Propaganda // Current

World Freedom Day ( To the Tune of Annie Get Your Gun )

I guess the Nobel from the Onion made me irritable. When I saw someone had the idea to... more

opit
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Hannity concocts smear that Obama at fault for Ft. Hood shooting

Sean Hannity speculated that "there is a chance our government knew all about" alleged... more

slarabee
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1 day ago
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Mustafa Barghouti will be a better leader for the Palestinians - video

If you are wondering about Dr. Barghouti, you're not alone. As of late, it seems that... more

Ishtar56
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4 days ago
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A message from Dr. Vandana Shiva: help us fight for the truth

ttp://truefoodnow.org/campaigns/messagefromvandanashiv/

Have you seen this advertisement? Couched deep within the green-washed rhetoric of a recent Monsanto ad is an egregious claim:

Producing more. Conserving more. Improving farmers’ lives. That’s sustainable agriculture. And that’s what Monsanto is all about.

Oh, really?

While the mainstream media and Big Ag pundits seem all too happy to watch how Monsanto and other biotech companies spin and co-opt the term “sustainability,” we at the Center for Food Safety (CFS) are on the front lines fighting against the corporate take-over of our food, farms, and future; advocating for REAL, sustainable, solutions to the problems of the biotech industrial agriculture model.

Over the next month, CFS will be bringing you videos from some experts with whom we work closely in the trenches—Michael Pollan, Vandana Shiva, Anna Lappé, and CFS’s Executive Director Andrew Kimbrell—to help us tell you the real truth about the false claims put forth by Monsanto and other biotech companies. We’ll share with you why these leading activists support the work of the Center for Food Safety.

CFS has been fighting on your behalf since 1997. We have accomplished a lot – we’ve stopped GMO crops including wheat, rice, and alfalfa, and also dangerous pharmaceutical-producing crops. We’ve beat Monsanto in the courts, but they have the substantial resources to continue to challenge CFS; just this week, they asked for the U.S. Supreme Court to consider yet another appeal of our successful lawsuit stopping GMO alfalfa.

We can only accomplish these victories with the support of members like you. Please join Vandana Shiva in supporting our work, to raise the funds we need to continue to fight Monsanto in the courts, and to combat the twisted version of “sustainability” biotech company marketers are trying to foist on the world. We need your help, right now, to raise our goal of $100,000 this Fall — less than the amount Monsanto spent on just ONE AD on the back page of The New Yorker (about $140,000), to support our important workttp://truefoodnow.org/campaigns/messagefromvandanashiv/ Have you seen this... more

JanforGore
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6 days ago
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MPAA Propaganda Hits 60 Minutes

The MPAA scored a victory last night when millions of people tuned in to CBS’s 60... more

atomiclegion
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8 days ago
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60 Minutes Puts Forth Laughable, Factually Incorrect MPAA Propaganda On Movie Piracy

31 years ago, in 1978, the television program 60 Minutes put on an episode about the awful threat of "video piracy" to the movie industry. Featuring the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the episode focused on how the VCR was going to destroy the movie business because anyone could copy and watch a movie in the privacy of their own home. Of course, in retrospect, that episode is hilariously wrong. You would think that, given how wrong they got it thirty years ago on this particular subject, 60 Minutes would be a bit more careful taking on the same subject again.

No such luck.

CBS's 60 Minutes has made itself out to be more of a laughingstock than usual when it comes to "investigative reporting," putting on an episode about "video piracy" that is basically 100% MPAA propaganda, without any fact checking or any attempt to challenge the (all MPAA connected) speakers, or to include anyone (anyone!) who would present a counterpoint. The episode is funny in that it contradicts itself at times (with no one noticing it) and gets important (and easily checked) facts wrong. And, of course, it basically mimics that old episode that history has shown to have been totally (laughably) false.

The report opens with the claim that counterfeit movies is where organized crime is making its money these days. Fascinating. Except they don't show any proof whatsoever that organized crime has anything to do with movie piracy at all. They just claim it, talk about Mexican gangs, and then assume it must be true. But, of course, most of the report actually focuses on the internet and file sharing of movies -- which completely goes against the claim that organized crime is "making its money" off of video piracy. After all, reports have shown that online file sharing has actually been putting DVD counterfeiters out of business. You would think that the "journalists" at 60 Minutes might have noticed this contradiction.

A big chunk of the episode is taken up by director Steven Soderbergh, who has come out in the past touting the MPAA's line before, so it's no surprise that he does so again. He claims that "piracy is costing Hollywood $6 billion a year at the box office." Does he mention that Hollywood has been making more and more and more at the box office every year the past few years? Oops. No. Did the reporters at 60 Minutes look into this fact and bring it up? Of course not. The entire story appears to be an MPAA press release, so you don't want to cloud it with pesky facts that prove they don't know what they're talking about.

