Know Your Enemy: Edward Bernays -- The Founding Father of Spin and Phony Image-Making

Dems Will Win

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Mon Jan-01-07 06:24 PM
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Know Your Enemy: Edward Bernays -- The Founding Father of Spin and Phony Image-Making

Edited on Mon Jan-01-07 06:45 PM by Dems Will Win

SIGMUND FREUD AND HIS NEPHEW EDWARD BERNAYS

�Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini liked this quote so much he attributed it to himself

Part of understanding the current state of the world is to know the history of corporatism, as full corporatism is the future the regressive conservatives have long been implementing. As Mussolini believed, fascism should more appropriately be termed Corporatism, with certain corporate owners becoming partners with the rulers at the top of the power pyramid. Ordinary voters then become second-class citizens and lose the real democratic power that they enjoy in a capitalist state.

This is the danger we face today from the nearly unbridled power of multi-nationals to corrupt and influence the political process and media all over the world. It has degenerated to the point in the U.S. where lobbyists literally write the legislation concerning their industry.

Corporatism is not capitalism, as capitalism merely regulates the market, while in corporatism the select corporate elite dictate government policy and shape the market for their own greedy purposes. Under corporatism, free markets are controlled and manipulated by the few, with little or no thought for the public good.

In Fascist Italy, the corporations actually had their own government legislative body, the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni! Today, corporatism in America and around the world is subtler, pulling the strings through lobbying and campaign contributions, which in the U.S. makes up 2/3 of the money going to politicians.

The PR Mind-Control of Edward Bernays

"Those who manipulate the unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of� In almost every act of our lives whether in the sphere of politics or business in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind."-Edward Bernays

Why is present-day corporatism so successful? How have they managed to pull off lies like smoking tobacco is good for you, that nuclear power will be safe and too cheap to meter, or that the jury is still out on global warming? In reality, the Republicans, and their crony capitalist patrons, have a secret weapon: a new sophisticated method of public relations based on the science of psychology. Backed up by the corporate media, this insidious new form of PR is literally a type of mass mind control.

Aiding the corporations in their quest for ultimate gain and profit was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays, the �Father of Spin�. He used psychology to build image and to help corporations �position� their products, even if the product was not good for people�or might even kill them.

Uncle Sigmund had taught Bernays one thing: emotions have a profound effect on the subconscious. So Bernays cleverly used psychological images to sell his client�s wares, tapping deep-down emotions to bend the perceived reality about the product. He wrote the book on propaganda, literally. Bernays� book Propaganda had an impact within all large companies and governments, including the Nazis, and they were all soon utilizing his methods. The politicians were not far behind in learning how to spin campaigns for themselves and their corporate contributors, creating an intricate web of Spin, Corporatist/Conservative big lies and little lies�a web of deceit that was impenetrable to the casual observer. The public was only told what the Spin Machine wanted them to know.

The result is the world you see today.

After advising the Republicans and Big Oil on how to win the fight to suppress ethanol and put lead into gasoline, Bernays scored another coup during the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City when he arranged for the �Torches of Liberty� to march. The Torches were cigarette-smoking suffragettes, who proclaimed that cigarettes were part of women�s liberation�that women have the right to smoke like men. Ever since the Torches of Liberty, women have seen smoking as a sign of their independence. Score one for emotion, zero for reason.

Bernays stated that emotion could be used to triumph over fact, and that a subtle lie repeated over and over will eventually be believed by the majority of the listening, viewing and reading public. His books Crystallizing Public Opinion, Propaganda and The Engineering of Consent were the foundation of Public Relations, giving corporations and governments a tremendous new power over the mind of the general public.

Bernays realized that by using �independent� third-party associations, corporate propaganda can be fed through a seemingly objective source, which then issued press releases saying their product was safe. The safety was determined, however, through falsified studies by the phony institutes and foundations he had his clients set up. As communication technology delivered more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer media owners, who typically sat on the Boards of major corporations themselves, the circle of deception was complete.

The security of modern corporatism and establishment institutions was for the time assured -� no matter what outrage greed and old science technology produces.

Since it all worked on manipulating subconscious emotions, the person doesn�t even know they are being subjected to PR �mind-control�. The advertisers could now get you to think almost whatever way they want you to about a product�making you think you absolutely have to buy it as soon as you can.

Bernays� technique was to reframe the issue so that the product is perceived in a more desirable light. In his book Propaganda, he said the public is a �herd that needed to be led�. It is this herdlike quality, this pliable group mind that makes the population �susceptible to leadership� and makes it possible to "control the masses without their knowing it."

One of the greatest triumphs of Edward Bernays was forging the decades-long marketing alliance between the AMA and the tobacco industry. Despite many opinions to the contrary, the AMA agreed to state in ads that cigarettes were actually beneficial to health. Smoking was recommended as a treatment for nerves. Even doctors believed it, and a huge number took up cigarettes themselves. This particular deception was successful for a half a century, until the Surgeon General�s Report on smoking comes out in 1965.

Still another campaign involving doctors gets all of America eating bacon for breakfast. Edward Bernays was literally responsible for the deaths of tens of millions over the many years.

It would be decades before the ecological worldview could even begin to compete with the corporatist media and tell the whole truth about the world. Abraham Lincoln had worried that corporations would be �enthroned� and exploit �the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed.� It seems our Republic is well on its way to that terrible future.

What do you plan to do about it?

Start by reading this book: TOXIC SLUDGE IS GOOD FOR YOU
http://www.amazon.com/Toxic-Sludge-Good-You-Relations/dp/1567510604/sr=1-1/qid=1167693943/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-6016281-0507355?ie=UTF8&s=books

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