Why are Americans so easy to manipulate?

[Michael Fonash]

Very interesting...  The reasonable argument that Americans and other
Westerns are not able to be manipulated usually stands quite strong.
Maybe we are in the current predicament that many lament because we do
what we "want" rather than what is most "reasonable".

Mike

On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 7:34 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good ole Eddy Bernays.
>
> I've been puzzling over this quite a bit lately, and, as I watched the Ken
> Burns sponsored PBS series The West, it struck me just how quickly the
> conquest of West moved. Fifty years after Lewis and Clark escorted Sacagawea
> home to her people, the American government acquired all the land within the
> current boundaries of the US west of the Mississippi. Fifty years. And in
> the 150 years following the Mexican American war, we have, well.... You know
> all that. Here we are, a bunch people, few of whom have met, carrying on
> instantaneous communication from Germany to San Narciso. The point is, I
> think Americans are so easy to manipulate because delayed gratification to
> us means waiting until after sunrise to have the first drink of the day. Or
> the first toke, whatever. We don't do protracted planning and do not want to
> investigate a project before we get it done and get the cash in hand. We're
> greedy, impatient, and self-important--so much so that we even want to hurry
> up and save the world. "We want the world and we want it--now." But we don't
> want it collectively. We each want it in our own way. "I'm gonna get my
> kicks before the shithouse goes up in flames!" That's what makes us such
> easy prey for the corporations. They get theirs by the penny, by the pound,
> by the deal struck in the courtroom that turns the law in their favor,
> against each of us here between the shores who place implicit faith in
> industry but who won't even ride to work on the same train.
>
> On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 6:53 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > The corporatization of society requires a population that accepts
>> > control by authorities, and so when psychologists and psychiatrists
>> > began providing techniques that could control people, the
>> > corporatocracy embraced mental health professionals.
>> >
>> > [...]
>> >
>> > http://www.salon.com/2012/10/13/why_are_americans_so_easy_to_manipulate/
>>
>> This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to
>> try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.
>> Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed the perception
>> of the human mind and its workings profoundly.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-century-of-the-self/
>
>
>
>
> --
> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds
> the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason
> is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for
> the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the
> streets." -- Will Durant