“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody...

“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
- President Woodrow Wilson in his book the “The New Freedom” published in 1913

The quest for power is the primary driving force of history, always has been, always will be. Those who fail to recognize this principle are not spared in the grand chess game, but rather are moved and manipulated by forces that they do not understand.

From the perspective of those who dominate the board it is obviously preferable to have a population of ignorant pawns than it is to have an array of opponents which are capable of mounting an effective resistance. To that end it has always been in the interest of the ruling class to cultivate illusions which obscure the true nature of the game.

[continued]
>Get your thinking caps on Sup Forums, you're in for a ride.

Elizabeth Sikorovsky: “Manufacturing Consent, What is that is that title meant to describe?” Noam Chomsky: “Well the title is actually borrowed from a book by Walter Lippmann written back around 1921, in which he described what he called the manufacture of consent as a revolution in the practice of democracy. What it amounts to is a technique of control, and he said this was useful and necessary because the common interests, the general concerns of all people elude the public. The public just isn’t up to dealing with them, and they have to be the domain of what he called a specialized class.”

Walter Lippmann wasn’t speaking theoretically, nor was he commenting on a phenomenon that he had observed from a distance, he was part of that specialized class and he personally influenced the development of this new technique of control.

So what was this new technique that Lippmann was referring to?

The answer to that question takes us back to the beginning of World War I. In 1917 Woodrow Wilson formed the Committee on Public Information, also known as the CPI. It was a propaganda agency and it’s purpose was to build support for the war with the American people. The CPI, run by a man named George Creel was known for its crude tactics, blatant exaggerations and outright lies. However one member of the CPI, Edward Bernays, had a much more subtle approach. Rather than resorting to low brow tactics Bernays studied the mindset of the American people, then based on his observations he created a campaign to promote the idea that America’s purpose in the war was to “make the world safe for democracy”. This meme was wildly successful, so much so that continues to be used even to this day.

Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, and like his uncle he was avid student of human psychology. Some documentarians such as Adam Curtis in his film “The Century of the Self” have mistakenly assumed that the psychological techniques that Bernays went on to develop were merely the practical application of Freud’s theories. However, though Freud had a significant influence on his nephew, the reality of the matter is that he was not the source of these ideas.

Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays and Walter Lippmann all subscribed to a school of thought that was first put forth in 1895 by a French social psychologist named Gustave Le Bon. Le Bon wrote several books, the famous of which was entitled “Psychologie des Foules”. It was translated into English as “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind”.

“The Crowd” was a revolutionary piece of work. In it Le Bon not only presented an in depth description of group psychology and how it differed from individual psychology but he also outlined a very simple set of principles that enable leaders to spark ideological contagion and thereby rise to power.

Hitler, Goebbels, and Mussolini all studied Le Bon’s writings and applied his techniques to the letter. The results they attained were precisely those that Le Bon claimed that they would have. Funny how they leave that little detail out of most history books don’t you think?

Sigmund Freud’s book “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” was in fact a direct critique of the writings of Gustave Le Bon and William McDougall which focused on the relationship between individual psychology and group psychology, and explained how human groups can be controlled for long periods of time through the manipulation of group identity, belief systems and social structures.

Edward Bernays studied Freud, Le Bon, Wilfred Trotter, Walter Lippmann and many others. He then combined their perspectives and synthesized them into an applied science. He named that science public relations.

The success of his “make the world safe for democracy” meme during the war, both at home and abroad, planted the seed of an idea in his mind. Could group psychology tactics be applied during peacetime? After the Committee on Public Information was disbanded he decided to find out, and in 1919 he opened the world’s first pubic relations agency. He referred to his office as The Council on Public Relations.

>This was Bernays’ specialty, engineering social trends for clients, and he was very, very good at it. Perception was now a commodity for sale to the highest bidder.

Bernays aided the CIA and United Fruit Company (known today as Chiquita Brands International) in a successful campaign to topple a democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954, he headed up the public relations campaign to garner support for the fluoridation of municipal water supplies on behalf of the aluminum mining Alcoa Inc, who was looking for a cheap way to dispose of their industrial waste, and he even helped a company convince the American public to eat heavier breakfasts so that they would buy more bacon.

What made Bernays so successful was his skill in applying of 3 psychological tactics:
>Creating carefully calculated associations with the subconscious fears and desires of individuals.
>Influencing opinion leaders and perceived authority figures in order to reach those who followed them.
>Initiating the contagion of behaviors and ideas through social conformity.

Bernays wrote several books promoting these psychological tactics including “Propaganda” and “Crystalizing Public Opinion”. In these books he specifically encouraged governments and corporations to use his methodology to manipulate public perception.

>This suggestion did not fall on deaf ears.

His techniques worked so well that they were adopted by virtually every sector that sought to influence the public: media, politics, advertising, even the military. As Walter Lippmann had indicated, it was a revolution.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, found Bernays’ approach very useful. Bernays acknowledged this fact in his 1965 autobiography entitled “Biography of an Idea” where he wrote:

“Karl von Wiegand, 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 Wiegand his propaganda library, the best Wiegand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Wiegand, 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.” (Biography of an Idea, page 652)

The events that transpired in Nazi Germany stunned the world and they inspired several prominent psychologists to investigate how populations are convinced to commit atrocities. In the process they inadvertently established the science behind Le Bon’s and Bernays’ methods.

In 1951 psychologist Solomon Asch set out to study and measure the effects and causes of social conformity and its ability to alter perception. To do so he ran a series of experiments in which he asked groups of students to participate in what he told them was a “vision test.” In reality, all but one of the participants in each test were were actually actors, each of whom had been prepped to give specific answers at specific times.

