When What 'She Said' Counts

A recent NPR broadcast segment produced by the This American Life program focused on an allegation of sexual misconduct by a woman against her anaesthesiologist while she was in labor.

Her allegations were not only not believed by anyone, but she was lied to by the police detective assigned to her case. He never took her allegation seriously and falsely claimed he was doing all sorts of things to advance her case, when in fact he did nothing beyond talking to her from time to time.

The 10 minute broadcast segment: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/669/scrambling-to-get-off-the-ice/act-two-2 The transcript: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/669/transcript (starts at Act Two: Going Under)

The segment is about people in difficult situations who are trying to move and fix things. For a while they are running in place, trying one tactic after another, hoping something will work.

When Jessica Hopper was inappropriately groped by an anesthesiologist, during labor, she tries to out him that same day, to a roomful of hospital staff who don’t believe her. That sets her on a many year mission to get someone to take up her cause. She exhausts herself trying. And then finds out that at least one person had heard her – someone she hadn’t reached out to on her own.

On March 1, 2012, I was in the hospital delivering my son. And an anesthesiologist repeatedly groped me while administering my epidural. I've told the story of what he did to me again and again, dozens of times over the last seven years to the hospital, the police, the detectives, my attorney, the state medical licensing investigator, my victim advocate, a judge, a reporter, another detective, and eventually people close to me.

I pinpoint that moment as when I know something was off, how I read his name tag and took note of his name, where he stood, where the light was in the room, approximately what time of day. I detail how he put his hands on my breasts, cupped and held them. I describe the touch as sexual and not clinical. I describe how he was silent when I asked, what are you doing? And how he did it again. It did not stop until I said, what the [BLEEP] are you doing? I explain how he did not look at me and just left the room, how I told my husband immediately after he came back in the room.

About an hour and a half later, within a minute or two of delivering my son, I told the entire room what the doctor had done to me. But how I told them came out sarcastic and nervous, almost like a joke, saying that I was so happy to have an epidural that I almost didn't mind that the doctor had felt me up. I knew they heard me because the neonatal nurses weighing my son froze, and one locked eyes with me. My midwife told me, don't say that. That didn't happen. Don't say that.

The state's attorney declined to take her case due to lack of evidence. 'He said, she said' cases were impossible to prosecute. One woman's allegations alone are insufficient. Jessica understood there was almost no chance of getting the doctor to face consequences. After the incident, Jessica stopped going to doctors and dentists because she did not want to be touched. Finally she gave up: "On Valentine's Day 2015, feeling deeply discouraged, I told my lawyer to drop my case. I didn't talk about it or tell friends or family because I just wanted this all to go away. I tried to forget, but I couldn't."

The situation changed for Jessica some years later only after another woman came forward and made the same allegations against the same doctor.

He [an investigator] asked me if I would be willing to testify against the doctor. I said yes. Finally, I was being believed because there were two of us. I got off the phone and involuntarily screamed over and over before collapsing on the floor, sobbing. I was furious there were now two of us. I was elated there were now two of us. We were not in this alone.

What I'd learned about the woman who'd come forward was that she was undocumented, a single mom. She did not speak much English, and she was testifying. I felt overcome with love and gratitude for her, this brave woman I didn't know, this woman who is taking a risk coming forward.

Jessica's doctor had his medical license suspended for a minimum of three years, and he was fined $15,000 for what he did to the other woman. He was not disciplined for anything relating to Jessica because there wasn't enough proof for her claims.

Al Franken - Was he treated fairly?

What about Brett Kavanaugh? What about politics?: Remember the sex misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh? At least two credible women alleged sexual misconduct, but of different kinds. The conservative tribe (republicans, populists, Evangelical Christians, etc.) mostly rejected the claims of both women, sometimes as lies, sometimes as confusion, sometimes as insufficient. The FBI did not do a thorough investigation so there was no serious effort to collect available evidence. The liberal tribe mostly accepted the the claims of both women.

