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brainwashing
The dumbing of America
by Dr. Tim O'Shea *
(Courtesy Dr. Joseph Mercola's newsletter. Free
subscription details at bottom)
We are the most conditioned, programmed beings the world has
ever known. Not only are our thoughts and attitudes continually
being shaped and molded; our very awareness of the whole design
seems like it is being subtly and inexorably erased.
The doors of our perception are carefully and precisely regulated.
Who cares, right?
It is an exhausting and endless task to keep explaining to people
how most issues of conventional wisdom are scientifically implanted
in the public consciousness by a thousand media clips per day.
In an effort to save time, I would like to provide just a little
background on the handling of information in this country.
Once the basic principles are illustrated about how our current
system of media control arose historically, the reader might
be more apt to question any given story in today's news.
If everybody believes something, it's probably
wrong. We call that Conventional Wisdom.
In America, conventional wisdom that has mass acceptance is usually
contrived: somebody paid for it.
Some examples:
Pharmaceuticals
restore health
Vaccination
brings immunity
The
cure for cancer is just around the corner
When
a child is sick, he needs immediate antibiotics
When
a child has a fever he needs Tylenol
Hospitals
are safe and clean.
America
has the best health care in the world.
And
many many more
This is a list of illusions, that have cost billions and billions
to conjure up. Did you ever wonder why you never see the President
speaking publicly unless he is reading? Or why most people in
this country think generally the same about most of the above
issues?
How this set-up got started
In Trust Us We're Experts, Stauber and Rampton pull together
some compelling data describing the science of creating public
opinion in America.
They trace modern public influence back to the early part of
the last century, highlighting the work of guys like Edward L.
Bernays, the Father of Spin. From his own amazing chronicle Propaganda,
we learn how Edward L. Bernays took the ideas of his famous uncle
Sigmund Freud himself, and applied them to the emerging science
of mass persuasion.
The only difference was that instead of using these principles
to uncover hidden themes in the human unconscious, the way Freudian
psychology does, Bernays used these same ideas to mask agendas
and to create illusions that deceive and misrepresent, for marketing
purposes.
The father of spin
Bernays dominated the PR industry until the 1940s, and was a
significant force for another 40 years after that. (Tye) During
all that time, Bernays took on hundreds of diverse assignments
to create a public perception about some idea or product. A few
examples:
As a neophyte with the Committee on Public Information, one of
Bernays' first assignments was to help sell the First World War
to the American public with the idea to "Make the World
Safe for Democracy." (Ewen)
A few years later, Bernays set up a stunt to popularize the notion
of women smoking cigarettes. In organizing the 1929 Easter Parade
in New York City, Bernays showed himself as a force to be reckoned
with.
He organized the Torches of Liberty Brigade in which suffragettes
marched in the parade smoking cigarettes as a mark of women's
liberation. Such publicity followed from that one event that
from then on women have felt secure about destroying their own
lungs in public, the same way that men have always done.
Bernays popularized the idea of bacon for breakfast.
Not one to turn down a challenge, he set up the advertising format
along with the American Medical Association (AMA) that lasted
for nearly 50 years proving that cigarettes are beneficial to
health. Just look at ads in issues of Life or Time from the 40s
and 50s.
Smoke and mirrors
Bernay's job was to reframe an issue; to create a desired image
that would put a particular product or concept in a desirable
light. Bernays described the public as a 'herd that needed to
be led.' And this herdlike thinking makes people "susceptible
to leadership."
Bernays never deviated from his fundamental axiom to "control
the masses without their knowing it." The best PR happens
with the people unaware that they are being manipulated.
Stauber describes Bernays' rationale like this:
"the scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary
to overcome chaos and conflict in a democratic society."
Trust Us p 42
These early mass persuaders postured themselves as performing
a moral service for humanity in general - democracy was too good
for people; they needed to be told what
to think, because they were incapable of rational thought by
themselves.
Here's a paragraph from Bernays' Propaganda:
"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.
This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society
is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in
this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning
society.
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."
Here comes the money
Once the possibilities of applying Freudian psychology to mass
media were glimpsed, Bernays soon had more corporate clients
than he could handle. Global corporations fell all over themselves
courting the new Image Makers. There were dozens of goods and
services and ideas to be sold to a susceptible public. Over the
years, these players have had the money to make their images
happen. A few examples:
Philip
Morris Pfizer
Union
Carbide
Allstate
Monsanto
Eli
Lilly
tobacco
industry Ciba Geigy lead
industry
Coors
DuPont
Chlorox
Shell
Oil Standard
Oil Procter
& Gamble
Boeing
General
Motors Dow Chemical
General
Mills Goodyear
The best PR goes unnoticed
Though world-famous within the PR industry, the companies have
names we don't know, and for good reason.
