Report Card 2

Speaking of things the public "knows" that aren't true ...

One of my personal bugbears -- and one of the first things I posted about -- is the vast gulf between perception and reality when it comes to foreign aid.

PIPA (Program on International Policy Attitudes) periodically measures Americans' understanding of foreign aid. The chart here is from PIPA's Feb. 2001 report, "Americans on Foreign Aid and World Hunger."

Over the past 10 years, polls have consistently shown that Americans vastly overestimate the percentage of the federal budget that goes to foreign aid. People seem to think that about a fifth of all federal spending goes to official development assistance to the world's poor and hungry. The chart rounds up a bit, showing the actual share of the federal budget as 1 percent.

What's interesting here -- as anti-hunger groups like Bread for the World never tire of pointing out -- is that Americans also state a preference for a level of foreign aid that's about 10 times higher than America's current level of giving/investment. This means, at least in theory, that increasing America's "official development assistance" (in U.N.-speak) is politically feasible.

But look at this chart again with the eyes of a newspaper editor or a TV news producer, with the eyes of someone responsible for informing the public, for telling the truth and correcting misperceptions. This chart -- like the Harris poll discussed below -- should tell you that you haven't been living up to those responsibilities. It should tell you that you have, in fact, been failing miserably.

Such dramatic failures call for a dramatic response. If I ran the zoo, here's what I'd do:

For a full week, and absent any specific proximate news hook, I would run giant, A1-above-the-fold, second-coming headlines correcting some of these more common and egregious public misperceptions.

Things like, "Saddam, 9/11 not connected."

There wouldn't be any article attached to this headline, only a brief, somewhat chastening, somewhat apologetic, reader or deck saying something like: "No, really. The war in Iraq has no direct connection to the attacks on America of Sept. 11, 2001. Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida are unrelated evils. Yet polls consistently show that nearly half of all Americans believe in such a connection. That the public is so deeply confused and misinformed on such basic matters represents a failure on the part of this news organization, for which we apologize."

Comments

[Peatey]

Fred, I believe a news organization does that already. It's called The Onion.

[leftthecapitol]

I think it's not a failure of the media if the government has been saying that the media is full of partisan hacks for five years, an idea bolstered by the whole Memogate fiasco. A lot of people aren't ignorant; they know what the newspapers say. They just choose to believe the exact opposite because, you know, the media is part of the DNC or something.

[Patrick J. Mullins]

Fred, I like that idea of the billboard-sized headlines better than anything I've heard in a long time, at least along positive lines (most of what I hear that's good is negative.)

'True propaganda' might be a term for it, and it sure the fuck is needed immediately.

[glooperoo]

I totally agree, we should be doing what we can to educated the public on all the lies and half-truths they've been sold, but we can't make the mistake of assuming it's just the Right-wingers that have been sold the lies. There are plenty of bi-partisan lies out there, the Establishment lies that both party members adhere to. 9/11 and the official account of that day is filled with the m. And since the Right is currently in the thrall of the GOP machine, it's up to the Left to read up on all the independent 9/11 investigations that have taken place these last 3 years, and educate ourselves. Once we all realize just how much well documented evidence there is of a major government coverup of that day this administration, and the ruling party known as "the encumbents" won't stand a chance.

Yeah, it sounds crazy that there could be a major coverup of government complicity of the events of that day, until you start looking into the details. Not only is the evidence compelling, but the current insanity of our government starts making a lot more sense when you look at the real motivations behind this whole War on Terror. Here’s a nice place to start, and sites like
this are a great way to get caught up on all the research and analysis that's taken place the last three years. But as far as spreading memes go, I'd suggest the following quick links:

1. This 911 Wargames article is one of the only mainstream media references the 911 wargames involving the simulated hijacking and crashing of planes into buildings. And by the sound of it, I don’t think it's disclosure in the national media was intentional.

2. This in depth timeline of the event of that day certainly points toward high-level government deception and is an absolute must-read.

3. Senator Dayton of Minnesota would certainly agree that NORAD and the FAA lied. Hell, he announced it during the week of the Dems National Convention last year. He's got a pair.

3. Of course, no coverup would be complete without the destruction of evidence. This certainly ain't the only example of that, but it's a relevant one.

By disseminating this info, we can throw the Administrations favorite tactic of "remember 9/11" right back in their faces. Seriously, you may not believe our government could do such a thing, and that's understandable. It's reasonable to think our government, even the neocons, couldn't be THAT sick and inhumane. And it's reasonable to assume such a big secret couldn't be kept. But let's not forget that our soldiers and countless innocent iraqis are currently fighting and dying in a war based on lies. And lets not forget that this secret hasn't been kept. It's out there, and skeptical Americans are waking up to it. It's time for us to wake up the rest of the country and start fixing this mess before it's too late.

[drieux just drieux]

But What About Nepal?

Can we allow it to fall to Maoist Guerrillas? Why it would be like a 'row of dominoes' that would crush Asia under the Jack Boot of Armed Communist Aggression!!!

There are basically two courses of actions, as glooperoo is offering. The first is to seriously question what exactly, if anything, changed from 09/10/2001 to 09/11/2001. This of course gets bogged down in the whole 'failure' of 'the reality based community'.

The More Enjoyable alternative is to support the Anti-Reality Based Community, and go with all of the Gusto that NeoRealism offers!

