The Pity of War and the Lusitania

Illustration by Norman Wilkinson (public domain)

"The first casualty of war is truth." --Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917

This is a follow-up to my blog post earlier this month on the sinking of the Lusitania.

While The Pity of War is primarily about the larger strategic and political failures that produced World War I, Niall Ferguson does make mention of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania within the broader context of wartime propaganda and Britain’s effort to bring the United States into the conflict. This prompted me to want to add to what I wrote last Thursday.

The Lusitania episode became one of the defining propaganda triumphs of the Allied war effort. The ship was not simply an innocent passenger liner in the purest sense presented to the public at the time. The vessel was carrying war-related materiel, including rifle cartridges and shell components, a fact long minimized or obscured in wartime narratives.

Though Germany was not morally blameless, the event was immediately transformed into a powerful emotional symbol through British and Allied media. Images of drowned civilians, women, and children were used to shape public opinion—especially in America—toward viewing Germany as uniquely barbaric. Ferguson sees this as part of the modern evolution of mass persuasion during industrial warfare.

At the same time, we should all consider these uncomfortable questions:
--Why was ammunition placed aboard a civilian liner traveling through contested waters.
--Why were passengers insufficiently informed of the risks?
--To what degree did governments exploit tragedy to mobilize public sentiment?

Propaganda usually simplifies complex realities into moral absolutes, and WWI was no different. Ferguson is especially skeptical of the idea that Britain entered the war purely for noble reasons or that Allied information campaigns were straightforwardly truthful. 

Importantly, once the sinking occurred, it became highly effective as a political and psychological weapon. The incident helped prepare American opinion for eventual intervention, even though the U.S. did not formally enter the war until 1917, nearly two years later.

One of Ferguson’s recurring themes is that modern states during this war learned how to harness media, atrocity stories, emotional imagery, and selective truths to sustain large-scale conflict. In that sense, the Lusitania became not merely a maritime disaster, but an early case study in twentieth-century information warfare.

The Sinking of the Lusitania Has Lessons for Today

At a "book exchage" several weeks ago I obtained a copy of Colin Simpson’s The Lusitania (1972), a provocative examination of the 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania, which killed 1,198 people — including 94 children — and helped tilt America toward entering World War I.

Simpson’s book peels back the official narrative to reveal a more complex and disturbing picture. Far from a simple case of unprovoked German aggression against a civilian liner, the Lusitania was carrying significant quantities of munitions and other contraband destined for the British war effort. British authorities, Simpson argues, were aware of the risks yet failed to provide adequate protection, while the ship’s rapid sinking was accelerated by both its unstable design and explosive cargo. The result was a human catastrophe which was then exploited with ruthless efficiency by Allied propaganda.

Lifejacket from Lusitania

The parallels to events in our own era--Gaza, Ukraine, Iran--are striking. In 1915, as today, ordinary people struggled to discern truth amid conflicting government statements and sensational media coverage. British and American newspapers amplified heartbreaking images of drowned children and grieving families, framing the disaster as proof of German barbarity. German sources, meanwhile, insisted the ship was a legitimate target. Public trust in institutions eroded as citizens sensed they were being fed selective facts to serve larger geopolitical aims. 

Sound familiar?

The emotional focus on innocent victims — especially children — proved devastatingly effective. Posters showing mothers and babies sinking beneath the waves stirred outrage far more powerfully than dry debates over maritime law or secret cargo manifests. Simpson shows how tragedy was transformed into a potent propaganda weapon, much as civilian casualties and graphic imagery dominate today’s information wars.

In an age of contested narratives and weaponized empathy, Simpson’s account reminds us that the Lusitania was not merely a maritime disaster — it was a masterclass in how governments, media, and public emotion intersect during crisis. Nearly 110 years later, its lessons about skepticism, hidden agendas, and the strategic use of innocent suffering remain painfully relevant.  

What especially sad (or disturbing) is how the truth is buried beneath a sea of noise, and facts about what's really happened don't come to light till decades later.  

After the latest attempt on the president's life someone said to me, "I don't know what to believe any more." I knew what he was referring to. Every action now has a groundswell of conspiracy theories in its wake, propelled by unrestrained social media. Charlie Kirk, Butler, October 7, JFK--and the beat goes on.

Life in an Era of Pied Pipers Wielding Weapons of Mass Manipulation

I still remember when I first heard the story of the Pied Piper as a child. It must have been something on TV because I have images in my memory closet associated with the story. In junior high school, a few years later, Crispian St. Peter's recording of "The Pied Piper" reached the top ten as a 45 single (which I recorded on my Estey two-speed reel-to-reel from the radio, and still own.)