The subjects were shown a card with a line on it, followed by another card with 3 lines on it labeled 1, 2, and 3. They were then asked which line in the second card matched the line on the first card in length. The lines were made in such a way that correct answer was obvious.

Each member of the group was asked to give their response one at a time, and the “real” participant always answered last or next to last. For the first two trials the actors gave the obvious, correct answer, however beginning on the third trial, they would all give the same wrong answer. The goal was to ascertain how many people would conform to the perception of those around them when the group’s position contradicted their own senses.

The results surprised Asch. He had believed that the majority of participants would not conform and give an answer that was obviously wrong; however, results showed that 37% of people would conform to the crowd consistently and 75% conformed at least some of the time.

Asch was uncertain as to whether this conformity was limited to social compliance or whether it was actually influencing perception at the neurological level.

In 2005 neuroscientist Gregory Berns sought to answer this question. Berns created a variation of Asch’s experiment, this time measuring brain wave activity during the test to determine at what level of the brain this conformity was taking place. The results showed very clearly that the Occipital and Parietal lobes were the most active when the participants were answering incorrectly. This meant that conformity was actually altering the perception of the test subjects at the neurological level.

Take a moment and register what that means. Social conformity literally causes the brain to rewrite our reality. Keep in mind these tests were conducted using subject matter that was physically verifiable. Imagine the implications for matters of opinion or faith.

In 1961 Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, conducted a series of experiments which measured the willingness of individuals to obey authority figures.

In the experiment test subjects were placed in a scenario where they were led to believe that when they flipped a switch an electric shock was being delivered to a person in the adjacent room. They were then ordered by a man in a white jacket claiming to be the official scientist in charge to ask the person in the next room a series of questions. If they received an incorrect response they were to punish them by flipping the switch thereby administering a shock.

As the test progressed the voltage level was steadily increased and the screams from the next room became more and more desperate, begging to stop the test and stating multiple times that they had a heart condition.

Many of the subjects expressed hesitation about continuing with the experiment upon hearing the person in other room scream and beg for help. Those that did were informed by the scientist that they had no choice but to continue. No consequences were threatened, yet just this assertion was usually enough to achieve compliance.

Under the influence of an apparent authority figure 50 to 65% of subjects continued administering the shocks even up to the maximum 450 volt shock. They even continued after the person in the other room stopped screaming which indicated that they were unconscious or dead.

The Milgram authority experiment has been repeated numerous times over the years, using individuals from a wide range of economic and social backgrounds and the conclusions are always consistent. The aura of authority exercises an almost irresistible force over the human mind, easily overriding core morals and ethics. Even more shocking is the fact that no legitimate authority is necessary. Appearances suffice.

“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.”
- Edward Bernays - “Propaganda” 1928

The invisible government that Walter Lippmann, Edward Bernays, and Woodrow Wilson had referred to was not just an abstract concept. It was a very real and concrete reality, and they were were well positioned to comment on it, because they directly participated in its creation.

It all started as an inquiry. “The Inquiry.” to the select few who knew, was a group of 150 men assembled by Woodrow Wilson to gather the data they thought necessary to “make the world safe for democracy” after World War I was over.

Among the known members of the inquiry were Walter Lippmann, Paul Warburg (better known as the father of the Federal Reserve), and Edward House, Wilson’s closest advisor, the man responsible for convincing Wilson to sign the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.

From 1917 to 1918, the group compiled over 2000 documents to be used during postwar negotiations. The most famous of these was the 14 points document, authored by Walter Lippmann, which proposed the creation of the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations.

After the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 a portion of the Inquiry met at the Hotel Majestic with a number of British diplomats to discuss forming a permanent institution. This meeting eventually led to the decision to join forces with a group of high-ranking officers of banking, manufacturing, trading and finance companies led by Elihu Root, a powerful corporate lawyer who was also a former United States Secretary of War, and leading advocate of Americas entry into the World War I. On July 29, 1921 the merged group filed a certification of incorporation, officially forming the Council on Foreign Relations, also known as the CFR.

The CFR, went on to build a membership comprised of the worlds most powerful business leaders, politicians and corporations. Among the corporate members are Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, BP Oil, General Electric, Raytheon, Lockhead Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Bloomberg, Rothschild North America, and Dyncorp international. You can find a complete list on the CFR website.

John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under president Eisenhower, is listed as one of the founding members of the CFR on their own website. It was Dulles that convinced Eisenhower to use the CIA to topple the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. The Shah, a puppet who was installed to take his place, was a brutal dictator. He enjoyed full support from the U.S. government until he was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Dulles was also the man behind the 1954 CIA coup in Guatemala. And remember Bernays ran the propaganda for that operation. The tactic Bernays chose was to convince the public that the Guatemalan government was backed by the Soviets.

>Bernays’ tactic worked even though the Soviet Union didn’t even have diplomatic relations with Guatemala at that time.
>Once again Bernays set a trend, and for the next 40 years the U.S. government would use the specter of communism to justify invasions and covert operations around the globe.

Another member of the CFR McGeorge Bundy was National Security advisor under Kennedy and then under Lyndon B. Johnson. He was also the man responsible for encouraging the escalation of the Vietnam War. A prospect that Kennedy opposed and would not have allowed had he lived. This is according to documents written by Bundy himself.

President Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger is also a member of the council. Kissinger was the man behind the CIA coup which overthrew the democratically elected president of Chile Salvador Allende. The puppet they installed in Allende’s place, Augusto Pinochet, was another brutal dictator who tortured and killed thousands of his own citizens. The U.S. government politely looked the other way.

Carter’s National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski is also a member of the council.

It was Zbigniew Brzezinski who was behind the funding and arming of mujahideen in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A tactic designed to incite the Soviets to invade. These islamic militants later came to be known as the Taliban.

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