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From:Edward Bernays , Ig Publishing ,
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1 of 1 customers found the following review helpful:
 Manipulation of the Masses, 2008-07-15
"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."
And we're off and running through the world of Propaganda, the how-to manual for the manufacture of consent by Edward Bernays. Since American voters were unable to think for themselves, the nephew of Sigmund Freud asserted, political parties were necessary to narrow down choices to a handful of candidates.
Small wonder the Founders were wary of a mass democracy and the sways of public opinion. "An informed citizenry can be trusted with its government." Thomas Jefferson. "A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people." James Madison.
In his excellent introduction, Mark Crispin Miller details how propaganda was used to mold support for America's entry into WW1. Once the war was over, the public wised up to the ruse and angrily repudiated the Wilson administration. Propaganda was a dirty word throughout the 20's and 30's.
Regrettably, our modern day campaigns have become a testament to Bernays's expertise. Talking heads on television yak on about a candidate's charisma, wardrobe, and "thrilling life story." The marketplace of ideas has given way to fundraisers, photo-ops and two-bit slogans. Revisionist history has transformed Woodrow Wilson from schmuck to hero while voters blindly follow The Party like sheep.
Lessons unlearned are lessons lost.
2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
The Book That Killed Democracy, 2008-06-22
Once Sigmund Freud discovered unconscious thought, it was all over for the American republic. It was just a matter of time (a few years) before Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, took the next step and found a way to use Uncle Freud's theories to manipulate the masses into controlling not only consumer behavior, but more importantly, political thought.
"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it"?
"If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway".
In this way, majority rule as dictated in our US Constitution has ceased to be. "The minority has discovered a powerful help in influnecing majorities. It has been found possible to mold the mind of the masses that they will throw their newly gained strength in the desired direction".
While many of us can admit that we are influenced by external sources in what we spend our money on, nobody, and I mean NOBODY has even an iota of notion that our politics is influenced by those very same external sources.
Bernays published "Propaganda" in 1928 to "explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity".
The simple term for this "mechanism" is "mass suggestion".
Sounds innocent enough, until the power-mongers get ahold of it and manipulate the public into supporting needless wars. It was mass suggestion from personality figures (presidents) and authority figures (writers in the mass media) who ultimately transferred the ownership of our thought from ourselves to the government. So just like we are influenced to buy that Izod or Polo shirt or Big Mac, so also are we influenced to support a certain presidential candidate or governmental policy. It all works the same, without us even knowing it.
"...the sincere and gifted politician is able, by the instrument of propaganda, to mold and form the will of the people".
"Propaganda is utilized to manufacture our leading political personalities"..."a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man".
"...propaganda tends to make the President of the United States so important that he becomes not the President but the embodiment of the idea of hero worship, not to say deity worship".
"The public actions of America's chief executive are, if one chooses to put it that way, stage-managed". (And this was 75 years BEFORE "Mission Accomplished"!)
"...the group mind does not think in the strict sense of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses, habits, and emotions. In making up its mind, its first impulse is usually to follow the example of a trusted leader".
"Who are the men", asked Bernays, "who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas, tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe..."? He answers, "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country".
"As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented".
"Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government".
"There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions".
And so it was, the public masses in our "democracy" became the regimented crowd of Erich Fromm who wrote in 1941 (13 years after "Propaganda" appeared) that we have all become automatons, "mouthing received opinion without ever thinking critically" leading "to the attraction of the regimented crowd".
I believe Bernays wrote this book out of pride for what he accomplished in WWI. During WWI Bernays worked for the US Committee on Public Information (CPI) "A powerful propaganda machine that advertised and sold the war to the American people as one that would "Make the world safe for democracy". Even though the US was in that war barely more than one year, 116,000 Ameircan gave their lives in the name of this propaganda. "The marketing strategies for all future wars would be based on the CPI model".
In the introduction, Mark Crispin Miller writes, "Throughout the decade there had been a gradual, disorienting revelation of just how systematically, and how ingeniously, the Allied governments had fooled the peoples of two great democracies, Great Britain, and, in particular, the USA. Once the thrill of victory had faded, and the troops came home (if they came home at all) disfigured or disabled, and the reasons for the war were now less clear than they had seemed, the sordid details of the propaganda drive against "the Hun" began to circulate...". (WWI propaganda portrayed the Germans as Huns and that they were eating Belgian babies).
And then television was invented. The US government was able to "suggest" to everyone at the same time who to vote for and what to believe. For television's influence, see my review of the book, U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960 (Cambridge Studies in the History of Mass Communication).
Today, the number one propagandist in the US media is Bill O'Reilly (he isn't paid millions for his show hosting). His viewers have no clue they are the victims of propaganda. It was Fox News who put forth the lie that Saddam Hussein moved his WMD to Syria. Not even the White House is telling this lie, but O'Reilly's viewers bought it hook, line and sinker. While all other networks have conceded that Saddam had no WMD, that Saddam was not linked to either al-qaeda or 9/11, the Fox News viewers are none the wiser, because Fox is all they watch like good little automatons.
And Fox News has put lying warmonger, John McCain in your face for two years now. "a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man".
 Modern PR, 2008-05-29
Edward Bernays is most infamous as the founder of modern public relations as we know it today, and particularly for his advertising campaign to make cigarettes popular for women. Bernays taps into his uncle's understanding of the human unconscious and then exploits it, by turning us all into products. A disturbing an continually prescient text on the art of commercial manipulation.
 The spinning of consumer needs and beliefs in life and advertisement, 2008-02-11
The ancient art of infusing thought system in people to affect their daily judgement and "belief" in clearly illustrated in this book.
A must read for those interested in understanding the underlying forces that infuence what we believe,buy and vote for.
Propaganda Rules the World!, 2007-11-29
Edward Bernay and Ivy Lee were the progenitors of today's public relations and marketing machine. They didn't create the "Spin" machine, merely steered it in the direction it was naturally going. "Propaganda" is a "must read" for anyone desiring to create an effective PR/Marketing campaign. It's more a philosophy behind the strategy.
Ideas rule the world and "Propaganda" is the method by which it's done.
Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute, Inc.
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