Appeal to authority, assertion of false quote: Alan Greenspan did not say this

Appeal to authority, assertion of false quote: Alan Greenspan did not say this

12208293_926532560715757_6807860016457691802_nTL;DR Summary:

  • Greenspan never said this. Prof. Noam Chomsky said this quote to illustrate what he thought of Greenspan.
  • HOW IT WORKS – This is a fake “Appeal to Authority” using one’s thoughts on Greenspan as leverage.
  • The poster asserts that Greenspan said this and readers want to believe it is true, therefore, it must be true!

Methods: Appeal to authority, Assertion (of false quote), transference
Goal: To associate or “transfer” dislike of bankers to Republicans.
Scorecard: Successful as propaganda. This item has been widely shared online.
 
The quote is actually from Noam Chomsky, not from Alan Greenspan; Chomsky made up a quote to express his views of Greenspan. See here for the documentation including an interview with Chomsky and a link to what Greenspan actually said in Congressional testimony.
This item was “shared” in to my FB news feed. This works as propaganda because it “sounds plausible” to the target, a FB group titled “Too informed to vote Republican“. Numerous comments to the original post note this quote is not real, but the group has not taken down the false quote.
Falsehood spread through propaganda lives forever! In fact, the first message a target receives, even if subsequently proven false, is the message most likely to stick with the target.
 
Text for Search Indexing
I Am Alan
And, I used to run the Federal Reserve.
And, I actually said this:
“If workers are more insecure, that’s very healthy for the society, because if workers are insecure they won’t ask for wages, they won’t go on strike, they won’t call for benefits; they’ll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that’s optimal for corporations.”

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