As I'm often fond of saying, we live in an era of spin. Nearly every major event has spinners striving to control the way viewers, listeners and readers perceive these events. But it doesn't stop there. Political opponents are also busy trying to recast past events as well. As George Orwell famously stated in his opus, "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."

While looking through one of my notebooks I came across this parallel notion. "We live in an era of Pied Pipers wielding weapons of mass manipulation."

For those unfamiliar, the old folktale tells of a mysterious figure who had been sought out to help rid the city of rats. He arrives not with rat traps but with a magic flute. When he plays his magic tune, the mayor, city council and half the city leaders follow him off into the mountains.

No, just kidding. He plays his flute and all the rodents follow in a parade to a place far away.  

When he returns to receive his agreed upon compensation, they choose instead to stiff him. Well, he's got another trick up his sleeve. He pulls out that flute again, and plays a different tune, this time charming the minds of all the children of that town who proceed to follow him off into the mountains, never to return.

Today the flute has been replaced by algorithms, screens, and carefully engineered narratives, but the principle is much the same. The modern Piper doesn't need a stage in the town square; he operates through phones in our pockets, feeds on our screens, and voices in our earbuds.

The tools of persuasion have never been more powerful. Social media platforms can amplify a message to millions within minutes. Data analytics allow organizations to tailor messages to specific fears, desires, and identities. Images, slogans, and emotional appeals are designed not merely to inform but to provoke reaction. The result is an environment where attention is captured, outrage is cultivated, and loyalty is shaped with remarkable precision.

The danger is not simply misinformation. It is the erosion of independent judgment. When people are continually immersed in streams of emotionally charged content, it becomes difficult to step back and evaluate claims carefully. The Pipers' melodies are constant, and it is often easier to follow than to question.

One difference between the fable and now is that there are multiple pipers, though what you respond to will increasingly result in more affirmation of the perspective you're leaning into.

History reminds us that charismatic voices have always had the ability to sway crowds. What is different today is scale and speed. A manipulative message can circle the globe before reason has time to catch up. Political movements, commercial interests, and ideological campaigns all compete to command the tune, and our loyalty. This is where the real battleground it.

The antidote is not silence but discernment. Citizens must cultivate habits of skepticism, patience, and humility in the face of persuasive appeals. The responsibility ultimately rests with individuals who choose whether to follow the music or pause long enough to ask where these Piper intend to lead us.

Photo of Paquita, a girl from the orphanage in Mexico where we once served. 

Did the CIA Write the Playbook for Anti-ICE Activities in Minnesota?

CIA: Manual for Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare  

It's interesting that one can now purchase a CIA manual that was written and produced as an education tool for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels in 1983. The hand
book provides instruction on sabotage, propaganda, and destabilization techniques. Ironically, as I watch events unfold in Minneapolis, it appears to now be the playbook for resistance against our own government. 

Although once top-secret, Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare has been declassified and is available is available on Amazon. Its CIA origin was revealed by the Associated Press in 1984. I suppose the information is public domain now. I just finished reading and can't help but think, "What's this world coming to?"

The manual served as a training guide for "Armed Propaganda Teams" to influence the population and destabilize the Nicaraguan government. It was developed during the Nicaraguan civil war to support the "Contra" forces. The document was highly controversial, detailing methods for political manipulation and "dirty wars," which brought it before the International Court of Justice. 

The book is often listed as a primary source for understanding U.S. cold war-era covert operations in Central America, though I suspect its application has been global and not just here in the Americas. 

* * * 

"Tell me why you are crying my son

I know you're frightened like everyone.

Is it the thunder in the distance you hear? 

Will it help if I stand very near? I am here."

Peter, Paul & Mary

Day Is Done

Related Links

Propaganda Revisited

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

The Purpose of Propaganda: Social Engineering

Orwell’s Warning: Does the Media Reveal Truth or Manufacture Illusion?

Though George Orwell is most famous for his last two books, Animal Farm and 1984, his essays cannot be neglected. Orwell’s essays are significant for their moral clarity, plainspoken prose, and fearless engagement with power, language, and truth. Orwell exposed how political language distorts reality and how intellectual dishonesty enables oppression. His essays have endured because they model a rare union of ethical seriousness, stylistic precision, and civic responsibility.

While reading Keith Gessen's introduction to All Art Is Propaganda, this passage especially struck home.

