Monthly Archives: February 2010

2009 – Recession – Unemployment 10% – Charitable giving 300 Billion dollars. Some claim America is the most generous nation in the world. It probably is true.

Reasons – Capitalism, Conservatism, Freedom.

Capitalism has created more prosperity for more people than any other system, thus enabling greater giving at all levels of society. Capitalism is a system that fosters the desire in many of those who have created great wealth to want to give something back to the system. Socialism does not.

Conservatism is a philosophy of small government and self reliance. Where there is a need, the conservative mindset is how can I help, rather than waiting for the government to help. And we are a nation of conservatives. A 2009 Gallop poll found conservatism to be the most widely held political ideology by a 50% margin of self declared conservatives over self declared liberals

Freedom, freedom to help when, where and what you choose without government interference encourages the wealthy to establish charitable foundations to further a favorite cause. Andrew Carnegie wanted to see a library in every town in America and he made it happen. Bill Gates wants to see malaria eradicated from the face of the earth and is giving millions toward that pet goal.

Capitalist America has given extensive aid to Haiti in their need. Socialist Venezuela has given nothing. The free market system is the greatest generator of the means and inclination for private giving.

Bob B

If you have read Orwell’s “1984” you will remember NewSpeak and see propagandic as a variation of it.  If you haven’t read the book, you should.  In “1984 ” any history that reflected badly on The Party was torn from books and records and thrown down the Memory Hole by the Ministry of Truth.  Everything adverse to The Party was changed so that all truth would reflect favorably on the government.  Propagandic is the Newspeak of the real world.

While NewSpeak is a whole language, propagandic is simply a word or phrase employed to deflect a truth or cover up an adverse image, often changing  the image to one directly opposite from the real truth.    Totalitarian regimes tend to apply propagandic in the naming of their lands.  Nations where the people have the least voice in government often name their countries People’s Republics.  In this context “People’s” is propagandic.  The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is not a democracy, not of the people and not a republic.  It is a dictatorship presuming to hide its true nature under a blanket of propagandic.  The country we call “South” Korea is The Republic of Korea, no propagandic there.

Propagandic is spoken everywhere but it is most prolific in the political world.  Lawmakers apply it to hide the real purpose of a proposed law.  You can guess the true objective of some legislation simply by reversing their titles. For example, The Employee Free Choice Act is a bill that would limit free choice by ending secret balloting and open the door to intimidation.  If the name were changed to The End of Employee Free Choice Act it would be de-propagandized,  revealing the true purpose of the bill. Here is another example.  To help jump start a slow economy, former President Bush announced tax “rebates”.  The payments went to everyone including those who had not paid any taxes.  It wasn’t a rebate at all; it was a cash distribution.  But the idea of a rebate was more palatable to voters than “cash distribution”.  “Rebate” was propagandic.

Some propagandic becomes so standard in the language that its influence on thought is completely subliminal.  From its beginning, America has operated on an economic system whose philosophic core is the right of its citizens to exchange goods and services freely and to own private property including the means of production.

However, in his famous book, Das Kapital, Karl Marx labeled this system Kapitalism, which one dictionary translates into English as “assets in the form of money”.  Thus a system whose foundation is freedom, ownership rights and equal opportunity for everyone is known by a word that means a system based solely on wealth.  It puts the cart before the horse.  Capitalism creates wealth; wealth does not create capitalism.  “Capitalism” is propagandic because it creates the false impression that capitalism is of, by and for only the wealthy.

Propagandic is a subtle and devious tool used to manipulate your mind.  Be very aware of it lest you fall prey to it.

UPDATE
The very beginning of this video is a brief tribute to Andrew Breitbart.  The rest of the video is about words.  It’s about how the Left’s application of words is often dead opposite to their original meaning to make their agenda sound more palatable.  It is a good companion to this post.