Progressive Propaganda: Private Parts

By FRANK LINGO

Besides political messaging that I ranted about in my last column, the airwaves and internet are full of propaganda propagated by private enterprise.

Much of it is designed to sell us a product but for some of it, the message is about selling credibility. Banks, oil and pharma are three regular perpetrators of appeals to adjust our trust.

Of course, these appeals are necessitated by those industries’ chronic wrongdoing. I wish some of the relatively benign billionaires would step up and finance ad campaigns that reveal the true nature of the corporate crooks.

Big banks were largely responsible for the economic disaster of 2008-9 that caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs, homes and pensions. For the most part, the banks skated with impunity. More recently, Wells Fargo was fined $1 billion and also settled lawsuits for $575 million in all 50 states for consumer abuses like setting up sham accounts that customers didn’t want.

The major banks make billions on their credit cards, charging almost 30% interest in some cases, along with steep late fees. Remember usury laws? In my lifetime, they could have gone to jail for charging much less than current rates.

So given their gargantuan greed, banks must nicen up their public image. (Nicen is a real word I just made up.) Banks have multitudes of television ads narrated by soft-voiced announcers showing families and small businesses thriving with help from the bank. The repetition of these whitewashed spots can lull us into forgetting that they almost caused a new depression.

Big Oil is also constantly trying to greenwash its image. To hear the oil companies tell it in their relentless advertising, they are hard at work and deeply committed to developing renewable energy.

Baloney.

A Nov. 9, 2019 Wall Street Journal article by John Stoll was entitled “Oil Isn’t About To Go Green.”

Stoll cited a report by the international non-profit CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project). CDP found the top 24 publicly listed oil-and-gas companies spent only 1.3% of their $260 billion in capital expenditures on low-carbon solutions in 2018. That pitifully paltry effort won’t move the world toward reversing the climate crisis.

Then there’s Big Pharma showing everyday folks having a better life because of the miracle of modern drugs. But as we watch the folks happily playing with their grandkids, we listen to the long list of possible side effects, including heart attack, stroke and other fatal events, and our confidence in the meds may wane.

Further eroding our trust are the huge settlements that several pharma firms are making after multiple lawsuits accusing them of pushing opioids on the public. With addiction at epidemic levels and tens of thousands of overdose deaths, these new cartels are rightfully being held responsible.

To combat the barrage of false advertising we face and thousands of lies told by Trump, the public periodically needs to be reminded of facts.

Facts like climate change is caused by humans, and can only be remedied by humans.

Facts like Russia has long been an enemy of the United States even if our president is its puppet.

Facts like at least 500,000 Americans go bankrupt from medical bills every year, while insurance companies make billions in profits.

Facts like the US has 25 times the gun murder rate of other high-income countries, yet we do nothing about it.

So c’mon Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and others with money to burn. Use it to educate the public and counteract all the poison propaganda being pushed in the media every day.

It will help make a better world.

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote,” a free excerpt of which is at www.EarthVote.world. Email: lingofrank@gmail.com.

Editor’s Note: Will Durst, whose column has appeared in this space, suffered a stroke on Oct. 7 and has been recovering since then.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2020

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