Case Study in How “They” Manipulate:

If you’re on the Free Republic (or WorldNetDaily, NewsMax, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, etc., etc.) disinformation mailing lists you may have received the following email:

“Thought you all would appreciate this…

A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON QUIZ:

If you don’t know the answer make your best guess.

Answer all the questions before looking at the answers.

Who said it?

1) “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common
good.”

A. Karl Marx
B. Adolph Hitler
C. Joseph Stalin
D. None of the above

2) “It’s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the
few,
by the few, and for the few…… And to replace it with shared
responsibility
for shared prosperity.”

A. Lenin
B. Mussolini
C. Idi Amin
D. None of the Above

3) “(We) …can’t just let business as usual go on, and that means
something has to be taken away from some people.”

A. Nikita Khrushev
B. Josef Goebbels
C. Boris Yeltsin
D. None of the above

4) “We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to
give up a little bit of their own … in order to create this common
ground.”

A. Mao Tse Dung
B. Hugo Chavez
C. Kim Jong Il
D. None of the above

5) “I certainly think the free-market has failed.”

A. Karl Marx
B. Lenin
C. Molotov
D. None of the above

6) “I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most
profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched.”

A. Pinochet
B. Milosevic
C. Saddam Hussein
D. None of the above

Scroll down for answers

Answers

(1) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/29/2004
(2) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 5/29/2007
(3) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(4) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(5) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 6/4/2007
(6) D. None of the above. Statement was made by Hillary Clinton 9/2/2005

*Be afraid, Be very afraid!!*”

Now for the real answers (according to Snopes.com):

(1) Headlining an appearance with other Democratic women senators on behalf of Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is up for re-election this year, Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.

ACTUAL QUOTE:

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

(2, 4 & 5) … are all out-of-context passages taken from a 4 June 2007 CNN (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/04/sitroom.03.html) Presidential Forum conducted with three Democratic presidential hopefuls, senators John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. The second statement was part of a straightforward expression of the need to reach a political consensus on how to proceed in order to tackle an issue such as universal health insurance. The first statement is another pieced-together quote that omits the contextual references to health care, dependence on foreign oil, and global warming.

ACTUAL QUOTE:
“It’s time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an “on your own” society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a “we’re all in it together” society.

Now, there is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed.

When we get our priorities in order and make the smart investments we need, the markets work well.”

(3) This is an accurate quote, but also a misleading one in that it completely omits the context. Senator Clinton was not addressing the general public, but rather a group of relatively well-to-do Democrats attending a June 2004 fundraiser for California senator Barbara Boxer. And her statement specifically referred to a desire to repeal http://www.cbpp.org/4-14-04tax-sum.htm tax cuts that had recently been enacted by the Bush administration, cuts which Democrats had criticized as favoring the wealthy.

ACTUAL QUOTE:

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

(6) The anxiety and anger felt by motorists was evident at nearly every turn in her travels throughout the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. She made clear she shared the concern.

“I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in our entire economy that they’re being watched,” she said in explaining her call for an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission. “I think human nature left to itself is going to push the limit as far as possible, and that’s what you need a government regulatory system for: to keep an eye on people to make the rules of the game fair, to make a level playing field and not give anybody some kind of undue advantage.”

Clinton criticized the new energy bill, which she opposed, as inadequate to solve the country’s long-term energy problem. She said the United States has regressed over the past three decades, since the first oil shocks of the early 1970s. “We’ve had 30 years to do some things we haven’t done,” she said. “In fact we’ve gotten, we’ve gone backwards in many respects.

“I am tired of being at the mercy of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and I’m tired frankly of being at the mercy of these large oil companies,” Clinton said.
______________________________________________

Let’s look at things a different way. How about this perspective that the things in which we’re cautioned to be afraid of, when put into into a different context, becomes concepts nearly forgotten, yet instrumental to the fabric of America:

A BIG HISTORY LESSON… (see this author’s note at the bottom)

1- The sentiment behind the 1st quote is not communist at all but an idea that has survived throughout many thousands of years and to one degree or another through different governmental systems Today, we know it as eminent domain and without it almost all roads and other infrastructure (see football stadiums) would not be constructed.

2- Sounds like a similar quote, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Does any American truly have a problem with this?

3- See #1. (Most American adults (especially soldiers who have lost a life or a limb) understand the concept of sacrificing for one’s country.)

4- Compromise, or the idea that no one gets everything they want in order to satiate opposing sides, is the fundamental cornerstone of the American governmental system. (Read de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America.”)

5- The myth that the “free market” is successful only perpetuates itself because government (see “the people”) have stepped in to mitigate the tremendous negative externalities that the market creates when left to its own devices. Go back to the time of oppressive Robber Baron monopolies and slaughterhouses (and the meat it produced) filled with excrement to see the ramifications of a true “free market.”

6- The idea that a extremely profitable corporation that exerts tremendous sway on the U.S. economy would be price gouging due to an unstable political environment is not something new, in fact companies have done so throughout other periods of war (remember we are at war - actually 2) throughout not only modern American history but throughout time.

P.S. I am NOT voting for Hillary (or Marx, Chavez or Saddam Hussein for that matter) and the contents of the email above are generally bullshit and have been completely taken out of context, see http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/marxist.asp

Since the author of this email saw fit to take out the context of these quotes, I have taken the liberty of creating my own.