The ruling elites don\u2019t always agree on everything, as seen in the US with squabbles between Democratic and Republican party leaders and their corporate funders, but a key attribute they share unflinchingly is allegiance to capitalism, free markets, and the absolute right of any individual to use the system to amass obscene amounts of personal wealth.<\/p>\n
Why would they deceive us? \u00a0When you stop and think about it, the only truly rational, sensible and healthy way for human beings to co-exist on this planet would be through cooperation and solidarity, ensuring a dignified life for everyone, resolving disputes peacefully and sharing the earth\u2019s resources equitably and fairly.\u00a0 We\u2019re clearly intelligent enough to figure out how to make that happen.\u00a0 But no, the ruling elites, whose disdain for ordinary people emanates from their own deep-seated fears of losing control, bristle at this notion and spare no expense in making people believe that such a vision is both impossible and undesirable.\u00a0 The ever evolving field of PR offers a resplendent palette of strategies for doing so.<\/p>\n
Adam Curtis\u2019 2002 series “Century of the Self” documents the history of PR, invented by Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays.[i]<\/a> \u00a0PR, shrewdly appealing to deep-seated emotions more than intellect, has been utilized and refined over the last 100+ years to dissuade the masses from seriously questioning and rebelling against the grossly unequal wealth and power that the ruling classes cling to. \u00a0The 1917 Russian revolution was a wake-up call, and elites will spare no expense to ensure the downtrodden aren’t able to seize and hold onto power for universal social uplift.<\/p>\n PR enables the ruling elites to control the way people behave and perceive the world, without needing to use brute force. \u00a0It has been used for both commercial and political ends–to generate excessive profit for the few and to ensure people elect and accept leaders who will preserve this unequal and unjust status quo. \u00a0It helps to have an enemy out there that everyone fears: \u00a0communism, drugs, terrorism, COVID-19…… \u00a0 The more fearful people are, the more willing they are to give up their liberty and agency and seek protection from the increasingly authoritarian state.<\/p>\n The ruling elite reflexively attempt to vilify, co-opt or destroy any social movement that starts to gain traction, as we saw with CIA-backed coups d\u2019\u00e9tat against democratically elected leaders implementing social reforms in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973), Haiti (1991, 2004), Honduras (2009) and Bolivia (2019).\u00a0 These illegal and immoral regime change operations were carried out with impunity, as perpetrators hid behind a carefully constructed fa\u00e7ade of \u201cpreventing the spread of evil communism\u201d and \u201cdefending freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. vocally rejected the elites\u2019 Freudian notion that the \u201cmaladjusted\u201d should blindly conform to society\u2019s unjust norms;<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few and leave millions of God\u2019s children smothering in the airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Clearly, the charismatic King had to go.\u00a0 He was killed by agents of the elites on April 4, 1968, as has been well documented in the works of William Pepper and the 1999 civil trial<\/a> that concluded the US Army and Memphis Police Department were complicit in his murder.\u00a0 But ask someone on the street who killed Dr. King, and they\u2019ll most likely say some crazy gunman acting on his own.\u00a0 That is the narrative the ruling elites want us to believe.\u00a0 For those willing to do the careful research, it has been proven false.<\/p>\n Deceptive propaganda has been employed throughout the world to serve the elites, misrepresenting events in Haiti, Cuba, Israel\/Palestine, Rwanda\/Democratic Republic of Congo, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela, to name just a few examples.\u00a0 There are many likely deceptions that merit further investigation, including a few that would be considered taboo to even mention.<\/p>\n At the dawn of the 21st<\/sup> century came the mother of all deceptions\u2014the official story of 9\/11, which countless independent researchers have found to be full of well documented flaws<\/a> and cover-ups. The events of 9\/11 initiated the US\u2019 global war on terror, driving up profits of military contractors and the surveillance industry while leading most Americans to willingly accept sharp curtailments of their civil liberties.<\/p>\n Public Health and COVID-19<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1929, Bernays doubled the US market of tobacco consumers overnight.\u00a0 As it had been previously unacceptable for women to smoke, he arranged for a squadron of fashionable debutantes to lead New York\u2019s highly publicized Easter Parade, defiantly pull out cigarettes, called \u201ctorches of freedom\u201d and light up.\u00a0 Smoking was subsequently glamorized in movies and on television.\u00a0 Social movements later forced the disclosure that tobacco companies knew all along about the adverse health impacts of smoking, while continuing to aggressively market their products and rake in huge profits.<\/p>\n Examples of major deceptions by big pharma and the medical establishment include pushing thalidomide to enhance pregnancy, hormone replacement therapy for menopause, and Vioxx for arthritis.\u00a0 All were discontinued only after extensive and often fatal damage was done.<\/p>\n Unbeknownst to many, Cuba has been a shining example of transparency and altruism in local and global health promotion. Because the 1959 Cuban Revolution successfully wrested power from ruling elites and foreign corporations, allowing the Cuban people to refashion a society built on values of cooperation and solidarity with housing, education, jobs, healthcare, and cultural activities guaranteed to everyone, it has been a prime target for elites who deceive people in the US and much of the rest of the world into viewing it as a \u201cbrutal, totalitarian state.