11.27.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Beyond the ‘Public Relations’
Edward Bernays, a man behind mind control,
imposed ignorance, and consumerism
Summary: Novell’s and Microsoft’s use of PR, new AstroTurfing from Comcast/Radian6, and convenient delusions about the Gates Foundation
FOR THOSE who may not know this, the term “public relations” (or “PR”) was coined early in the last century after the term “propaganda” (also beginning with “Pr”) got a bad reputation. The methods used in the United States to manipulate people’s emotions about products and policies directly influenced the Nazi regime, which in turn destroyed the positive/benign connotation associated with a word like “propaganda”. Nowadays it is a dirty word (languages evolve/devolve), but the rules and methods remain the same, most commonly under the umbrella of “PR” (where the word “relations” is euphemistically used in the same sense as in the Council of Foreign Relations). For those who are interested, there is an excellent BBC documentary series about the subject and it is called “The Trap”. It comes in many parts. US citizens celebrate a shopping/spendings holiday today, called “Black Friday”. The documentary addresses the emergence of consumption culture as well, since it is closely related to the genesis and commercial purpose of PR techniques.
“They were all uploaded by an account called “TESTDRIVE9″, referring/belonging to a company Novell seems to have hired or partnered with.”Over the past couple of years we have spent some effort studying Microsoft PR agencies (Microsoft externalises PR activities). Once these are analysed and documented properly it becomes easier to tell apart truth from spin. The same goes for front groups of Microsoft, whose inherent function is similar but not identical.
Since this Web site is primarily about Novell, worth bringing up is a bunch of new “success stories” that ended up in YouTube this week. They were all uploaded by an account called “TESTDRIVE9″, referring/belonging to a company Novell seems to have hired or partnered with. From its channel description:
Interactive Ideas (www.interactiveideas.com) is one of the UK’s leading value-added software and peripheral distributors, providing channels to market for technology products.
This channel hosts short non-technical videos explaining the real world business benefits of implementing SolarWinds, Red Hat, Novell, Acronis, JBoss and Kerio solutions in your organisation.
This account has just uploaded no less than 4 European “success stories” (advertisements) for Novell, from Denmark, Holland, Austria, and the UK. Here is an example.
Novell’s (mis)use of YouTube is a subject we previously touched on in:
- Is YouTube’s “NovellVideo” a Novell AstroTurfer?
- Novell Floods YouTube With Its Commercials
- Novell Speaks About Its Trashing of YouTube
- Memo to Novell: Leave YouTube Alone
Novell recently preached about its attempt to “change the perception of Novell.” And yes, it seems like “perception management” [1, 2], as PR professionals call it.
To give another new example, Radian6, the non-Microsoft AstroTurf equivalent of Visible Technologies, is still spying on our reader Ryan on behalf of Comcast, trying to suppress his rants about bad service. He can see that Radian6 is doing this and has produced proof a few days ago. His blog was also being monitored by Visible Technologies, which was funded by Microsoft, contains (former) Microsoft employees, and has Microsoft as a client.
“Novell recently preached about its attempt to “change the perception of Novell.””Another entity that uses heavy PR and “perception management” (other than Microsoft, Novell, and Comcast) is the Gates Foundation, whose selfish deeds require huge amounts of spin. The Gates Foundation already controls a lot of the press (simply because it funds the press) and right now there is more spin about “family planning” (sometimes a euphemism for sterilisation, much like “public relations” for brainwash or “rendition” for torture).
It turns out that the Gates family is still very keen on shrinking the population in Africa. The Gates Foundation funds this goal, just as it funds colonisation of Africa with Monsanto [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and the pharmaceutical industry (patents) [1, 2, 3].
From reading Bill and Melinda’s thoughts on family planning you would think they only cared about WHY women would want smaller families (they say because their children don’t die) and that they didn’t care any longer about HOW women can reduce the number of children they have (family planning). But the Foundation just funded one of the largest family conferences on family planning in years
According to Wall Street’s business press, the Gates Foundation is building another mansion at the cost of $500,000,000 while spending the same amount of money grabbing more control of the education system, which Microsoft in turn uses to exclude rival software and to indoctrinate the young. From one source that glorifies it:
School boards in Memphis, Pittsburgh, and Hillsborough County, Fla., voted this week to take part in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s national $500-million program to improve teacher effectiveness, according to press reports.
The Associated Press wrote a few weeks ago that “The real secretary of education, the joke goes, is Bill Gates.” There is nothing positive about it, based on history. █
“Excessive distrust is not less hurtful than its opposite. Most men become useless to him who is unwilling to risk being deceived.”
–Luc De Vauvanargues
ᶃ Gemini Space
This post is also available in 
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
Yuhong Bao said,
November 28, 2009 at 3:27 am
“FOR THOSE who may not know this, the term “public relations” (or “PR”) was coined early in the last century after the term “propaganda” (also beginning with “Pr”) got a bad reputation….”
I know the history of what I call “legacy PR” (as an example, it was used in the fluorine deception) and yes it has many flaws.
What do you think of this:
http://www.briansolis.com/2008/04/pr-20-putting-public-back-in-public/
Yea, I discussed Radian6 before and:
“trying to suppress his rants about bad service.”
Not exactly, I just see him responding, and responding with disclosure, which means it is not astroturfing.