Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew) - master propagandist

Edward Bernays

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the early 1920s


Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995), was an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda, referred to in his obituary as "the father of public relations".^[1] He combined the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.

He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that Trotter had described

Adam Curtis's award-winning 2002 documentary for the BBC, The Century of the Self, pinpoints Bernays as the originator of modern public relations, and Bernays was named one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century by Life magazine.^[2]

Born 1891 in Vienna to Jewish parents, Bernays was a double nephew of psychoanalysis pioneer Sigmund Freud. His father was Ely Bernays, brother of Freud's wife Martha Bernays. His mother was Freud's sister, Anna.^[3] In 1892 his family moved to New York City, where he attended DeWitt Clinton High School.^[4] In 1912 he graduated from Cornell University with a degree in agriculture, but chose journalism as his first career. He married Doris E. Fleischman in 1922.^{[citation needed]}

Bernays, working for the administration of Woodrow Wilson during World War I with the Committee on Public Information, was influential in promoting the idea that America's war efforts were primarily aimed at “bringing democracy to all of Europe". Following the war, he was invited by Woodrow Wilson to attend the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

Stunned by the degree to which the democracy slogan had swayed the public both at home and abroad, he wondered whether this propaganda model could be employed during peace time. Due to negative implications surrounding the word propaganda because of its use by the Germans in World War I, he promoted the term "Public Relations".^[5]

According to the BBC interview with Bernays' daughter Anne, Bernays felt that the public's democratic judgment was "not to be relied upon" and he feared that "they [the American public] could very easily vote for the wrong man or want the wrong thing, so that they had to be guided from above". This "guidance" was interpreted by Anne to mean that her father believed in a sort of "enlightened despotism" ideology.^[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

Edward Bernays

From Wikiquote

Edward Bernays (1891-11-22 – 1995-03-09) was an Austrian-born American publicist, sometimes called "the father of public relations".

The three main elements of public relations are practically as old as society: informing people, persuading people, or integrating people with people. Of course, the means and methods of accomplishing these ends have changed as society has changed.

Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923)
This is an age of mass production. In the mass production of materials a broad technique has been developed and applied to their distribution. In this age, too, there must be a technique for the mass distribution of ideas.

"Manipulating Public Opinion", American Journal of Sociology 33 (May, 1928), p. 958–971
The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.

"The Engineering of Consent", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science No. 250 (March 1947), p. 113; Reprinted in Edward L. Bernays, Howard Walden Cutler, The Engineering of Consent, University of Oklahoma Press, 1955
Goebbels [...] was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me.

Biography of an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel (1965)
It is sometimes possible to change the attitudes of millions but impossible to change the attitude of one man.
Quoted in L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998) p. 102

The best place to find things: the public library.
Quoted in L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998) p. 102

The best defense against propaganda: more propaganda.
Quoted in L. Tye The Father of Spin (1998) p. 102

Propaganda (1928)Unless otherwise noted, page numbers refer to the 2004 Ig Publishing edition, ISBN 0970312598 (The text begins on p. 35, after an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller.)
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. We are governed, our minds are 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.
p. 37

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, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.
p. 37–38

In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered to him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed.
p. 39

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
p. 48

A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable.
Page 63 (1928 edition?)

If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.
Page 71 (1928 edition?)


http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

According to the BBC interview with Bernays' daughter Anne, Bernays felt that the public's democratic judgment was "not to be relied upon" and he feared that "they [the American public] could very easily vote for the wrong man or want the wrong thing, so that they had to be guided from above". This "guidance" was interpreted by Anne to mean that her father believed in a sort of "enlightened despotism" ideology.^[6]
.......................

