alan's daily reports


Welfare for the Rich or Tough Love (“that’s ‘tough’ for the poor and vulnerable, and ‘love’ for the rich and powerful”) – a parable about how economics actually functions.



I was reminded of this point when reading this story about farm subsidies in the UK and who gets what;



“The latest study reveals that farming support in eastern England amounts to £121 a head, compared with £41 in Britain as a whole. It shows that the CAP dwarfs other EU regional aid and social programmes designed for needy regions away from East Anglia, such as for the north-east.

Lamenting the level of subsidy directed to the barley barons, Iain McLean, who led the study team, said it was extraordinary that while less-favoured parts of Britain were crying out for aid to boost flagging economies "the real beneficiaries of European expenditure in Britain seem to keep quiet about it"



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How is this illusion possible? Take a look at “Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopaedia 1500 to the Present, by Professor Nicholas Cull, Professor David Culbert, Professor of history at Louisiana State University, and Professor David Welch, Professor of modern history at the University of Kent, Canterbury, published by ABC-CLIO”



“the encyclopedia awards the US the dubious accolade of being the "largest disseminator of propaganda and persuasion in history".

It says: "The US would not have come into being without propaganda, nor would its society exist as currently constituted.

"Yet the average American continues to take comfort in the notion that propaganda is something one associates with Nazi Germany, neatly distinguishing between propaganda and advertising and defining the latter as dealing with information or persuasion and the former as a form of deception.

"Collective amnesia is too strong a way to characterise this curious state of affairs, but its seems to take some doing to live in a society that is the world's greatest consumer of propaganda while at the same time convincing oneself this is not so."

See the relevant LSU page, a review here or buy it (for an extortionate £62). Hopefully LRB will review it…

from alaninternational