What that says about politics, its morals and how it works is simple: Men in the conservative political tribe can get away with stuff, but men in the liberal political tribe could have a harder time pulling it off. In broader society, two allegations are probably more likely to be taken seriously and investigated seriously. In politics they may not be taken or investigated seriously. It depends on the tribe you are in.

Brett Kavanaugh - Were his accusers treated fairly? B&B orig: 3/5/19

Evidence For Global Warming Passes Physics' Gold Standard Threshold

Author: Bridging the Gap

Physicists have a gold standard for the burden of proof known as five sigma. A new analysis shows that even the most conservative climate data have passed this point.

Scientists released the analysis of satellite temperature data in Nature Climate Change to mark 40 years of observations. Until satellites came about in the 1970s, scientists had to rely on weather balloons that provided sparse, imperfect data on what was going on in the atmosphere. The satellites were transformative, allowing scientists to improve models, validate past theories about climate change, and generally showing that human ingenuity is astounding. We can measure temperature from space!

To commemorate this achievement, the new study looked at three major satellite temperature datasets which were created using slightly different methods. They then used an analysis to tease out the signal of global warming from the noise of background variability, and charted its significance. For two of the datasets, they found the global warming signal emerged at the five sigma level in just 27 years. But by 40 years, even the most conservative dataset kept at the University of Alabama, Huntsville cleared the five sigma threshold. What that means in everyday language is that there’s a roughly 1-in-3.5 million chance that the warming we’ve seen is due to random chance.

“Five sigma is a big deal for physicists,” Ben Santer, the lead author of the study and climate scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told Earther. “It is the gold standard for discovery in physics. When the announcement was made for Higgs boson, that was the big deal and the detection of particle was at a sigma threshold. Crossing a five sigma ain’t no minor warming.”

The new paper puts a nail in the coffin of the tired satellite data argument. Which isn’t to say jabronis like Cruz will stop using it, but now it’s clear to the five sigma value just how bad faith the talking point is.

Complete story:
Evidence For Global Warming Passes Physics' Gold Standard

Second post:

Climate games

Reuters reports that a new analysis of temperature data has increased the level of certainty that humans are the main cause of global warming.

Evidence for man-made global warming has reached a “gold standard” level of certainty, adding pressure for cuts in greenhouse gases to limit rising temperatures, scientists said on Monday.
They said confidence that human activities were raising the heat at the Earth’s surface had reached a “five-sigma” level, a statistical gauge meaning there is only a one-in-a-million chance that the signal would appear if there was no warming.

Such a “gold standard” was applied in 2012, for instance, to confirm the discovery of the Higgs boson subatomic particle, a basic building block of the universe.

Benjamin Santer, lead author of Monday’s study at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said he hoped the findings would win over skeptics and spur action.

The confidence one can have that skeptics will be won over by this finding is a ten-sigma thing, about 1 in a gazillion chance. Dr. Santer, good soul that he is, needs to get his brains checked for anomalies, radiation leaks, photon eruptions, and other medical stuff. This will be used by climate change skeptics, a/k/a/ Russian Roulette players, as more evidence of a deep state conspiracy running false flag operations to destroy America and all that is good and decent.

B&B orig: 1st post 2/28/19; 2nd post 2/25/19

Can Democracy Survive With Zero Partisan Cooperation?

Yesterday, NPR broadcast a deeply disturbing segment on how things are going to work or fail to work in congress. The segment is about a recent hearing in the House of Representatives. The hyper-partisanship, rage and mutual hate on display here is no less bitter than what Americans got to see in the Michael Cohen hearing last week. There is no obvious reason to think that this situation will change any time in the foreseeable future. The democratic-republican divide prevents any cooperation whatever, at least on 'political' matters such as investigating Trump. It is fair to see this situation as a test of the robustness of liberal democracy with our republican form of government versus an encroaching authoritarianism that envisions a different form of government.

The segment was produced by the This American Life program that NPR airs. The 34 minute segment, New Sheriffs in Town, described the planning and execution of the House Judiciary Committee's first public hearing on activities related to President Trump. Their first witness was intended to be acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.

