Fake but Accurate

I do not feel that we have enough information to really have a strong opinion of the Martin shooting. That is not stopping most people from having an opinion. We do not know what happened between the time Martin quit talking to his girlfriend and the time the witness saw him on top of Zimmerman winning the fight. It is possible Zimmerman is telling the truth. It is possible he is not. My concern is the legality of following someone who is doing nothing wrong. Is this stalking? I have no idea. 

But it is interesting that rather than let the facts speak for themselves, the story has to be framed. Instead of using more recent photos of Martin and Zimmerman, the media is using old photos—photos that make Martin look like a middle schooler, and Zimmerman look like a thug. Why was this done? To ask the question is to answer it. 

Here are the pictures: 

Here is what MNSBC, of all places, said about the pictures:

A more complex portrait of the two figures has emerged since then. A photo of a beaming Zimmerman looking sharp in a jacket and tie has come out, along with a more recent picture of Martin, with gold teeth and a white sleeveless undershirt.

Humorously, they show only the old photos in the above article. They do not show the new photos available even as they write about the unfairness of using the photos that they themselves are still using. 

Of course the media framing occurs on “the right” as well. I was hesitant in putting this here for obvious reasons, but I felt it was important enough to show the kind of framing both sides do.

Of the two photos shown on the left, the right most photo of the two is fake. It is a different Martin. Of course I immediately saw the picture on Facebook. I did not share it.  

(For those curious it was Michelle Malkin who made the mistake. It was rather a boneheaded mistake on Malkin's part. It is such a mistake it calls to question everything Malkin says if her research is that bad. I guess the photo was “fake but accurate.”) 

But we have gone from photos that are misleading, to fake photos, to finally editing for the purpose of framing. NBC had a story about the case, here is a transcript:  

In the NBC segment, Zimmerman says: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

The full version, though, unfolds like this:

Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”

911 operator: “Okay. And this guy, is he white black or Hispanic?”

Zimmerman: “He looks black.”

NBC has not commented on what they did. Of course the number of people who saw the dishonest editing dwarves in number those who will ever read what had been done by NBC's editors. The dishonest editing has served the "higher" purpose and NBC's dishonesty will soon be forgotten. 

My point is not about either Zimmerman or Martin. If we do not know what happened, we do not know what happened. My point is that you cannot trust the media, neither NBC, MSNBC, or for that matter Fox, is trustworthy. If you can't trust them, why watch them? To evaluate each story would take hours of research. I for one do not have the time. If we watch unreliable news sources we will be deceived—only read the Prophecy Podcast for fair and unbiased reporting! (Ha Ha) 

One reporter I tend to regard as reliable is Juan Williams. Click here for his article on the high murder rate for blacks. 

I am concluding with this Hannity clip, not out of any belief that he is any better than the left. He is not. I almost did not include the clip in today's post, but the clip does show the editing that NBC did—editing that makes Zimmerman look like a racist. 

This reminds me of the Bush National Guard story. Letters were produced that indicated that influence was used to get Bush his National Guard spot. It was later determined that the letters were faked. The letters may have been fake, but the media narrative said the papers were accurate. At least that was what we were expected to believe. 

A pox on both their houses. 

Johnny Tremain

While this is in our Netflix Queue, should I tell Stacy about the evils of watching the movie instead of reading the book? You may remember the book, Johnny Tremain. I read it in the 4th grade, you probably did too. Stacy is reading it in the 3rd so it is a little hard for her. I decided to read it to her. Reading it reminded me how much I enjoyed it when I was Stacy's age. (Stacy is also reading Meet George Washington. She just read to me the story about Washington and the cherry tree I mentioned last week. At least the book said that it was a story and probably not true. This is an improvement over what I was taught.) 

Johnny was an apprentice who hurt his hand. This made his job very difficult. He became acquainted with the Sons of Liberty—the heart of New England's Revolution. He also participated in the Boston Tea Party. 

What is interesting is Ester Forbes’ description of the Sons. She makes it very clear that they were not interested in compromise. She described a scene where the Sons beat up a Tory shopkeeper. She also describes their private meetings where they planned their revolt. The Sons understand that the people must be manipulated to achieve the goal of revolution. This got me to thinking. It is always true that most people are manipulated to achieve the desired ends of a small elite. The question is, will you be manipulated?  

While Johnny Tremain is a novel, it contains a lot of what one needs to know about this period in terms of the actions and motivations of the Sons of Liberty. They worked the mob and public opinion to achieve their elitist goals. I worded this last sentence in order to shock you. Yes they were elitists. The fact that you might agree with their goals does not change that. 

Will you be played like the people of Boston who were conned into becoming a mob during the Boston Tea Party? Or will you look at all the facts and come to your own conclusions? This is a theme I have been developing in the series on war. Will you think for yourself, or will you let Faux News, or for that matter MSNBC con you? 

While I hope you will agree with me on everything I write, as I resemble what  my mother often said of my father, "He may not always be right, but he is never wrong," my purpose here is to remind us all to think. Maybe you will give different weight to the various facts and come to a different conclusion than I do. Fox News, or MSNBC for that matter, have their place. Unless we all look behind the rhetoric we will be conned.  

Propaganda Gone Awry

This was not done as a parody. Planned Parenthood (San Francisco) actually did this video to try to convince people of their cause. The superhero Dionysus, named for the Greek God of drunkenness, drowns an abstinence advocate, who looks like a dirty old man, then murders abortion protestors with a condom gun, and finally we see the closing credits that utilize condoms as weapons of destruction. This really must be seen to be believed. 

Disney Propaganda: Education for Death

The following video is a fine example of WWII propaganda. What was most interesting about it was the fadeout and replacement of the Bible with Mein Kampf in the cartoon. Of course today we have no Bible in the schools. I am not necessarily saying it should be in the schools, but if its absence in Nazi schools is bad, what does this say about our schools?  

Note also the harshness of the German to our English ears. This also was designed to add to the effect of the propaganda. 

The purpose of our school system is not to educate. It is to enforce conformity. It is to make us complacent. It is to make us slaves. Of course a good slave does need a basic education in order to be a good worker. 

While our education system has not reached the point it may have in Nazi Germany, we are getting there. Here is an example:

Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday he had signed a bill that will require public schools in the state to teach students about the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americas.

The bill, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, will also require teachers to provide instruction on the role of people with disabilities.

“History should be honest,” Brown said in a statement.

This is not new. I remember my 8th grade history book. It only mentioned one person by name who was killed in the Boston Massacre in the American Revolutionary War. Would you care to guess his race? 

This is a propaganda technique called framing that was discussed in yesterday's video on propaganda. 

This is not being honest. This is framing the data in order to achieve the desired result. Thanksgiving is a good example of what I mean. Most of what we learned about it in school is myth and propaganda. John C. Dvorak, a tech writer and pundit, wrote about this several years ago. 

Although I am not a historian, I do have the training. History is seldom totally honest, as it is often used to justify whatever political ideology the writer has. This is why in the series on Church history that I am working on I start with my biases. Self-examination of our individual biases is a needed step to understand any subject. If we do not do this self-examination, we end up susceptible to propaganda.

Think I am out of line in my characterization of our current school system? 

Propaganda

A good student produced video about the techniques of propaganda.