\u201d<\/p>\n Hospitals in New York and California that lack sufficient medical personnel should ask Cuba for help.\u00a0 Cuba has already sent medical delegations to many countries to help with COVID-19 and is prepared to send more.\u00a0 Two weeks ago, as a group of Cuban doctors<\/a> in Havana prepared to board a plane to Italy, one was asked if he was afraid.\u00a0 The response: \u201cHe who says he is not afraid is superhuman.\u00a0 We are not superhuman.\u00a0 We are revolutionary doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s time for the US to get over its Cuba-phobia, end the economic blockade against it, and show some appreciation for its immense contributions to human health worldwide. \u00a0\u00a0Fortunately, amidst the current pandemic, the rest of the world is increasingly opening its eyes to the reality of Cuba\u2019s generous internationalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve experienced the \u201cwar on communism\u201d, \u201cwar on drugs\u201d, and \u201cwar on terrorism\u201d, all of which were really a war against the poor perpetrated by ruling elites to distract people from challenging their unjust hegemony.\u00a0 What about the current \u201cwar on COVID-19\u201d?\u00a0 Before rushing to accept every aspect of the official narrative conveyed in the corporate media, shouldn\u2019t we also be seeking critical information that is missing from mainstream coverage?<\/p>\n Clearly COVID-19 can be a serious and even fatal disease for a small percentage of those who are infected, and preventive measures are warranted.\u00a0\u00a0 But is the high level of alarm and panic engendered by daily death tolls, sharply rising curves on graphs, and doomsday predictions really justified?<\/p>\n To put the crisis into a broader perspective, Swiss Propaganda Research<\/a>, with daily updates in multiple languages from March 14 to the present, provides links to insightful analyses from well-credentialed epidemiologists, physicians and infectious disease specialists who are not being featured in the corporate media.<\/p>\n There are several questions rarely if ever being asked, whose answers would help shed light on the level of danger this pandemic poses.\u00a0 How reliable and consistent are COVID-19 testing methods?\u00a0 To what extent has the weekly per capita number of deaths from all causes<\/em> in any given region during the past three months differed markedly from this time period in previous years?\u00a0 How many of the COVID-19 deaths are individuals who were at or very near the end of their life already due to extreme old age and terminal illnesses? \u00a0For example, in my county of 1.1 million there are an average of 140 deaths per week <\/em>from all causes. \u00a0We’ve had 7 deaths so far from COVID-19 in the past ten weeks, the most recent a person over 90 in end-of-life hospice care. \u00a0All people do die eventually.<\/p>\n Not to minimize the tragedy of COVID-19 deaths, but to make sure we don’t focus on them excessively to the exclusion of the much more numerous preventable and tragic deaths from other causes.\u00a0 As John Pilger<\/a> aptly put it last month,<\/p>\n \u201cA pandemic has been declared, but not for the 24,600 who die every day from unnecessary starvation, and not for 3,000 children who die every day from preventable malaria, and not for the 10,000 people who die every day because they are denied publicly-funded healthcare, and not for the hundreds of Venezuelans and Iranians who die every day because America\u2019s blockade denies them life-saving medicines, and not for the hundreds of mostly children bombed or starved to death every day in Yemen, in a war supplied and kept going, profitably, by America and Britain. Before you panic, consider them.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Persistent structural racism that is regularly swept under the rug simmers beneath surface of pandemic reporting. African Americans, already overly impacted by poverty and poor health outcomes, are disproportionately succumbing to COVID-19 in Louisiana, Michigan, Chicago and New York.\u00a0 African soccer players have expressed outrage at the suggestion of using Africa as a testing ground<\/a> for COVID-19 remedies and vaccines.\u00a0 Some, still psychically scarred by the 40-year post-WWII Tuskegee experiment that left hundreds of black men in Alabama uninformed and untreated for syphilis, are skeptical of government health information.\u00a0 Former Tuskegee mayor Lucenia Dunn<\/a> commented on local reactions to pandemic reporting, \u201cWe have a general distrust in this community\u2026 The attitude is, \u2018I\u2019m going to rebel against this.\u00a0 You people have been telling us lies for years.\u00a0 Why should I believe you now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The level of hardship people experience during the nearly ubiquitous stay-at-home orders is vastly different.\u00a0 Elites continue to live in abundant luxury.\u00a0 Others employed in essential sectors or working from home are strained but coping reasonably well for now, while masses of the poor around the world see an already dismal future worsen with dwindling means of basic sustenance. Think about it. Who is counting deaths by starvation?\u00a0 Deaths triggered by impacts of extreme fear, isolation, anxiety and desperation?<\/p>\n Authorities living in comfortable circumstances with uninterrupted incomes tell us to just stay home.\u00a0 But what about those whose homes are not happy places?\u00a0 Whose homes are physically decrepit and overcrowded?\u00a0 Those with no home, sleeping on the streets?\u00a0 Those whose homes are an emotional nightmare?\u00a0 How many children are being abused behind closed doors with no way of escaping or finding a supportive adult to rescue them?