Showing posts with label Propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Propaganda. Show all posts

Friday, October 13, 2023

The Agrarian's Lament: Somehow unsettling.

The Agrarian's Lament: Somehow unsettling.

Somehow unsettling.

Okay, I regard myself as an agrarian, and I am a Catholic, but I've worked sheep (many yeas ago), and I've worked cattle a lot.

And I don't ever recall anyone working sheep or cattle dressed like this and looking so darned clean.

Images like this, while beautiful in their own way (and the female subject doesn't look too bad either), really distort agriculture.  

It's a minor matter, but a little creepy somehow.

Tuesday, August 22, 2023

Sunday, August 22, 1943. Gertie from Berlin.

Irish army recruiting poster during World War Two.  Note the odd shade of the uniform, which was a very grass shade of green, a color unique to the Irish Army, but well suited for the island nation.  This depiction shows an Irish soldier after the adoption of the British style helmet, which came at the UK's request.  Before that the Irish had used a British Vicker's produced version of the German M1916 helmet, which was in fact a better pattern.  Ireland had a hard time staffing its Army during "the Emergency" as military aged men joined the British Army in such large numbers.

Sarah Sundin reports, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—August 22, 1943: German 10th Army is activated in southern Italy under Gen. Heinrich von Vietinghoff. 
In the Mediterranean, all fighter groups and medium bomb groups in the US Ninth Air Force are transferred to the Twelfth Air Force.

The Germans began to withdraw from Kharkiv to avoid encirclement.

Andrei Gromyko was named Ambassador to the United States, replacing Maxim Litvinov who had returned to the Soviet Union under Stalin's orders in May.  Gromyko was Belarusian.

US forces occupied islands in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands including Nukufetau and Namumea without opposition.

George S. Patton thanked the troops of his Army for their efforts in Sicily, noting:

As a result of this combined effort, you have killed or captured 113,350 enemy troops. You have destroyed 265 of his tanks, 2324 vehicles, and 1162 large guns, and, in addition, have collected a mass of military booty running into hundreds of tons.

English language German radio propagandist "Gertie from Berlin" was revealed to be Gertrude Hahn, a native of Pittsburgh who had gone to Germany in 1938 when her family returned to their native country.

The United Islamic Society of America formed in Newark, New Jersey.

Saturday, August 19, 2023

Thursday, August 19, 1943. The United States and the UK promise not to nuke each other.

The Quebec Agreement, concerning nuclear weapons, was agreed upon between the US and the UK.

August 19, 1943

The Citadel, Quebec.

Articles of Agreement Governing Collaboration Between The Authorities of the U.S.A. and the U.K. in the Matter of Tube Alloys

Whereas it is vital to our common safety in the present War to bring the Tube Alloys project to fruition at the earliest moments; and 

Whereas this maybe more speedily achieved if all available British and American brains and resources are pooled; and 

Whereas owing to war conditions it would be an improvident use of war resources to duplicate plants on a large scale on both sides of the Atlantic and therefore a far greater expense has fallen upon the United States;

It is agreed between us

First, that we will never use this agency against each other.

Secondly, that we will not use it against third parties without each other's consent.

Thirdly, that we will not either of us communicate any information about Tube Alloys to third parties except by mutual consent.

Fourthly, that in view of the heavy burden of production falling upon the United States as the result of a wise division of war effort, the British Government recognize that any post-war advantages of an industrial or commercial character shall be dealt with as between the United States and Great Britain on terms to be specified by the President of the United States to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Prime Minister expressly disclaims any interest in these industrial and commercial aspects beyond what may be considered by the President of the United States to be fair and just and in harmony with the economic welfare of the world.

And Fifthly, that the following arrangements shall be made to ensure full and effective collaboration between the two countries in bringing the project to fruition:

(a) There shall be set up in Washington a Combined Policy Committee composed of:

The Secretary of War. (United States)

Dr. Vannevar Bush.  (United States)

Dr. James B. Conant.  (United States)

Field-Marshal Sir John Dill, G.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.  (United Kingdom)

Colonel the Right Hon. J. J. Llewellin, C.B.E., M.C., M.P.  (United Kingdom)

The Honourable C. D. Howe.  (Canada)

The functions of this Committee, subject to the control of the respective Governments, will be:

(1) To agree from time to time upon the programme of work to be carried out in the two countries.