Orwell's voice as a writer had been formed before Spain, but Spain gave him a jolt--not the fighting or the injury [EdNote: He was shot in the neck by a sniper while fighting in the Spanish Civil War], though these had their effects, but the calculated campaign of deception he saw in the press when he got back, waged by people who knew better.

"Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper," Orwell recalled, "but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed... kind of thing is frightening to me, because it often gives me the feeling that the very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. After all, the chances are that those lies, or at any rate similar lies, will pass into history."  

This insight reverberates through Orwell's work for the rest of his life.  

For anyone paying attention, it should be a recurring theme throughout our own lifetimes. What is true? What's really going on?

It takes work, discernment and wisdom to see through the fog, and in some cases we'll never really know what the story really is. What we can do, however, be willing to set things on the shelf until we know more or it becomes irrelevant to know. It takes courage to say, "I don't know" when everyone else is clamoring for you to take a position.

My father was once called to jury duty for a trial the required a verdict with regards to a serious crime. Both sides painted a compelling argument for guilt or innocence. It became clear that one side was lying, but their arguments were so carefully laid out that he had no idea which side was lying and which was telling the truth.

To me, it seems clear that a measured skepticism is the only way to engage today's news media. This means questioning sources, incentives, framing, and omissions while still valuing verified reporting and evidence. Uncritical acceptance invites manipulation; total cynicism invites ignorance. And sometimes we just don't know.

Imaginary Interviews: Noam Chomsky on America and Propaganda

I first encountered Noam Chomsky's writing while preparing to go to work at an orphanage in Mexico in 1980. In the 1950s and early 60s, Chomsky, a linguistics professor, wrote books about syntax, sound patterns, etc. It was during the Vietnam War that he become more vocal politically. Chomsky’s academic insights about how humans generate meaning evolved into examining how languages are used to manipulate public opinion. Just as linguistic structures shape how we think, political language shapes how we interpret reality.

Because propaganda has been a life-long interest of mine, Chomsky's ideas have been a recurring periodic theme in my readings. 

Today is Noam Chomsky's 97th birthday. Born December 7, 1928, Chomsky grew up in a Jewish working-class community in Philadelphia steeped in debates about socialism, Zionism, fascism, and labor rights. I find it fascinating that he wrote his first political essay at age 10, criticizing the rise of fascism and the spread of propaganda in popular media. Long before he became a scientist of language, he was already a political observer.

What follows is an imaginary interview with the elderly Chomsky. This is a fictional encounter that attempts to convey his ideas and views pertaining to propaganda.

EN: Professor Chomsky, you've often argued that the most effective propaganda is not imposed by force but accepted as common sense. In your view, what core assumptions about America’s role in the world are so deeply internalized that most citizens don’t even recognize them as propaganda?
Chomsky: One of the most powerful ideas is that the United States is a uniquely benevolent actor—motivated by ideals, not interests. That assumption is so thoroughly woven into education, media, and political ritual that questioning it feels almost heretical. It’s a kind of background radiation of public life. When a superpower sees itself as inherently virtuous, its actions—no matter how destructive—are interpreted through a moral lens. Once that frame is in place, evidence becomes secondary. The ideology becomes invisible.

EN: In Manufacturing Consent, you describe the media as filtering reality rather than fabricating it outright. How have these filters evolved in the age of 24/7 news, digital platforms, and algorithmic feeds? Has propaganda become more subtle—or more pervasive?

Chomsky: More pervasive, certainly. Traditional media had structural constraints—ownership, advertising, elite sourcing. Those haven’t vanished; they’ve simply been supplemented by new mechanisms. Digital platforms tailor information to users’ preferences, reinforcing existing beliefs and shielding them from alternatives. That’s quite efficient from the standpoint of power: people become self-policing consumers of propaganda. Instead of one centralized narrative, we now have thousands of micro-propaganda streams. The fragmentation creates the illusion of diversity, but the underlying assumptions—about markets, U.S. exceptionalism, the legitimacy of state power—remain largely intact.

EN: American leaders often portray U.S. foreign policy as altruistic, driven by ideals of democracy and liberation. What mechanisms, political or psychological, allow this narrative to persist even when historical evidence frequently contradicts it?

Chomsky: States rarely describe their actions honestly; that’s not unique to the U.S. But the U.S. has an unusually sophisticated cultural apparatus that reinforces the national myth. Education plays a role, as do entertainment media that cast American power as heroic. There’s also a psychological element: citizens of a powerful state don’t want to believe they benefit from oppression. The “good intentions” story is emotionally reassuring. So contradictory evidence is minimized, compartmentalized, or reframed. It’s easier to believe that every intervention, every war, is an unfortunate mistake rather than a predictable outcome of geopolitical interests.

