Reply #7: There is -nothing- legitimate about the "PR" industry.

[leftist_not_liberal]

Not one thing.

There never has been.

Public Relations is a warping of the already questionable Freudian line of understanding, twisted to control the masses by Freud's nephew Edward Bernays.

It's a despicable industry and just part of the rot of fascism in America that metastasized through the whole of the twentieth century:

Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter described Bernays and Ivy Lee as "professional poisoners of the public mind, exploiters of foolishness, fanaticism and self-interest." And history itself showed the flaw in Bernays's claim that "manipulation of the masses" is natural and necessary in a democratic society. The fascist rise to power in Germany demonstrated that propaganda could be used to subvert democracy as easily as it could be used to "resolve conflict."

In his autobiography, titled Biography of an Idea, Bernays recalls a dinner at his home in 1933 where "Karl von Weigand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, an old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Weigand his propaganda library, the best Weigand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Weigand, was using my book Crystallizing Public Opinion as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me. ... Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign." Bernays is held in high standards even today, and was even named as one of the 1000 most influential people of all time.

Source: Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton.

In 2006 a Der Spiegel journalist interviewed the founder of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller, Harold Burson, and asked him about the role of Edward Bernays in shaping the course of modern PR. "Bernays thought that he could control public opinion. His methodology, of course, was fundamental. Most of the things we do today were identified by Bernays 80 years ago. He had brilliant ideas. I met him a few times, but didn’t like him. He was one of the most egocentric people I have ever met," Burson said.

- the above taken from sourcewatch



Wikipedia on Public Relations: “One of Bernays’ early clients was the tobacco industry. In 1929, he orchestrated a legendary publicity stunt aimed at persuading women to take up cigarette smoking, which was then considered unfeminine and inappropriate for women with any social standing. He initially consulted with psychoanalyst A. A. Brill, who told him that cigarettes were symbolic of the male penis. Therefore, if one wanted women to take up the habit of it was necessary to first connect the act of smoking to the idea of challenging the established male power in society. Women would smoke, he said, if the cigarette was a statement against the male-dominant ways, because this way women would symbolically have their own penises.”

BBC: The Century Of The Self
"This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy."
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3031880283858584099&q=century+of+the+self&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7009899812873111112&q=century+of+the+self&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6884155963216756796&q=century+of+the+self&hl=en

Reckon -any- of our leaders are -not- entangled in this shit?

"Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." - the asshole in his 1929 book 'Propaganda'