“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” Falsely attributed to Joseph Goebbels.
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.” - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
For more on both of these quotes, see https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels.
“Failing public schools” is a sweeping statement that implies no public school is doing its job.
But nobody ever turns it around and says much about failing parents or bad peer pressure. If a family constantly has the TV on, how well can a student do homework? If peers constantly bad-mouth school, how much grit does it take to ask questions in class? If a home has lots of lead contamination, how much can schools do to increase a student’s cognitive ability?
I think the “failing schools” mantra is pushed by those who don’t want to pay taxes to educate all the children and those who want to make a profit by taking away students from the public schools.
Well, my parents were products of public schools. My wife and I are products of public schools. Our two children are products of public schools. Our grandchildren are products of public schools. Two of these are products of Japanese public schools, but they are welcome as visitors to U.S. public schools.
If public schools have failed, it is not teaching enough civics. We have to look no farther than “president” Donald Trump to learn how badly private schools have taught civics.
See also “Charter School Achievement: Hype vs. Evidence”.
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Thursday, February 09, 2017
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Who is doing what social engineering?
Every too often somebody writes a letter to the editor complaining that public transit is “social engineering” and “taking our cars away”. Have they considered that building all the freeways is social engineering?
How many people lost their houses to make way for the freeways? How many neighborhoods were separated by freeways? How many farmers had their land taken by imminent domain? I know, I know! It’s eminent domain but when your land is taken it is also imminent. Aren’t these changes to city and country social engineering?
When the freeways are first built, it becomes much quicker for many people to drive than to take public transit. More people drive instead of taking the bus, the bus service becomes less frequent for those who don’t drive. So to save time, more people have to buy cars. Isn’t this social engineering?
Remember “Field of Dreams” where Robert Redford was told, “Build it and they will come.” Well, we build freeways and they come. Soon a four-lane freeway has to become a six-lane freeway. Soon the six-lane is clogged and has to become an eight-lane freeway. Where are all the people going to live as the freeways get wider and wider? Isn’t this social engineering?
For some reason those who complain about their cars “being taken away” don’t seem to realize that the more other people take public transit the more room there is for them on the freeways.
And actually, public transit should have dedicated lines or lanes right down the middle of every freeway. I remember driving out of Chicago on I-90 on a Sunday afternoon. It was stop and go in three lanes in my direction. We would move a bit and a train would catch up to us. Then we would move forward ahead of the train. This went on for fifteen minutes or so and the pattern was reversed. The train would pull ahead and we would catch up. Eventually the train was long gone and we started and stopped, started and stopped.
When I grew up in Cleveland, we walked to neighborhood stores or took the streetcar downtown. Now most neighborhood stores and downtown stores have been closed in favor of sprawling malls in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the lots are so big that it takes twice as long to walk from one’s car as it did to walk to the corner store. Isn’t this social engineering? And it was done without a public vote!
The irony is that most social engineering is done by corporations, not governments. When a government does “social engineering” we might have an open debate about it. When a corporation does “social engineering”, it is done behind closed doors and often by deceit.
In the Twentieth Century we as a nation were socially engineered by a man many of us never heard of – Edward Bernays. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, he applied many of his uncle’s ideas to manipulation of public opinion. Supposedly he believed that “public’s democratic judgment was ‘not to be relied upon’…’so they had to be guided from above.”
He worked in the Committee on Public Information during World War I. One task was publicizing the idea that the U.S. involvement was “bringing democracy to all of Europe.” We had a repeat of this use of “democracy” in our own times. “The ill that men do lives after them…” The success of “bringing democracy” surprised Bernays, and he wondered if similar propaganda could be used in peacetime. Rather than call it propaganda, he labelled it “public relations”.
One of his first achievements was helping the tobacco industry break the taboo of women smoking in public. He staged a big event in New York City in which models lit up Lucky Strike cigarettes or “Torches of Freedom”. This promotion was not done as advertising but as news! Smoking was giving women “freedom” and “liberty”. Two more echoes in our time: “freedom” and “liberty” are smoke screens for doing what one damn well pleases without concern for the consequences for others.