EN: Many Americans believe the country has a uniquely free and independent press. From your vantage point, what structural forces—corporate ownership, advertising, national security concerns—most limit genuine dissent in mainstream discourse?

Chomsky: Ownership and advertising remain central, but professional norms may be even more restrictive. Journalists internalize the boundaries of acceptable debate because stepping outside them carries professional risks. You don’t need overt censorship when self-censorship is built into the system. Add to that the symbiotic relationship with government and corporate sources—who provide information essential for news production—and you have a media environment that can appear free while operating within narrow ideological limits. The range of views is broad compared to authoritarian states, but extremely constrained compared to what a functioning democracy requires.

EN: For readers who want to resist propaganda, what habits of mind or practical steps do you consider most essential? Is skepticism enough, or must citizens actively seek alternative sources and frameworks to understand the world?

Chomsky: Skepticism is a starting point, but not sufficient on its own. Citizens need to cultivate what I’d call “structural awareness”—examining who benefits from a given narrative, whose voices are excluded, what assumptions are taken for granted. It’s also crucial to broaden one’s sources: independent journalism, foreign media, and historical texts provide context that mainstream outlets often omit. And perhaps most importantly, people should act collectively. Critical thinking is important, but it becomes transformative only when embedded in communities that exchange ideas and challenge dominant narratives.

* * * 

Related Links
Manufacturing Consent: Do We Really Live in a Democracy?
Eight Stories About Propaganda from the Century of Spin

Eight Stories About Propaganda from the Century of Spin

I've numerous times labeled the 20th century as "The Century of Spin." When we look back we see not only events, but the battles to explain or interpret the meaning of these events. For example, we've seen the government's transparent and not-so-transparent efforts to sell the public to favor participation in foreign wars. 

Having spent 30 years of my career in public relations (as part of a career in marketing), I've had a front row seat on how influence works and the role of media in shaping public opinion. What surprises me is how readily the public seems to swallow one-sided interpretations of events that are clearly complex and nuanced. 

I find it striking that what seems obvious to one appears odious to another. Then again, that is the world we live in. 

Here are links to eight blogposts related to the issue of propaganda. My aim is to help us became more discerning news consumers.

PROPAGANDA LINKS

Propaganda Revisited

Crowds On Demand: Believe Nothing You Hear, and Only One Half That You See

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Is the U.S. Media a Mouthpiece for the State? Stephen Kinzer Argues "Yes"

The Purpose of Propaganda: Social Engineering

Torches of Freedom: The Use of Propaganda to Get More Women Using Tobacco

PR & Propaganda

Bertrand Russell's Free Thought and Official Propaganda Has Much to Say about the Current State of Cancel Culture

Media-Perpetrated Illusions: Crafting Perceptions and Shaping Realities

Can you believe your eyes?

The line segments are identical.

Amazing how perceptions are distorted by contexts.
The middle circles are the same size.

In today's world, the media holds unparalleled influence over public perception and opinion. The power of the media to shape narratives and construct realities can be both enlightening and deceptive. (And smetimes deoressing.) Media-perpetrated illusions refer to the deliberate or unintentional crafting of misleading or distorted representations of reality. These illusions can have profound effects on societal beliefs, behaviors, and decision-making processes.

One of the most common methods through which media perpetrates illusions is through framing. Framing involves presenting information in a particular way to influence how it is interpreted. It happens all the time.

Selective reporting, or the emphasis on certain stories while ignoring others, is another way the media creates illusions. By choosing which events to cover and which to omit, media organizations can steer public attention and concern. Even though I'm only an occasional listener I've noticed that not a day goes by without NPR broadcasting a story about climate change, always underscoring the impending doom that lies ahead if we fail to take drastic action immediately. Seldom will you hear about the risks or consequences of taking many of those drastic actions. 

Illusion on the floor of the Florence Cathedral

Media can also create the illusion of consensus, where a particular viewpoint is presented as overwhelmingly accepted, even if there is significant opposition or debate. How many times do we hear that "a majority" of women or blacks or Republicans or Red State voters are in favor of this or that. It may only 51% but it is a majority. Never mind that had the question been asked differently, the majority would have supported a contrary position.

