Propaganda

A doctored photo of the Governor with a Chinese military cap on her head. Isn't that just wonderful? This was included in a propaganda e-mail I received this morning from the "think-tank". What's worse than this picture, though, is the story behind it. A study in the use of xenophobia to attack the political opposition, using one of North Carolina's larger employers as the fall guy:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it can also be used to stir emotions that cause us to accept words and the ideas behind them that we might normally question. The picture here, which we will call the "Crying Lady", is a prime example.

This was part of the weekly propaganda e-mail sent out by Civitas, in their relentless agenda to tear down public institutions.

But this direct e-mail propaganda is nothing compared to the propaganda being fed directly to the General Assembly:

About a dozen state House representatives from both parties heard a brief presentation on Smart Start on Tuesday - all of it from the conservative Civitas Institute. Andrew Henson of the Civitas Institute gave an overview of the think tank's recent analysis of Smart Start.

Henson highlighted the nuts and bolts of financing for the program and said that the analysis found concerns over excessive bureaucracy and the potential for a lack of oversight. He singled out a partnership program in Durham County as having a questionable success rate.

First of all, sorry about not posting for so long. I’ve been ill, and I’m just getting around to pretending to be normal.

Sociologically speaking, the American Dream is a religion – a civil religion, but a religion nonetheless. We have the Bill of Rights taking the spot of the Ten Commandments; we have heaven and hell in the form of wealth and poverty; and our politicians and pundits are our clergy. (Does that make the President the Pope?) Hell, we even have witch hunts of “socialists” as enemies of the religion who are, much like the original witch hunts, entirely innocent of the accusation.

If you follow the arguments and tactics used by the GW denialist movement and the scientific and activist communities they oppose, the interplay begins to take on some of the attributes of a really bad chess match. Poorly thought-out gambits are attempted and soon discarded in lieu of some new Bright Idea, but very few pieces are actually captured by either side. It's very tempting to walk away in disgust at such a lackluster performance, but we can't afford to do that.

Updated: A friend of mine called the station and spoke with someone in their sales. (Executive but the name escapes me for the moment) The person she spoke with said it was a local affiliate that simply sold air time, and that the LGBT community is welcome to purchase air time if they would like to present a counter point.

My problem with that is this. Would they have sold the time slot to a racist group that wanted to air a program about the dangers of people of color? I've emailed them asking about that and am currently waiting a response.

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Well, in case you missed it, there was a wonderful...>cough< program on TV last night. WJZY (CW 46 in Charlotte) aired a program on "Silencing Christians"
The full video is actually available online at http://www.silencingchristians.com/

If we do not focus on the neocon media all the blogs in the world will not stop American Fascism.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

We've all gotten them ... the conservative propaganda emails on various subjects. For me, they're like small windows into an unmerciful, ungracious, ugly place that I would never voluntary choose to enter.

However, when my face is forced to this window and I can't help but look at the ugliness, my reaction is primal and visceral. I have to close my eyes and turn away before the scene makes me puke.

I got an especially disturbing anti-immigrant email recently.

After I read it, "I did NOT want to see that," was the brightest thought that ran through my mind. Next was, "But now that I have see it, what do I do, what do I say, what do I write? This cannot go unanswered."