(2) To keep all sections of the project under constant review.

(3) To allocate materials, apparatus and plant, in limited supply, in accordance with the requirements of the programme agreed by the Committee.

(4) To settle any questions which may arise on the interpretation or application of this Agreement.

(b) There shall be complete interchange of information and ideas on all sections of the project between members of the Policy Committee and their immediate technical advisers.

(c) In the field of scientific research and development there shall be full and effective interchange of information and ideas between those in the two countries engaged in the same sections of the field.

(d) In the field of design, construction and operation of large-scale plants, interchange of information and ideas shall be regulated by such ad hoc arrangements as may, in each section of the field, appear to be necessary or desirable if the project is to be brought to fruition at the earliest moment. Such ad hoc arrangements shall be subject to the approval of the Policy Committee.

Aug. 19th 1943

Approved

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Winston S. Churchill

Tube alloys were atomic weapons.

The Italians began to negotiate with the Allies in Lisbon, bargaining for a surrender.

The Australian Army prevailed in a three-month series of actions on New Guinea known as the e Battle of Bobdubi


The U.S. Office of War Information released the film "Black Marketing".

Saturday, May 20, 2023

The blaring of the propoganda bugle.

Wyoming Rep. John Bear writes, "It was the Speaker’s decision to create an Appropriations Committee consisting only of socially liberal legislators from big cities, and now it appears that the President of the Senate sees some benefit in a Senate Appropriations committee loyal to the Uniparty’s cause as well.

John Bear, head of the Freedom Caucus, in the Cowboy State Daily.

There is no Uniparty.

A person would be hard-pressed to find a single "socially liberal legislator", let alone one from a "big city", in the State Legislature. 

I note this as this is the current drumbeat of the Freedom Caucus, and it's a fantasy.  A better case could be made that the Freedom Caucus is not made up of Republicans, as it doesn't reflect traditional Wyoming Republican values.  Of course, Bear isn't a Wyomingite, being a transplant.

The problem with false propaganda, however, is that people will believe it, including those spouting it.

Friday, March 10, 2023

Wait a moment, did you just compare Tucker Carlson to Joseph Goebbels?

Fox political columnists at work.

Why yes, I did. Thank you for noticing.

I did that here:

German propagandist Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary

The anti-Bolshevik theme is the best horse in the stable.

Goebbels' comments are something that are frighteningly relevant in our current society.  Communism was the enemy of mankind, but so was Nazism.  Indeed, they both shared the common trait of mass murder as a central element of their ethos, which gave the regimes an odd sense of being constantly imperiled by huge plots, in their view, which necessitated murder, in their view, which in turn made millions of people culpable, and therefore loyal, through guilt.  

Victory or Bolshevism was the theme of this poster, which ironically portrayed starving Germans in the manner of which recalls Holocaust victims.  After 1943 the theme of this poster was in fact becoming increasingly true, although victory was no longer possible, as the Red Army was now advancing toward the German frontier.  Germans would have recalled that being a threat during the Russo Polish War of the early 1920s, when Trotsky seriously imagined entering Germany after defeating Poland, but now it was rapidly becoming an inevitability, which the German government implicitly acknowledged through this poster.  In fact, the German government would take no action to withdraw the civilian population from Prussia, although individual German commanders sometimes did, which mean that thousands of German men were shot and tens of thousands of German women raped when the Red Army entered the country.  The final months of the war would be a combat blood bath as German soldiers often went down fighting attempting to let the civilian population get out, a situation which was brought upon them by a barbarous Nazi government.

