Assorted content to end your week. – Simon Holmes a Court challenges the argument that any country or industry can opt out of being part of the response to our climate crisis. And Emily Holden comments on the oil industry’s control over public discussions about climate change, while Christopher Knaus
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A Puff of Absurdity: The Greatest Propaganda Machine in History
Sacha Baron Cohen (aka Ali G. and Borat, among others) won an award from the Anti-Defamation League. Here’s his 25 minute acceptance speech. It’s in writing, abridged a bit, below the video if you’d rather skim than watch. (Emphasis is mine.) “Today, around the world, demagogues appeal to our worst
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Joseph Stiglitz points out the need to move beyond neoliberalism and offers a useful policy framework to do so – though framing an alternative as “progressive capitalism” cedes far more ground than necessary in continuing to prioritize capital over social well-being. – The
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Day Of Reckoning
H/t Theo Moudakis Here in propaganda central (a.k.a., Doug Ford’s Ontario), it would appear that few are being fooled by the outrageous campaign the Ford regime is conducting against the carbon tax imposed by the feds after Doug the Thug axed our cap-and-trade program. I believe the following letter-writer speaks
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Shawn Gude comments on the choice Democratic primary voters will have between candidates seeking to regulate the economic system as it stands, and those pushing to fundamentally changing it. Ian Welsh points out the importance of supporting candidates such as Bernie Sanders
Continue readingThings Are Good: Ways to Better Avoid Fake News
Figure 1 from Cook, Ellerton, and Kinkead 2018. CC BY 3.0 The term fake news may new to the modern discourse but the idea is very old. Before President Trump started making up new phrases we called “fake news” we used words like lies, propaganda, and fiction. Regardless of the
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Trudeau forgets Alberta; Alberta flips out
Canada is a special place; but Alberta is a little prickly. The Soapbox family celebrated Canada Day at Olympic Plaza trying to dislodge a Big Red Ball wedged between some girders, admiring children’s art work (our favourite was a mask made by a second grader who said it represented her
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: How the everyday use of militaristic jargon makes us more combative
The language of warfare and violence dominates public discourse in the United States and around the world, even when war isn’t part of the conversation. Nan Levinson, a writer, teacher, and journalist covering civil and human rights, culture, and the military, discusses how the normalization of militaristic jargon is making
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Trump Media Method – Vague and Uncritically Accepted Horse-Shit, yet it works. :/
http://sandalwoodandsunlight.tumblr.com/post/154136300483 Filed under: Politics Tagged: Media, Media Manipulation, Politics, Propaganda, USA
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Media Complicity – The Wars We Fight
John Pilger does what a journalist is supposed to do. He questions decisions made by those who are in charge and hold them to account for their decisions. As witnessed during the lead up to the Iraq war in 2003 most of the easily accessible media in the West is,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Testing the Manufacturing Consent Hypothesis – Jill Stein
From Counterpunch: “Jill Stein, the Green Party’s nominee for president, has been the sudden target of attacks from all corners of online media since the official end of Bernie Sanders’ campaign at the Democratic National Convention. Outlets like the Washington Post, New York Magazine and Gizmodo have assaulted Stein by using out-of-context quotes to […]
Continue readingScripturient: Where is Che now that we need him?
Maybe it’s simple nostalgia, but it seems to me the world was a lot better off when the Soviet Union was around. Really. Bear with me while I explain. When the USSR was the main enemy of our loudly-proclaimed free and democratic society, we strug…
Continue readingScripturient: Type Crimes and Taxes
Type crime is the term author Ellen Lupton uses in her book, Thinking With Type, to describe egregiously bad typography. That description came to mind as I perused the latest fluff mailer from our MP; the so-called “Tax Guide.” So-called be…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: “The News” – Jefferson, Chomsky, propaganda, and alternatives
As I keep saying, stop watching, reading or listening to “the news.” It is misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, distortion, lies and illusions, mass distraction and mass manipulation – psychological warfare, to put it in the te…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Bernie Sanders: The backlash is on – surprise, surprise!
Bernie Sanders was effectively silenced and blacked out of the media, by and large, for a long time, until he became too popular and too prominent to ignore. Now, the only candidate who is not a Wall Street hireling, hack or shill, the only candidate w…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Will Ferrell does a mock music video of gangster rap – and it’s a scathingly hilarious critique of the genre
A musical commentary, followed by social and political analysis, followed by hilarious spoof rap videos, and more This is scathingly funny. Will Ferrell does a mock music video of macho gangster rap. Man, how I despise that music. As Rage Against the Machine said, “So-called rap’s a fraud.” Worse, most
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Empiricism and Dogmatism
Or, Evidence-based opinion versus ideological fundamentalism There is a major difference between evidence-based opinion and opinion-based evidence. The former is empirical, and sane, the latter, dogmatic, and either insane or dishonest. There are always a few people, many in fact, who adopt an ideology first, then mold the facts to
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Empiricism and Dogmatism
Or, Evidence-based opinion versus ideological fundamentalism There is a major difference between evidence-based opinion and opinion-based evidence. The former is empirical, and sane, the latter, dogmatic, and either insane or dishonest. There are always a few people, many in fact, who adopt an ideology first, then mold the facts to
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Trudeau is “just not ready” to be Canada’s next prime minister: Poll
According to a new Forum Research poll, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is “just not ready” to replace Stephen Harper as Canada’s next prime minister. The post Trudeau is “just not ready” to be Canada’s next prime minister: Poll appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Edmonton Journal Saturday Editorial – Grade ‘A’ Propaganda
The amount of horseshit per square centimetre in this Edmonton Journal editorial must violate the laws of physics, it just isn’t reasonable to pack this much fail into one column of newspaper. Who wrote this tepid work of Tory apologia? To me it smells like the business owners out
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