Has Poisoned the Mind of the American Public

by Nomad

Reforming gun laws would seem to be a rather straight-forward proposition. People around the world scratch their heads and wonder why a superpower like the US would not be able to work out a solution. They are unaware of the awesome and sinister power of the propaganda machine in the US.

The Mystery 

To rest of the world, right-wing American voters seem frightening but also something of a mystery.

How can such a powerful and modern nation, indeed a superpower which still claims to be a leader of the free world, harbor such an ignorant and so easily manipulated electorate? 

And it's a good question. 

Gun control is a prime example.

When faced with the slaughter of innocent children, why on earth wouldn't there be an overwhelming demand for gun control? Shouldn't the American public be angry enough by now to ensure that laws be reformed? Isn't the problem clear enough? 

If nothing else, isn't it possible simply to clarify the meaning of the constitutional right to bear arms to exclude weapons of war? 

Apparently it is not possible. The recent tears of an American president, moved by the deaths of children to gun violence, were actually mocked. Fox News' host Andrea Tantaros went so far as to suggest checking the president's lectern for raw onion.

Here's a Simple Way to Lessen the Grip of Fear of Terrorism

by Nomad

Malcolm X on Listening to the Media

by Nomad

The Iraq War and The Fine Art of Republican Revisionism

by Nomad

No matter how intense the barrage of propaganda and how constant the lies, Americans owe it to the 4,486 U.S. soldiers that died in Iraq to remember. Remembering the lessons of the war might just prevent the nation from making the same disastrous mistakes.

Margaret Meiers, in an op-ed piece for the Pittsburgh Post-gazette, asks how Americans can possible be so forgetful of recent events. 

Responding to an earlier newspaper opinion post, she states:

While Fox News and Bush administration officials try to rewrite history, it is known that faulty intelligence was drummed up and cherry-picked to be used to convince the people of the United States, Congress and the United Nations into supporting war.

Intelligence and Something Else

In case,  you need some reminders, Meiers provides us with a short list.

Remember Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame? Judith Miller’s reporting in The New York Times about aluminum tubes? Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations based on lies? The Downing Street memo? Remember “mushroom clouds,” duct tape and Curveball? And let’s not forget the Project for a New American Century, which openly pushed for war against Iraq before 9/​11 (the architects of whom are now Jeb Bush’s election campaign committee to keep him informed on foreign policy). Great.

Ignorance of events that happened, say in your grandfather's time may be forgiven but these things happened in 2003. We have a duty to those who died not to allow lies to mask the truth. We owe them that much at least.

If You Want to Understand the Basic Premise behind Fox News, Read this!

by Nomad

Cooking the Books: How the Conservative Best Seller Scam is a Free Market Hypocrisy

by Nomad

When is a bestseller not a bestseller? A lot of bestselling conservative authors have found a way to turn horse manure into gold. It's a testament to their actual commitment to the free market system.  

The Making of a Bestseller

Ever wonder who buys all those books written by people like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Sarah Palin? Somebody has to be purchasing them, right? How else can their books be making it on the best sellers lists so often?

John Iadarola, known for his work on The Young Turks, offers this insight into what can only be called a publishing scam.

It's a credible theory. In 2010, a reporter for Salon suggested the same thing:

The sales of books by awful right-wing authors like Jonah Goldberg are boosted by an entire industry dedicated to … boosting the sales of books by awful right-wing authors. Conservative book clubs purchase tens of thousands of copies and right-wing think tanks order right-wing books in bulk.

Confidence Trick: What Flim-Flamming Con Artists and Fox News Have in Common

by Nomad

Con artists target the elderly as "marks" for a number of reasons. While the motives differ slightly, Fox News targets the same demographic for exactly the same reasons.

According to Webster's Dictionary:

PROPAGANDA:

..." the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person; also - ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause"...

Over the years many critics of Fox News have called it a conservative propaganda machine, whose goal seems to be to divide the nation. But maybe that's missing the point.

The Fox News- Con Artist Connections

The average Fox News viewer, studies have found, is over 65 (and keep in mind that's the average). It's no coincidence that the number one target of confidence tricksters just also happens to be the elderly. Instead making off with their life savings, the Fox News con artists have been used to foment division and affect elections through near constant disinformation. (Indirectly, savings are being drained from senior bank accounts in support for groups like the Tea Party.)

Nothing is accidental when it comes to Roger Ailes, president of Fox News. A wit could say Ailes put the "con" in conservative politics. As a diligent flim-flammer, he has chosen his victims well and has learned how to exploit characteristics of the human psyche such as prejudice, loneliness, naivety, and ignorance.

Ohio Police Assist Christian Pastors to Make Religious Propaganda Film

by Nomad

What could be better for a phony war on Christianity than a series of mock arrests of innocent preachers? And even better than that? Why, video taping the staged event- without bothering to tell the congregation- and uploading them to YouTube without any explanation. 
Best of all, the local sheriff and his deputies were more than ready to assist in the making of this propaganda.