This thinking was heavily shared and influenced by Walter Lippmann, one of the most prominent American political columnists at the time. Bernays and Lippmann sat together on the U.S. Committee on Public Information, and Bernays quotes Lippmann extensively in his seminal work Propaganda.^{[citation needed]}

Bernays also drew on the ideas of the French writer Gustave LeBon, the originator of crowd psychology, and of Wilfred Trotter, who promoted similar ideas in the anglophone world in his book Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. Bernays refers to these two names in his writings. Trotter, who was a head and neck surgeon at University College Hospital, London, read Freud's works, and it was he who introduced Wilfred Bion, whom he lived and worked with, to Freud's ideas. When Freud fled Vienna for London after the Anschluss, Trotter became his personal physician, and Wilfred Bion and Ernest Jones became key members of the Freudian psychoanalysis movement in England, and would develop the field of Group Dynamics, largely associated with the Tavistock Institute where many of Freud's followers worked. Thus ideas of group psychology and psychoanalysis came together in London around World War II.^{[citation needed]}

Bernays' public relations efforts helped to popularize Freud's theories in the United States. Bernays also pioneered the PR industry's use of psychology and other social sciences to design its public persuasion campaigns:

"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? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits."^[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

PR techniques
Bernays refined and popularized the use of the press release, following its invention by PR man Ivy Lee, who had issued a press release after the 1906 Atlantic City train wreck. One of the most famous campaigns of Bernays was the women's cigarette smoking campaign in 1920s. Bernays helped the smoking industry overcome one of the biggest social taboos of the time: women smoking in public (Stuart Ewen, Hunter College). Women were only allowed to smoke in designated areas, or not at all. If caught violating this rule, women would have been arrested. Bernays staged the 1929 Easter parade in New York City, showing models holding lit Lucky Strike cigarettes, or "Torches of Freedom". After the historical public event, women started lighting up more than ever before. It was through Bernays that women's smoking habits started to become socially acceptable. Bernays created this event as news, which, of course, it wasn’t. Bernays convinced industries that the news, not advertising, was the best medium to carry their message to an unsuspecting public.^{[citation needed]}

One of Bernays' favorite techniques for manipulating public opinion was the indirect use of "third party authorities" to plead his clients' causes. "If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway", he said. In order to promote sales of bacon, for example, he conducted a survey of physicians and reported their recommendation that people eat heavy breakfasts. He sent the results of the survey to 5,000 physicians, along with publicity touting bacon and eggs as a heavy breakfast.^{[citation needed]}

Bernays also drew upon his uncle Sigmund's psychoanalytic ideas for the benefit of commerce in order to promote, by indirection, commodities as diverse as cigarettes, soap and books.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to the theories of his uncle, Bernays used those of Ivan Pavlov.^{[citation needed]}

PR industry historian Scott Cutlip describes Bernays as "perhaps the most fabulous and fascinating individual in public relations, a man who was bright, articulate to excess, and most of all, an innovative thinker and philosopher of this vocation that was in its infancy when he opened his office in New York in June 1919."^{[citation needed]}

Bernays used the “Freudian Theory” to deal with the public's conception of communism, as he believed that we should not be easing the public's fear of communism, but rather promote that fear and play with the public's emotions of it. This theory in its own was so powerful that it became a weapon of its own during the cold war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

again:

Bernays used the “Freudian Theory” to deal with the public's conception of communism, as he believed that we should not be easing the public's fear of communism, but rather promote that fear and play with the public's emotions of it. This theory in its own was so powerful that it became a weapon of its own during the cold war.

Bernays' vision was of a utopian society in which individuals' dangerous libidinal energies, the psychic and emotional energy associated with instinctual biological drive that Bernays viewed as inherently dangerous given his observation of societies like the Germans under Hitler, could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit. Through the use of mass production, big business could fulfill constant craving of the inherently irrational and desire driven masses,simultaneously securing the niche of a mass production economy (even in peacetime), as well as sating the dangerous animal urges that threatened to tear society apart if left unquelled..

(the wiki article claims 'citations needed': rubbish. its all in his own work).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

now how clear must it be that these people have always considered 'the masses' animals?

he called the peoples of the world 'the great beast'.

only a seared conscience could manifest this evil.


so what does he actually say about the cattle's "biological drive as inherently dangerous given his observation of societies like the Germans under Hitler"?

does he say 'we've observed what happened and know how to stop the propagandizing and destruction and help humanity'?

no...he says the cattle's "biological drive "... "could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit."

