Obama's re-election causing mental disorders

[Gabi Hayes]

186. excellent! this fits in quite well:

Karl Rove & the Spectre of Freud’s Nephew

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/bender2.html

The Triumph of "Turd Blossom"

Karl Rove – given the above nickname by our jocular President – is an extraordinarily keen student of American psychology and history. He is well aware of the back story to contemporary political fixtures like the focus group – a technique innovated by Edward Bernays. Consequently, it doesn’t take too much effort to discern the afterimage of Bernays’s teachings in Bush’s rhetoric.

In Crystallizing Public Opinion, Bernays related how governments and advertisers can "regiment the mind like the military regiments the body." This discipline can be imposed because of "the natural inherent flexibility of individual human nature." He also instructed that the "average citizen is the world’s most efficient censor. His own mind is the greatest barrier between him and the facts. His own ‘logic proof compartments,’ his own absolutism are the obstacles which prevent him from seeing in terms of experience and thought rather than in terms of group reaction."

In addition to what Bernays saw as a widespread individual resistance to reason in public affairs, he contended "physical loneliness is a real terror to the gregarious animal, and that association with the herd causes a feeling of security. In man this fear of loneliness creates a desire for identification with the herd in matters of opinion."

Once within the "herd," the "gregarious animal" still wishes to express his or her opinion. Therefore, the public relations counsel must "appeal to individualism [which] goes closely in hand with other instincts, such as self-display."

Quoting Wilfred Trotter and Gustav Le Bon [two leading turn-of-the-century social psychologists], Bernays agreed that "the group mind does not think [emphasis in original] in the strict sense of the word… In making up its mind, its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the most firmly established principles in mass psychology." [Emphasis mine] To sum up, what Bernays called the "regimentation of the mind" is accomplished by taking advantage of the human tendency to self-deception, gregariousness, individualism and the seductive power of a strong leader.

The allure of determined leadership – one can read all about it in management and self-help books – is heightened in times of turmoil. The last election almost certainly turned on the question of whose leadership could best "keep America safe." George W. Bush, thanks to Karl Rove, absolutely rolled John Kerry on this question. Kerry, the decorated vet, was successfully depicted as a French-loving, wind-surfing "liberal flip-flopper." And then we all heard, ad nauseum, that he "betrayed his comrades" in Vietnam by "throwing away his medals" at some hippie protest or other. That these smears had nothing to do with Kerry’s program ended up being irrelevant.