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What degrowth thinkers can learn from free market economist Friedrich Hayek and the father of public relations, Edward Bernays.

‘There is no alternative.’ The infamous slogan used by Margaret Thatcher would often be flung in your face, explicitly or implicitly, whenever you tried, in recent decades, to resist the dominant economic system.

You were opposed to ‘capitalism’ because of its colonial roots, because it was a productivity machine that generated extreme social inequality and that was disrupting the climate and the environment at an ever-growing pace.

Readers interested in how knowledge of economics and public relations can assist in environmental activism can contact the newly formed Degrowth Propaganda Squad by emailing rydrawong@protonmail.com.

You were a part of that ‘system’, however, and, for some of us, we were also white middle-class Westerners, and we reaped some of its benefits. You only really stammered when you tried to describe that ‘alternative’.

Degrowth

Jason Hickel’s bestselling Less is More (2021) at least frees us from this sense of discomfort. In it, Hickel, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, not only shows irrefutably that capitalism – driven by the creation of profit and the reinvestment of that profit and thus by the idea of seemingly infinite growth – is an impossible path for the future.

In purely material terms, the planet on which and off which we live has put up several hard ecological boundaries. Crossing those boundaries, it has become increasingly clear, has extremely destructive consequences.

Drawing on indisputable data, Hickel shows that, as a new way forward, ‘green growth’ – growth decoupled from an excessive energy and material footprint – is just as likely to lead to a dead end and that technological innovation is not going to magically solve the problems.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

When Everything Is Artifice and PR, Collapse Beckons

November 22, 2021

When Everything Is Artifice and PR, Collapse Beckons

The notion that consequence can be as easily managed as PR is the ultimate artifice and the ultimate delusion.

The consequences of the drip-drip-drip of moral decay is difficult to discern in day-to-day life. It’s easy to dismiss the ubiquity of artifice, PR, spin, corruption, racketeering, fraud, collusion and narrative manipulation (a.k.a. propaganda) as nothing more than human nature, but this dismissal of moral decay is nothing more than rationalizing the rot to protect insiders from the sobering reality that the entire system is unraveling and heading for its final reckoning: collapse.

We’ve become so accustomed to the excesses of marketing that we’ve lost the ability to recognize the difference between “science” that’s been carefully designed to reach a pre-planned conclusion and science that accepts the outcome, even if it harms well-funded interests.

The vast expanses of ignorance greatly aid this artifice. Even though high school physics, chemistry and biology are sufficient to tease apart the vast majority of rigged experiments, trials and studies, few Americans have the interest or fortitude to read Phase III trial results, etc. critically, and so the corporate media can trumpet bogus results without fear of exposure: all the statistical tricks and gimmicks are passed off as “science” to the distracted and gullible.

And if someone dares to examine the results critically, then those benefiting from the ignorance make the results “secret” until the year 2929. And that’s the entire game in a nutshell: maximizing private gain from artifice, PR, spin, corruption, racketeering, fraud, collusion and narrative manipulation, all masked by an putrid spew of virtue-signaling and PR.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

We Are Ruled By Apes With PR Firms: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

October 23, 2021

We Are Ruled By Apes With PR Firms: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article:

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So yeah basically we’re watching sociopathic oligarchs shore up more and more control over the global population and our electoral systems are rigged to prevent us from doing anything about it and our information systems are stacked to prevent mass-scale direct action against it.

You can’t vote your way out of a problem you never voted your way into in the first place. You can’t have a revolution while everyone is being successfully propagandized into accepting things as they are. Any solution is therefore going to have to come from somewhere they haven’t secured.

So we’re all just kind of watching this happen and hoping for what amounts to a miracle, or really a stack of miracles. What gives me hope is that I know humans have a lot of surprises within themselves that they haven’t even begun to explore yet. We might just get some miracles.

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The behavior of global oligarchic power structures makes a lot more sense when you see that it’s not as much a lucid elite conspiracy as it is a few barely-conscious humans compulsively acting out psychological dynamics within themselves that they don’t really understand. Elite conspiracies happen to be sure, but what’s ultimately driving them is not a complete and coherent vision for the future which takes all things into account but rather the simple egoic impulses of barely-evolved primates blindly trying to shore up control like chimps asserting dominance.

