Leftist Propaganda Thwarts Unity

By Tom Trinko

In Nazi Germany, the people believed, right up to the bitter end, that they were going to win the war.  They did so because all the news they got was from state-controlled media.

During the Cold War, citizens of the Soviet Union believed that Americans lived in poverty.  After all, didn't all the papers say so?

Today in America, we have a similar situation.  While the government doesn't control the media, the leftists do.  The Americans who listen to the Washington Post, the New York Times, and all the networks are being systematically lied to.  As a result, those Americans have a false view of what is really going on – just like their predecessors in North Korea, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union.

Those Americans who trust the mainstream media (MSM) incorrectly "know" that Trump colluded with Russia.  They don't know that Hillary paid the Russians for dirt on Trump or that all the investigations into the supposed collusion by Trump have found not a jot of evidence.

The MSM are why so many Americans believe that 25% of Americans are gay rather than the real value of around 2%.  In entertainment, gays are grossly overrepresented, and MSM coverage rarely discusses either the true nature of the gay lifestyle or the actual number of people who suffer from same-sex attraction.  Clearly, if one in four Americans is gay and the gay lifestyle is just like the heterosexual lifestyle, supporting a version of "marriage" that includes same-sex couples is not that strange.

MSM propaganda ensures that most Americans don't know that abortion is legal in America for any reason up to the point of birth.  People also don't know that Jesse Jackson called abortion "genocide against blacks" and that black women are three times as likely to abort their unborn children as white women are.

The only reason why people don't recognize Democratic policies as racist is MSM propaganda.

Think about it.  Around 3,500 blacks were shot in Chicago, called Chiraq by black Chicagoans, last year, but that's rarely mentioned in the news.  On the other hand, the MSM had wall-to-wall coverage when a white police officer shot a black thug in self-defense.  Note that both Obama and his black attorney general agreed that the shooting was justified and that that wasn't given wall-to-wall media coverage.

Because of this sort of "reporting," many Americans think the real problem in America isn't out-of-control crime in black neighborhoods in Democrat-run cities, but that the police are out hunting innocent blacks on a regular basis.  The real story is that the Democrats who run Chicago don't care about blacks.  Can you imagine what the Democratic mayor of Chicago would be doing if 3,500 white people had been shot there last year?  What could be more racist than not caring that blacks in Chicago are less safe than American soldiers in Iraq?

Perhaps the fact that those blacks can't get a decent education.  For decades, the public school system has failed inner-city blacks.  That's why conservatives are calling for school choice – so blacks can have a chance to get a decent education.  We know that school choice works because those blacks who can make the huge sacrifices to afford to send their kids to Catholic or other private schools see their kids getting a good education.

Yet the media don't cover that.  Rather, they cover Democrats who say school choice is somehow racist.  The media also don't mention the huge contributions the Democrats get from the teacher unions.  As a result, those Americans who get their news from the MSM don't know that Democrats have been working against getting poor blacks a decent education for decades.

One key aspect of the propaganda machine is that Republicans are always shown in a bad light, and Democratic scandals are minimized.  We all remember the MSM trying to make us think Bill Clinton was impeached because of his sex scandals and not because he lied under oath in order to minimize his risk of having to pay a settlement for sexually harassing an Arkansas government employee.  Similarly, a Democratic senator was on trial for seven weeks recently for corruption, and the MSM ignored it.  When a Republican senator was on trial years ago, there was extensive coverage.

Perhaps the poster boy for MSM #FakeNews propaganda is so-called global warming.  There is an incessant drumbeat of stories about how man is causing the Earth to warm so much that catastrophe will result.  The fact that all the computer models are wrong and disagree with the data and that even those scientists – who are not 99.7% of all scientists – generally don't believe that the warming we see will result in disasters is never reported.

The media don't really cover the fact that the infamous Paris Accords allowed China and India to massively increase their CO2 emissions.  If global warming is an existential crisis, why can we allow those countries to massively increase their contribution to our impending doom?

From this tiny subset of the media's propaganda effort, it's clear that we're being manipulated in two ways: by presenting lies as truth – global warming is a fact – and by not reporting the truths that are inconvenient for leftist's positions – such as the scientific fact that human life begins at conception.

The left knows that without its propaganda, it will lose in the court of public opinion.  The American people opposed the Republican tax cuts because the MSM propaganda machine constantly lied that only the rich would get tax breaks.  But as more and more people saw that they directly benefited from the tax cuts, both because they would pay less in taxes and because companies passed on their lower costs to their employees in terms of higher wages, polls showed that people changed their position and supported the Republican plan.

Hence, leftists know that they must keep the truth from the people just as the dictators who ran Nazi Germany, North Korea, and the Soviet Union knew they had to keep the truth from their people at all costs.

Because the American people will reject leftists when they see the truth, leftists are working hard to shut off all forms of communication that aren't part of their propaganda efforts.  That's why Facebook and Twitter censor honest news and hype the propaganda of the MSM.

Interestingly, the disunity in America that the media complain about is due to the propaganda they spew.  If all Americans had the truth, there would be a lot less conflict in this country.  For example, the vast majority of Americans favor restrictions on abortion, but many of them aren't supporting change because they've been lied to about the fact that abortion is currently legal for any reason at any time.  If they think the restrictions they support are the law, why call to change the law?

