The National Low Income Housing Coalition is out with their annual fake report
Reporters are idiots. They fall for this story every year, year after year. And not one bothers to question the advocacy group’s press release. Not one.
When is something a “Crisis”?
When is something a “crisis” and when is it not? “Crisis” is an intentional word used to evoke emotions – or to call for action. One can choose to use the word “crisis” to suggest something awful (even if not really) or can deliberately choose not to use the world “crisis” to minimize the optics of the situation.
When you re-define the language, you can control the world
“Tear gas” and “Pepper spray” have been redefined by riot enthusiasts as “chemical munitions” and “chemical weapons” as they seek to ban the use of crowd control measures by police, when employed at “mostly peaceful protests”. Changing the language is one of the first steps taken in a propaganda campaign. Language redefinition goes on all the time, and lately, with increasing frequency.
Another neat propaganda technique
A “report” by an advocacy group opposes “vaccine nationalism” and says we need “a massive course correction” on vaccine distribution by redirecting “excess rich-country doses” to “poorer countries”. But they pulled a little trick in their description – twisting the facts.
Wild fires: Is everything a single variable problem?
Western state Governors are increasingly blaming climate change for western wild fires, as if the wild fires are a single variable. If only we could control the climate, we would no longer have wild land fires. Realistically, there is no magic control knob on climate that we can control and which will reduce fire danger for decades to come.
There are concrete steps that can be taken immediately to reduce the threats of future wild fires – but politicians would rather blame climate change – which they do not control – because to acknowledge there are factors which they can control is to acknowledge that their leadership has failed.
A common mistake people make is to focus on a single variable in a multiple variable problem. In this case, the focus is on one variable that cannot be controlled in the near term, while ignoring other variables that can be controlled.
False: Full-time low income wage earners cannot afford a 2 bedroom rental anywhere in the U.S.
This claim comes out every year, from the same activist lobbying organization. They use misleading language and obfuscated definitions to imply a conclusion that is not true – a conclusion that the media laps up like good little puppies and uses to make false conclusions. This blog has covered this item twice previously. Nothing has changed.
Journalism: I don’t think that word means what you think it means
“27 police officers injured during largely peaceful” protests. Or something. Several examples of creative reporting, including the MSNBC reporting saying protests are not unruly as a building burns behind him. Words used to have common meanings but apparently not any more. This post is not about the protests about the reporting.
Study used cherry picked data to prove a false conclusion
A fake study cherry picks the start date of the pandemic to make a false claim that billionaires became far richer due to the pandemic. The actual purpose of the “study” is propaganda messaging using the methods of cherry picking, appeal to authority, and emotion. The errors made are large enough to be treated as lies, as well.
Politics: The enduring Scandinavian socialism fantasy
Some politicians and popular memes assert that Scandinavian socialism is a model for the world. Except the Scandinavian governments themselves note they are not socialist countries. They are free market economies with high taxes supporting a large social safety net; they are not socialist countries. If the U.S. had the same tax structure as Denmark, then you would pay an income tax of 55.9% above $65,000/year in income.
Social media: Social media meme asserts U.S. corn belt yields 40% more oxygen than the Amazon
This poster is a persuasive bit of propaganda. Most of it is not true. The parts that are true are that the Corn belt is a very productive region, and about 80 million acres (close to 100 million in the poster?) are growing corn. This item had been shared into my Facebook news feed.