For decades they have created the opinions that most of us were
raised with, on virtually any issue which has the remotest commercial
value, including:
pharmaceutical
drugs vaccines
medicine
as a profession alternative
medicine
fluoridation
of city water chlorine
household
cleaning products tobacco
dioxin
global
warming
leaded
gasoline cancer
research and treatment
pollution
of the oceans forests
and lumber
images
of celebrities crisis
and disaster management
genetically
modified foods aspartame
food
additives; processed foods dental
amalgams
Lesson #1
Bernays learned early on that the most effective way to create
credibility for a product or an image was by "independent
third-party" endorsement.
For example, if General Motors were to come out and say that
global warming is a hoax thought up by some liberal tree-huggers,
people would suspect GM's motives, since GM's fortune is made
by selling automobiles.
If however some independent research institute with a very credible
sounding name like the Global Climate Coalition comes out with
a scientific report that says global warming is really a fiction,
people begin to get confused and to have doubts about the original
issue.
So that's exactly what Bernays did. With a policy inspired by
genius, he set up "more institutes and foundations than
Rockefeller and Carnegie combined." (Stauber p 45)
Quietly financed by the industries whose products were being
evaluated, these "independent" research agencies would
churn out "scientific" studies and press materials
that could create any image their handlers
wanted. Such front groups are given high-sounding names
like:
Temperature
Research Foundation Manhattan
Institute
International
Food Information Council Center
for Produce Quality
Consumer
Alert Tobacco
Institute Research Council
The
Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
Cato Institute
Air
Hygiene Foundation American
Council on Science and Health
Industrial
Health Federation
Global Climate Coalition
International
Food Information Council Alliance
for Better Foods
Sound pretty legit don't they?
Canned news releases
As Stauber explains, these organizations and hundreds of others
like them are front groups whose sole mission is to advance the
image of the global corporations who fund them, like those listed
above.
This is accomplished in part by an endless stream of 'press releases'
announcing "breakthrough" research to every radio station
and newspaper in the country. (Robbins) Many of these canned
reports read like straight news, and indeed are purposely molded
in the news format.
This saves journalists the trouble of researching the subjects
on their own, especially on topics about which they know very
little. Entire sections of the release or in the case of video
news releases, the whole thing can be just lifted intact, with
no editing, given the byline of the reporter or newspaper or
TV station - and voilá! Instant news - copy and paste.
Written by corporate PR firms.
Does this really happen? Every single day, since the 1920s when
the idea of the News Release was first invented by Ivy Lee. (Stauber,
p 22) Sometimes as many as half the stories appearing in an issue
of the Wall St. Journal are based solely on such PR press releases..
(22)
These types of stories are mixed right in with legitimately researched
stories. Unless you have done the research yourself, you won't
be able to tell the difference.
The language of spin
As 1920s spin pioneers like Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays gained
more experience, they began to formulate rules and guidelines
for creating public opinion. They learned quickly that mob psychology
must focus on emotion, not facts. Since the mob is incapable
of rational thought, motivation must be based not on logic but
on presentation. Here are some of the axioms of the new science
of PR:
technology
is a religion unto itself
if
people are incapable of rational thought, real democracy is dangerous
important
decisions should be left to experts
when
reframing issues, stay away from substance; create images
never
state a clearly demonstrable lie
Words are very carefully chosen for their emotional impact. Here's
an example. A front group called the International Food Information
Council (IFIC) handles the public's natural aversion to genetically
modified foods.
Trigger words are repeated all through
the text. Now in the case of GM foods, the public is instinctively
afraid of these experimental new creations which have suddenly
popped up on our grocery shelves and are said to have DNA alterations.
The IFIC wants to reassure the public of the safety of GM foods,
so it avoids words like:
Frankenfoods
Hitler
biotech
chemical
DNA
experiments
manipulate money
safety
scientists
radiation
roulette
gene-splicing
gene
gun random
Instead, good PR copy for GM foods contains words like:
hybrids
natural
order beauty
choice
bounty cross-breeding
diversity
earth
farmer
organic
wholesome
It's basic Freudian/Tony Robbins word association. The fact
that GM foods are not hybrids that have been subjected to the
slow and careful scientific methods of real crossbreeding doesn't
really matter. This is pseudo-science, not science. Form is everything
and substance just a passing myth. (Trevanian)
Who do you think funds the International Food Information Council?
