[tw]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

I'm sorry.... I just cannot watch Fox... too much wasted time.

I was raised on propaganda; advertisements that lie by telling half truths. That was my father. Before toothpaste had flouride, back then, all toothpastes and mouthwashes did nothing. Classic suckers for propaganda are easily identified. They even buy Listerene and believe it actually does something.

Do you really believe Pond's Institute makes age defying creams? Sales say so many women do when not one fact is ever provided. Not one fact. Classic worshippers of propaganda.

In another example more based in science: from The Economist of 29 Apr 2006 entitled 'Filtering the evidence':

Judged by their waistbands, Europeans are much healthier than Americans. More than 30% of American are obese, compared with 13% of Germeans and under 10% of the French. But judged by their lungs, Americans are fitter than their peers across the Atlantic. Only 19% of adult Americans smoke, against 34% of Germans and 27% of Britons. Why do Europeans light up so much more?

... Since they are both economists, the first thing they look at is price. ... Perhaps smoking is more expensive in America? Not so. ... cigarettes are 37% cheaper in America ...

The second explanation an economist will look for is income. Smoking rises then falls with with affluence. ... The rich ... don't like to smoke as much as they could, because they put a higher value on a long and healthy life. This might explain why so many more Turks than Americans smoke, but it can cover only about a quarter of the gap between Americans and western Europeans.

In fact, the gap is best explained by neither prices nor incomes, but by ignorance. Europeans are less likely than Americans to believe that smoking is harmful. Only 73% of Germans, for example, believe smoking is dangerous, against 91% of Americans.

The two authors conjecture that beliefs are the result of smokers' habits, not the cause of them. ... even non-smokers in Europe are less likely than their American counterparts to beleive the weed is dangerous. These differences in beliefs may account for 20-40% of the trans-atlantic gaps, the two authors argue.

In America, cigarette dangers were well published and broadcast since 1964. Not so in Europe. However if knowledge was so available, then why do 40% of youngest Americans smoke? Have we raised a generation that is manipulated by spin rather than by facts? Whose beliefs 'don't need no stinkin science' to somehow know? At least Europeans have an excuse. Dangers of smoking were not promoted aggressively and continously since 1964 in Europe.

Why, a) with a sudden upsurge in extremist politial views, b) with people actually saying, "Rush says what has to be said", c) with massive attraction to extremist religious beliefs, d) with a generation less technically educated, and e) with people so even inspired by lies of pre-emption; why is this same generation also so easy to addict to cigarettes? This is the first generations fully cognizant of the dangers. Why is this generation, instead, so easily attracted to the 'dark side'? Why are so many younger Americans so easily perverted by propaganda - have so much difficulty cutting through myths and half truths? Notice how many actually believe those 'power drinks' provide more healthy energy? Coca Cola once promoted that myth - by including drugs. Caffine can make anyone feel 'healthier'. He did not say "I feel; therefore I am". And yet 'feeling' somehow becomes how facts are 'proven'.

It's called propaganda. It works when a victim is that naive. So naive as to not see a difference between real news and "Hard Copy".