The Nazis, right from the onset, portrayed themselves as the cultural defenders against Communism, which made many forget, and then adopt, their radical views which were not "conservative" in any real sense. After reaching an accord with the Soviets just prior to World War Two, this was downplayed, but it was ramped back up again prior to Operation Barbarossa and kept at a fever pitch through the remainder of the war.  The message to Germans was that the Nazis were the only defense of Western culture against an "alien" Communism, although Communism itself was originally a German movement.  The message was sufficient for many Germans, including high ranking ones, to put aside their doubts about Nazism on the basis that it seemed to be, based upon what they were hearing, their only alternative to Communism.

Of course, for millions of Germans, the end of the war and Germany's fighting it out past mid 1943 would bring Communism to them.

By way of contemporary analogy, millions of Americans today have been listening, and continue to, to populist propagandist who spread lies and whip up panic over their being the only alternative to "wokeism".  Tucker Carlson and his ilk portray the far populist right as the only means of combating a host of truly concerning liberal ideas.  By espousing lies, they bring those ideas closer to implementation.

Oh my, some are thinking, how could you compare a "conservative" "news" figure to an um. . . conservative government figure. ... who, um, is listened to by millions even if his version of the truth isn't the truth, to a person who was listed to by millions whose version of the truth. . . 

Now, a couple of things.

I'm a conservative.

But I have a brain, value the truth, seek reality, think for myself, and accept the truth is the truth, and there's only one truth, not shades of it.

I'm shocked by how some very serious, well-educated people, listen to Tucker Carlson.  He's a propagandist for Trumpism and has openly spouted lies. He still is, and people, amazingly, are still listening to him.  And as I noted, people rightfully scared of some propositions that progressives put forth, such as that DNA doesn't matter, and you can be what you self identify with, are being led down the primrose false path that only Donald Trump, and his band of followers, can save the nation.

Not likely.  Indeed, if history is any guide, extremism ends in the opposite extreme.

Nazi Germany gave us the German Democratic Republic.

Russian Imperial retrenchment gave us the Bolsheviks.

Napoleon Bonaparte gave us the restoration of the French monarchy.

And yet people sit down at the Fox lunch counter, are served up a steaming bowl of scat, and declare it to be delicious prime rib.

How does that happen?

Probably a variety of ways, but perhaps there are three chief amongst them.

One is, and it's probably the majority reason, is that a lot of people conclude things emotionally.  Most people, in fact.  So they base their decisions on that.

The GOP and the Democratic Party ignored the working class in the country for decades, and came to ignore the middle class. And the Democrats grew used to rule by the courts, not democratic rule.  People knew that they didn't believe that Bobby could become Bobbie chemically or that unrestricted immigration didn't help them, or that they personally weren't evil because they owned a gun.  Trump told them that they were right, and that progressives were part of an evil conspiracy of dunces.

So when Trump told them that the conspiracy had stolen the election, even though there was no theft, and he simply lost, having never won the popular vote in the first place, they believed him and some still do.

The way that works is that "I know that I'm right, people who tell me that I'm right are right, so Tucker Carlson must be right".

For some, it isn't even that advanced. They love Trump as he told them what he wanted to hear and they'll go to their graves believing that Trump is some sort of hero.

None of that changes this basic fact.  Whatever the merits of conservatism, or populism (and the latter is not only conservative but liberal as well, both in a radical way) are, Trump is a threat to democracy and without democracy all values are in danger.  People like Trump, or Greene, or Boebert, are threats to the well-being of the nation, and frankly their values, when examined, are swimming in the shallow end of the pool.

Tucker Carlson, however, is something else, entirely. . . .well not entirely. Frankly, a lot of people associated with Trump stink from what they shovel, and Trump certainly does as well.

Tucker Carlson, major league liar.

Recently he was confronted in a fly shop somewhere:

Liar Carlson confronted by irate large customer.

Fair?

That's an interesting question.

Here's something revealed about Carlson the other day:

Among the documents released Tuesday as part of the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems was an email from Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott that the organization was “Still getting mud thrown at us! … Maybe Sean and Laura went too far.”

Two months after the election and just days before Jan. 6, 2021, Fox host Tucker Carlson texted with an unknown Fox employee about how badly he wanted to stop covering President Donald Trump.

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson texted Jan. 4, 2021. “I truly can’t wait.”

“I hate him passionately,” Carlson added.

