The-melting pot, Coercion: Why we listen to what they say, David Rushkoff.

Coercion: Why we listen to what "they" say.

Coercion, is very much about the state of affairs in this electronics media society. This, another well crafted very informative piece by Douglas Rushkoff delivers a scathing treatise on the art of manipulation by the forces of industry around us.

He gives us in-depth insight into how we are manipulated by industry out of
our desire to belong to a group and the distrust of one another. Just to mention a few of our emotional strings they yank on. Using this information politicians, the
medical and environmental industries and others, constantly create innovative
ways to coerce us into doing their bidding.

In the department stores they play music to set us up for their mood.
The store clerks are told to complement our choices. They rush to ask us our
opinion after political debates (not giving us enough time to examine our own
thoughts) then rush off and disseminate it through wireless and print media
so the rest of us would know what we should think.

It is indeed the stealth of political and industrial institutions to maneuver
us into replacing deliberate thought with emotional response. We are by now
familiar with good things devised by good people for the benefit our society,
used by bad people to foster their own agenda. In chapter four
"Public Relations; figuring the facts," Ruskoff gives us a [historic] perspective
on how the need for positive acquisition of public opinion has evolved into an
instrument of manipulation by industry.

...Although America was founded on the principle that public opinion
should dictate policy, the polling of citizens' response to proposed
policies have become a way of manipulating rather than acting on the
collective will.
Beginning in the late 1930s, several companies dedicate to monitoring
public opinion were formed in America, bringing about a kind of merge
of the fields of psychology, business, and politics.

Since then, these companies have provided research to political candidates,
corporations and special interest. Although they appear to be conducting
research and analysis of our opinion in order to shape polices according to
our beliefs.

The true polices and economic goals of these interest remain unchanged
by what they learn about us. The result of these studies merely serve to
alter the way corporate or government policy is package. For example,
most corporations understand by now that Americans are concerned
about their environment.

While chemical and waste management industry would like to see legislation
allowing them to dump toxic materials with fewer costly regulation, it is not in
their interest to disclose this desire to a public that when polled, clearly opposes
such practices. By renaming their trade and lobby groups...industry take the
first step to changing public perception.

The sewage industry main public-relations organization, for one, form-
erly called Federation of Sewage Works Association, went through several
"greenings" of it's name until it emerge in the 1960 as the Water Pollution
Control Federation. Today, it is called The Water Environment Federation.

Likewise when public relations firms realize that we are absolutely
opposed to their clients' policies, they simply rename the policy to reflect
the opposite intention or effect. Dozen of clean water acts sent to voters
in referendums... in the 1990s were actually sponsored by chemical com-
panies and industries looking to loosen the regulation on their toxic-waste
dumping and land use....

If you have read the book" Media Virus" discussed here in our previous
segment and you felt undressed, then. You should find "Coercion" quite chilling.