The sociopaths who rule our world are no more conscious of their own inner processes than your average serial killer…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Exxon Mounts Feeble Walkback After Lobbyist Caught on Camera Telling Truth About Anti-Climate Agenda

July 3, 2021

Exxon Mounts Feeble Walkback After Lobbyist Caught on Camera Telling Truth About Anti-Climate Agenda

The oil giant would like you to know that statements from its “Senior Director for Federal Relations” in no way represent its position on federal climate policy

One of ExxonMobil’s top lobbyists has been caught on camera revealing what many critics and environmentalists have claimed all along: That the oil giant continues to fight for its profits over the health of the planet, despite public relations campaigns claiming to back measures like a carbon tax to address climate change.

ExxonMobil is one of the planet’s top producers of oil, natural gas, and plastic, one of the corporations most responsible for our planet’s runaway carbon emissions, and a political heavyweight with a dark history of funding climate-denial front groups that for years have coordinated a campaign in Washington D.C. to stymie political action against global warming.

In recent years, the company has changed its public relations tune, running TV commercials that highlight its supposed commitments to developing fossil-fuel alternatives, while telling shareholders it is “committed to supporting efforts to mitigate the risk of climate change.”

But behind the scenes, it appears not much has changed. Keith McCoy is the Senior Director for Federal Relations at ExxonMobil. He was targeted by Greenpeace UK in an undercover video effort. A representative of the environmental group, masquerading as a corporate headhunter, set up a video interview with McCoy in May, in which the lobbyist touted the company’s successes in working with “shadow groups” to undermine the scientific consensus around climate change. McCoy also bragged of Exxon’s power on the hill and its ongoing influence with a “crucial,” bipartisan group of Senators, chief among them Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

COVID-19: Propaganda & the Art of Exploiting a Pandemic

May 10, 2020

COVID-19: Propaganda & the Art of Exploiting a Pandemic

Throughout the U.S., institutions that have no real interest in public health are exploiting our sense of vulnerability to benefit their public images and their bottom lines, says Dr. Mike Pappas.

We have all likely seen or heard the commercials. They typically start with slow music and maybe a nice sunrise. The ads then give lip service to the “strange and uncertain” times in which we’re living. But never fear, your savior is here: some large corporation wants to let you know that they are “here for us.” Do not worry, even after the pandemic is over, they will still be “here for us.” This touching treacle would be incomplete without a nod to the “healthcare heroes” continuing to fight during this pandemic. It just touches your heart, doesn’t it? But the eerie similarity of many of the commercials is a bit off putting… It is almost as if there is a propaganda campaign designed to exploit our worry and vulnerability during the global pandemic.

The Field of Public Relations

Exploring the field of public relations is helpful when examining the recent flood of sentimental adverts. Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, is universally known as the “father of public relations.” In the 1920s he pioneered the technique of shaping and manipulating public opinion, which he called “engineering consent.” In his influential 1928 book “Propaganda,”Bernays highlights the need to utilize people’s emotions to steer public opinion. He states:

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in the democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Most Interesting Man in the World: Two Faces on the Same Coin

February 1, 2019

The Most Interesting Man in the World: Two Faces on the Same Coin

Presidential elections are planned distractions

To divert attention from the action behind the scenes

Like a game of chess when the house is a mess

Or a petty money squabble when your marriage is in trouble

Or a football game when there’s rioting in the streets

It’s just another movie, another song and dance

Another poor sucker who never had a chance

– Timbuk3. “Just Another Movie”, Greetings From Timbuk3 (1986), Mamdadaddi Music/I.R.S. Music, Inc. admin. by Atlantic Music

Before the big game there’s a coin toss and by the luck of the draw, decisions are made even before the teams take the field. It is the same for politics with, perhaps, the exception of luck having anything to do with the outcomes. Regardless, the games play on our screens and we passively watch; anxiously waiting to see what happens.

It’s an all-or-nothing blitz to score big and winners take all. In the interim, there are the commercial breaks revealing ads refined by the fires of focus groups and in boardrooms.

Edward Bernays, the influential pioneer of public relations and the nephew of iconic psychologist Sigmund Freud, wrote in his 1928 book “Propaganda” (page 37) regarding an “unseen mechanism of society” that constituted “an invisible government” that was, assuredly, “the true ruling power of our country”. Bernays added: “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”

Bernays was quite proud of his uncle’s work and he accepted Freud’s foundational premises towards the use of emotional manipulation of the masses through advertising. It was Bernays, in fact, who changed the term “propaganda” to “public relations”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Alberta Has Spent $23 Million Calling BC an Enemy of Canada

January 17, 2019

Alberta Has Spent $23 Million Calling BC an Enemy of Canada

Tyee FOI reveals pro-pipeline PR strategy, spiraling costs.

