Propaganda 105: How to Spot a Liar

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Gene Howington

By GENE HOWINGTON

“If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.” – Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, VI, 21.

This is more than just a pithy quote from one of the great Stoic minds of antiquity, it is a summation of one of my personal ethics. Professor Jonathan Turley at his blog Res Ispa Loquitur posted an item about former President Bill Clinton entitled “Clinton: We Don’t Need A President Who Will Not Tell You The Truth“. The gist of the article was that a President who lied under oath as Clinton did most certainly didn’t need to be critical of other politicians lying as it was simple hypocrisy even if the point former President Clinton made was valid. This brings us to a prime and necessary component of the propaganda scenario, the liar. Lying is a commonality in our species. Everyone lies about something some time.

“No, that dress doesn’t make you look fat, honey.”

“I was ambushed by baboons on the way to work this morning.”

“I can’t go out tonight because I have to stay home and wax my dog.”

Or the classic . . .

These are not the lies that are of primary importance in propaganda. White lies, while not necessarily ethically the best thing in the world, are a social lubricant that helps keep society cohesive. If everyone told the truth about everything all the time, the homicide and suicide rates would probably sky-rocket. We are going to focus on the truly bad actors. The liars in propaganda who are looking to get you to do something they want that is usually not in your best interests and/or harmful to others. Since many dangerous liars are sociopaths or psychopaths, the question becomes how do you spot a liar, a sociopath or a psychopath? First we start with how to spot a generic liar before considering how to spot socio- and psychopaths at a later date.

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Posted in Propaganda | 6 Comments

ON THIS DAY: April 7, 2017

Posted on April 7, 2017 by wordcloud9

April 7th is

Coffee Cake Day

National Beer Day *

International Beaver Day *

International Snailpapers Day *

National Walk to Work Day *

World Health Organization Day *

Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Rwanda Genocide *
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another Trump stunt … ‘President Xi, cruise missiles are the best fireworks to herald your arrival’

Posted on April 7, 2017 by ann li-summers

By ann summers

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After the initial pooch-screwing of the raid in Yemen, Trump ordered a US Middle East military attack of approximately 60 cruise missiles in “retaliation” for Syrian air attacks with chemical weapons.

More cynically, it’s a stunt to distract the nation from the #TrumpRussia scandal.

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However, Trump could get his Nobel Prize if the US could lift sanctions on Russia to gain their cooperation on Syrian peace.

Whether this attack was reciprocity and a proportional response or a “strongman” stunt for the benefit of Chinese President Xi, remains unspoken.

The timing of the attack makes it more likely that like Iran-Contra, Republican pathologies do try to maximize effects on policy actors without thought of un/intended consequence.

Who cares whether the Russians knew the attack was coming before Congress was informed. They didn’t roll over for Trumpcare after all.

Rob Reiner’s Aaron Sorkin text The American President says “(Ordering a bombing) is the least presidential thing I do”. Our reality TV POTUS sure tried to bleat that humanitarian message out in his prepared statement. “God bless the entire world”

No such introspection occurred for Agent Orange although his entry for a People’s Choice Award mewed about “beautiful” dead Syrian babies even as he wants Syrians out of the US,

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Posted in 2016 Election, Countries, Foreign Policy, Government, History, Media, Political Science, Politics, Presidential Elections, Propaganda, Russia, Society, Syria, United States, War on "Terror" | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on another Trump stunt … ‘President Xi, cruise missiles are the best fireworks to herald your arrival’

Word Cloud: DISINHERITED

Posted on April 7, 2017 by wordcloud9

by NONA BLYTH CLOUD

In pursuit of poetic history for National Poetry Month, I’ve dipped into the dusty past to look at a poet who was once an international figure in literary circles, but whose work has dwindled in the narrow eyes of Fame to a single poem, sometimes found in chronological anthologies: The Man With a  Hoe.

Today’s reader will cringe at a lot of the other poetry that Edwin Markham (1852 – 1940) penned. The hackneyed phrases, and especially the intrusion of ‘The Poet’ into the middle of his own poems, mark many of them as second-rate or derivative.

