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| The Radical Moderate |
| Covering: Big Brother, Propaganda, Theocracy and Liberty By Tim Willoughby, Y.A.W.L. * (* Yet Another Wretched Lawyer) |
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Libertarian DemocratA Libertarian Democrat is vigorously pro-personal liberty, and believes government can play a constructive role in regulating our economy and providing a social safety net. Categories:
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I Love to talk about propaganda, and one of my blog Categories is devoted to it. Below I link to a reasonably detailed and sourced Wikipedia treatment about Propaganda. The short excerpt is the lead paragraph, to give you a taste for the seriousness of the article. Notice the passage I highlighted, about the “omission of so many pertinent truths”. That passage reflects a chief guiding philosophy of mine in the identification of propaganda. Media blowhards of all stripes pontificate about issues that are so very complex that it’s inevitable they are excluding many material adverse facts from their analysis — and that’s deceitful, because their listeners do not gather enough real material information to make up their own minds. My own technique in commenting about issues or stating viewpoints is to try to *not* pretend to be so very certain, and to try to show respect for opposing viewpoints, and to try to acknowledge the possibility that opposing facts may be present. Few things lend themselves well to fire-and-brimstone certainty, especially political issues. When politicians acknowledge the real facts for-and-against, and show respect for opposing viewpoints, the propagandists will call such persons “wishy washy” or “pointy-headed intellectuals”. Those of us who appreciate reason and fuller discussions are mortified that the propagandists are in control of our media today, and are the major shapers of public opinion. We feel this development, the rise to power of the propagandists, is actually dangerous for our society. We are dumbing ourselves down and we are losing the willingness to engage in reasoned debate. We are watching with dismay as the right wing propagandists are going so far as to push for the dehumanization of those with opposing viewpoints, such as claiming that honorable dissenters are traitors [everyone knows that traitors should be killed, after all]. The left-wing propagandists are not as prominent in society today as the right wingers, and their positions are not embraced by very many people [example - Bush knocked down the floodwalls in New Orleans, and Bush let New Orleans suffer because of race]. When we hear propaganda from any source, we should give it such weight as it deserves [and that’s Not Much at all!]
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5 Responses to “Propaganda - Web Resources to Understand it Better”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment.
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February 4th, 2006 at 9:28 am
I find it ironic that you would use Wikipedia to define propaganda. I can only assume that you are unaware of the abuses that are very common at that site. Here are just two examples:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=152
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-e dit_x.htm
February 4th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Attack the main points of the article, using better sources than mine, and your criticism would have much more value as part of a reasoned debate.
Wikipedia is not a perfectly reliable source. But it’s pretty darned good though, the overwhelming majority of the times I have referenced it. When I cite the Wikipedia, I first peruse the article to see if it contains info valuable to increase our knowledge about an issue.
But the following sources of information are so thoroughly unreliable that I rarely use them as sources. The reason I deem these sources “generally unreliable” is that their modus operandi is to omit or distort too many material adverse facts when making their presentations: Bush, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Carville, etc ……… [notice that O’Reilly isn’t on the list —- he’s about 33% reliable, so he’s way better than the other spinmeisters]
February 4th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
Don’t be so defensive. I wasn’t addressing your comments or the particular Wikipedia entry that you sourced. Wikipedia is a notorious propaganda tool, which taints it as a source for knowledge.
February 4th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Point taken.
But consider the following: Wikipedia milestones page reports 900,000 English articles as of Jan 2006. With 900,000 articles, and an open editing structure, there are bound to be articles that contain bogus or otherwise bad info, especially without an editorial board of pointy-headed academics to screen each submission.
People *noticed* the recent problems with the Wikipedia, and took action, and the Wikipedia community handled the problem.
So it isn’t an entirely questionable source, and if you notice a problem, alert the administrators for that section of the Wiki, and you’ll probably be pleased with how well they respond, if you’ve got your facts in order.
But the media propagandists do not change their opinions even when overwhelmed with adverse material facts.
Those on the left like to joke that “The facts are biased against the GOP”
February 5th, 2006 at 12:41 am
Here’s their disclaimer*. For all we know, Rush is altering the content as you read this. The entry you quoted could be different by now.
*Wikipedia is an online open-content collaborative encyclopedia, that is, a voluntary association of individuals and groups who are developing a common resource of human knowledge. The structure of the project allows anyone with an Internet connection and World Wide Web browser to alter its content. Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by professionals with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.
That is not to say that you will not find valuable and accurate information in Wikipedia; much of the time you will. However, Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here. The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields.