The Wizard of Oz Revisited
by Ken Bowers (Utah)
Speech given at the Freedom Forum of the IAP National Conference,
August 3, 2002, Salt Lake City, Utah. Ken Bowers is author of the
book, "Hiding in Plain Sight."
In 1928, William Paley started a new radio broadcasting company by the name
of CBS. It was an upstart in its formative days because NBC was already well
established by then. William Paley would remain as the CEO and guiding light of
CBS for decades. One of the first actions he took was to hire Sigmund Freud’s
nephew, Edward Bernays, as his chief advisor. Bernays also remained in his
position for decades. It is this man, Edward Bernays, that I would like to talk
about. Now, just who is Edward Bernays?
He lived to be over 100 years old, and when he died in 1995, The New York
Times ran an obituary in which it stated that Edward Bernays was the
"Father of modern public relations." He redefined public relations in
a drastic way. To show you what he really thought of public relations, he wrote
a book in 1928 called Propaganda. In chapter one he stated the following:
"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 formed, our
ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of...
"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 [a] relatively small number of persons...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...
"As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for
invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means
have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented..."
And this is found in chapter two:
"Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or
shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea
or group." 1
Now remember, this is the man who was considered the "Father of modern
public relations." He laid the ground rules, so to speak, that all
advertising agencies, major news media and Madison Avenue follow to this day. He
explained how to subtly manipulate public opinion to guide it to conform with
whatever idea was foisted upon them.
Today we are inundated with advertising efforts based on the pioneer work of
Edward Bernays. Those efforts are used not only to sell products but also ideas
by the news media. For instance, the famous advertising technique of selling a
product by implying that someone famous uses that product was known beforehand,
but E.B. clarified it and spelled out how and why it was successful in selling
products. It’s the "I wanna be like Mike" selling technique. Well,
that very technique is also used to sell us the ideas that come before us on the
news programs.
To illustrate, the powers that be at the present time want to conduct a war
of aggression with Iraq. That order comes not from George W. Bush but from the
Council on Foreign Relations. They pontificated on that idea in issues of
Foreign Affairs, their official periodical. See, for instance, an article in the
March/April issue of 2002 called, "Next Stop Baghdad?" But the idea is
palmed off on us practically every day in news broadcasts by all the major news
media. The anchors will often use this phrase, "Most experts agree,"
or words to that effect as they promote the idea of an invasion. And that
technique is surprisingly effective. Look for it the next time you listen to the
official party line on CBS or read Time Magazine.
Last year I had the opportunity of asking a communications major at WSU
[Weber State University, Utah] if
she had ever heard of Edward Bernays. I wanted to see for myself just how well
known he was. She thought for a moment and said, yes, E.B. was well know in the
field of journalism and public relations. That satisfied me on that count.
Anybody could go to the U of U [University of Utah] Communications College and ask any of the
professors there about Edward Bernays and find out for themselves.
Another idea used by the news media is the idea of repeating a lie [the
bigger the better] so often that it becomes imbedded into the public’s
consciousness as the truth. That is what I call the "Wizard of Oz"
technique.
In the movie, the Wizard of Oz, the four companions, (Dorothy, the scarecrow,
the tin man and the cowardly lion) each wanted a special boon from the great
Wizard. When they finally arrived at Oz and were ushered into the Wizard’s
presence, he tried to intimidate them with the austere pronouncement, "I
am OZ!" as great plumes of fire issued forth. His image was very
intimidating. But as the meeting progressed, the dog Toto went over to the side
and started investigating someone behind a curtain. The great Oz then said, "Pay
no attention to the man behind the curtain!" but by then it was too
late. The truth came out. The whole presentation was just a sham, although the
Wizard desperately wanted the people to believe in that sham.
Today we are being subjected to the Wizard of OZ treatment again. Images of
what we are supposed to believe are presented to us time and time again until we
finally accept them as the truth. That technique, like all of them, are not
always successful but usually the majority of our populace winds up believing
them. So they promote the coming war with Iraq each and every day as a
continuation of the war on terrorism, but the truth is that Saddam Hussein,
while certainly not a boy scout, is a man who is not controlled by the New World
Order. Therefore, he must be replaced with someone who will accept the
leadership of the world’s elite who control the New World Order.