The segment is here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/669/scrambling-to-get-off-the-ice/act-one-2 The transcript is here: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/669/transcript

The open hearing was planned for weeks. Whitaker was told far in advance of questions the committee wanted to raise with him. The democrats wanted the hearing to show Americans what they think was going on. They believe that Whitaker was a hatchet man to protect Trump from Special Counsel Mueller's investigation, which potentially amounts to obstruction of justice. On the other hand, republicans on the committee claimed the hearing was not warranted and they wanted to hear from people they hate including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Republicans believe Rosenstein is pny out to get Trump for no reason other than pure partisanship.

The last two years of republican inquiries been focused mainly on investigating alleged wrongdoing by pro-democratic officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice. Their inquiry into activities by Trump, his campaign and Russia were insincere at best and almost non-existent at worst.

Republicans opposed and delayed the meeting as much as they possibly could. The republican strategy was to discredit the Hearing and witness testimony so that half the country will believe it is a partisan sham and of little or no importance regardless of the evidence. The Department of Justice also acted to neuter or completely derail the hearing as much as possible. Shortly before the hearing, the DoJ told the House committee that Whitaker would not testify unless democrats pledges in writing not to issue a subpoena if they believed that Whitaker was refusing to answer questions during the hearing. That nearly caused the hearing to collapse.

Democrats caved in and made the pledge. They were desperate to get Whitaker's testimony before the American people. Republicans in the House and the DoJ were desperate to block Whitaker's testimony before the American people, and failing that, to limit it as much as possible to irrelevant fluff.

Cooperators in the House over time

Advantage republicans: Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler's strategy in questioning Whitaker was to raise questions with yes or no answers in an attempt to get at key points and to be clear about it. However, with no threat of a subpoena to force answers out of him, Whitaker's strategy was brilliant and as effective as it possibly could be under the circumstances.

The republicans won.

Here is how Whitaker did it. Instead of giving yes or no answers to questions, Whitaker deflected, obfuscated and spent as much precious time as possible not saying yes or no. Each committee member had only 5 minutes. That is so little time as to be ridiculous for a heraing like this with a hostile witness, but that the stupid rule the House pretends to do its job under.

Here is the relevant transcript:

Narrator Zoe Chace: Everyone's vote on adjournment is painstakingly read out loud. That's four minutes less hearing, classic minority party stalling tactic. Also literally, Collins [republican ranking member] doesn't think we should be having this hearing. Whitaker opening statement, Nadler moves to questions. Right off the bat, Nadler's tactic of yes or no, Mr. Whitaker, gets mixed results.

Jerry Nadler: Well, it's our understanding that at least one briefing occurred in December before your decision not to recuse yourself on December 19 and Christmas Day. Is that correct?

Matthew Whitaker: What's the basis for that question, sir?

Nadler: Yes or no? Is it correct?

Whitaker: I mean, I--

Nadler: It is our understanding that at least one briefing occurred between your decision not to recuse yourself on December 19 and six days later, Christmas Day. Is that correct? Simple enough question, yes or no?

Whitaker: Mr. Chairman, again, what is the basis for your question? You're saying that it is your--

Nadler: Sir, I'm asking the questions. I only have five minutes, so please answer, yes or no.

Whitaker: No, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to-- you were asking me a question, it is your understanding-- can you tell me where you get the basis?

Nadler: No, I'm not going to tell you that. I'm don't have time to get into that. I'm just asking you if that's correct or not. Is it correct? Were you briefed in that time period between December 19 and Christmas Day? Simple question, yes or no?

Whitaker: Congressman, if every member here today asked questions based on their mere speculation--

Nadler: All right, never mind. At any point--

Whitaker: You don't have an an actual basis for your questions.

Nadler: Yes or no.

Narrator Chace: Whitaker plods slowly through every answer, taking time to pull his tiny glasses on and off his face and regularly declining to answer. Congressman, thank you for that question. Congressman, I know this is an important issue to you. And then even when he does answer, the answers are swaddled in weird, half non-answers.

Whitaker: Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier today in my opening remarks, I do not intend today to talk about my private conversations with the President of the United States. But to answer your question, I have not talked to the President of the United States about the special counsel's investigation.

