ken watts

You may or may not notice that the site has had a bit of a face lift.

It was one of those situations where an extensive overhaul was required, without a great deal of obvious change.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would let me know if you run into anything that looks distinctly odd, or that doesn't work.

You can contact me here, or you can use the contact list in the sidebar at the right or the footer at the bottom of the page.

The log-in and register links at the top of the sidebar don't work for anyone but me yet—that will be changed shortly.

There will be some other changes in the near future.

But more about that, later...

Thanks,

Ken

YESTERDAY I BEGAN A RESPONSE to a conservative from the east coast, who lectured me about our economic crisis on "the left coast", and how it was an object lesson to the nation—a warning of the dangers of the "tax and spend" left wing.

I pointed out that my experience, as someone who lived here since the sixties, was the exact opposite.

I told how Reagan and proposition 13 began the decline of what had once been a truly golden era, when California had flourished, and attracted businesses, with the best infrastructure in the country.

Since then, one conservative after another has found ways to give away any reserves the state might have put aside—leaving us, at the moment of this crisis, without adequate savings to deal with an economic turndown. [read more]

I  RECENTLY RAN INTO A CONSERVATIVE on the east coast. He was a nice enough guy, but the second he found out I was from California he began a rant about the economic crisis on "the left coast".

"The result was a seller's market, rising property values, and increased speculation."

According to him, the problem we face here is the result of over taxation and liberal policies. He saw us as an object lesson to the nation—a warning of the dangers of the "tax and spend" left wing.

But I've lived here since the early sixties, and I beg to differ.

Back then, California was envied by every state in the union. We had the best infrastructure, the best roads, the best college system in the world.

As a result we attracted businesses and our economy boomed.

It really was a golden state, and it had been built, during the fifties and sixties, by liberal administrations.

So what went wrong? How did we get from there to here? [read more]

THE EMAIL WE'VE BEEN DISSECTING in the last seven posts is finally coming to it's conclusion, and as I promised last time the final revelation is the worst.

The last two pieces of conflation we looked at were a "prayer for our troops" and a picture featuring prayer, children, and the American flag.

The purpose, in both cases, was conflation again—this time to tie the ideas of religion, right-wing patriotism, the military, and our love of adorable children together.

The effect was not only to tie these ideas together, but to do it in the context of a sort of nationalistic religion, where faith in God = faith in America, and God becomes a sort of national superman, fighting on our side.

The other side—whoever our leaders decide to attack for whatever reasons—is, by implication, in the service of Satan.

Subtle, but very effective, largely because it's so subtle.

But so far the email has only talked of prayer and God in general terms. So the question becomes, does it mean any God in particular?

This is where the email takes its nastiest turn. [read more]

LAST TIME, I SAID THAT the email we've been working our way through had three final touches. These are, to my mind the worst conflations, and the worst distortions, in the entire propaganda piece.

The first of these was a little homage to the American flag, surrounded by a list of wars:

It's purpose was twofold:

1. To conflate the idea of war with the idea of patriotism. The flag apparently can't wave "PROUDLY for our FREEDOM" in peacetime.
2. To conflate the six wars listed into one concept, implying that people who would question our invasion of Iraq would also have sided with Hitler.

These, of course, are sheer nonsense when said out loud, which is why the technique of conflation is being used to imply it without saying it.

The second touch is worse. [read more]

IN THE LAST FEW POSTS I've been exploring how a propaganda email first establishes, and then develops, it's conflated categories.

At the end of the the previous post, the conflated picture had been expanded to this:

The email doesn't stop there, however. [read more]

I've been working my way through a piece of right-wing email propaganda, pointing out the techniques used (buried assumptions, conflation, etc.) and the subtle lies it manages to convey.

Last time, we examined a series of jokes, light-hearted on the surface, which together contributed to a false and simplistic political world-view:

All of this has been accomplished so subtly that it leaves the reader with very little to object to.

It's hard to see, if we only look at the surface, what could be wrong with sharing some heart-warming pictures of our troops playing with, and kissing, Iraqi children.

The captions to these pictures have managed to imply a false world-view, while merely sounding like cute jokes that are supportive of our troops.

Before continuing, let's break the false picture down a bit, and broaden it by adding a column for the truth: [read more]

IN THE FIRST THREE PARTS of this series, I explained a technique called "conflation" and described the beginning of a right-wing propaganda email that used it heavily.

Today I'll examine the way the conflation is achieved in the reader's mind.

But first, I'll keep the promise I made in the previous post.

The propaganda email, after establishing a completely false picture of what the liberal and conservative positions on the troops and on torture really are, produced a photo of U.S. soldiers playing on a see-saw with Iraqis.

The implied purpose of this picture was to prove the imagined "anti-troop liberals" wrong, and show that our troops are good people. The real purpose of the picture was to cement the false ideas about liberals in the reader's mind.

Presenting such a charming and hope-filled picture as a reply to the liberal position, gives a strong but subconscious impression that liberals would hate this picture, because it would prove them wrong.

In fact, liberals love this picture because it proves them right. [read more]