Dan Eggen, Washington Post.

Given that the man is a lying tool, exposing his vile nature in front of his daughter, who would not, it should be noted, be a child, while extreme, may be warranted.  

If your brother sins, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.

If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’

If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Mathew 18:15.

Carlson is an Episcopalian, married to the daughter of an Episcopal priest.  He claims to "hate" much about the Episcopal Church, while remaining a member.  The Episcopal Church has, in its mainstream, diluted much of the Christian message and in fact incorporated within its institution in some places those who openly endorse things St. Paul openly condemned.  But it doesn't condone lying.

Maybe calling Carlson a liar in public, and perhaps in front of his family at that, is warranted.  

Maybe it's time to call more of these anti-democratic liars what they are, liars, while at the same time being blunt to politicians and public figures about the other falsehoods they adopt.

For that matter, in public discourse, maybe its even time to do the very difficult. Which would be, for instance, "that Liz Cheney sure is a liar, eh", to say "no, she told the truth, people didn't want to listen" and or "man alive ol' Biden sure caused the price of gas to go up" to say, um, no Putin did..

And with Tucker, all the more so as he's now going on to lie about the nature of the January 6 insurrection.

At some point, the only way to address the publicly vile is to confront them to their face and make the disgusting nature of their behavior known to them publicly.  Carlson's not an idiot, he's lying to people intentionally for some sort of personal advantage.  When there is no advantage to him personally, he'll cease.  

And perhaps he'll repent.

Or he can just go, the functional equivalent of being treated like a tax collector.

Joseph Goebbels shoved out crap for the Nazis, which at least he partially believed himself.  While he didn't loyally serve his wife, having serial affairs, he loyally served Hitler and shoveled out the lies for him.  He and his wife had six children together.

Goebbels, through his propaganda, helped convince the Germans to keep on keeping on in a war which brought the Red Army all the way into Berlin, destroyed Prussia, the largest and most dominant German state, resulted in the rape of perhaps 2,000,000 German women, 100,000 in Berlin alone, and the enslavement of eastern Germany in Communism for decades.  All of this in perpetration of a series of lies, although he no doubt believed some or maybe all of them about German racial superiority and the inferiority of others, particularly the Jewish people.  He and his wife, both of whom cheated on each other, murdered their six children as Berlin collapsed.

Lies have consequences. All of them do.

Big lies have big consequences.

Thursday, March 9, 2023

Tuesday, March 9, 1943. Rommel departs. Air Force limits. De La Rocque arrested. Goebbels looks in the Stable. We Will Never Die opens. Mardi Gras.

Erwin Rommel was recalled by Hitler from North Africa and put on medical leave. General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim assumed command of the Afrika Korps, and would remain in command until its surrender.  Effectively, Hitler had rescued Rommel.

Von Arnim.

Von Arnim bore a remarkable resemblance to actor Keenan Wynn, who played Col. "Bat" Guano in Dr. Strangelove.

Wynn, left.

Von Arnim would go into captivity in the UK and then later the U.S.  He would not enter the Bundesheer following its establishment, perhaps due to age, and died in 1962 at age 73.

Sarah Sundin notes on her blog:

Today in World War II History—March 9, 1943: US Eighth Air Force Central Medical Establishment recommends 25-mission combat tour for bomber crewmen and 200 hours or 50 missions for fighter pilots.

Of note, making it through 25 bomber missions at the time was against the odds.  Also, I didn't know that there was a limit for fighter pilots.

De La Rocque.

French right wing political figure François de La Rocque, who had gone from accepting the French surrender and Petain's rule to being a secret opponent of it and founder of a right wing resistance movement, was arrested by the Germans. Regarded by some as a precursor to de Gaulle, he would survive the war and die in 1946 at age 60.

De La Rocque had interestingly gone from the far right into moderation prior to the war, first being part of the Croix de Feu and then being a founder of the French Social Party.  The latter party was a combination of conservative and corporatist, but it was not anti-democratic. Some credit it with giving the French middle class an alternative to fascism, thereby preventing fascism from rising in France.

