Irvine CA city leaders attend ribbon cutting for Epoch Times new office..weird rightwing rag
Social media posts reveal that Irvine City Councilmember and 2024 Irvine Mayoral candidate, Tammy Kim, attended and celebrated conspiracy laden click-bait publisher, The Epoch Times, with the opening of its new Irvine satellite office. In attendance were OC Board of Education (OCBE) Trustee Mari Barke, former CA State Senator, John Moorlach, Greater Irvine Chamber President, Bryan Starr, and a representative on behalf of current OC Board of Supervisors Director, Donald Wagner, among other mainly right-wing Republicans.
https://irvinewatchdog.org/featured/opinion-vice-mayor-tammy-kim-cuts-ribbon-for-far-right-disinformation-machines-new-irvine-office/
Background on The Epoch Times
A quick search on The Epoch Times Southern California chapter Facebook page reveals that they are currently knee-deep in attacking LGBTQ individuals and publishing right wing school board culture war issues. Is this the type of business you want to celebrate and endorse, Vice Mayor Kim? Does The Epoch Times reflect the interests of our highly educated community? To answer that, let’s learn a little more about this shadowy publication.
According to New York Times, “Since 2016, the Falun Gong-backed newspaper has used aggressive Facebook tactics and right-wing misinformation to create an anti-China, pro-Trump media empire. For years, The Epoch Times was a small, low-budget newspaper with an anti-China slant that was handed out free on New York street corners. But in 2016 and 2017, the paper made two changes that transformed it into one of the country’s most powerful digital publishers. The changes also paved the way for the publication, which is affiliated with the secretive and relatively obscure Chinese spiritual movement Falun Gong, to become a leading purveyor of right-wing misinformation.” The NY Times article goes on to describe that it gained influence by embracing and fervently supporting Donald Trump and by spending massive amounts of money on Facebook ads pushing far right causes.
According to OpenDemocracy.net, “Not everything published by The Epoch Times qualifies as disinformation – a lot of its content consists of straightforward reports, often sourced from news agencies. But according to NewsGuard, a journalism and technology tool that rates the credibility of news websites and tracks misinformation, it fails to gather and present information responsibly, rarely corrects or clarifies errors, and remains opaque as to its ownership and funding.”
In August 2023, media outlets discovered a more concerning trend with The Epoch Times and their influence on politics through dark money. In recently disclosed campaign financial disclosures, former California Governor candidate, Larry Elder, received a salary from The Epoch Times ranging from $1 to $5 million dollars.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Fri Sep 29, 2023, 09:36 AM - Edit history (1)
and when combined with the Tao symbol, there's some kind of East-West meaning when interconnected within a huge circle, possibly symbolizing the world.
From wikipedia:
The main symbol of the practice is the Falun (Dharma wheel, or Dharmacakra in Sanskrit). In Buddhism, the Dharmacakra represents the completeness of the doctrine. To "turn the wheel of dharma" (Zhuan Falun) means to preach the Buddhist doctrine, and is the title of Falun Gong's main text.[87] Despite the invocation of Buddhist language and symbols, the law wheel as understood in Falun Gong has distinct connotations, and is held to represent the universe.[88] It is conceptualized by an emblem consisting of one large and four small (counter-clockwise) swastika symbols, representing the Buddha, and four small Taiji (yin-yang) symbols of the Daoist tradition.[88]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