During last Sunday's sermon, parishioners  at Greater Bethel Baptist Church in Akron Ohio must have been stunned and outraged as armed deputies from the Summit County Sheriff's office marched into their church.

The members of the congregation were told that the police- with a camera crew in tow- had come to arrest their pastor, Reverend Melford Elliott. Other churches in the area were scenes for more arrests, which included the Rev. Robert Golson, pastor at Prince of Peace Baptist Church; and the Rev. Vincent Peterson, pastor at Providence Baptist Church. In the video, sheriff deputies are shown handcuffing the pastors who continued to preach before placing them in the backs of patrol cars.

Little did any of the church-goers know that they were actually unpaid extras in a staged event, the making of a film, part of a project called "Defending the Faith." The website says that the goal of the dramatization is to make people more aware of what it takes for pastors to defend the Christian faith beyond preaching on Sundays. According one source:

A seven-minute YouTube video created by the KAZ radio television network documents each arrest, with the theme song to the reality legal series "Cops" playing in the background. In each arrest, sheriff's deputies enter the church with the KAZ film crew in tow, approaching the pulpit during the pastor's sermon and telling him he is under arrest for "defending the faith." The pastors go willingly, but often respond by saying they will continue defending their Christian faith until they die.

After the mock arrests, Edra Frazier, marketing coordinator for the project explained to members of the church that the whole thing had been the making of a marketing tool.

Sheriff Steve Barry and his deputies had agreed to participate. Deputies on the video gave realistic interviews, portraying themselves as conflicted about arresting the pastors. It' all very authentic and convincing.
One thing they had forgotten to mention to the police. As part of the marketing, however, the video of the arrests were immediately uploaded with any explanatory information that the events were simulated arrests. 

Obama and EO 13036: New Tea Party Hysteria over Emergency Preparedness

by Nomad

When President Obama announced in no uncertain terms that he would use his executive powers to get around Congressional obstructionism, some on the Right appeared outraged. It's no surprise then they would dig up something from the past to launch yet another call for impeachment. In this post, we explore Executive Order 13036, the Tea Party meme and the source of this quackery.

As we have all come to realize, Republican hysteria seems to know no limit. The latest drum-beat which has the Tea Party radicals dancing frenetically to is now the word "outlaw. It sounds like this: Obama is an outlaw isn't he? And what an outlaw he is? What law has that outlawing outlaw Obama outed today? Impeach that outlaw.
Outlaw? Outlaw.

Quacking ducks make about as much sense. 

I saw this very black and very sinister-looking poster in the twitter-sphere. (I added the "Busted" so it couldn't be recycled.) The memes warned that the president has signed this here executive order- practically a royal decree- giving him the right to take, not just my hope, my dignity, my reason for living but... all my things. "Everything you own" can now be taken away. 

The text- and for a meme asks a lot of reading from its audience- states:

Under Executive Order 13036 everything you own can be taken away under the guise of national security. This order rips our Constitution to shreds. One person has all this power? Are we really living as free people or are we living under a dictatorship? Was it not more than seventy years ago that an ugly short mustache man did the same thing in Europe? I leave you one burning question: What is the real purpose of this Executive Order?

That's right, this outlaw president is planning to violate the Constitution in order to get your household appliances, your flat screen TVs and most importantly, your guns.

The accompanying tweet advised me to Google Executive Order 13036. So, being a curious fellow with a lot of free time, I did as instructed and googled. 

But I somehow doubt many Right-wingers bothered to do so. If they had devoted as little as 2 minutes of independent research- instead of simply joining in with tweet-chanting "Impeach Obama"- they might have realized how they had been- once again- hoaxed by Tea Party fear-mongering.

The Debauchery of the Public Mind and Conscience: Teddy Roosevelt vs. Fox News

by Nomad

A quote from Theodore Roosevelt seems just as apt as it did when he said it over a hundred years ago. Calling out the news media and the their culpability in creating hatred and playing upon the naivety of the public wasn't something Roosevelt was afraid to do.  Isn't it time to call out Fox News in the same way?

It is a strange paradox that often looking back into the “dead” past can inspire us with a fresh view of the present. Take this example of Teddy Roosevelt. 

In his Sorbonne Address in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910, he took on, with his characteristic tenacity, the yellow journalism of his day.

All journalists, all writers, for the very reason that they appreciate the vast possibilities of their profession, should bear testimony against those who deeply discredit it.

Offenses against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity, slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience.

He also said that "the excuse" that the public demands this kind of journalism. (in the case of Fox News this excuse is re-packaged as a High Ratings = Popular success = Truth.) That rationalization is, he said, hardly any more valid than food producer peddling poison. 

Roosevelt might well have added another analogy of drug dealers and pimps. Like Fox, your average drug dealer and brothel manager also has his loyal supporters. Fast food, cigarettes, crack cocaine. or sugary children’s breakfast cereals. All of these products might be considered popular. Unquestionably, all of them fill a niche in the marketplace, but what about the harmful effects to society?