Propaganda
Propaganda comes in a few forms, white, grey and black[1].
Technically, this represents whether you are open with the source or not:
- white = you are you clear that this info is coming from the opposition
- grey = you are ambiguous about source,
- black = you are dark/misrepresenting this as come from the other side.
But the term is overloaded, and I prefer the meaning:
- white = you were just telling your sides story (your spin),
- grey = telling your sides story with lies of omissions (to make your side look better)
- black = are you adding in direct and known falsehoods and misrepresentation to sell your sides agenda (actively misrepresenting things).
Most propaganda in American media is grey propaganda (using lies of omission and is biased / one-sided), but way too much from the major outlets is more than just dark grey. The errors are all on one side (in favor of their own agenda, and getting the other side's views wrong). I suppose you could argue that all these left leaning media outlets are just stupid and don't realize what they're doing (and don't have any competent fact-checkers on-staff)-- but that seems even more insulting, than just believing they don't care. They found their audience, and they tell them what they want to hear for clicks, even if they have to sacrifice truth for their agenda (and income) to do it.
And I'm not saying that this doesn't happen on the right. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are perfectly willing to unbalance a story to the point of being into black propaganda when it suits them. But they're not pretending to be the NYT, WaPo, CNN, NPR or one of these faux objective places. So it's hard to pretend that Rush/Hannity are denying their partisanism, and that they're giving you anything but one sided cheerleading -- thus they're white propaganda because they admit their bias up front. By nature of the democrat News outlets pretending that they're objective, when they are not even close, makes them black propaganda.
NOTE: The difference is nobility of either side, just effectiveness. The media leans left, so will debunk/fact check the rights lies/spin (thus they can't get away with as much), but they will not only fail to do that for the lefty meme's, but they lean so far left that they will propagate their message as fact (sometimes knowing it is false, most of it out of not knowing better).
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Memes:Propaganda
This has some examples of Propaganda meme's that are popular, like those from US Uncut (the "Opposite of America") series. But ThinkProgress, MoveOn, OccupyDemocrats all use the same disinformation that is black propaganda. Despite claims that they're "grass roots", they are astroturf: sponsored directly or supported by Soros organizations. Memes-Propaganda : 8 items
Control the media, or the media controls us.
They have a lower debt than we do (28% of GDP vs ≈100%), but they have a lower corporate tax rate than the U.S. does too, so perhaps that's the cause of the lower debt? They do have a ≈78% surcharge on oil/energy (which is why gas costs $10/gallon), but they collect a lot more of their tax revenue from VAT tax than from oil or corporations, so taxing oil profits isn't why they have a low debt ratio. Their social programs are capped based on tax revenues, unlike ours: perhaps we should look at doing that?
One problem: Iceland bailed out its banks, at about five and a half times times the relative costs that the U.S. did!
Switzerland currently has no minimum wage and no limits on CEO pay and bonuses!
A more accurate statement is that while Finish teachers earn less than American ones, their doctors earn about the same as our teachers. And they aren't the best in the world, unless you measure time for recess.
That homeowner is as clueless as the people that believe that quote. Solar energy only generated 3% of Germany’s entire energy supply – and between 3-10% of their electricity, not 50%. -- and they have some of the most expensive power in the world because of those subsidies.
Actually, the U.S. spends more on education than on the military, it just doesn't do it at the federal level (most is at State and Local). The U.S. spends more per student than the average Cuban income, and Cuba spends so little on the military, because they're a small Island that got military subsidies from USSR and Venezuela.
Walmart is a low income and low margin businesses (across all of America). Costco is "Walmart for the Wealthy" in select areas, and thus brings in more revenue per worker (3x as much), keeps more of it for themselves, even with higher worker salaries. The real choice is whether you want workers to have jobs at Walmart or be on unemployment.
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