Billboard on a Kelowna roadway, paid for by Albertans as part of a national campaign with the underlying theme: ‘This is not B.C. vs. Alberta, this is B.C. vs. Canada.’ Source: KeepCanadaWorking website.

The Alberta government has spent more than $23 million — twice as much as previously revealed — in a campaign designed to turn the rest of Canada against B.C., The Tyee has learned.

The “KeepCanadaWorking” ad and PR campaign’s top “principle” states, “This is not B.C. vs. Alberta, this is B.C. vs. Canada,” according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information request.

The documents show how an “ethnic campaign” targeted residents of the Lower Mainland, Toronto suburbs and Ottawa who speak “Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Filipino, Punjabi.”

Work first began in January, 2018 to create the campaign that promotes expanding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, which would triple the volume of Alberta bitumen sent through the port of Vancouver.

As recently as Nov. 14, 2018, Rachel Notley’s Alberta NDP government stated it had spent $10 million on the campaign.

On Jan. 7, 2019, the Alberta government told The Tyee the amount had reached $23,040,463.90.

The province’s self-described “full-service” public relations arm, the Communications and Public Engagement (CPE) department, named that figure in an email responding to Freedom of Information requests filed by The Tyee.

In the past two months, Alberta has dumped more than $13 million into its pro-pipeline public relations push, a provincial government spokesperson confirmed to The Tyee.

What did $23 million in taxpayer money buy?

Internal Alberta government documents obtained by The Tyee reveal the top “principle” of the so-called “KeepCanadaWorking” campaign: “This is not B.C. vs. Alberta, this is B.C. vs. Canada.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Happy New Year: Don’t Be Fooled By the Orthodoxies of the Messengers

December 29, 2017

Happy New Year: Don’t Be Fooled By the Orthodoxies of the Messengers

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. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In 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…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

– Edward Bernays, “Propaganda”

Edward Bernays (1891 – 1995) was a famous pioneer in the field of public relations and is, today, often referred to as the Father of Propaganda.Perhaps Bernays became thus known because he authored the above quoted 1928 book titled with that very term. He was actually the nephew of the famed psychopathologist Sigmund Freud and was very proud of his uncle’s work. More than that, however, Bernays accepted the basic premises of Freud towards the use of emotional manipulation of the masses through advertising. It was, in fact, Bernays, who changed the term propaganda into “public relations”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Miracle of American Oil”: Continental Resources Courted Corporate Media to Sell Oil Exports

December 29, 2015

“Miracle of American Oil”: Continental Resources Courted Corporate Media to Sell Oil Exports

A document published by the Public Relations Society of America, discovered by DeSmog, reveals that from the onset of its public relations campaign, the oil industry courted mainstream media reporters to help it sell the idea of lifting the ban on crude oil exports to the American public and policymakers.

Calling its campaign the “Miracle of American Oil,” the successful PR effort to push for Congress and the White House to lift the oil exports ban was spearheaded by Continental Resources, a company known as the “King of the Bakken” shale oil basin and founded by Harold Hamm. Hamm served as energy advisor to 2012 Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Image Credit: Public Relations Society of America

The campaign launched on December 16, 2013, the 40th anniversary of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo, and won the prestigious PRSA Silver Anvil Award.

According to the document, submitted to PRSA to detail the logistics and reach of the PR effort, it was “designed to influence public policy and/or affect legislation, regulations, political activities or candidacies — at the local, state or federal government levels.”

And it all began with a kick-off dinner in Washington, D.C., hosted by Continental Resources and attended by some of the most influential mainstream media energy reporters in the United States.

Regular readers of the Washington oil and gas industry beat will find the names of the dinner attendees, disclosed in the document, familiar.

Image Credit: Public Relations Society of America

“The campaign not only served as a catalyst to correct public misconceptions, but it also propelled crude oil exports to the top of the U.S. Senate’s agenda,” Continental boasted on the PRSA document.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Other Energy Companies Accused Of Downplaying Climate Change

November 30, 2015

Other Energy Companies Accused Of Downplaying Climate Change

A growing number of energy companies could come under increased scrutiny over their involvement in funding science and public relations campaigns denying the risks of climate change.