German poster in Dutch, part of an effort to recruit occupied Europeans to German arms out of fear of Communism.

German propagandist Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary

The anti-Bolshevik theme is the best horse in the stable.

Goebbels' comments are something that are frighteningly relevant in our current society.  Communism was the enemy of mankind, but so was Nazism.  Indeed, they both shared the common trait of mass murder as a central element of their ethos, which gave the regimes an odd sense of being constantly imperiled by huge plots, in their view, which necessitated murder, in their view, which in turn made millions of people culpable, and therefore loyal, through guilt.  

Victory or Bolshevism was the theme of this poster, which ironically portrayed starving Germans in the manner of which recalls Holocaust victims.  After 1943 the theme of this poster was in fact becoming increasingly true, although victory was no longer possible, as the Red Army was now advancing toward the German frontier.  Germans would have recalled that being a threat during the Russo Polish War of the early 1920s, when Trotsky seriously imagined entering Germany after defeating Poland, but now it was rapidly becoming an inevitability, which the German government implicitly acknowledged through this poster.  In fact, the German government would take no action to withdraw the civilian population from Prussia, although individual German commanders sometimes did, which mean that thousands of German men were shot and tens of thousands of German women raped when the Red Army entered the country.  The final months of the war would be a combat blood bath as German soldiers often went down fighting attempting to let the civilian population get out, a situation which was brought upon them by a barbarous Nazi government.

The Nazis, right from the onset, portrayed themselves as the cultural defenders against Communism, which made many forget, and then adopt, their radical views which were not "conservative" in any real sense. After reaching an accord with the Soviets just prior to World War Two, this was downplayed, but it was ramped back up again prior to Operation Barbarossa and kept at a fever pitch through the remainder of the war.  The message to Germans was that the Nazis were the only defense of Western culture against an "alien" Communism, although Communism itself was originally a German movement.  The message was sufficient for many Germans, including high ranking ones, to put aside their doubts about Nazism on the basis that it seemed to be, based upon what they were hearing, their only alternative to Communism.

Of course, for millions of Germans, the end of the war and Germany's fighting it out past mid 1943 would bring Communism to them.

By way of contemporary analogy, millions of Americans today have been listening, and continue to, to populist propagandist who spread lies and whip up panic over their being the only alternative to "wokeism".  Tucker Carlson and his ilk portray the far populist right as the only means of combating a host of truly concerning liberal ideas.  By espousing lies, they bring those ideas closer to implementation.

We Will Never Die, a Jewish pageant featuring spectacular artwork (copyright protected) on its cover, opened on the East Coast.  It acknowledged that it was held in memory of what it then thought to be Europe's 2,000,000 then Jewish dead, showing that knowledge of the Holocaust was in fact widespread, contrary to what some will claim.

Today was Mardi Gras for 1943.  On the same day, readers of the nation's newspapers learned that the wartime ban on sliced bread had been lifted the prior day.  The ban had been to save steel needed for slicing machines.

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Sunday October 5, 1941. Game Four of the 1941 World Series, Louis Brandeis passes away, the sitaution in the East grows grimmer.


I managed to miss the first three games here on the blog.

In game 1, the Yankees beat the Dodgers 3 to 2.  In game 2, the Dodgers beat the Yankees 3 to 2.  In game 3, the Yankees beat the Dodgers 2 to 1.

In this game, the Yankees beat the Dodgers 7 to 4 at Ebbets Field.

You could have listened on the radio, of course, but there were also other things to listen to.


Louis Brandeis, former Supreme Court Justice, died at age 84.  He'd retired from the court in 1939.


Brandeis remains a legend from the court, although probably few people could really define what he stood for now.  He was a progressive when that term had been defined by Theodore Roosevelt's politics. He was appointed to the court by Woodrow Wilson.  He was a wealthy man, but was opposed to consumerism and felt it influence corrupting.  He was also an opponent of big finance and big corporations.  He was personally very reserved.

He was the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, although his parents were members of the heretical Frankism sect. The rest of his family was not, and it does not appear that Brandeis himself was.  He was married to a cousin of his and had two children.