However, in some of his short poems, there are flashes of the poet who wrote a poem that has endured. The Man With a Hoe, in its day, actually furthered the Socialist Labor Movement. It caused much discussion among the reading public about the working poor, and a feeling that something ought to be done about their plight.
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Poetry

She comes as hush and beauty of the night, 
            And sees too deep for laughter;
Her touch is a vibration and a light
            From worlds before and after.

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ON THIS DAY: April 6, 2017

Posted on April 6, 2017 by wordcloud9

April 6th is

Army Day *

Caramel Popcorn Day

Twinkie Day *

New Beers Eve *

National Tartan Day *

National Teflon Day *

National Student Athlete Day *

International Day of Sport for Development and Peace * 
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The Trumpists have now Lucy’d themselves

Posted on April 5, 2017 by ann li-summers

By ann summers

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Zippy, aside from all that disinformation regarding those verifiable Russian/Wikileaks contacts he’s made (like no one knows about burner phones), is now trying the whatabout game of Tu Quoque.

He always has alternative facts, our Roger so we’ll see when the indictments come, since his Nixon experience always comes in handy.

More likely it’s all PR for his new book on Agent Orange and the 2016 campaign wherein he accuses HRC of being on drugs during the debates.

But Trust and Reciprocity have complex utility curves, especially with all those dead Russians.

Roger Stone: Kushner Is Leaking Intel to Scarborough

The president’s friend and self-proclaimed ‘dirty trickster’ alleged on InfoWars that ‘there is no question now sources are telling me’ Kushner was texting negative information about other White House officials to the MSNBC host.

Roger Stone has given a video interview to InfoWars, a far right propaganda site run by his gun-nut pal Alex Jones.

In it Stone claims that Jared Kushner has been leaking dirty secrets to MSNBC host Morning Joe Scarborough, in an attempt at undermining White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon.

Stone is not a reliable source of information (nor is InfoWars) and he’s presenting no evidence to support his claim, so the truth of the matter is not currently obtainable.

But the bigger story is that Stone is now attacking Kushner of all people.

There are at least a few plausible explanations for Roger Stone’s latest odd move.

  • One is that Donald Trump has cut off Stone, leaving him to fend for himself in the Russia scandal, and that Stone believes Kushner is the one who convinced Trump to hang him out to dry – so he wants revenge on Kushner.
  • Another is that Stone simply believes Trump is giving too much power to Kushner in general, and is trying to manipulate his old friend Trump into reining Kushner in.
  • Perhaps Bannon even pushed Stone into making the accusation, because Bannon wants to shift the power back from Kushner to himself. It’s also possible Stone has merely snapped under the pressure of FBI investigation.

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But when it comes to Trump-Putin collusion, we’re still waiting for the confirmation. As Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters put it, the proof is increasingly understood to be the thing we find later, as in, “If we do the investigations, we will find the connections.” (Matt Taibbi)

 

Posted in 2016 Election, alternative facts, Conspiracy, Government, History, Political Science, Politics, Presidential Elections, Richard Nixon, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

ON THIS DAY: April 5, 2017

Posted on April 5, 2017 by wordcloud9

April 5th is

Caramel Day

Go For Broke Day *

Deep Dish Pizza Day *

Read A Road Map Day

National Walking Day *

National Day of Hope *

Star Trek First Contact Day *
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will Trump burn the bamboo curtain of distraction at this week’s China talks

Posted on April 4, 2017 by ann li-summers

By ann summers

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Chinese food in America during the Cold War became stereotypically portrayed for many years in a limited number of dishes.

Chop Suey describes the cooked leftovers of US foreign policy, led(sic) by a Secretary of State who demands that his underlings not establish eye contact, with actual negotiating delegated to a princeling who bought his admission to Harvard.

Or will POTUS45* attempt to delegate matters to Secretary Chao, much like he fired his most senior non-family female staffer on the day after he celebrated Women’s Empowerment.

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The Clash of Civilizations (COC) is a hypothesis that people’s cultural and religious identities will be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. It was proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington in a 1992 lecture[1] at the American Enterprise Institute, which was then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article titled “The Clash of Civilizations?”,[2] in response to his former student Francis Fukuyama‘s 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man. Huntington later expanded his thesis in a 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.

This week’s “Summit” with the PRC could be relatively benign, with the usual POTUS45* WWE tough talk followed by some other tiny hand-waving once reality sets in.