The New York attorney general made news a few weeks ago when he announced an investigation into oil major ExxonMobil for its alleged cover up of climate science. The investigation is looking into the possibility that ExxonMobil funded and gathered hard science on climate change, and once coming to the inevitable conclusion that the burning of fossil fuels could lead to regulatory blowback, the oil major proceeded to bury the conclusions and instead fund climate-denying science to obfuscate and head off political action.

While the news could yet blow up into a significant scandal, for now it is too early to tell what the outcome could be. However, more companies could come under fire from a growing number of attorneys general over their involvement in similar practices. After all, ExxonMobil is only the largest in a long line of companies that have pushed back against climate change policy.

The money flowing from energy companies to anti-climate change think tanks and lobbying organizations is relatively well known, and the links between the two are not hard to find. Donations to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), for example, is one of the more infamous relationships between oil and climate change lobbying. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) says that ExxonMobil has donated at least $1.7 million to ALEC between 1998 and 2014, a figure that CMD says is conservative. ALEC, in turn, pushed a legislative agenda to cloud the science on climate change, lobbying lawmakers across the U.S. and sowing doubts about the science of climate change.

European oil companies have taken a more proactive stance on addressing climate change. In October, for example, 10 large oil companies including BP, Shell, and Total, signed a joint letter stating their support for UN action on climate change.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

A New Kind of Frackademia? New Environmental Inspectors Offered Free Industry-Funded Classes on Fracking

October 7, 2015

A New Kind of Frackademia? New Environmental Inspectors Offered Free Industry-Funded Classes on Fracking

At an industry conference in Philadelphia last month, oil and gas executives gathered to hear about a little-known public relations effort with a very precise target: newly hired state and federal environmental inspectors.

At a seminar titled “Staying Ahead of Federal and State Regulations: A Partnership with Academia and Government,” officials from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Texas described how gifts from companies like ExxonMobil allowed their universities, along with the Colorado School of Mines, to offer state regulators free classes on oil industry best practices, travel and accommodations included.

“We’re targeting inspectors – oil and gas inspectors – who have three years or less of experience, although we do have lots of inspectors with different experiences on the course,” Dr. Hilary Olson, director of Education, Training and Outreach at the College of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas told attendees at Shale Insight 2015.

The program showcases the industry’s technical prowess as it conveys detailed information about the science involved in oil and gas drilling and fracking. “We don’t teach them about regulations specific to their state or talk to them about policy; what we’re interested in teaching them is the engineering, the science, the technology and how to communicate about that technology,” Dr. Olson explained.

The five-day TopCorp course includes both time in the classroom and visits to working oil and gas sites, taught by professors from many disciplines. Sample lesson footage reveals an online course featuring slick CGI graphics as professors lecture on topic ranging from basic principles of geology to complex technological advances that the industry has made in recent years.

All three universities involved have made national headlines in the past for their “frackademia” scandals.

In 2009, a Pennsylvania State University study, which claimed Pennsylvania alone could create 175,000 jobs by promoting fracking in the state, made headlines because the study’s lead author, Timothy Considine, had concealed the fact that the research was funded by the shale industry.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Revolutionary Act Of Telling The Truth

October 1, 2015

The Revolutionary Act Of Telling The Truth

George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

These are dark times, in which the propaganda of deceit touches all our lives. It is as if political reality has been privatised and illusion legitimised. The information age is a media age. We have politics by media; censorship by media; war by media; retribution by media; diversion by media – a surreal assembly line of clichés and false assumptions.

Wondrous technology has become both our friend and our enemy. Every time we turn on a computer or pick up a digital device – our secular rosary beads — we are subjected to control: to surveillance of our habits and routines, and to lies and manipulation.

Edward Bernays, who invented the term, “public relations” as a euphemism for “propaganda”, predicted this more than 80 years ago. He called it, “the invisible government”.

He wrote, “Those who manipulate this unseen element of [modern democracy] 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 …”

The aim of this invisible government is the conquest of us: of our political consciousness, our sense of the world, our ability to think independently, to separate truth from lies.