The reality is that America is not as disunited as it appears.  If we can remove the vast leftist propaganda machine and give the American people the truth, we'll find that they tend to agree on most key issues.

Take this opportunity to help wake your friends who have are trapped in the web of media lies.  They'll eventually thank you.

SOURCE 

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Welfare reform is happening fast

Despite near-historical low unemployment rates and employers desperate to fill open jobs across the country, welfare enrollment is soaring. And overwhelmingly, the newest enrollees aren’t those the system was intended to serve — the elderly and those with disabilities, among others. Instead, they’re mainly able-bodied adults.

But now, things are changing. And they’re changing quickly.

Last week, President Trump signed an executive order on welfare reform, laying the groundwork for federal and state agencies to promote economic mobility and opportunity through work. Just two days later, the House Committee on Agriculture released a draft proposal of the 2018 Farm Bill, calling for an expansion of work requirements for able-bodied adults receiving food stamps and committing to initiatives that will reduce fraud and abuse across the food stamp program.

And in the states, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed key welfare-reform legislation into law last week, reaffirming the state’s commitment to move able-bodied adults from welfare to work and making policy changes that will restore the state’s welfare program to a safety net for the truly needy. One day later, Kentucky followed suit, with Gov. Matt Bevin signing a bill that will strengthen commonsense work requirements and reduce fraud among the state’s welfare programs.

The timing of these legislative and executive actions at both the state and federal levels isn’t coincidence. It’s a clear indication that policymakers are addressing the big problems facing their constituents and their states. And it’s an even bigger indication that finally, they’re giving their constituents what they want: welfare reform.

A recent poll found 90 percent of voters support work requirements for able-bodied adults. And a poll conducted by Politico and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found 64 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of independents overwhelmingly support work requirements.

It’s not difficult to believe, given that work requirements were initially laid out in the bipartisan welfare reform of 1996. Able-bodied adults were intended to work, train, or volunteer for at least 20 hours per week in order to be eligible for food stamps. But a series of loopholes and gimmicks created opportunities for states to waive these requirements, and welfare enrollment exploded.

There are now nearly 21 million able-bodied adults dependent on food stamps, more than three times as many as 2000. Nearly 28 million able-bodied adults are now dependent on Medicaid, up from 7 million in 2000.

This enrollment explosion has wreaked havoc on state budgets and on taxpayer spending. It’s threatened spending for education, public safety, and infrastructure, and has threatened limited resources for those who welfare was originally designed to help: the disabled, the elderly, and poor children.

It’s why Kentucky fought to become the first state to win federal approval of the same commonsense work requirements for able-bodied adults on Medicaid, and why nearly a dozen other states are pushing for the same reform. It’s why state legislators are advocating for reforms that eliminate welfare fraud and check the assets of beneficiaries to ensure that food stamps aren’t going to millionaires.

It’s why Govs. Bevin and Walker signed welfare reform bills into law.

The recent executive order and the 2018 Farm Bill are the next steps. They have the power to move millions of Americans out of dependency and back to a life of self-sufficiency and dignity. There’s never been a better time to move able-bodied Americans back to work than now, with 6 million open jobs nationwide.

It’s about time our welfare system gets with the times.

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Want income equality? Here is the nation for you!

Cuba is so lucky.  With the installation of their new president, Miguel Díaz Canel, Cubans will be able to continue with their terrific lifestyle.  What lifestyle?  Income equality.

Cuba has income equality.  Verifying this requires a careful look at the data.  Most sources – for example, Brookings – cite a per capita income of about $240 per year.  Wikipedia cites about $22,000 per year, so be careful with your information sources.  The government employs 78% of the workers, so there is little opportunity to get an income very different from the average.  How can people survive on a salary of practically nothing?  Thanks to the government, Cubans get free food and medicine.  They get subsidies for virtually everything they might buy.  As a result, someone getting no salary is only slightly worse off than someone with a relatively high income.  In all practicality, Cuba has as close to income equality as a society can provide.

Cuba also has abject poverty and child prostitution.  Before the 1959 revolution, Cuba exported $780 million (1959 dollars) of goods, mostly food.  Now it imports 70% to 80% of the food that it consumes.  The result is that Cubans risk their lives in shark-infested waters to escape.

Before the Castros took over Cuba, it was quite prosperous.  PBS describes Cuba's 1950s living standards this way:

Cuba ranked fifth in the hemisphere in per capita income, third in life expectancy, second in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, and first in the number of television sets per inhabitant.  The literacy rate, 76%, was the fourth highest in Latin America.  Cuba ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita.

If you like Cuba's income equality, how do you get it?  The same way the Castros did.  Take away the people's freedom.

Is income inequality so bad?  Giving people the freedom to prosper as much as their hardworking nature will allow is the most efficient way to give the most people the most good.  Some people will still be poor, but with so many people setting a good example, the number of people with an optimistic attitude leading to prosperity will be maximized.  The income will be unequal, but it will be quite high.

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