However, it could be a major SNAFU, considering the raising military stakes of North Korean nukes, South China Sea sovereignty, and the usual stupidity of fomenting an Asian land war instead of a trade war.

The Orange Misanthrope and his fascist drunk, Steve Quasimodo, seem to think that the Strategy of Tension will fulfill the goals of so-called Fourth Turning chaos with a globe consisting of prepper-bunker nations, each celebrating their skin colors.

Since leadership of the Free World has been outsourced to Germany, Dear Gasbag may decide to bring his delusion of “beautiful clean coal” even further in some ham-handed leverage stunt, perhaps even to litigate his personal issues with Trump Escort Servicestm on an international stage.

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The result by the close of the weekend could be a new wave of idiotic Sinophobia, raising the stakes of our already rampant xenophobia including anti-Mexicanism and Islamophobia, that normalize racist micro-aggressions in American everyday life.

We had a preview of this, when in the first weeks of his regime, Lord Dampnut decided that it would be good to question the One China policy and raise the stakes with Taiwan’s general complacency on a tension reminiscent of the Cold War. Remember that awkward Trump campaign trip to Mexico.

One way or another, whether there’s another Deng-like stunt or some way he can get Cabinet Secretary Chao to smuggle more drugs, Agent Orange will be hungry for power an hour later and tweet his displeasure.

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Posted in 2016 Election, China, Economic Policy, Economics, Foreign Policy, Government, Government Propaganda, History, Media, Political Science, Politics, Presidential Elections, Presidents, Propaganda, Society, United States, US Military | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

ON THIS DAY: April 4, 2017

Posted on April 4, 2017 by wordcloud9

April 4th is

Chicken Cordon Bleu Day

Vitamin C Day

World Rat Day

International Day for Mine
Awareness & Action

National Sexual Assault Awareness & Action Day
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#TrumpRussia … banks, servers, and financial/voter information … Crooks and Liars grabbed the White House in 2016.

Posted on April 3, 2017 by ann li-summers

By ann summers

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Another week, another tweeted attempt to divert attention from #TrumpRussia and blame(sic) Democrats for the demise of the republic because of surveillance that never happened.

Remember the front end and the bottom line of this affair are about banks, servers, and financial/voter information … Crooks and Liars grabbed the White House in 2016.

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Alexander Torshin, a close ally of Russian President Putin and deputy governor of the Bank of Russia. The White House abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting in February between President Trump and a high-level Russian central banker after a national security aide discovered the official had been named by Spanish police as a suspected “godfather” of an organized crime and money-laundering ring, according to an administration official and four other sources familiar with the event.

The evermore desperate meme of “whatabout” is now about a non-existent surveillance program on the GOP, because the real story is that the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russians is overlaid with a history of corrupt practices by a wide range of suspects including GOP donors.

Criminal suspects were being surveilled as agents of money laundering and cyber-espionage. Intelligence agencies’ surveillance of actual crimes by some Americans and some Russians each involved with actual criminal networks went on for years.

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The confluence of Trump’s presidential run and his financial connections have created the Perfect Stormfront, where accountability for electoral activities has now reached the potential of the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Nixon administration. If the level of distraction precipitates escalated military actions, it will add the Reagan era’s global complications.

What has made this potentially impeachable is the overlay of data laundering onto money laundering during the election campaign.

Today’s revelation is one connecting Russian banks and “informal” intermediaries in #TrumpRussia, including the beneficiary of federal security contracting.

Trump really needs you to ignore a complex network of laundered money and data washing that serves his and others’ personal financial interests.

An American brand of whatabout is being practiced by Trumpians whose noose(s) are tightening, and as usual Fox News manufactures a fictitious news meme in coordination with POTUS45*.

The cover-up continues for Desperate Don and more connections to mercenary behavior.

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Posted in 2016 Election, alternative facts, Conspiracy, Crime, DOJ, Fascists/Corporatists, Government, Government Propaganda, History, Media, Political Science, Politics, Presidential Elections, Propaganda, Russia, Society, United States | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on #TrumpRussia … banks, servers, and financial/voter information … Crooks and Liars grabbed the White House in 2016.