On the same day, the New York Times ran an article that things were worsening for Jews in Eastern Europe, an understatement if ever there was one, but an understandable understatement given that Western news outlets hadn't had free access to Eastern Europe for twenty years at the time, and the Germans weren't about to give it to them.  Herman Hoth, a German general, was appointed commander of the German 17th Army where he would be a strong proponent of the war of annulation against the Jews and the Communists, whom he made no distinction between.  Hoth was tried after the war for war crimes and tried to excuse his actions as ones that that were sales puffery only, which was quite a stretch.  He served 15 years in prison for war crimes and died in 1971.

Weekly German propaganda poster released on this day in 1941.  The text reads, loosely; "Farmers and Soldiers stand hand in hand together, to give to the Volk their day bread, and to the Reich freedom through room.  The poster is a ghastly perversion of Christian ideals in regard to its reference to "daily bread" and bizarrely has the sword not beat into a plowshare, but anchored to a plot.

Of note, if you were in the West reading the news from this period, it'd have been hard not to conclude the Germans were going to win the war.  Now, of course, we realize that they were already in trouble in the Soviet Union, but that wouldn't have been obvious from reading the newspapers.

Saturday, September 4, 2021

Thursday September 4, 1941. The Greer Incident.

On this day in 1941 the USS Greer chased the German U-boat U-652 for 3.5 hours before the U-boat finally fired torpedoes upon the destroyer.  The Greer then attacked the U-boat unsuccessfully, pursuing it for another 2 hours.


The presence of the submarine was made known to the Greer by a British aircraft which has sighted it, after which the Greer and two other American escorts closed on it, the Greer gaining sonar contact.  About two hours later a British aircraft attacked the submarine unsuccessfully.  Following that, the Greer continued to pursue it, expecting the arrival of a relief plane.

After about 3.5 hours of this, the submarine fired two torpedoes on the Greer, after which it went after the submarine with a depth charge run.  A British destroyer arrived but lost contact with the submarine.  The Greer then regained sonar contact and made another depth charge run on the submarine.

The matter was inaccurately reported at first in the United States as if the U-boat had simply fired upon the Greer.  An October report by the Navy to Congress in October would make it plain that the opposite was true.  Moreover, to a submarine of the era the combined effort by three surface ships to keep it submerged was a hostile act.  

By that time of the October report the Administration, declaring the German response "an act of piracy" had issued a "shoot on sight" order.  Effectively this meant that in waters patrolled by the U.S. Navy ships were authorized to attack U-boats immediately upon sighting them.  This was effectively an act of war on the part of the United States, although an undeclared one, to which Germany also did not respond with a declaration of war.

The entire episode revealed how close the US was to war already.  The Greer was effectively participating, but not shooting, in a Royal Navy effort to destroy the submarine. The U.S. was, of course, protecting convoys, so the Greer was acting in accordance with its instructions.  The U-boats ultimate reaction, having been depth charged by aircraft and pursued by a surface vessel, was not unreasonable in context, however.

On the same day, the Yankees took the American League Pennant, the earliest in the season that has ever occurred.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Propaganda and subtle subterfuge

 


propaganda (n.) 

1718, "committee of cardinals in charge of foreign missions of the Catholic Church," short for Congregatio de Propaganda Fide "congregation for propagating the faith," a committee of cardinals established 1622 by Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions.   The word is properly the ablative fem. gerundive of Latin propagare "set forward, extend, spread, increase" (see propagation).  

Hence, "any movement or organization to propagate some practice or ideology" (1790). The modern political sense ("dissemination of information intended to promote a political point of view") dates from World War I, not originally pejorative and implying bias or deliberate misleading. Meaning "material or information propagated to advance a cause, etc." is from 1929. Related: Propagandic.

From the On Line Etymology Dictionary.

subterfuge (n.) 

1570s, from French subterfuge (14c.) or directly from Medieval Latin subterfugium "an evasion," from Latin subterfugere "to evade, escape, flee by stealth," from subter "beneath, below;" in compounds "secretly" (from PIE *sup-ter-, suffixed (comparative) form of *(s)up-; see sub-) + fugere "flee" (see fugitive (adj.)).