Many Americans ate a light breakfast of coffee and maybe a roll or orange juice. He arranged for letters being sent to 5,000 doctors asking if they thought Americans should have a bigger breakfast. About ninety percent answered saying Americans should have bigger breakfasts. This he had published as news in papers across the country. In parallel, he had other articles published that bacon and eggs should be part of a larger breakfast.
He believed that we would have a utopia if the inner energies of individuals “could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit.” This idea seems to be alive and well with all the corporate claims that they will create jobs and that environmental protection and safety rules will only take away jobs.
He wrote a paper called “Engineering of Consent”: "Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.” Isn’t this a description of “social engineering”?
In many ways, Bernays was value-neutral. He protected a play in 1913 that supported sex education. He promoted fluoridation of water to help the aluminum industry sell a by-product of aluminum production. He hosted the first NAACP convention in Atlanta, and there was no violence. On the other hand, he inflated the threat of communism and was instrumental in the overthrow of the elected president of Guatemala.
For lots more on Bernays see Wikipedia and “Century of Self”, a four-part BBC series. I hope these will help you be more skeptical of what anybody says for or against any idea. Or as in “All the President’s Men”, “Follow the Money”. Oh, and be skeptical of the attribution of this quote. If you do so, you might inoculate yourself against “social engineering”.
Mel considers himself a gullible skeptic.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-21 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/21/5311_who_is_doing_what_social_engineering
How many people lost their houses to make way for the freeways? How many neighborhoods were separated by freeways? How many farmers had their land taken by imminent domain? I know, I know! It’s eminent domain but when your land is taken it is also imminent. Aren’t these changes to city and country social engineering?
When the freeways are first built, it becomes much quicker for many people to drive than to take public transit. More people drive instead of taking the bus, the bus service becomes less frequent for those who don’t drive. So to save time, more people have to buy cars. Isn’t this social engineering?
Remember “Field of Dreams” where Robert Redford was told, “Build it and they will come.” Well, we build freeways and they come. Soon a four-lane freeway has to become a six-lane freeway. Soon the six-lane is clogged and has to become an eight-lane freeway. Where are all the people going to live as the freeways get wider and wider? Isn’t this social engineering?
For some reason those who complain about their cars “being taken away” don’t seem to realize that the more other people take public transit the more room there is for them on the freeways.
And actually, public transit should have dedicated lines or lanes right down the middle of every freeway. I remember driving out of Chicago on I-90 on a Sunday afternoon. It was stop and go in three lanes in my direction. We would move a bit and a train would catch up to us. Then we would move forward ahead of the train. This went on for fifteen minutes or so and the pattern was reversed. The train would pull ahead and we would catch up. Eventually the train was long gone and we started and stopped, started and stopped.
When I grew up in Cleveland, we walked to neighborhood stores or took the streetcar downtown. Now most neighborhood stores and downtown stores have been closed in favor of sprawling malls in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the lots are so big that it takes twice as long to walk from one’s car as it did to walk to the corner store. Isn’t this social engineering? And it was done without a public vote!
The irony is that most social engineering is done by corporations, not governments. When a government does “social engineering” we might have an open debate about it. When a corporation does “social engineering”, it is done behind closed doors and often by deceit.
In the Twentieth Century we as a nation were socially engineered by a man many of us never heard of – Edward Bernays. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, he applied many of his uncle’s ideas to manipulation of public opinion. Supposedly he believed that “public’s democratic judgment was ‘not to be relied upon’…’so they had to be guided from above.”
He worked in the Committee on Public Information during World War I. One task was publicizing the idea that the U.S. involvement was “bringing democracy to all of Europe.” We had a repeat of this use of “democracy” in our own times. “The ill that men do lives after them…” The success of “bringing democracy” surprised Bernays, and he wondered if similar propaganda could be used in peacetime. Rather than call it propaganda, he labelled it “public relations”.
One of his first achievements was helping the tobacco industry break the taboo of women smoking in public. He staged a big event in New York City in which models lit up Lucky Strike cigarettes or “Torches of Freedom”. This promotion was not done as advertising but as news! Smoking was giving women “freedom” and “liberty”. Two more echoes in our time: “freedom” and “liberty” are smoke screens for doing what one damn well pleases without concern for the consequences for others.
