Did you ever wonder why a hearty bacon and eggs breakfast is
the staple of American meals today? In the 1950’s Edward Bernays was hired by
Beech-Nut to sell more bacon. He did not create some flashy slogan or cute 30
second ad. No he gave a carefully worded survey to 5000 doctors who all agreed
that a hearty breakfast, specifically with bacon and eggs was a better than a
light one which was the norm of the time. So within a short time this became
news, and Beech-Nut was already prepared to take advantage of this “news”
because they were the ones who “created” it.
Seems very covert when you think about it, but “public
relations” or “propaganda” has been used since the early 1900’s when Bernays,
interestingly the nephew of Sigmund Freud, perfected this industry. Today the
word “propaganda” has become a tool of propaganda since that word is associated
with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. So it has become the subliminal “Goodwin’s
Law” (an internet law that says a debate will eventually break down into
someone calling the other a Nazi or Hitler) when pointed out in a discussion.
People will defend their position on saying “do you think I am trying to kill
millions of Jews?”
Anyway, in my life of debating I notice how this is used
over and over again. Look at Global Warming and how the debate evolved. The
supporters said ALL scientists agree that Global Warming is happening. Then temperatures
changed to a cooler period and scientist were coming out saying the climate is
cooling. I remember in the 1970’s when we had some brutally cold winters and
the “climate scientist” were claiming we were headed into an ice age, then 20
years later Al Gore was showing the “hockey stick” saying temperatures were
headed north and fast.
The lobby for global warming was the anti-pollution group
who has also been over-run by anti-capitalists and they had to keep changing their
tune. So propaganda was used, first with “testimonials” of scientists. Since
they now had scientists saying that global warming was not true, they changed
it to climate change and carefully scripted the tune that climate changes due
to pollution. With “transfer” anyone who was denying this were “flat earthers”
or science deniers, basically hicks from the back woods, no matter how logical
the argument was against climate change. They also used “bandwagon” where “everyone
agrees” therefore if you do not you are going to be responsible at killing off
the human race. See how it works.
You can go on the other side and see the same tactics used.
No one looks at the logical solution since pollution is bad and we need to get
off of relying on petro and coal for energy and production. But that does not
mean stop it, but rather work to clean things up! We should have a “Skunk Works”
project on this today if it is truly that important!
I have also seen this tied into the debate of Evolution. “Testimonials”
are used saying NO scientist denies evolution, which is true. There is no
denying evolution happens but to the extent Darwin suggested in the Origin of
Species is where a debate happens. Notice scientists like Walter Veith who is a
biologist AND a creationists is ignored and pastors like Ray Comfort are shown
at how nutty they are. “Transfer” occurs no matter how logical Ray’s arguments
may be and they show his foolish ones like “it’s only a theory” one. In science
“only” a theory is as close to TRUTH as one can be next to a LAW. The common
persons definition of a theory is a scientific definition of a hypothesis. Then
“bandwagon” is used when religious figures say evolution is true, so if science
AND religion says it’s true than therefore it is.
The key here is DON’T be fooled and think for
yourself. Listen to ALL sides and don’t get caught in the propaganda that WILL
be used by BOTH sides in the argument. Ask yourself, how did smoking become a
woman’s right thing? Edward Bernays and Lucky Strike!!