| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"John Manning" |
| Date: |
29 Feb 2004 12:24:07 PM |
| Object: |
VIDEO: Interesting 1946 film on Despotism and Democracy |
Despotism & Democracy [10 min.]
Measures how a society ranks on a spectrum stretching from democracy to
despotism. Explains how societies and nations can be measured by the
degree that power is concentrated and respect for the individual is
restricted. Where does your community, state and nation stand on these
scales?
Producer: Encyclopaedia Britannica Films - 1946
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4971.htm
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| User: "neptune3" |
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| Title: Re: VIDEO: Interesting 1946 film on Despotism and Democracy |
01 Mar 2004 05:18:33 PM |
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On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 15:24:07 -0300, John Manning
<jrobertm@terra.com.br> wrote:
Despotism & Democracy [10 min.]
Democracy is a cruel joke when the Jews control the media.
"Jewry rules from behind the mask of democracy. What one calls
democracy today is concealed Jewish domination. Jews determine what
happens in the democratic states"
Julius Streicher, Der Stürmer, #34/1939.
"A couple of weeks ago I quoted a few sentences from a book published
in
1928 titled Propaganda, by ... Edward Bernays. Today I'll read to
you an expanded set of excerpts from Bernays' book to give you a
little
more of the gist of his message. I quote:
"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 are 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. . . .
"Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it
remains
a fact that 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, who
harness
old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. .
..
"No serious sociologist believes any longer that the voice of the
people
expresses any divine or especially wise and lofty idea. The voice of
the
people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for
it
by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who
understand the manipulation of public opinion. . . .
"Whether in the problem of getting elected to office or in the problem
of interpreting and popularizing new issues, or in the problem of
making
the day-to-day administration of public affairs a vital part of the
community life, the use of propaganda, carefully adjusted to the
mentality of the masses, is an essential adjunct of political life."
--
end of quote --
I should mention that Bernays' book is not profound or especially
valuable in itself. It merely states a few self-evident facts about
the
way in which a modern society works. For the person interested in
propaganda, far more useful books are available. The fact that Bernays
was a Jew is not even especially relevant here except to emphasize
that
propaganda, the mass media, psychology, and the manipulation of others
always have been subjects of special interest to the Jews. It is not
for
nothing that they are as thick in these fields today as they were in
the
time of Bernays and Freud. The reason I chose Bernays' book to quote
is
that it provides a more concise and clear summary, in a few quotable
paragraphs, of the role of propaganda in modern life than most other
books on the subject.
If I were you I wouldn't even waste time trying to hunt down a copy of
Bernays' book. Although it is available in larger libraries, it's long
been out of print, and all it does is state the obvious: namely, that
the whole concept of democracy is meaningless in an age where a few
people have in their hands the mechanism for controlling the attitudes
and opinions of a majority of the electorate. And Bernays also takes
the
disingenuous position that not only is this control a fact of life,
but
it is a good thing; it is necessary to control and regiment the
thinking
of the public in order to avoid chaos, and it can only lead us to
greater progress and prosperity. He simply glosses over the question
of
who should exercise this control and what their motives should be.
If you really want to study the subject of propaganda, a good place to
start is with the 1962 book, also titled Propaganda, by the Frenchman
Jacques Ellul. That book is still in print and is available from the
sponsor of this program, National Vanguard Books. Professor Ellul
deals
with the subject in much greater depth and with much greater honesty
than Bernays does, but he agrees with Bernays on the most obvious and
fundamental conclusions: on the irrelevance of the idea of democracy,
for example. I quote from Professor Ellul's book:
"If I am in favor of democracy, I can only regret that propaganda
renders the true exercise of it almost impossible. But I think that it
would be even worse to entertain any illusions about a coexistence of
true democracy and propaganda." -- end of quote --
To me it is frustrating that a conclusion that seems so obvious is
nevertheless resisted by so many otherwise intelligent people.
Democracy
has become almost a sacred concept to them, this idea that the
policies
guiding our nation should be decided by counting the votes of every
featherless biped who has reached the age of 18. It's like motherhood:
they're almost afraid to question it.
This seems to be as true of intellectuals in our society as it is of
Joe
Sixpacks. The fact is that intellectuals are no more likely to be
independent-minded than people who work with their hands; most
intellectuals, just like most Joe Sixpacks, are lemmings. In fact, as
Ellul points out, it is precisely the intellectuals who are most
strongly controlled by propaganda, because they are more open to every
medium of propaganda.
And I must admit that it took me a long time to overcome the ideas
drummed into me when I was in school that under a democracy people are
more free than under any other political system, that under a
democracy
we are all free to think and say whatever we want, and that we have a
greater responsibility as citizens of a democracy to make up our own
minds about things independently, and so on. Actually, we still have
some degree of individual freedom in the United States today because
more than 200 years ago men whose temperament was far more
aristocratic
than democratic in the modern sense of the word were willing to go to
war against their legitimate government in order to secure that
freedom
for us, and people with a truly democratic temperament, who have been
gnawing away at that freedom ever since, haven't yet succeeded in
suppressing it completely.
Well, it should not be surprising to us that although books such as
Professor Ellul's Propaganda - and many others - are readily
available, almost no one has heard of them. Keeping the public
believing
in the myth of democracy is an important element in maintaining
control
over the thinking and behavior of the public. It is simply immoral and
scandalous to question the reality of democracy. It's like questioning
the truth of the "Holocaust" story. And for that reason we're not
likely
to be taught in our social studies classes in school or to read in the
New York Times or the Wall Street Journal even the most obvious and
self-evident conclusions presented by Bernays or Ellul. We're still
taught how democracy safeguards our freedom, even while those who
control the mechanism of propaganda in our democratic society are
working day and night to eliminate that freedom."
The text above is based on a broadcast of the American Dissident
Voices radio program sponsored by National Vanguard Books.
It is distributed by e-mail each Saturday to subscribers of ADV-list.
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To contact us via "snail mail," write to:
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The National Alliance: http://www.natvan.com
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http://www.nationalism.org/rnsp/display_ENG.htm
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