To put it diplomatically, the news media of the nation, touted as the
vanguards of our so-called "free press", and "protectors of the
public weal," and so forth, are less than forthcoming as to what’s really
going on.
As evidence of control of the media, what do you make of this statement made
by David Rockefeller:
"We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time
Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our
meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty
years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the
world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those
years. But, the world is now much more sophisticated and prepared to
march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an
intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national
autodetermination practiced in past centuries." 2
As an aside, that amazing pronouncement comes to us from an inside
governmental source who attends every meeting of the Tri-Lateral Commission and
who gave this tidbit to The Spotlight newspaper.
That sounds chilling, but there are very many such statements made all the
time by the conspirators in their secret meetings! The problem is that these
statements are not reported by the media, and no one does an investigation that
is promoted by the news media. And by the news media, I mean all the news
media including but not limited to: print (which includes books as well as
newspapers), radio, TV, news magazines, periodicals and so forth.
If you haven’t guessed by now, the major news media of the country, (but
not all) was purchased years ago by the conspirators who then began to promote
their own agenda. Here is a quotation from The Congressional Record to validate
this proposition:
"In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding,
and powder interests, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12
men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most
influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to
control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States.
"These 12 men worked the problem out by selecting 179 newspapers,
and then began, by an elimination process, to retain only those necessary
for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press
throughout the country. They found it was only necessary to purchase the
control of 25 of the greatest papers. The 25 papers were agreed upon;
emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of
these papers; an agreement was reached; the policy of the papers was bought,
to be paid for by the month. An editor was furnished for each paper to
properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of
preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national
and international nature considered vital to the interests of the
purchasers.
"This contract is in existence at the present time, and it
accounts for the news columns of the daily press of the country being filled
with all sorts of preparedness arguments and misrepresentations as to the
present condition of the United States...
"This policy also included the suppression of everything in
opposition to the wishes of the interests served..." 3
But the other news media were also purchased by the insiders. In my book,
Hiding in Plain Sight, I point out on page 47 that in July of 1968 the House
Banking Subcommittee issued a report showing that the Rockefeller family owned
controlling shares of the major TV companies at that time (ABC, CBS, NBC)
through Chase Manhattan Bank. And in 1974, Congress issued a report entitled,
"Disclosure of Corporate Ownership" which showed that Chase Manhattan
Bank owned 28 broadcasting firms and that they increased their shares of the
major news outlets.
But the case for control is even deeper than that. The major media make their
profits from advertising and many of the large corporations that advertise in
the media are owned or controlled through interlocking directorships by the
elites. So the media can be controlled just through the power of its advertising
clientele alone. That is, if the advertisers don’t want a particular slant or
story to be promoted, it doesn’t get air time. To sum it up, direct control of
the voting shares of a particular media outlet plus advertisers preferences
determine what kind of news we hear every day. Actually, when taking all this
influence into consideration, it really is no wonder that the news is slanted
like it is.
Even modern day journalists sometimes come to that same conclusion, in
moments of honesty. Here is what Bill Moyers had to say in an article called
"Journalism and Democracy":
"Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again
the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the
Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary reflect their interests. We
appear to have a government run by remote control from the US Chamber of
Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American
Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else." 4
And here is another voice cultivating that same idea, and this from a liberal
politician:
"One of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of
huge corporations control the flow of information in the United States.
Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books or the
Internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear and
read. And the situation is likely to become much worse as a result of
radical deregulation efforts by the Bush administration and some horrendous
court decisions.
"Television is the means by which most Americans get their
"news." Without exception, every major network is owned by a huge
conglomerate that has enormous conflicts of interest." 5
But even in spite of this very credible evidence, the hold of the media over
the opinions of the American public is almost impossible to break. The masses,
or as has been said, the American sheeple, have been conditioned to think that
anyone who suggests that our society is run from behind the scenes is a radical
right-wing nut. By controlling the public mind on that issue so strongly, they
choke off attempts to shed light on the subject. This technique, name calling,
was also promoted by Edward Bernays as a way of shaping public opinion. It is an
effective way to bypass thinking and steer other’s opinions to conform with
one’s own thinking. This is what we have to contend with.