Nadler: So the answer is no, thank you. To any other White House official?

Chace: The effect of this is that it's really hard to tell what really went on while Whitaker was AG, which part matters, and importantly, who's being unreasonable-- Democrats for yelling yes or no at him, or Whittaker for being obstinate? Does he know stuff and he's hiding it? Does he not know stuff, and they're berating him? I truly cannot tell.

In that exchange and the entire hearing, Nadler, the democrats and democracy clearly lost. It wasn't mixed results as Chace called it. It was a total win for Trump, Whitaker the republican party and populist authoritarianism. The American people and democracy got nothing much out of Whitaker or the hearing except a major self-inflicted wound (assuming the American people are at least partly responsible for this mess, and maybe they are).

Chase goes on to point out that the only way democrats could even make their points so that the American people could understand why there was any hearing at all was to use their precious time to describe what it was that Whitaker did and thus why they wanted him to answer their questions.

Democracy vs authoritarian kleptocracy: This is how federal governance is going to play out for the foreseeable future. The hyper-partisanship raises the question of whether democracy can survive or whether some form of corrupt Trump-populist authoritarianism will slowly engulf and destroy democracy. Given how this hearing played out, one can see the advantage that relentless authoritarianism, aided by tactics such as obstructionism, plausible deniability, doubt and dark free speech, including lies of omission (deflecting questions), has in view of weak, seemingly ineffective defenses of democracy. Time will tell how this war plays out. With any luck, the defenses will turn out to be stronger than they appear from this debacle.

B&B orig: 3/4/19

The Rule of Law: Not Nearly as Objective as People Think

Cabbage on a Stick plants -- critically endangered because the moth that pollinated them is extinct and 1 plant is left in the wild on the Island of Kauai on a cliff edge - these are in the zoo and doing well being pollinated by hand

A New York Times article, Old Rape Kits Finally Got Tested. 64 Attackers Were Convicted., reports that a push to test old rape kits is leading to convictions of attackers and rapists.

Ms. Sudbeck’s [rape] case is one of thousands that have gotten a second look from investigators since the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., committed $38 million in forfeiture money to help other jurisdictions test rape kits. Since the grants began being distributed in 2015, the evidence kits have led to 165 prosecutions in cases that were all but forgotten. So far, 64 of those have resulted in convictions.

Rarely have public dollars from a local prosecutor’s office been so directly tied to results with such national implications. The initiative has paid to get about 55,000 rape kits tested in 32 law enforcement agencies in 20 states, among them the police departments in Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Miami, Memphis, Austin, Tex., and Kansas City, Mo.

Nearly half produced DNA matches strong enough to be added to the F.B.I.’s nationwide database of genetic profiles. About 9,200 of those matched with DNA profiles in the system, providing new leads and potential evidence.

Past failure to vindicate the rule of law by not testing rape kits is just one kind of subjectivity that suffuses the rule of law. It is a moral outrage and fairly common.

Recently House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated that it is not worth impeaching President Trump unless there is overwhelming evidence that could convince even congressional republicans. It is very likely that whatever evidence is available will not lead congressional republicans to vote to impeach Trump. Another congressional democrat commented that impeaching Trump can't be done unless there is a major public opinion shift to support impeachment. It is very likely that whatever evidence is available will not lead Trump supporters to want to see him impeached. All of that makes impeachment a subjective exercise in partisan politics, not something based on the rule of law, evidence or logic.

Convicted felon Paul Manafort received a 37-month sentence for 8 major felonies. Federal sentencing guidelines posited a 19-24 year sentence for what Manafort did. The federal judge in Manafort’s case was openly biased against and hostile to special counsel Mueller's prosecution of Manafort. In imposing the light sentence, the judge said that Manafort's life was “mostly blameless.” Since Manafort is a long term criminal, the judge’s sentence spared Manafort out of anger at Mueller, not based on the gravity of Manafort’s crimes. In this instance, the rule of law was almost purely subjective. It was heavily rigged in favor of white, white collar criminals.