Take a wild guess. Right - Monsanto, DuPont, Frito-Lay, Coca
Cola, Nutrasweet - those in a position to make fortunes from
GM foods. (Stauber p 20)
Characteristics of good propaganda
As the science of mass control evolved, PR firms developed further
guidelines for effective copy. Here are some of the gems:
dehumanize the attacked party
by labeling and name calling
speak in glittering generalities
using emotionally positive words
when covering something up, don't
use plain English; stall for time; distract
get endorsements from celebrities,
churches, sports figures, street people - anyone who has no expertise
in the subject at hand
the 'plain folks' ruse: us billionaires
are just like you
when minimizing outrage, don't
say anything memorable, point out the benefits of what just happened,
and avoid moral issues
Keep this list. Start watching for these techniques. Not hard
to find - look at today's paper or tonight's TV news. See what
they're doing; these guys are good!
Science for hire
PR firms have become very sophisticated in the preparation of
news releases. They have learned how to attach the names of famous
scientists to research that those scientists have not even looked
at. (Stauber, p 201)
This is a common occurrence. In this way the editors of newspapers
and TV news shows are often not even aware that an individual
release is a total PR fabrication. Or at least they have "deniability,"
right? Stauber tells the amazing story of how leaded gas came
into the picture.
In 1922, General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline
gave cars more horsepower. When there was some concern about
safety, GM paid the Bureau of Mines to do some fake "testing"
and publish spurious research that 'proved' that inhalation of
lead was harmless.
Enter Charles Kettering. Founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering
Memorial Institute for medical research, Charles Kettering also
happened to be an executive with General Motors. By some strange
coincidence, we soon have the Sloan Kettering institute issuing
reports stating that lead occurs naturally in the body and that
the body has a way of eliminating low level exposure.
Through its association with The Industrial Hygiene Foundation
and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane Kettering opposed all
anti-lead research for years. (Stauber p 92). Without organized
scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and more gasoline
became leaded, until by the 1970s, 90% of our gasoline was leaded.
Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen,
and leaded gas was phased out in the late 1980s. But during those
60 years, it is estimated that some 30 million tons of lead were
released in vapor form onto American streets and highways. 30
million tons. That is PR, my friends.
Junk science
In 1993 a guy named Peter Huber wrote a new book and coined
a new term. The book was Galileo's Revenge and the term was junk
science. Huber's shallow thesis was that real science supports
technology, industry, and progress. Anything else was suddenly
junk science. Not surprisingly, Stauber explains how Huber's
book was supported by the industry-backed Manhattan Institute.
Huber's book was generally dismissed not only because it was
so poorly written, but because it failed to realize one fact:
true scientific research begins with no conclusions. Real scientists
are seeking the truth because they do not
yet know what the truth is. True scientific method goes
like this:
1. Form a hypothesis
2. Make predictions for that hypothesis
3. Test the predictions
4. Reject or revise the hypothesis based on the research findings
Boston University scientist Dr. David Ozonoff explains that
ideas in science are themselves like "living organisms,
that must be nourished, supported, and cultivated with resources
for making them grow and flourish."
(Stauber p 205) Great ideas that don't get this financial support
because the commercial angles are not immediately obvious - these
ideas wither and die. Another way you can often distinguish real
science from phony is that real science points out flaws in its
own research. Phony science pretends there were no flaws.
The real junk science
Contrast this with modern PR and its constant pretensions
to sound science. Corporate sponsored research, whether it's
in the area of drugs, GM foods, or chemistry begins with predetermined
conclusions. It is the job of the scientists then to prove that
these conclusions are true, because of the economic upside that
proof will bring to the industries paying for that research.
This invidious approach to science has shifted the entire focus
of research in America during the past 50 years, as any true
scientist is likely to admit. Stauber documents the increasing
amount of corporate sponsorship of university research. (206)
This has nothing to do with the pursuit of knowledge. Scientists
lament that research has become just another commodity, something
bought and sold. (Crossen)
The two main targets of "sound science"
It is shocking when Stauber shows how the vast majority of
corporate PR today opposes any research that seeks to protect
public health and the environment. It's a funny thing that most
of the time when we see the phrase "junk science,"
it is in a context of defending something that may threaten either
the environment or our health. This makes sense when one realizes
that money changes hands only by selling the illusion of health
and the illusion of environmental protection.
True public health and real preservation
of the earth's environment have very low market value. Stauber
thinks it ironic that industry's self-proclaimed debunkers of
junk science are usually non-scientists themselves. (255) Here
again they can do this because the issue is not science, but
the creation of images.