This is a form of fascism, a word we are rightly cautious about using, preferring to leave it in the flickering past. But an insidious modern fascism is now an accelerating danger. As in the 1930s, big lies are delivered with the regularity of a metronome. Muslims are bad. Saudi bigots are good. ISIS bigots are bad. Russia is always bad. China is getting bad. Bombing Syria is good. Corrupt banks are good. Corrupt debt is good. Poverty is good. War is normal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War

September 3, 2015

US/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War

Exclusive: The U.S. government and NATO have entered the Brave New World of “strategic communications,” merging psy-ops, propaganda and P.R. in order to manage the perceptions of Americans and the world’s public, reports veteran war correspondent Don North.

As reflected in a recent NATO conference in Latvia and in the Pentagon’s new “Law of War” manual, the U.S. government has come to view the control and manipulation of information as a “soft power” weapon, merging psychological operations, propaganda and public affairs under the catch phrase “strategic communications.”

This attitude has led to treating psy-ops – manipulative techniques for influencing a target population’s state of mind and surreptitiously shaping people’s perceptions – as just a normal part of U.S. and NATO’s information policy.

“The NATO case and argument is that NATO’s approach to psy-ops is to treat it as an essentially open, truthful and benign activity and that, plus the elimination of any meaningful distinctions between domestic and foreign media institutions and social media, means that psy-ops and public affairs have effectively fused,” said British military historian, Dr. Stephen Badsey, one of the world’s leading authorities on war and the media.

Badsey said NATO has largely abandoned the notion that there should be a clear distinction between psy-ops and public affairs, although NATO officially rules out the dissemination of “black propaganda,” knowingly false information designed to discredit an adversary.

“The long argument as to whether a firewall should be maintained between psy-ops and information activities and public affairs has now largely ended, and in my view the wrong side won,” Badsey added.

And, as part of this Brave New World of “strategic communications,” the U.S. military and NATO have now gone on the offensive against news organizations that present journalism which is deemed to undermine the perceptions that the U.S. government seeks to convey to the world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

10 SHADY ORIGINS OF CONSUMERISM IN THE US

March 28, 2015

10 SHADY ORIGINS OF CONSUMERISM IN THE US

Consumerism and the practice of flaunting one’s status through clothes, jewelry, and other things has existed since the dawn of civilization. Yet, the endless cycle of working to buy has never been more rampant than it is now. How did the United States, a nation founded on Puritan, non-materialistic tenants become filled with the biggest shoppers on the planet and end up occupying 29% of the World’s consumer market? As it turns out, Americans were carefully and systematically manipulated into becoming insatiable shoppers.

10. Freud’s Theories

The man who is largely responsible for introducing advertising as we know it was none other than Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays’, nicknamed the “father of public relations,” studied his uncle’s writings on psychology and group mentality and learned humans react to feelings not facts. With this knowledge, he saw an opportunity to capitalize on people’s subconscious desires by selling goods with the promise of delivering power, status, sex appeal, glamour, health, and other things with emotional connections. His uncle also taught him that humans often act irrationally when emotions are involved and can be led to believe objects are a symbol of their character. Bernays used these theories to manipulate people into buying products they didn’t necessarily need or want.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Four Years After Greenpeace Sting: PR Firm Dumps Oil Lobbyists

February 22, 2015

Four Years After Greenpeace Sting: PR Firm Dumps Oil Lobbyists

Perhaps you heard the good news – the world’s largest public relations firm, Edelman, justspun off an advertising subsidiary so that it could show a commitment to not aiding the denial of climate change science. The Guardian explains how API’s contracts with Edelman were so massive–tens of millions of dollars–that it was up to 10% of the PR giant’s income.

For years, Edelman has managed multi-million dollar contracts with the American Petroleum Institute (API), using its Blue Advertising subsidiary to help API run commercials selling fantasies to people: that oil and gas are our only viable, plentiful, “AMERICAN” sources of energy.

In the saga that led Edelman to dump the lobbyists at API, Greenpeace had a small role to play: we infiltrated a commercial shoot, run by Edelman’s Blue advertising arm for API. The commercials were to be called “Vote 4 Energy,” casting the illusion of mass popular demand for more oil and gas drilling (and more pollution, more climate change, and more government giveaways to prop it all up).

After being dressed up in a button-down, plaid orange shirt–I’m not sure what look they had in mind for me–I was put in front of the camera and told to repeat lines back. This despite the casting call for “REAL PEOPLE not Actors!” Huh.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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