Propaganda

Op-Ed

Best Health Care System? Not in the USA, Despite Constant Spin to Make Us Believe It

by Wendell Potter — November 28, 2011 - 1:59pm
  • Topics: Corporations, Health, Propaganda

    • A little more than a year ago, on the day after the GOP regained control of the House of Representatives, Speaker-to-be John Boehner said one of the first orders of business after he took charge would be the repeal of health care reform.

    "I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country," Boehner said at a press
    conference. "That means we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms to bring down the cost of health care.”

    Boehner is not the first nor the only Republican to try to make us believe that the U.S. has the world’s best health care system and that we’re bound to lose that distinction because of Obamacare. I’ve heard GOP candidates for president say the same thing in recent months, charging that we need to get rid of a President who clearly is trying to fix something that doesn’t need fixing, something that isn’t broken in the first place.

    Op-Ed

    ALEC Politicians Spin Special "Interest" Bill to Protect Corporate Wrongdoers as "Job Creation"

    by Lisa Graves — October 13, 2011 - 10:13am
  • Topics: ALEC Exposed, Tort Reform, Corporations, Economy, Pharmaceuticals, Propaganda

    • For years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has been itching to protect big corporations from high interest rates charged in cases where corporations have killed or injured Americans. Now, Wisconsin politicians serving on key ALEC task forces are pushing a bill embracing this idea as part of ALEC alumnus Scott Walker's latest effort to force the ALEC agenda into law based on claims that doing so will help "job creators."

    Rick Perry Pulls a Fast One on Farmers

    by Anne Landman — September 1, 2011 - 11:40am

    At an appearance at Iowa's State Fair on August 15, Republican presidential candidate and Texas Governor Rick Perry claimed the federal government is stifling job creation.

    Main Source: 
    Des Moines Register, August 15, 2011
    Op-Ed

    Rick Perry's Texas Health Care Hoax

    by Wendell Potter — September 1, 2011 - 11:12am
  • Topics: Health, Politics, Propaganda

    • In his quest to win the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is perpetuating a convincing hoax: that implementing Texas-style tort reform would go a long way toward curing what ails the U.S. health care system.

    Like his fellow GOP contenders, Perry consistently denounces "Obamacare" as "a budget-busting, government takeover of healthcare" and "the greatest intrusion on individual freedom in a generation." He promises to repeal the law if elected.

    Gore Condemns Dirty Industry PR Tactics that Sow Doubt on Global Warming

    by Anne Landman — August 24, 2011 - 11:10am

    Almost two years ago, former health insurance PR executive Wendell Potter published his tell-all book, Deadly Spin, about the deceptive media campaigns and PR trickery the health insurance industry uses to beat back meaningful health care reform in the U.S. Potter pointed out the striking similarities between the insurers' tactics and those the tobacco industry applied for decades to delay regulation and confuse people about the health hazards of smoking and secondhand smoke. These manipulative PR tactics held off meaningful tobacco regulation for over 40 years, and also proved highly successful for the insurance industry, which used the same strategies to defeat true health care reform. Now Al Gore is pointing out that the energy, steel and utility industries are applying those same, tricky and time-worn PR strategies to confuse people about global warming and delay efforts to address it.

    Main Source: 
    AP News/Wisconsin State Journal, August 24, 2011
    News

    General Electric's Jim Cramer Heads to Midwest to Cheerlead for Fracking

    by Steve Horn — August 24, 2011 - 6:31am
  • Topics: Corporations, Energy, Environment, Propaganda

    • Today, CNBC's Mad Money with Jim Cramer's "Invest in America" series will take the show to a seemingly unlikely locale. The crew will head to a place many would consider the middle of nowhere -- the state of North Dakota.

    Why North Dakota? Four words: The Bakken Shale Formation.