But that is just our task. We are here today to try to use righteous
influence to bring the truth of the conspiracy to task, to try to save our
beloved Constitution from destruction and to bring back a semblance of decency
and morality to a world gone mad. Of all the evils of this conspiracy, the one
that angers me the most is the evil misuse of the media to smear and destroy the
lives of good people and promote evil people. John Swinton said it best when he
declared:
"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie
outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell
his country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly
is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich
men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and
we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property
of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." 6
Do you remember Ray Donovan? He used to be the Secretary of Labor when Ronald
Reagan became President. Almost from the first, unsubstantiated stories began to
circulate about him and the Mafia. It seems that most building contractors in
New Jersey have some connection with the mob. And since Ray Donovan was a
building contractor in New Jersey before becoming Labor Secretary, he naturally must
have had some ties to organized crime. As these stories made the
rounds in the tabloids and elsewhere, public support for him began to wane.
Congressional and police investigations commenced because of these allegations.
In the end, he was smeared and lost his job as Labor Secretary. He spent all his
money in lawsuits to counteract the smear job he received, lost his wife and
health.
Ultimately, in the early 90's, all the investigations launched into his
alleged wrongdoing finally concluded that he had no connection to the mob, but
by then it was too late. I remember seeing a poignant news broadcast with him in
ill health, with tears in his eyes, saying: "I knew all along I would be
vindicated of all allegations. But now that my reputation has been destroyed, to
what office in the government do I go to reclaim that reputation? Where do I go
to get back my life?" As I said, the news media will smear whomever it
wishes and destroy lives in its quest for greater circulation.
Nevertheless, we are here to try to help our fellow countrymen to see the
dangers around us. Some will say, why talk about bad things when everything
about us is really OK? Why be concerned about evil? I’d rather talk about the
good things. Well, Ezra Taft Benson had an answer to that. He said:
I am not here to tickle your ears, to entertain you; I will talk to you
frankly and honestly. The message I bring is not a happy one, but it is the
truth. And time is always on the side of truth. As the German Philosopher
Goethe said, "Truth must be repeated again and again because error in
constantly being preached round about." ...As a people, we love
sweetness and light. Especially sweetness. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that
"Every mind must make a choice between truth and repose." Those
who will learn nothing from history are doomed to repeat it. This we are
doing in the Americas today. George Washington stated, "Truth shall
ultimately prevail where there are pains taken to bring it to
light...." 7
It is up to us who know what our country faces to stand up and proclaim the
truth. But the truth cannot always be kept on a shelf, safe from the masses. One
of the greatest fears of the elites is that someone, at some time, will break
through the blanket of silence and be able to spark the light of truth in enough
hearts and undo all their plans. When it finally happens, it will grow like a
wildfire. We need to be in position to know the truth and help our unknowing
friends and relatives to acquire a working knowledge about the conspiracy. Then
we can help to break its stranglehold on the real news. I pray for that
day.
We, who know the truth, understand that there is a conspiracy on this earth
and that its master, Satan, rages in the hearts of men in these latter days.
That means that our enemy is not evil politicians or international bankers or
secret societies or even major political parties dominated from behind the
scene, but Lucifer himself. He’s our enemy. We know that he controls all the
organizations to which I alluded. Paul said it best when he stated:
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12)
We know the task before us. Education and the truth are our greatest weapons
and the opposition knows it. They know that their foundation is based on lies,
which is like sand. But they use lies willingly to deceive and bind us. A
prominent liberal politician once stated:
The conservatives have all the rhetoric and we have all the action.
Well, it’s time for us to take the action to them. Hopefully we can help
defeat the lies that permeate our society. A Constitutional government, firmly
rooted in Christianity, along with a moral and religious people will be the only
thing that will save our world from the chastening hand of the Almighty. May God
give us the strength, wisdom and courage to turn the world once again to
constitutional government and to Christ.
Footnotes:
1. Propaganda by Edward Bernays, 1928, Liveright Publishing Corporation, New
York
2. D. R., before the TLC in Baden-Baden Germany, June, 1991
3. Rep. Oscar Calloway from Texas, Congressional Record, Feb. 9, 1917 [p
2947, 2948]
4. "Journalism and Democracy" by Bill Moyers in The Nation, May 7,
2001
5. Rep. Bernie Sanders, [I-Ver.] a left-wing populist in The Hill, a weekly
journal
6. Labor’s Untold Story by Richard O. Boyer and Herbert M. Morais
pub. by United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America, NY 1979
7. "Stand Up For Freedom" Talk by Ezra Taft Benson, 1965