The language of attack
When PR firms attack legitimate environmental groups and alternative
medicine people, they again use special words which will carry
an emotional punch:
outraged sound science junk
science sensible scaremongering
responsible
phobia hoax
alarmist hysteria
The next time you are reading a newspaper article about an environmental
or health issue, note how the author shows bias by using the
above terms. This is the result of very specialized training.
Another standard PR tactic is to use the
rhetoric of the environmentalists themselves to defend a dangerous
and untested product that poses an actual threat to the
environment. This we see constantly in the PR smokescreen that
surrounds genetically modified foods.
They talk about how GM foods are necessary to grow more food
and to end world hunger, when the reality is that GM foods actually
have lower yields per acre than natural crops. (Stauber p 173)
The grand design sort of comes into focus once you realize that
almost all GM foods have been created by the sellers of herbicides
and pesticides so that those plants can withstand greater amounts
of herbicides and pesticides. (The Magic Bean)
Kill your TV?
I hope this has given you a hint to start reading newspaper and
magazine articles a little differently, and perhaps start watching
TV news shows with a slightly different attitude than you had
before.
Always ask, what are they selling here, and who's selling it?
And if you actually follow up on Stauber & Rampton's book
and check out some of the other resources below, you might even
glimpse the possibility of advancing your life one quantum simply
by ceasing to subject your brain to mass
media. That's right - no more newspapers, no more TV news,
no more Time magazine or Newsweek. You could actually do that.
Just think what you could do with all that extra time alone.
Do you feel like you need to "relax" or find out "what's
going on in the world" for a few hours every day? Think
about the news of the past couple of years for a minute.
Do you really suppose the major stories that have dominated headlines
and TV news have been "what is going on in the world?"
Do you actually think there's been nothing going on besides the
contrived tech slump, the contrived power shortages, the re-filtered
accounts of foreign violence and disaster, and all the other
non-stories that the puppeteers dangle before us every day?
What about when they get a big one, like OJ or Monica Lewinsky
or the Oklahoma city bombing? Do we really need to know all that
detail, day after day? Do we have any way
of verifying all that detail, even if we wanted to?
What is the purpose of news? To inform the public? Hardly. The sole purpose of news is to keep the public
in a state of fear and uncertainty so that they'll
watch again tomorrow and be subjected to the same advertising.
Oversimplification? Of course. That's the mark of mass media
mastery - simplicity. The invisible hand. Like Edward Bernays
said, the people must be controlled without them knowing it.
Consider this: what was really going on in the world all that
time they were distracting us with all that stupid vexatious
daily smokescreen? Fear and uncertainty -- that's what keeps
people coming back for more. If this seems like a radical outlook,
let's take it one step further:
What would you lose from your life if you stopped watching TV
and stopped reading newspapers altogether? Would your life really
suffer any financial, moral, intellectual or academic loss from
such a decision?
Do you really need to have your family continually absorbing
the illiterate, amoral, phony, uncultivated, desperately brainless
values of the people featured in the average nightly TV program?
Are these fake, programmed robots "normal"? Do you
need to have your life values constantly spoon-fed to you?
Are those shows really amusing, or just a necessary distraction
to keep you from looking at reality, or trying to figure things
out yourself by doing a little independent reading?
Name one example of how your life is improved by watching TV
news and reading the evening paper. What
measurable gain is there for you?
Planet of the apes?
There's no question that as a nation, we're
getting dumber year by year. Look at the presidents
we've been choosing lately. Ever notice the blatant grammar mistakes
so ubiquitous in today's advertising and billboards?
Literacy is marginal in most American secondary schools. Three
fourths of California high school seniors can't read well enough
to pass their exit exams. (SJ Mercury 20 Jul 01)
If you think other parts of the country are smarter, try this
one: hand any high school senior a book by Dumas or Jane Austen,
and ask them to open to any random page and just read one paragraph
out loud. Go ahead, do it. SAT scales are
arbitrarily shifted lower and lower to disguise how dumb kids
are getting year by year.
At least 10% have documented "learning disabilities,"
which are reinforced and rewarded by special treatment and special
drugs. Ever hear of anyone failing a grade any more?
Or observe the intellectual level of the
average movie which these days may only last one or two weeks
in the theatres, especially if it has insufficient explosions,
chase scenes, silicone, fake martial arts, and cretinesque dialogue.
Radio? Consider the low mental qualifications of the falsely
animated corporate simians they hire as DJs -- they're only allowed
to have 50 thoughts, which they just repeat at random.