Most issues are more nuanced than presented. But you'd never know it the way some issues are discussed, whether it be renewable energy, illegal immigration, poverty, crime, EVs or late-term abortion.

It's no wonder that the masses are uninformed or misinformed, especially when we repeatedly hear or read discredited fake news. I long ago concluded that the real conflict today is the clash between narratives, hence my essay "He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People." 

It takes work to stay informed and none of us can say we're up to speed on every issue in every field of study. The world is far too vast for that. And, as with the visual illusions at the top of this page*, sometimes we can't even trust our own eyes. 

* * *

*Source: Vaclav Smil's Size: How It Explains the World

The Problem of Hate

"Luke! Don't give in to hate. That leads to the dark side."
--Obi-Wan Kenobi

One of the memorable features in Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 was a seven-day period of orchestrated mass hysteria directed towards the Party's current enemy. It served as a crucial element in maintaining the Party's control over the population by suppressing individuality and critical thought, strengthening social cohesion and loyalty, and channeling emotional energy towards the Party's goals.

Hate Week was a constant bombardment of propaganda and mass manipulation. Rallying against a common enemy not only served as a convenient outlet for negative emotions, it also prevented questioning of the Party or its policies.

It also facilitated an "us vs. them" mindset that strengthened the Party's rule by making dissenters seem like traitors and outcasts. 

Despite Orwell's warnings against being manipulated by the media as a mouthpiece for the State, the general public seems ever willing to be swept along in the current. For me, personally, all this hate saddens me. 

* * * 

One morning twenty or so years ago I decided to write some thoughts in my journal about hate.  What follows are the statements I recorded. 

Hate is used as a tool to manipulate masses, unite people.

Hate is used by hate-mongers to move people to action.

Hate makes people feel good (Having strong feelings makes them feel alive.)

Hate makes people feel bad (For hating, for being so controlled by it.)

Hate damages the hater.

Hate damages the hated.

Hate makes us irrational, difficult to reason with.

Hate will never solve interpersonal or international problems.

Hate is a form of slavery (to which we become chained.)

Hate can be a form of addiction (which makes us feel good about ourselves by deceiving us into thinking we are better than the hated.)

Hate is a serious problem in our world today.

Hate is evil.

Hate breaks things, damages and stains.

Hate produces great sadness in God’s heart.

* * * 

Returning to Orwell, here are some of the features of Hate Week:

Intense Propaganda Hate Week involved relentless exposure to propaganda through posters, banners, speeches, films, and even music, all demonizing the chosen enemy.

Two Minutes Hate This cathartic daily ritual forced the entire population to focus their rage and fear towards the enemy through televised images and orchestrated chanting. Public Displays Mass rallies, parades, and even physical attacks on effigies of the enemy fueled the emotional frenzy.

Loss of Reason and Critical Thinking During Hate Week, individuals were encouraged to abandon logic and embrace unbridled hatred, further solidifying the Party's control over their minds.

In Orwell's 1984, Hate Week serves as a powerful symbol of a ruling regimes' manipulation of mass emotions and the dangers of uncritical conformity. It underscores the importance of maintaining independent thought, which is also why keeping a journal, as Winston did, was forbidden.

I'll close with this comment I saw recently at the end of an article on Unherd: "Open hatred of people unlike you has become normalized. It’s the sort of thing that eventually, escalates into violence. Meet the new Jacobins, no different from the old ones."

He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People

Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past. — Geo. Orwell, 1984

Photo by Robinson Recalde on Unsplash

When future historians write about the 20th Century, it would not surprise me to find it had been nicknamed The Century of Spin. Today more than ever we see that the battle for the minds of the people revolves around the manner in which events get interpreted, not necessarily the events themselves.

Social observers have long noted this trafficking in interpretations. Who decides what is good and what is bad? Who decides who the good guys and bad guys are in this battle for control of the narrative?

We live in a mediated world. Before entering World War One, very few Americans knew much about Germany, its history and its aims. But as the drums of war began to sound, there were plenty of messages being piped into our brains through the news media, striving to form a national will to take up arms against Kaiser Bill and those German brutes.

But who were these brutes, really? Stories of German aggression were circulated as if Otto Bismarck and later Kaiser Wilhelm were out to take over the world. In point of fact, history didn’t bear this out at all. It was the British Empire that had had a 300 year hold on the world, famously declaring with pride, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.”

If one were to look at the century previous to that first Great War to see what countries were the most aggressive, one might be surprised at what the facts revealed. Great Britain had been in 10 wars, Russia 7, France 5. Among the least warlike of the European powers had been Austria 3 and Germany only 3. What’s more, under Bismarck and the Kaiser Germany never engaged in a single armed conflict.

