Propaganda

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”—Edward Bernays, Propaganda

First published 1928 – [The] American business community was also very impressed with the propaganda effort. They had a problem at that time. The country was becoming formally more democratic. A lot more people were able to vote and that sort of thing. The country was becoming wealthier and more people could participate and a lot of new immigrants were coming in, and so on.

So what do you do? It’s going to be harder to run things as a private club. Therefore, obviously, you have to control what people think. There had been public relation specialists but there was never a public relations industry. There was a guy hired to make Rockefeller’s image look prettier and that sort of thing. But this huge public relations industry, which is a U.S. invention and a monstrous industry, came out of the first World War. The leading figures were people in the Creel Commission. In fact, the main one, Edward Bernays, comes right out of the Creel Commission. He has a book that came out right afterwards called Propaganda. The term “propaganda,” incidentally, did not have negative connotations in those days. It was during the second World War that the term became taboo because it was connected with Germany, and all those bad things. But in this period, the term propaganda just meant information or something like that. So he wrote a book called Propaganda around 1925, and it starts off by saying he is applying the lessons of the first World War. The propaganda system of the first World War and this commission that he was part of showed, he says, it is possible to “regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments their bodies.” These new techniques of regimentation of minds, he said, had to be used by the intelligent minorities in order to make sure that the slobs stay on the right course. We can do it now because we have these new techniques.

Poisoned Water

(SOTT) – Arthur Miller wrote, “An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.” It’s becoming increasingly clear that we are living through such a time. The information age is dissolving many of the lies of corporate capitalism. The rapid exchange of knowledge on the Internet has made the excesses of globalization transparent. It’s high time for pointing out the pink elephants and debunking the myths of the system. So here’s some more dirt under the fingernails of the American Empire: fluoride. For half a century in North America the commonly held belief has been that fluoride is good for our teeth. This is a PR lie concocted by the most infamous “mad man” of Madison Avenue, Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud. The truth is that fluoride is poison. Yet on account of the longevity of the lie, to this day there is poison in our toothpaste and in our drinking water.

Mind Control Theories and Techniques used by Mass Media

(VigilantCitizen) – Mass media is the most powerful tool used by the ruling class to manipulate the masses. It shapes and molds opinions and attitudes and defines what is normal and acceptable. This article looks at the workings of mass media through the theories of its major thinkers, its power structure and the techniques it uses, in order to understand its true role in society.

Film: Century of Self – A Study in Mind Control

Sigmund Freud believed that individuals were not driven by rational thought but by primitive unconscious desires and feelings. Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays believed that this meant that it was too dangerous to let the masses ever have control over their own lives. Consumerism was a way of giving people the illusion of control while allowing a responsible elite to managing society.

Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticizing the motorcar. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernay’s most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world.

Video: Edward Bernays and the Art of Public Manipulation – Left-Libertarian

You might like my videos if you like: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ralph Nader, Sheldon Rampton, John Stauber, Matt Taibbi, Michael Albert, Bakunin, Proudhon, Amy Goodman, John Pilger, Mike Gravel, Naomi Klein.

Video: This Is NOT Wilson’s War: Charlie Sheen Leaves Main Stream Media Exposed

(DanielSunjata) – Well, Charlie, you have a witness. I stand in absolute support and solidarity with your request on behalf of the victim’s family members, and in the names of those we lost on 9/11 and those who have been murdered in its aftermath, for you to be granted 20 minutes to present your 20 questions to President Obama. It thus bears repeating (from my previous essay):

The News Media Scam

Here’s a quotation that should awaken every American.

The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology.  (Michael Parenti, political scientist and author)

The Best President Money Could Buy

Our brand of capitalism relies on prolific consumerism as a means to globalization, where needs are created and where everything and everyone is for sale. We tend to sell the public various goods, services, people, politicians, Presidents, and even God for the right price.