Besides it would make Hunter S. Thompson proud to know that we can still deal with "Fear and Loathing" the old fashion way.

[Dave]

The foreign aid poll illustrates a different point than (one of) the ones you propose, I think. People may believe aid is 20% of the budget, but by giving a "preferred" amount of 10%, I think they are more likely to be indulging in the "I want my answer to seem reasonable" response.

If they think it's 20%, saying reduce it to 1% seems (to them) extreme, saying reduce it to 10% seems (to them) moderate.

If you teach them that it's actually about 1%, you will not appreciably increase the demand for it to be 10%, or even 2%. Since attitudes about foreign aid are probably more conditioned by feelings that the aid is not appreciated, you might just build a constituency to reduce it to 1/2% or 1/4% instead.

On the matter of 9/11 and Saddam, are their beliefs any sillier than those of "glooperoo"? It is not only the pro-war side that is misinformed at times.

[glooperoo]

Hi Dave,
Please comment more specifically on any silliness you find in my beliefs. Thanks

[Irony]

I think the polls make perfect sense. Picture the shock and surprise we Americans exhibited after the Tsunami, when the administration offered up such a paltry sum. We believe our government is as generous and philanthropic as we are. It stems from the same place as our "we'd never torture anyone" meme, although this evidence is becoming undeniable. The truth, as the post points out, however, is never self-evident. It has to be sold as aggressively as they're selling the lies. We want to believe we're the sugar daddy of the impoverished, ungrateful world. We need to be set straight. After that, we can start on debunking the rest of the disinformation. I agree completely with glooperoo that 9/11 is an excellent place to start. Given the exposure of the Luntz "Republican Playbook" recently, any use of 9/11 as a bludgeoning tool must be called to the carpet.

Given the fact that the MSM has yet to substantially report on any facet of the Gannon/Guckert scandal, despite its implications in current investigations like that of Valerie Plame's outing, or what it says about our President (who cancelled his German Town Hall meetings because they wanted to have some actual Town in the Hall), I'm not holding my frickin' breath.

[Sky-Ho]

Dave,

Many of us in the airline industry know that the FAA lied about what happened, the "inadvertantly" destroyed tape(s) confirmed for many of us that buggery was ongoing.

Please be specific, as I, and many others are quite interested in your thoughts.

[Gus]

I think this situation just demonstrates that the US isn't living up to its responsibility as "world leader." We claim the job, but have for a long time (under Dems and Reps) shortchanged everything but our reinforcement of that role by force... largely b/c, as our economy is now constructed, war is profitable in the short term but peace is not seen to be. And, if you look at profits from their constantly need to replace things POV, they're right -- How better to ensure a steady production than to build things explicitly designed to be destroyed?President Eisenhower warned about the "military-industrial complex" and that's exactly who is now running the country.

Dave, it seems to me that you & glooperoo said the SAME thing: both sides are equally incapable of telling the truth. I think that's an institutional problem partly tied into what I just mentioned -- money. Both parties get funds from the same sources, so it's not surprising they'll lie about the same issues. They don't really care what everyday people need, just what they can twist our wishes into.

[Gus]

Irony,

As a reporter myself, I wish I could disagree with you, but I can't. The mainstream media has long since been enthralled by the shallow glitz of TV and the clinking of coins. I blame a big part of that on the fact that a handful of firms dominate the field and that many of the critical decisions are being made by accountant-types rather than editors and reporters.

The paper I write for is no exception: We're caught in the NY Times corporate web, and have long since given up our own coverage of things in Washington, for example. While a lot of Associated Press & other wire reporters try their damnedest to cover various things that should be covered, only a handful of them ever get into print, often determined at least in part by what everyone else is printing.

(A very good example of this has been the lack of coverage of the annual World Social Forum in Brazil -- Last year, I saw that there were something like 150 stories filed from that conference, but only a handful ever ran anywhere here in the US. My paper wasn't one of them.)

That said, I still believe in the power of the press and in our responsibility to stand up to power. I think a lot of that is being slowly usurped by bloggers, who are today what the independent, tiny papers of yesteryear used to be, with the great advantage of potentially having a global audience. Even then, there were some news sources that willfully distorted the truth or were shills for the powerful, but there were also talented folks who did their homework.

I've never been a big believer in the idea that journalists shouldn't have an opinion and shouldn't try to express it. We SHOULD express our views, but shouldn't distort the facts just to prove a point, b/c that's insulting to readers and an abuse of our social responsibility.

[gloopero]

Check this out from Saturday's NY Times. So the Justice Department has once again done what it can to prevent the suit by former F.B.I. translator Sibel Edmonds. If you're not familiar with her case you can blame the mainstream media and our goverment for that. During her time at the F.B.I. as a translator she was exposed to information regarding our pre-9/11 intelligence and claims we had plenty of info regarding that event (which we all know at this point, given the infamous August 6th, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing). Ashcroft had a Congression briefing on the case retroactively classified in 2002. The 9/11 coverup continues...

[James Governor]

I am putting forward a simple black and white meme i call the Contribution Society, designed as a pushback against the Ownership Society frame/meme/scam.
http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/000508.html

does this seem dumb or worth pursuing? The evidence Fred puts forward around the differences between the contributions people think we make and those we actually do are pretty startling.

My basic idea is that we are willing to make a contribution to others welfare, or to art, life, society, business even, without having to make it something we "own". its human nature so lets talk to it. ownership is not the only model for life.