Bernays liked to cultivate an image as a supporter of feminism and other liberating ideas, but his work on behalf of the United Fruit Company had consequences just as evil and terrifying as if he'd worked directly for the Nazis.

The Father of Spin sheds new and important light on the extent to which the Bernays' propaganda campaign for the United Fruit Company (today's United Brands) led directly to the CIA's overthrow of the elected government of Guatemala.

The term "banana republic" actually originated in reference to United Fruit's domination of corrupt governments in Guatemala and other Central American countries. The company brutally exploited virtual slave labor in order to produce cheap bananas for the lucrative U.S. market. When a mildly reformist Guatemala government attempted to reign in the company's power, Bernays whipped up media and political sentiment against it in the commie-crazed 1950s.

"Articles began appearing in the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Atlantic Monthly, Time, Newsweek, the New Leader, and other publications all discussing the growing influence of Guatemala's Communists," Tye writes. "The fact that liberal journals like the Nation were also coming around was especially satisfying to Bernays, who believed that winning the liberals over was essential. . . . At the same time, plans were under way to mail to American Legion posts and auxiliaries 300,000 copies of a brochure entitled 'Communism in Guatemala -- 22 Facts.'"

His efforts led directly to a brutal military coup. Tye writes that Bernays "remained a key source of information for the press, especially the liberal press, right through the takeover. In fact, as the invasion was commencing on June 18, his personal papers indicate he was giving the 'first news anyone received on the situation' to the Associate Press, United Press, the International News Service, and the New York Times, with contacts intensifying over the next several days."

The result, tragically, has meant decades of tyranny under a Guatemalan government whose brutality rivaled the Nazis as it condemned hundreds of thousands of people (mostly members of the country's impoverished Maya Indian majority) to dislocation, torture and death.

Bernays relished and apparently never regretted his work for United Fruit, for which he was reportedly paid $100,000 a year, a huge fee in the early 1950s. Tye writes that Bernays' papers "make clear how the United States viewed its Latin neighbors as ripe for economic exploitation and political manipulation -- and how the propaganda war Bernays waged in Guatemala set the pattern for future U.S.-led campaigns in Cuba and, much later, Vietnam."

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1999Q2/bernays.html

so, we are to believe ONE MAN had to power and connections to pull this off?
he may have been the 'brains' behind the evil, but...well...how obvious is this?

Samuel Zemurray (nicknamed "Sam the Banana Man"; born January 18, 1877 in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russian Empire, present-day Chişinău, Moldova; died November 30, 1961 in New Orleans, Louisiana) was a U.S. businessman who made his fortune in the banana trade. He founded the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and later became head of the United Fruit Company, the world's most influential fruit company at the time. Both companies played highly controversial roles in the history of several Latin American countries and had a significant influence on their economic and political development.

In 1953, The U.S. State Department and United Fruit embarked on a major public relations campaign to convince the American people and the rest of the U.S. government that Guatemala was a Soviet "satellite". Zemurray authorized Edward Bernays to launch a propaganda campaign against Jacobo Arbenz, democratically-elected president of Guatemala, for he had proposed to redistribute some of the unused land owned by the United Fruit Co., to make it available for farming. In 1954 the campaign succeeded and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated a coup that eventually led to the 36-year Guatemalan Civil War which left over 200.000 people dead. Zemurray retired as president of United Fruit later that year.

He and his family made generous donations to Tulane University, Zamorano, and to other philanthropic ventures, including the Zionist movement through his personal acquaintance, beginning in the 1920s, with Chaim Weizmann.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Zemurray

In 1953, The U.S. State Department and United Fruit embarked on a major public relations campaign to convince the American people and the rest of the U.S. government that Guatemala was a Soviet "satellite".

"The U.S. State Department and United Fruit embarked on..."

this is Fascism: corporation and state partnership, more precisely, they're just a single entity.

i wonder how long the people can be held in such a state of ignorance and mind control to not know these things?