Many Americans ate a light breakfast of coffee and maybe a roll or orange juice. He arranged for letters being sent to 5,000 doctors asking if they thought Americans should have a bigger breakfast. About ninety percent answered saying Americans should have bigger breakfasts. This he had published as news in papers across the country. In parallel, he had other articles published that bacon and eggs should be part of a larger breakfast.
He believed that we would have a utopia if the inner energies of individuals “could be harnessed and channeled by a corporate elite for economic benefit.” This idea seems to be alive and well with all the corporate claims that they will create jobs and that environmental protection and safety rules will only take away jobs.
He wrote a paper called “Engineering of Consent”: "Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.” Isn’t this a description of “social engineering”?
In many ways, Bernays was value-neutral. He protected a play in 1913 that supported sex education. He promoted fluoridation of water to help the aluminum industry sell a by-product of aluminum production. He hosted the first NAACP convention in Atlanta, and there was no violence. On the other hand, he inflated the threat of communism and was instrumental in the overthrow of the elected president of Guatemala.
For lots more on Bernays see Wikipedia and “Century of Self”, a four-part BBC series. I hope these will help you be more skeptical of what anybody says for or against any idea. Or as in “All the President’s Men”, “Follow the Money”. Oh, and be skeptical of the attribution of this quote. If you do so, you might inoculate yourself against “social engineering”.
Mel considers himself a gullible skeptic.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2015-05-21 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/05/21/5311_who_is_doing_what_social_engineering
Thursday, April 05, 2012
With friends like these who needs enemies?
I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see that I had over 50 page views of this blog in the last 24 hours. I was unpleasantly surprised that 42 of them were from a virulent anti-obama website. I took a peek at the site and really felt the entry they visited, "Alarmist liberals and alarming conservatives" was justified. I won't mention the website; I don't want to give them the satisfaction of more visits. BTW, I couldn't find the link to my blog; it might have been just a temporary item on the page.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
How to win in politics
"Winning is the important thing. Giving speeches is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. They are not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the states than I do in Washington, and when I speak in Chicago, I say different things than I say in the party caucus. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Speeches should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of speeches to discover intellectual truths."
Does that seem to you how our politicians come across? Think of all the catch phrases that have been thrown out to catch votes - Obamacare, government off our backs, tax the rich, live within its means, working families, and on and on. "They" all do it. They don't want the truth, intellectual or otherwise, they want our votes.
Now guess who said something very close to the above quote.
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda of the Nazi government of Germany. For the translated original speech, see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels.
Does that seem to you how our politicians come across? Think of all the catch phrases that have been thrown out to catch votes - Obamacare, government off our backs, tax the rich, live within its means, working families, and on and on. "They" all do it. They don't want the truth, intellectual or otherwise, they want our votes.
Now guess who said something very close to the above quote.
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda of the Nazi government of Germany. For the translated original speech, see http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Shouting past each other
Last Friday I read a post on Huffington Post titled:
"Tea Party" Leader Melts Down On CNN: Obama Is An "Indonesian Muslim Turned Welfare Thug".
I also watched the accompanying video snippet.
The text implies that "Tea Party" leader Mark Williams misrepresented himself by denouncing those who carry "blatantly racist signs" on one hand and by calling Obama "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug…" on the other Williams justified his name calling with "He's certainly acting like it. Until he embraces the whole country what else can I conclude."
As distasteful and off-the-wall as Williams remarks are, I don't think he had a melt down or misrepresented himself.
About the only sensible statement was by panel member David Gergen, advisor to Reagan, Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Something like people are just shouting past one another.
"Tea Party" Leader Melts Down On CNN: Obama Is An "Indonesian Muslim Turned Welfare Thug".
I also watched the accompanying video snippet.
The text implies that "Tea Party" leader Mark Williams misrepresented himself by denouncing those who carry "blatantly racist signs" on one hand and by calling Obama "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug…" on the other Williams justified his name calling with "He's certainly acting like it. Until he embraces the whole country what else can I conclude."
As distasteful and off-the-wall as Williams remarks are, I don't think he had a melt down or misrepresented himself.
About the only sensible statement was by panel member David Gergen, advisor to Reagan, Ford, and George H.W. Bush. Something like people are just shouting past one another.
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