“Alternative Media” Failure
To the “alternative” media, I would say this – as well as to the readers, who need to be more critical, not just of the major media, but to supposed…
propaganda
Turn Off The Propaganda Machine
This week’s cover story of the world’s leading trend analysis institute: very fitting, dead on the money, as usual. As I keep saying, turn off the state and corporate “news”.…
Importing From China: A Virus? Or A Totalitarian Model Of Elite Control?
Someone prescient once said, “Those who would sacrifice a little freedom for a little security, deserve neither, and will lose both.” We would do well to remember those words now.…
Fantasy and Indoctrination: Rough notes on a few fantasy novels: part two
Here are two more fantasy books that I could not get through. That makes three in a row. And to think, I had a love affair with Terry Brookes’ Shannara…
Coronavirus Update – Panic or Propaganda? Both? Or Simply Mass Insanity? All The Above
As of today, the mass media hype and hysteria over the latest exotic virus continues to spread, unabated. In its wake, mass insanity is spreading nearly as fast. Let’s step…
Inside Jason Kenney’s troll factory: the UCP propaganda ecosystem goes after Alberta’s registered nurses
The president of the Alberta Federation of Labour called out the Canadian Taxpayers Federation yesterday for the partisan role it plays supporting of the Kenney Government’s contract demands in negotiations…
Friday Morning Links
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
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…
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…