When the Banana Company arrives in Macondo, the jungle town in Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” it brings with it first modernity and then doom.

“Endowed with means that had been reserved for Divine Providence in former times,” García Márquez writes, the company “changed the pattern of the rains, accelerated the cycle of harvests and moved the river from where it had always been.”

It imported “dictatorial foreigners” and “hired assassins with machetes” to run the town; it unleashed a “wave of bullets” on striking workers in the plaza. When the Banana Company leaves, Macondo is “in ruins.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Kurtz-Phelan-t.html?_r=1

HOW TO STAGE A WORLD WAR


The creation of the German empire under Bismarck upset the “balance of powers” that had been existing in Europe for more than two centuries. England ruled supreme over the continent until 1871. This supremacy had been repeatedly challenged by Spain and by France but England always remained victorious. The fact that Germany now grew stronger, by acquiring colonies and by building up its military force, was a severe threat to the Illuminati, but also to England and its supremacy over Europe both economically and militarily.


To counteract this, the international bankers who at that time were to a large extent excluded from the economic development in Germany, sought for ways to limit and control Germany. Between 1894 and 1907 a number of international treaties were signed to have Russia, France, England and further nations unit against Germany in the case of war. It was the task of the COMMITTEE OF 300 to set the stage for the First World War. From the ROUND TABLE group emerged as a front the “Royal institute for International Affairs” (RIIA). It is also known as “Chatham House” and had among its founding members Lord Albert Grey, Lord Arnold Toynbee – eminence grise of the MI6, H.G. Wells, Lord Alfred Milner – head of the Round Table, and H.J. Mackinder – inventor of the so-called geopolitics.


From the Committee of 300 the RIIA got the order to study possible ways to stage this war. The order was handed to Lord Northcliff, Lord Rothmere – both members of the Committee of 300 and Lord Toynbee of the MI6. The research was done in WELLINGTON HOUSE where “brainstorming” sessions developed ways and techniques to condition the public into supporting a war.

Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann were American “specialists” attending. Lord Rothmere used his newspaper as a tool to try out their “social conditioning” techniques on his readers. After a test period of six months they had found that 87% of the public had formed opinions without rational or critical thought processes. That was what they wanted.

Thereupon the English working class was subjected to sophisticated propaganda methods to convince them that they had to send their sons by the thousands to their deaths. In America, President Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President, said during his election campaign in 1912:

“Behind the visible government there is an invisible government upon the throne that owes the people no loyalty and recognizes no responsibility. To destroy this invisible government, to undo the unGodly union between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the task of a statesman.”

(Dieter Ruggeberg: “Geheimpolitik”, p. 75)

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/secretsoc_20century/secretsoc_20century05.htm

PROPAGANDA MANUAL:

http://www.middle-east-info.org/take/wujshasbara.pdf

Hasbara Campus Manual

A Hasbara manual for students to use on US univesity campuses is now available online[2]. A summary of the techniques is provided from page 31 onwards:
Propaganda is used by those who want to communicate in ways that engage the emotions and downplay rationality, in an attempt to promote a certain message.
The manual goes on to describe seven propaganda techniques:
Name calling: through the careful use of words, then name calling technique links a person or an idea to a negative symbol.
Glittering generality: Simply put, glittering generality is name calling in reverse. Instead of trying to attach negative meanings to ideas or people, glittering generalities use positive phrases, which the audience are attached to, in order to lend positive image to things. Words such as "freedom", "civilization",…
Transfer: Transfer involves taking some of the prestige and authority of one concept and applying it to another. For example, a speaker might decide to speak in front of a United Nations flag, in an attempt to gain legitimacy for himself or his idea.
Testimonial: Testimonial means enlisting the support of somebody admired or famous to endorse and ideal or campaign.
Plain folks: The plain folks technique attempts to convince the listener that the speaker is a 'regular guy', who is trust-worthy because the are like 'you or me'.
Fear: Stressing that ignoring the message will likely lead to war, terrorism[3]
Bandwagon: Suggest that the stated position is mainstream and use polls to suggest this. [4]
wiki