And at what point did popular music cease to require the study
of any musical instrument or theory whatsoever, not to mention
lyrics? Perhaps we just don't understand this emerging art form,
right? The Darwinism of MTV - apes descended
from man.
Ever notice how most articles in any of the glossy magazines
sound like they were all written by the same guy? And this guy
just graduated from junior college? And yet he has all the correct
opinions on social issues, no original ideas, and that shallow,
smug, homogenized corporate omniscience, which enables him to
assure us that everything is going to be fine...
All this is great news for the PR industry - makes their job
that much easier. Not only are very few paying attention to the
process of conditioning; fewer are capable of understanding it--even
if somebody explained it to them.
Tea In the cafeteria
Let's say you're in a crowded cafeteria, and you buy a cup of
tea. And as you're about to sit down you see your friend way
across the room. So you put the tea down and walk across the
room and talk to your friend for a few minutes.
Now, coming back to your tea, are you just going to pick it up
and drink it? Remember, this is a crowded place and you've just
left your tea unattended for several minutes. You've given anybody
in that room access to your tea.
Why should your mind be any different? Turning on the TV, or
uncritically absorbing mass publications every day - these activities
allow access to our minds by "just anyone" -- anyone
who has an agenda, anyone with the resources to create a public
image via popular media.
As we've seen above, just because we read
something or see something on TV doesn't mean it's true or worth
knowing. Like the tea, the mind is also worth guarding,
worth limiting access to it.
This is the only life we get. Time is our total capital. Why
waste it allowing our potential, our personality, our values
to be shaped, crafted, and limited according to the whims of
the mass panderers?
There are many important issues that are crucial to our physical,
mental, and spiritual well-being. If it's an issue where money
is involved, objective data won't be so easy to obtain. Remember,
if everybody knows something, that image has been bought and
paid for.
Real knowledge takes a little effort, a little excavation down
at least one level below what "everybody knows."
References
Stauber & Rampton, "Trust Us, We're Experts", Tarcher/Putnam
2001
Ewen, Stuart PR!: A Social History of Spin 1996 ISBN: 0-465-06168-0
Published by Basic Books, A Division of Harper Collins
Tye, Larry The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth
of Public Relations Crown Publishers, Inc. 2001
King, R Medical journals rarely disclose researchers' ties Wall
St. Journal, 2 Feb 99.
Engler, R et al. Misrepresentation and Responsibility in Medical
Research New England Journal of Medicine v 317 p 1383 26 Nov
1987
Black, D PhD Health At the Crossroads Tapestry 1988. revanian
Shibumi 1983.
Crossen, C Tainted Truth: The Manipulation of Fact in America
1996.
Robbins, J Reclaiming Our Health Kramer 1996.
O'Shea T The Magic Bean 2000
* Dr. Tim O'Shea is
the author of Conventional Medicine Vs. Holistic: A World of
Difference and the producer of the web site The Doctor Within.
See it at: http://www.thedoctorwithin.com
The original title of the article was: The doors of perception.
Why Americans will believe almost anything.
If you found this article interesting,
you can find other informative articles by subscribing to Dr.
Mercola's newsletter free of charge. Go
to: http://www.mercola.com/index.htm
DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENTS:
One of the reasons I write this newsletter is to provide you,
the reader, with the truth so you can weed through much of the
nonsense that the media throws at you. I know that it is difficult
to do and that is one of the main reasons for the newsletter
which will help explain the details of how the media deceives
you through the manipulation of PR by the large corporations
who do not have your best interest at heart.
My goal is to change the entire system. The way that will be
done is through the Internet, which is the world's cheapest printing
press. By passing this newsletter on to as many of your friends
and relatives as possible along with a strong endorsement to
subscribe, you will play a major role in helping to lift the
veil of deceit that these corporations try to hide the truth
with. We can change the traditional paradigm and in the process
save hundreds of thousands of people from premature death and
disability.
Copyright 1997-2001 by Joseph M. Mercola,
DO. All Rights Reserved. This content may be copied in full,
with copyright; contact; creation; and information intact, without
specific permission, when used in a not-for-profit format. If
any other use is desired, permission in writing from Dr. Mercola
is required.
For more on the distortion
& suppression of critical information go to:
THE CORPORATE MAFIA: http://members.shaw.ca/eye-openers/corporatemafia.htm
PROJECT CENSORED: http://www.projectcensored.org/intro.htm
WAR ON TRUTH: http://www.iol.ie/~gittons/aids/articles/warontruth.htm
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