From the On Line Etymology Dictionary. 

The American Press is continually baffled why so many people believe that they're not trustworthy, and that they're basically the mouthpiece for the left wing of the Democratic Party.  The dismay is truly genuine on the presses' part, as it truly doesn't see itself that way, and in truth, it isn't a captive of the Democrats as some would seemingly likely believe.

Reporters are however, generally much more likely to be "liberals" or "progressives" than the populace at large, however, and this is true from the top to the bottom.  There's been examination of it and even the Washington Post ran an editorial on it some years ago, attempting to figure out why this was.  I don't know that they determined the reason for it, but my theories would be that generally reporters are college educated, a bias towards the left that's well noted in other areas, they're underpaid compared to those with similar educations (which tends to cause a person to be left wing as well), and there's a left wing history to their profession, something that shows up in younger lawyers as well as law schools likewise have a similar ideological caste.  There are some conservatives in news rooms, to be sure, but they're few and far between as a rule, unless you are talking about one of the media organs that's been assembled to be ideological, which exist on both the left and the right.  We're not talking about that, and we'll stray from the media as well, but rather "mainstream media".

Mainstream media does not, by and large, seek to be left wing intentionally, but as its membership is generally left of center, that's how it views the world and that's how most reporters view the world. As we view the world through our eyes, when we report it, that's how we all report it, at least to some degree.  News media should avoid filtering the news, and reporters generally argue that they don't, but at least some filtering occurs and some of that is simply through the use of language that's agenda driven.

Using propagandistic terms that come out of the left wing of the Democratic Party's playbook is a feature of that.  And that use is intentional at some level.  If the press really wants people to regard it as a neutral, it ought to eschew such terms.

Right now, however, the news is jam packed with them.

The one you will hear the most right now is "gun safety".  The last edition of Meet The Press was all about firearms in the United States and did very little to shed any light on the topic whatsoever.  What it did to is to have a lot of discussion on "gun safety".  That's propaganda.

The press picked up on a Democratic talking point of several years back to refer to "gun control" as "gun safety".  Nobody likes being controlled, but everyone likes safety.  That's the gist of it.  The use of the switch in terms was deliberate by those originally making it, as talking about gun control routinely proved to be a political failure.  If I recall correctly, and my recollection on this is dim, the concept was that by talking about "safety" they'd play to "Soccer Moms" who are all about safety, they believed.  And everyone is for safety.  Many fewer people are for control.

The gun safety term is awkward and stupid, but that doesn't keep hit from being used to the total exclusion of gun control. The odd thing is that proponents of gun control once were perfectly open about wanting gun control.  That's what they called it, as that's what they want.  Agree with them or not, it was honest.

Gun safety is something that the NRA, in real terms, has been involved in for years and which they are in favor of.  Safe ranges, safe ammunition, safe firearms handling practices. That's gun safety.  Guns themselves have safeties, in most examples save for handguns, which often lack them.

Laws that say who can have guns, and when, and under what conditions, are gun control laws.  

On the firearms debate, the press has for many years now referred to the National Rifle Association as the "gun lobby" quite frequently, and more recently it's claimed that the NRA does the bidding of firearms manufacturers.  Both claims are baloney, and the last one is pure unadulterated baloney.

Like the NRA or not, its a member driven organization.  I don't like what the NRA has done in the past decade plus to glamorize the AR15 and to popularize the idea that everyone needs to be expecting urban combat, but its not a manufacturer driven organization.  It's a member driven organization.  It definitely impacts the firearms culture, but not as a devious means of promoting sales. So when the press makes that claim, it's just distributing a falsehood.

Also false is the claim that the NRA is a "lobby", unless every organization on the planet is likewise a lobby.  Lobbying for your position makes you some sort of an advocate, but it doesn't make you a true lobby.  Lobbies are organizations that are created to do just that, lobby.  Being a lobby doesn't mean you are ipso facto evil, either, it means you are a lobby. 

