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Health & Fitness

The Embarrassed Republican: When the Lie Becomes the Truth

EPA drones spying on ranchers? FEMA interment camps? If you cover up one eye and squint a lot you might see these things yourself.

Remember about two weeks ago, there was a story about the EPA spying on ranchers  in the midwest with military drone aircraft? It had all the elements of a grand conspiracy, secret military spy drones, innocent, honest, hardworking ranchers and an evil overlord government agency. Great story, too bad it just wasn’t true, not a word of it.

It began with an article from the John Birch society’s New American. The story told the poor rancher’s tale of woe, with no actual factual detail and then dove into a discussion of the dread abilities of drone aircraft and the evils of the "unconstitutional" EPA. This story was told so well that when they printed a correction two days later and put it at the bottom of the story, almost no one paid any attention to it. The correction stated that the EPA was not using drone aircraft, but it did not let the EPA off the hook for “spying.”

We saw the power of this well constructed tale, as it spread like wildfire across the Internet and other news media. FOX News personalities jumped into the fray with several “newsy” or “news-ish” reports, features on the terrors of being hunted by drones and the "loss of privacy in Today’s America.” Even Investors Business Daily featured a long piece decrying the violation of “the presumption of innocence” for the terrorized ranchers. Midwestern congressmen wrote stern letters to the EPA demanding an accounting of this despicable practice and threatening charges of “contempt of Congress’” which seems to be the latest thing these days. However, in today’s America it might be hard to find a citizen that wouldn’t be just a little guilty of that charge.

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The rebuke against the totally false story was not quite as swift as the infection. Jon Stewart used his “laughing stock” attack on the second day, Media Matters exposed the emptiness of the facts and other reputable media outlets attempted to share the actual story, but it was little use. Once told, a story gains a life of it’s own. Especially one as appealing as a juicy government conspiracy with spying and deadly drones.

In truth the EPA does keep an eye on feedlots in the midwest using four seater Cessnas. Feedlots are where massive herds of cattle go to eat, and consequently poop (if it’s OK to use that word). For the EPA the problem comes from the runoff from feedlots into local streams and rivers. Veritable streams of cattle droppings work their way down into the drinking water supplies of local towns and cities. It’s the EPA’s job to inspect feed lots to see that this situation is corrected when it happens, and to warn local populations if it does.  That’s what we pay them for. That’s one of the many reasons Congress created the EPA.

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Still, the original tale became so pervasive that I actually heard a local gas station attendant say he was scanning the skies for drones because the “EPA is everywhere ...”  Long arguments broke out on Facebook and other sites over the “facts” and hearts were hardened on both sides of the controversy. Although most conservative bloggers, pundits, and “news outlets” ran with the tale, very few made any kind of retraction when it turned out it just wasn’t true. Most just slyly moved on to a discussion of the “President’s personal Drone kill list.” My hat comes off to Fox news for their begrudging retraction, at least for admitting the “facts” they reported were wrong.

We may never know if the writer at the New American just didn’t check his source well enough, thought he saw a drone haunting the skies, or just made the whole thing up.  What we do know is that the level of disinformation is rising as we close in on November and it’s bound to get thicker and deeper from here on in. So when we hear a rumor or a report that sounds incredulous (FEMA interment camps?), read a highly slanted piece that “exposes the truth” or see a report with the “president lying again” which seems oddly cut off, we should all take a step back and think for a moment. Because we’re just being used when we believe too fast, and with hard decisions to make, we should know who’s slicing the baloney a little too thickly.

Here’s the original piece. Correction at the bottom (notice they still left the drone picture in and managed to use the word “drone” 25 times)

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/11607-epa-defends-use-of-spy-drones-over-iowa-neb-cattle-ranches

 

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