Yesterday I found a posting on my Facebook wall alleging all sorts of horrible events in Europe being executed or fomented by Muslims.
The person doing the posting did not realize how much of those allegations have little or no basis in fact. I have been monitoring some of the allegations on an off since last Fall, and almost every time I find that they originate in dystopian echo chambers and comprise uncritical re-posting of allegations from another web site that are both unsourced and unverified.
Since Donald Trump’s fantasy-land BS outbreak about Sweden last week, the US media outlets that support him have been fishing for information to back up his oddball statements, given that the remarks were, quite correctly, ridiculed.
So…the other day Fox News wheeled out a “Swedish defense expert” to issue some apocalyptic warnings about Sweden.
Except that…the guy is not a defense expert except in his own mind, and he even has criminal convictions in the USA. Either Fox News was totally fooled by this charlatan, or they knew he was a bullshitter and put him on air anyway.
Most of this light heat and sound about Europe has no credibility. There are refugee and assimilation issues in Europe. However, the Fox News worldview has, for the last 20+ years, rested on portraying Europe as a socialist hellhole afflicted with all manner of social problems. (Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous jibe about “Old Europe” after 9/11 rested to some extent on the same worldview).
The view, cartoonish in its simplicity, is then contrasted with the Mighty USA, shining city on the hill, beacon of Freedom yada yada. In neither case is a shred of evidence advanced to support the viewpoint. This, folks, is bullshit propaganda, nothing more.
