{"id":2823,"date":"2018-02-26T19:16:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T18:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/?p=2823"},"modified":"2018-10-12T17:53:45","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T16:53:45","slug":"debunkingunionism_001-nhs-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/?p=2823","title":{"rendered":"DebunkingUnionism: NHS Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a fan of John Robertson&#8217;s blog <a href=\"https:\/\/thoughtcontrolscotland.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Talking Up Scotland<\/a>. He scans stories in the Scottish media and where it&#8217;s needed &#8211; and it&#8217;s often needed &#8211; he debunks pro-Unionist propaganda: first of all by making it plain where the media outlets are using Labour, Tory or LibDem press releases verbatim and without any fact-checking and secondly by putting the information into context.<\/p>\n<p>One of his posts <a href=\"https:\/\/thoughtcontrolscotland.com\/2018\/02\/25\/as-nhs-staffing-climbs-labour-co-ordinate-anti-snp-propaganda-in-herald-scotsman-bbc-and-stv-on-nursing-and-midwifery-staffing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&nbsp;on NHS Staffing<\/a> is about the run of anti-NHS Scotland stories about what a shambles the SNP is making of it. These stories are appearing all over &nbsp;the Union-supporting Scottish media, which is to say most of the Scottish media.<\/p>\n<p>I quite enjoy taking his info and putting it into visual format. Here are a couple I&#8217;ve just done.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2824\" src=\"http:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1028\" height=\"558\" srcset=\"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002.png 1028w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002-300x163.png 300w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002-768x417.png 768w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002-1024x556.png 1024w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002-370x201.png 370w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002-270x147.png 270w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS002-740x402.png 740w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1028px) 100vw, 1028px\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-singlepic wp-image-2825\" src=\"http:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS001.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"940\" height=\"724\" srcset=\"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS001.png 940w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS001-300x231.png 300w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS001-768x592.png 768w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS001-370x285.png 370w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS001-270x208.png 270w, https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/TUS-NHS001-740x570.png 740w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 940px) 100vw, 940px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Denying the Facts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A couple of years back I did a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edx.org\/course\/making-sense-climate-science-denial-uqx-denial101x-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Denial101x<\/a> run by the University of Queensland. It is a very, very good introduction to how climate change deniers misrepresent and twist information about climate change to suit their agenda. Their agenda being that &#8220;it isn&#8217;t happening&#8221;, or at least &#8220;it&#8217;s not happening very quickly&#8221;, or &#8220;it&#8217;s not happening where we live&#8221;. &nbsp;This will take you to my post on <a href=\"http:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/?page_id=1211\">Denial 101X<\/a>&nbsp;if you want to find out more.<\/p>\n<p>These days that climate change denial industry has expanded to other subjects. Donald Trump is a master of using outright lies and misdirection to get his agenda across. Unfortunately social media allows his followers to spread that misdirection to a huge audience. In fact to a huu-uuge audience. Of course he has his own denial about climate change too: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.politifact.com\/truth-o-meter\/statements\/2016\/jun\/03\/hillary-clinton\/yes-donald-trump-did-call-climate-change-chinese-h\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">It&#8217;s a hoax invented by the Chinese<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Even more unfortunately, pro-Union supporters employ the same sort of tactics against the Scottish Independence campaigners. They&#8217;re just not so good at it. &nbsp;Or maybe they think we have the attention span of a gold fish and won&#8217;t remember what they said on Twitter before they deleted what they said. Or maybe they just think our heid buttons up the back.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a fan of John Robertson&#8217;s blog Talking Up Scotland. He scans stories in the Scottish media and where it&#8217;s needed &#8211; and it&#8217;s often needed &#8211; he debunks pro-Unionist propaganda: first of all by making it plain where the media outlets are using Labour, Tory or LibDem press releases verbatim and without any fact-checking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"chat","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[100,147,30,148],"class_list":["post-2823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-chat","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-debunking-unionism","tag-fake-news","tag-nhs-scotland","tag-scottish-independence","tag-unionist-propaganda","post_format-post-format-chat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4018,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions\/4018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weegiefifer.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}