Another favorite term for many years now is "undocumented alien".  That makes the news sound like a script for Hogan's Heroes; "can I see your papers please?".  Everyone knows that what "undocumented aliens" actually are is "illegal aliens".

Being an illegal alien doesn't make you any less of a human being than anyone else, but its the proper description of that person's status.  They didn't' loose their paperwork at the laundry mat of have it stolen at the Piggly Wiggly, the entered the country in violation of the law.  

This one is also a left wing term as the left wing of the Democratic Party is basically for an open border with no controls whatsoever.  They'll never say that, as they're for "immigration reform" the same way their for "gun safety".

While we're at it, let's also address the absurd term "The Dreamers".  It's propaganda too.

Depending upon how you define it, what "the Dreamers" basically are that group of illegal aliens who were brought into the US in their early youth and then grew up in the US.  The US is generally portrayed as the only country they've ever known, although in reality most migrant populations in the US retain extremely close ties to the countries they came from.  It would probably surprise most Americans, but immigrant populations tend to go back and forth to the countries from which they stem, if they can, much more frequently than a person would suspect.  No doubt a lot of "Dreamers" have never been to the country in which they were born, but probably quite a few of them actually have.  

That doesn't make their plight any less sympathetic.  If you are an illegal alien who was brought to the country when you were five, you are culturally an American, even if you aren't legally one.

We'll address immigration, again, in a later post, but since the "Dreamer" moniker was attached to them, the press has portrayed every person in this category as a hard working college student studying nuclear biochemical molecular engineering and medicine.  That's no more true about them than it is about any other group of young people, and frankly it's unfair to them.  Probably a lot of them have pretty minor jobs, some are working in Starbucks, and others at the garage.  The few I've met tended to have oilfield employment, but that's a regional deal.

Of course calling them all "Dreamers" attaches a hagiographic romance to their plight.  Concern for their plight is merited, but let's be frank that their "dream", for the most part, is just to stay in the US.  Their nightmare is to be deported.  That's the issue, in essence, but in a simplistic essence that understates the nature of the problem, to be sure.

Another one of long propagandization is "pro choice", although seems to be waning.  Being pro choice means that you are for abortion being legal.  Being "pro life", which has much less of a propagandistic aspect to it, means you are opposed to abortion.

Perhaps because pro choice was met with pro life, the use of pro choice has really diminished.  A debate between choice and life isn't one in which the choice side has the better label.  Given that, in recent years the propaganda has shifted to "women's reproductive rights".  

That term is a mouthful but it offers better obfuscation.  "Reproductive rights" in this context means the right to terminate a pregnancy, so its essence, basically, is to be anti reproductive.  If "women's reproductive rights" really meant that, it would have something to do with being able to have children in spite of societal or legal opposition.  There really isn't any legal opposition and never has been, and in the US there couldn't legally be, unless what you meant was a return to the old legal restrictions about cohabitation, which nobody is proposing to do, irrespective of the comparative societal impacts of the old law vs. the new ones. 

This debate has been going on in the US since 1973, and earlier, so by now most people know that the debate is really about abortion and don't go much further than that.  That probably also influenced the introduction of a new term, but in a highly familiar debate, the impact of that is probably marginal.

Another set of terms we're now seeing being introduced deal with "voter" and "election" "security".  This one isn't being picked up by the Press as the Press is generally left wing and is calling BS on it. Those who want to use those terms are rightly accused of wanting to restrict the vote, although some of them are simply buying off on the propaganda of earlier in the year that suggested, falsely, that the vote was imperiled.

In truth, allowing for widespread use of non polling place voting is thought to be a threat to Republicans and a boon for Democrats. The degree to which that is true is really questionable, as the GOP did really well this past election, but that's what its about.  At a certain level Republicans are really afraid that this trend will mean the more numerous Democrats will vote, as it'll be easier.  They want to make it more difficult and return to the gold old days, in their view, when they lost elections by larger margins but you had to show up at the polls.  Nobody can use the term "voter restriction law" however, and gets away with it.

Anyhow, controlling language has an impact on debate.  Everyone is for safety, nobody is for control.

But in addressing any topic, you really need to understand its essence, not the propoganda.