Next up, Soderbergh claims that fewer movies are getting made thanks to movie piracy. Uh huh. Another checkable fact. Another one wrong. It was recently summarized, according to the movie industry's own numbers:

2004 Total Movies Released: 567 Total Combined Gross: $9,327,315,935
2005 Total Movies Released: 594 Total Combined Gross: $8,825,324,278
2006 Total Movies Released: 808 Total Combined Gross: $9,225,689,414
2007 Total Movies Released: 1022 Total Combined Gross: $9,665,661,126
2008 Total Movies Released: 1037 Total Combined Gross: $9,705,677,862
2009 Total Movies Released: 1177 Total Combined Gross: $7,596,626,766
(2009 figures incomplete, total movies scheduled to be released, gross to date)

Read the rest of this story at http://techdirt.com/articles/20091101/1818186751.shtml31 years ago, in 1978, the television program 60 Minutes put on an episode about the... more

slarabee
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9 days ago
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At Least Dick Cheney Has Credentials

Last week, Liz Cheney berated the President of the United States for publicly honoring... more

slarabee
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9 days ago
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The Other ‘L’ Word: Lying

In the media rush to cover the DOJ memo on the Obama administration’s redirecting... more

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9 days ago
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McCaffrey on Marijuana Being Effectively Decriminalized

McCaffrey talks prohibition and how weed is already "legal"... more

copperdragon
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9 days ago
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4 comments

Jon Stewart takes Fox News Apart

If you never watch another Daily Show, this clip is a must see:... more

neocongo
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12 days ago
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FOX News Isn't News. It's a Political Operation.

FOX News is on a witch hunt to destroy anyone on their enemies list and it's WORKING... more

slowdive
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14 days ago
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10 comments

20 Reasons Why America Should Oppose Health Reform

1. Although efforts have been made to reform the healthcare industry since 1912, we... more

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15 days ago
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Mobile Use is Linked to Brain Tumors

"LONG-term mobile phone users could face a higher risk of developing cancer in later... more

rodstradamus
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18 days ago
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Why Journalists Shouldn't Be Defending Fox News

The Obama administration's recent characterization of Fox News is a long overdue... more

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19 days ago
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Swine flu vaccine propaganda in childrens show

It might hurt a little bit but it will help a whole lot.

liviu
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19 days ago
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Anti-Defamation League defames David Dees as anti-Semitic 'conspiratorial artist'

The Jewish extremist organization masquerading as a "civil rights organization", the... more

maasanova
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23 days ago
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Administration fights to protect secret propaganda budget

Growing by leaps and bounds, the Pentagon’s secretive Information Operations budget keeps tripping over some basic information — like how much it costs.

Just months ago, the Defense Department said it needed $988 million to help win hearts and minds in the new fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. When the House cut this by half in July, top-level officials landed on Capitol Hill, pleading their case but also making a startling admission: Their budget needs for 2010 are actually $626.2 million — more than one-third less than first estimated.

Even at the Pentagon, an error of that size gets attention. “That $988 million number stuck, to our regret,” a defense official told POLITICO. And one man who hasn’t forgotten is Rep. John Murtha, who chairs the defense appropriations panel that funds the IO budget.

“The information war is off to a bad start with bad information,” the Pennsylvania Democrat laughed Wednesday in an interview. “They all said the same thing: ‘We made a mistake. We realize that we fumbled the ball.’ And they were very apologetic. Everybody is. But they go back and say, ‘This is very important.’”

Indeed, combat commanders, beginning with Army Gen. David Petraeus, have stressed IO programs as a key factor in winning popular support in Iraq — and now hopefully in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The level of concern about losing the money is real enough that the Pentagon and State Department have mounted a full-court press to stave off cuts.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and Jack Lew, an old hand in the House and now deputy secretary of state for management and resources, have all raised the issue with Murtha. With an eye toward upcoming House-Senate talks on defense spending, Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, met with Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) on the issue last week.

The great problem is that the numbers mix-up only adds to the misgivings of an old-school Marine like Murtha, who views the ever-expanding IO budget as a hangover from Donald Rumsfeld’s years and a propaganda machine ill-suited for uniformed military.

“I just don’t like the idea that the military is in the propaganda business,” he told POLITICO. “I don’t like it.”

more at link...Growing by leaps and bounds, the Pentagon’s secretive Information Operations budget... more