    Referred to as "Kuwait on the Prairie" by The New Yorker in an April 2011 feature story and located predominately in northwest North Dakota, the shale formation possesses a vast amount of both oil and methane ("natural") gas, gathered via the notorious fracking process. Recognizing the economic opportunities that the formation would present to fossil fuel corporations, the U.S. Energy Information Administration penned a report in November 2006 titled "Technology-Based Oil and Natural Gas Plays: Shale Shock! Could There Be Billions in the Bakken?", highlighting them in some depth.

    News

    New Documentary Explores Subconscious Manipulation by Corporations and Others

    by Rebekah Wilce — August 18, 2011 - 4:54pm
  • Topics: Advertising, Video News Releases, Corporations, Media, Propaganda, Public Relations, U.S. Government

    • It's our responsibility as journalists to let the public know who is paid by what corporation, or if they're representing the government. Otherwise, it's unforgivable. The media is our lens on the world. And it is absolutely critical we trust the media. Because, ultimately, when people are terrorized, when people are targeted, when people are marginalized, that does not make any of us safer.

    - Amy Goodman, interview in "Programming the Nation?" documentary

    Op-Ed

    Taking on Bachmann, Whose Pants Are Always On Fire

    by Wendell Potter — August 18, 2011 - 8:34am
  • Topics: Right Wing, Economy, Health, Propaganda

    • If NBC's David Gregory had asked just a couple of follow-up questions of Michele Bachmann on Meet the Press on Sunday, August 14, he would have found that her anecdote about how "Obamacare" will lead to economic ruin doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

    In fact, he would have found that the financial problems of the Iowa employer she cites to bolster her point are far more likely the result of the economic policies of former President George W. Bush.

    In answering Gregory's question about how she would "turn the economy around within several months" if elected president, as she recently promised to do, Bachmann pledged to repeal both the health care reform law and the Dodd-Frank Act, which Congress enacted last year to reform the way financial institutions are regulated.

    News

    Chesapeake "Declaration of Energy Independence": NAT GAS Act Embodied

    by Steve Horn — July 25, 2011 - 11:07pm
  • Topics: Energy, Environment, Propaganda, Public Relations

    • On July 11, Chesapeake Energy, the second largest methane gas corporation in the United States, announced its "bold new plan": a "Declaration of Energy Independence" for America's energy future. ("Natural gas" is the public relations term the industry uses for methane gas, because it sounds so much more appealing than the real name.)

    The plan is double-pronged and will no doubt lead to increased levels of fracking, the process drilling companies use to extract methane gas in areas like the Marcellus Shale and other shale deposits throughout the country. Fracking is a dirty process, as indicated by the Center for Media and Democracy's ongoing look into the state-by-state and federal legislative push for domestic gas drilling.

    News

    ALEC, For-Profit Criminal Justice, and Wisconsin

    by Brendan Fischer — July 18, 2011 - 6:06am
  • Topics: BanksterUSA, Corporations, Democracy, Lobbying, Politics, Propaganda, Real Economy Project, Wisconsin Protests

    • As the first half of 2011 has revealed, Wisconsin is not a moderate "purple" state, but a state divided between staunchly "blue" progressives and righteous "red" right-wingers. That rift is particularly apparent in legislative conflicts over the criminal justice system, a debate spurred by corporate interests represented in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and perpetuated by ALEC legislative members, including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

    Wisconsin's history and public policy reflects the red/blue divide. It is the state that gave birth to the Republican Party, which supported slavery abolition, and the John Birch Society, which opposed the civil rights movement. In the first half of the 20th Century, the state elected both progressive hero Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette and right-wing extremist Joe McCarthy. It is the state that elected both former Senator Russ Feingold (D) and Representative Paul Ryan (R).

    Wisconsin also produced Paul Weyrich, who in 1973 co-founded both the Heritage Foundation and ALEC (and in subsequent years, Free Congress and Moral Majority). Weyrich's ALEC, it seems, has been a factory for many of the state's most recent right-wing policy initiatives.

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