PR Mind Control
Weekend Edition September 12-14, 2014
Even Better Than the Real Thing
PR Mind Control
by MICKEY Z
“As force is always on side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion.”
- David Hume
If a given market has the capability to supply a never-ending array of products, ideologies, concepts, and goods, how do we ultimately make our choices? What persuades pliable, willing consumers to select Coke or Pepsi, McDonalds or KFC, MasterCard or Visa, Crest or Colgate, Facebook or Twitter?
Bigger picture: What makes us believe we actually “need” any of these commodities in the first place? The easy answer, of course, is advertising.
We see the commercials, we hum the jingles, we even pay good money to adorn our bodies with clothing bearing corporate logos. Clearly the many billions of dollars spent each year on advertising profoundly influence our lives. But there’s also a parallel industry — albeit with a much lower profile.
“In societies like ours, corporate propaganda is delivered through advertising and public relations,” says author Derrick Jensen. “Most people recognize that advertising is propaganda. We understand that whoever paid for and designed an ad wants us to think or feel a certain way, vote for a certain candidate, or purchase a certain product. Public relations, on the other hand, is much more insidious. Because it’s disguised as information, we often don’t realize we are being influenced by public relations.”
If alarms began ringing in your head upon reading the term “propaganda,” you’re certainly not alone. Thanks to Joseph Goebbels, propaganda is officially a dirty word. But when Edward Bernays — nephew of Sigmund Freud, public relations pioneer, and America’s most innovative social engineer — got his start in the early 20th century it was a word less charged but equally as potent. In fact, Bernays unabashedly named one of his books Propaganda.
“Edward Bernays was surely one of the most amazing and influential characters of the twentieth century,” explains John Stauber, co-author of Toxic Sludge is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies, and Public Relations. “ He was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and helped to popularize Freudianism in the United States. Later, he used his relation to Freud to promote himself. And from his uncle’s psychoanalysis techniques, Bernays developed a scientific method of managing behavior, to which he gave the name ‘public relations.’”
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/12/pr-mind-control/
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