When a German U-Boat blew up the Lusitania, it was not a surprise attack on innocent victims. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica the ship was carrying, in addition to passengers, a cargo of 173 tons of rifle ammunition and shells. For this reason “the Germans, who had circulated warnings that the ship would be sunk, felt themselves fully justified in attacking a vessel that was furthering the war aims of their enemy.”

The spin was in, and America had the justification it was looking for to enter the war. Thus was born the Committee on Public Information (CPI), whose aim was to influence U.S. public opinion to support the war effort. Wilson’s Executive Order 2594 set in motion an ever broadening series of events.

This anti-German sentiment had serious consequences. Hatred was aroused toward German-American citizens and “being anti-German became a way of showing patriotism for the American war effort.”(1) Even though there were more immigrants from Germany than from any other country, many libraries pulled books off the shelves that might be considered pro-German. Laws were passed specifically hostile to German-Americans.

The climate became so hateful that by 1918, South Dakota prohibited the use of German over the telephone, and in public assemblies of three or more persons. “By the early 1920s, 34 states had passed English-only requirements in their schools. These laws were argued before the Supreme Court in the case of Meyer v. Nebraska.” (2)

Years ago I remember reading about German Americans having their dachshunds murdered by hostile neighbors. These actions were generated by the propaganda machinery of our government, hand-in-glove with the powerful newspaper media network. This anti-German sentiment came directly from the Wilson White House. (He’d formerly been president of Princeton, an idealist and educated fool, which he’d soon have ample opportunity to prove before the end of his second term.)

In the late 1920s Edward Bernays wrote a book about the essential role that propaganda plays in helping shape the attitudes of the body politic. “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits 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.” — Propaganda, c. 1928

Propaganda was considered a good thing, when the good guys were using it. When Bernays’ book was written, the liberal elite liked the idea of controlling the masses without having to resort to guns. Public education was utilized for the same purpose. (At that time social engineering was having a field day with other techniques for re-shaping the masses, including forced sterilizations. Lobbyists for the eugenics movement succeeded in legalizing forced sterilizations in more than 30 states.(3))

Bernays went on to say, “We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of… It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.”

Walter Lippman, in his book Public Opinion, which deals with these same matters, wrote, “We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception.”

It was the propaganda machinery of Goebbels and the Nazis that gave propaganda a bad name. As Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda who famously asserted, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

After the war, a kinder gentler term would be adopted: Public Relations.

Every politician has a PR team actively shaping their messages and feeding their sound bytes to the media directly and through thinly veiled “independently” written letters to the editor.

Edward Bernays used his book as a stepping stone to advance his own career as a publicist. He ultimately achieved the stature he desired, becoming a mouthpiece for Big Tobacco for a spell, as well as for General Electric in what amounted to helping it achieve a “stranglehold on America’s electric power” in “the largest propaganda drive in peacetime history.” (M.C.Miller)

His crowning achievement was the work he did in Latin America during the 1950s on behalf of the United Fruit Company (UFC) whereby he paved the way for the CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz. To our shame as a nation, we did not dig into the motivations of UFC or the underlying truths behind what was really going on there in Guatemala, or Costa Rica. The resulting damage to U.S. credibility in the region lingered for decades.

In 1962 French thinker/theologian and social critic Jacques Ellul wrote a book titled, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. In it he writes, “Propaganda does not aim to elevate man, but to make him serve.”

Ellul’s books addressed the issues of modern life. Our relationship to the State was one of his recurring themes, which is why it became important for him to write a book about propaganda. It is a central feature of contemporary life.

In 1973, Italian novelist/philosopher Umberto Eco wrote, “Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d’état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes. The day after the fall of Krushchev, the editors of Pravda, Izvestiia, the heads of the radio and television were replaced; the army wasn’t called out. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.”

On this topic much more can be said. The aim here is not to say all, but to open the door a crack that we might see how our current national malaise fits into the broader history that preceded it. All around us we have warring cultural forces at odds with one another. If one day there comes a time to choose sides, it’s better to have worked at becoming informed than to later make excuses for having buried one's heads in the sand.

Related Links

(1) See: Anti-German Sentiment
(2) See: The Anti-German Sentiment of World War I
Jacques Ellul’s Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes
(3) Eugenics related:
Bad Ideas: The Eugenics Movement In America
Eugenics, Revisited

Originally published on Medium, 8 April 2020.