<\/p>\n While countless peoples\u2019 livelihoods and businesses disintegrate, big pharma and the high-tech sector are booming while they aim to be viewed as our saviors in this crisis.\u00a0 Multi-billionaire Bill Gates, a self-appointed, unelected, non-credentialed spokesperson for the COVID-19 pandemic, insists that the only solution is developing a vaccine and administering it to every person on the globe, generating astronomical profits to the manufacturer.\u00a0 He alleges there\u2019s no cure for COVID-19, when in fact the human immune system<\/a> cures the vast majority of those infected (for free!).\u00a0 Reputable public health experts<\/a> who suggest promoting herd immunity among the majority of people while protecting the vulnerable as a more effective way to defeat the virus are ignored or ridiculed.<\/p>\n Humans are social beings whose survival depends on close physical contact with family and community.\u00a0 People cherish the hard won right to gather in public spaces for educational, recreational and political purposes.\u00a0 Even if one believes in the necessity of imposing prolonged draconian measures of physical separation, it\u2019s still astounding to see entire populations give up their right to freedom of assembly from one day to the next, without a peep of discussion on the implications<\/a>.\u00a0 NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden<\/a> warns that COVID-19 is dangerous but temporary, while the destruction of fundamental rights is deadly and permanent.<\/p>\n Is it possible all the high-end PR firms are standing idly by, passively watching the COVID-19 saga unfold?\u00a0 Or have some been hired to manage the flow of information, feature experts who exaggerate the lethality of the virus, dispense proposals for ever more restrictive lockdowns, titrate the level of alarm and sensationalism that permeates the media, mask social control as voluntary, altruistic obedience to the new norms, and reinforce the idealistic yet deceptive concept “we’re all in it together”?<\/p>\n If we were truly \u201call in it together\u201d our leaders would listen to people who are suffering from many avoidable afflictions.\u00a0 They would promote integrated strategies to reduce the number of preventable, premature deaths worldwide from all causes.\u00a0 They would prioritize eradicating poverty and despair, improving living standards, hygiene infrastructure and health care for everyone over preserving the inordinate wealth of the few.<\/p>\n Naomi Klein<\/a> asks,<\/p>\n \u201cIn times of crisis, seemingly impossible ideas suddenly become possible.\u00a0 But whose ideas?\u00a0 Sensible, fair ones, designed to keep as many people as possible safe, secure, and healthy?\u00a0 Or predatory ideas, designed to further enrich the already unimaginable wealthy, while leaving the most vulnerable further exposed?\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Deception?\u00a0 Deception?\u00a0 Would those who have the power to shape the dominant narratives we are fed incessantly in the corporate media actually deceive us?<\/p>\n How many of us are deluded and deceived Amanda Wingfields, clinging to the hope of the proverbial \u201cgentleman caller\u201d\u2014in the guise of a bold new president, a gallant billionaire philanthropist, a miracle vaccine\u2014solving all our problems and sweeping us off to a fantasy world where those who work hard and follow the rules might have the opportunity–if they\u2019re lucky–to enjoy democracy, freedom and good health?<\/p>\n No matter what the future brings, don\u2019t forget to exercise your intellect\u2014carefully evaluating information, and assert your humanity–reaching out to other human beings in solidarity any way you can.<\/p>\n NOTE:<\/strong><\/p>\n [i]<\/a> \u201cThe 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\u2026in almost every act of our daily 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\u2026who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.\u201d<\/em> Read also: Edward Bernays, the Father of American Propaganda<\/a><\/em> by Gary Kohls, TRANSCEND Media Service<\/em>, 5 Dec 2016<\/p>\n ________________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n How many of us are deluded and deceived Amanda Wingfields, clinging to the hope of the proverbial \u201cgentleman caller\u201d\u2014in the guise of a bold new president, a gallant billionaire philanthropist, a miracle vaccine\u2014solving all our problems and sweeping us off to a fantasy world where those who work hard and follow the rules might have the opportunity–if they\u2019re lucky–to enjoy democracy, freedom and good health?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[232,958,1829,1868,354,1907,555,1138,1748,378,556,234,1706,1864,287,372,281,304,1438,380],"class_list":["post-158118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-capitalism","tag-control","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-economics","tag-edward-bernays","tag-elites","tag-fake-news","tag-fake-report","tag-journalism","tag-manipulation","tag-media","tag-mind-control","tag-pandemic","tag-power","tag-propaganda","tag-psychology","tag-science","tag-sigmund-freud","tag-solutions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n \u2013\u00a0<\/em>Edward Bernays (Nephew of Sigmund Freud) from\u00a0\u201cPropaganda\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(1928)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Marilyn-Langlois-e1508246946670.jpg\")
<\/a><\/em>Marilyn Langlois is a member of TRANSCEND<\/a> USA West Coast. She is a volunteer community organizer and international solidarity activist based in Richmond, California.\u00a0 A co-founder of the Richmond Progressive Alliance<\/a>, member of Haiti Action Committee<\/a> and Board member of Task Force on the Americas<\/a>, she is retired from previous employment as a teacher, secretary, administrator, mediator and community advocate.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"