20160219 (public relations)

Available through Vimeo as a 45 minute documentary

It’s dated (late 1990s—Dan Rather

Still anchored CBS News), it’s

Lousy video (720p or less), but

It skillfully relates the history

Behind the homegrown public

Relations industry and describes

Each of its methods, demonstrating

How each transforms (poisons)

Vital aspects of modern 

Democratic society and what

We’d like to think are objective

Sources of information. The book

I read years ago bears the same 

Title as the video, Toxic Sludge

Is Good For You, (by John Stauber

And Sheldon Rampton). Although

I had known about PR since my 

College days I found the book

Transformed my attitudes about

News and corporate control.

It was so effective I think because

Its message was so concentrated

And illuminating. The chapters

Flew by and gave me a whole

New enthusiasm about social

Critique—something like a

Fish in water finally realizing

He’s in an industrial breeding 

Pond—and once he is large

Enough he’ll be off to the

Batter vat at Long John Silver’s.

Nobody likes being lied to yet

Nobody is lied to more often

And more harmfully than we are. 

But we’ve been misled so often

And so thoroughly we regard it

As benign—a cost of our hyper

Productive society. Perhaps the 

Greatest charade foisted on the

American people by the PR is 

That they aren’t connected in

Any way to the worst example of

Effective PR—Hitler’s and—

Goebbel’s Nazi lying machine.

From Leni Riefenstal’s stunning

Film Triumph of the Will to Kurt

Gerron’s abject deceptions in

Theresienstadt the techniques of 

American hucksterism grown up

Are all over Nazi propaganda.

So, today, when we see laws

Passed in our state legislatures

By purchased politicians to

Prevent citizens from learning

About the brutality of the

Slaughterhouses, when we see

Our boys and girls killing

And dying in foreign lands over

Trumped up wars we didn't

Want, when we see our water 

Contaminated, our atmosphere

Getting more polluted, ever

More smothering, our people

Still losing homes and jobs

In this economy we are 

Told has “recovered” and

Is again “prospering,” who 

Believes these suits, these snake

Oil con men?

c. J.S.Manista, 2016