And it appears not just Americans...............

http://www.mercola.com/2001/aug/15/perception.htm

The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
[and i'll add, not just Americans, but he's American and writing from that
perspective]




Page 1 of 2 (Page 2, References)

by Dr. Tim O'Shea

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. 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 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 Players

Though world-famous within the PR industry, the companies have names we
don't know, and for good reason.

The best PR goes unnoticed.

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, including damage control 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 on page 2 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
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 which 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 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 pseudoscience,
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

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?

Hope this chapter 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
the extra time alone.

Really 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 with 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 lyric? 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. So the idea here is, 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.

Inhibitory effect of conjugated dienoic derivatives of linoleic acid and
beta-carotene on the in vitro growth of human cancer cells CANCER LETT.
(Ireland) , 1992, 63/2 (125-133)

Inhibition of Listeria monocytogenes by fatty acids and monoglycerides
APPL. ENVIRON. MICROBIOL. (USA) , 1992, 58/2 (624-629)