2010/9/13 david buchanan <[email protected]> > > Horse said to Platt: > I'm saying that your use of the term [death panel] is both propaganda and > emotive nonsense. > > > dmb says: > That's right. Maybe you've never heard of Frank Luntz. As Wiki puts it, he > is "an American political consultant and pollster. His most recent work has > been with the Fox News Channel as a frequent commentator and analyst, as > well as running focus groups after presidential debates. Luntz's specialty > is “testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their > product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate.” He is also an > author of business books dealing with communication strategies and public > opinion. Luntz's current company, The Word Doctors, specializes in message > creation and image management for commercial and political clients." He's > the one who came up with "death taxes" as a new name for the inheritance > tax. He's the main wordsmith for Republican causes. > > In the case of "death panels", however, I think that phrase is the product > of a public relations agency that does a lot of work for Republican causes, > or anybody with enough cash. The Rachel Maddow show (news) did an expose' of > this particular PR agency and its connections to various conservative > political organizations. They showed how the town hall outrage we saw during > the health care debate was bought and paid for. I'm sure the angry citizens > were sincere, but they were only doing what that PR agency wanted them to > do. It was engineered for cold hard cash, for financial reasons, by large > corporations. Naturally, the truth of the matter has absolutely nothing to > do with it. We're talking about professional bullshit artists and they're > pretty good at it. It almost worked. Or rather, it worked to some extent. > The law passed but it was pretty weak. > > How many times have I bought into some manufactured bullshit without > realizing it, I wonder? > > > In the run-up to the first Gulf War, a young woman testified before > Congress. She told a heart-breaking story. Iraqi soldiers had invaded her > country and when they took over a hospital near the border, the soldiers > took sick little babies out of their incubators and threw them away like > garbage. She told this story just before Congress was supposed to vote to > authorize war - or not. Later we learned that this young woman was a member > of the Royal family and that her story was invented for her by a public > relations agency. > > Death taxes, death panels, dead babies. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to > see that these terms are designed to push your emotional buttons. They're > designed to manipulate opinion. Doesn't that make you angry, that people > deliberately distort the truth for power and money? How is that not a crime? > It'd be impossible to adjudicate, I suppose. Propaganda and PR: The best > truth money can buy. Sigh. > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html >
-- parser Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