Some political philosophy on the Rule of Law concept: In a paper, Is The Rule Of Law An Essentially ContestedConcept (In Florida)?, a researcher analyzed how the 2000 election was treated by the courts. The paper comments:

For legal and political philosophers, one item of particular interest was the constant reference in public appeals of almost all the participants to the venerable ideal we call “the rule of law.” The references were legion, and often at odds with one another. This was true of every phase of the debacle.

“One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the rule of law.” (dissent in the Supreme Court 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore

Vice President Gore took the high line that public criticism of the courts was precluded by the Rule of Law. Yet plainly, many on his side thought that in the circumstances they could do nothing better for the Rule of Law than to condemn the majority's decision as shameful.

The paper’s author, Jeremy Waldron, points out that even before the Bush v. Gore decision, theorists were inching toward the conclusion that the rule of law concept was meaningless. Quoting one theorist, Judith Shklar:

It would not be very difficult to show that the phrase “the Rule of Law” has become meaningless thanks to ideological abuse and general over-use. It may well have become just another one of those self-congratulatory rhetorical devices that grace the public utterances of Anglo-American politicians. No intellectual effort therefore need be wasted on this bit of ruling-class chatter.

Waldron goes on to write that on Shklar's view, invoking the Rule of Law as an authority is “incapable of driving one's argument very much further forward than the argument could have driven on its own. . . . . at the end of the day, many will have formed the impression that the utterance of those magic words meant precious little more than "Hooray for our side!”

Despite Shklar’s harsh assessment, Waldron points out that there might be real value in trying to rationalize the rule of law concept. The urgent, important problem that Waldron describes is how to make the law rule instead of having men rule using the law as an excuse to get what they want. Waldron's paper is complex, but it boils down to trying to find a solution to the problem of rule by men instead of by law. I think there are avenues to at least try that, but outcomes are not knowable without the necessary experimentation. That is for a different discussion focused on that issue.

For this discussion it is sufficient to assert that the Rule of Law related to political matters is often, maybe usually, as or more subjective (ideological or in-group vs out-group) than objective. That is a significant source of political and social polarization in American society, e.g., the 2015 Obergefell Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. In turn, that polarization can arguably constitute an existential threat to liberal democracy and possibly modern civilization, and maybe even the fate of the human species.

Fixing the Rule of Law to at least some non-trivial extent seems to be a critically important task on the road to trying to rationalize politics relative to what it is now. That assumes partial rationalization is possible.

Political rationalization really has its work cut out for it.

Not Cabbage on a Stick

B&B orig: 3/13/19

Does Absolute Free Speech Mean Fairness, Objectivity and Impartiality?

“But it cannot be the duty, because it is not the right, of the state to protect the public against false doctrine. The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion. In this field, every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.” U.S. Supreme Court in Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 545 (1945)

Moderator message at the former Political Rhetoric Busters Disqus channel and its reincarnation as a Word Press blog

Some people advocate absolute free speech or something close to it. Some may even want to remove limits on speech that incites imminent violence, is defamatory, child porn, and/or false advertising. It is the case that allowing all speech, except what can now be punished or proscribed, is tantamount to being fair, objective and impartial? If so, that means that dark free speech[1] is fair, objective and impartial.

But on the other hand, facts, truths and logic are often bitterly contested. For example, people who deny that global warming is real or caused mostly by human activities disagree about the science, the data and its interpretation. They usually also attack the scientists as liars, incompetent, ignorant of basic science, and/ or enemies of the state. The two sides rely on different, incompatible sets of facts and logic. Minds do not change.

The Supreme Court made it clear that because judges have no idea of how to separate honest from dishonest speech, the Constitution protects dark free speech as much as honest free speech.

History, and cognitive and social sciences make it clear that dark speech is more persuasive than honest speech. Evolution hard-wired human brains to respond more strongly to threats and the negative emotions threat elicits. In practice, this means that dark speech is easily made to be stronger than honest speech, e.g., by lying, exaggerating and so forth. For example, President Trump’s claim that there is an emergency along the Mexico border is considered by most people to be a false alarm.[2] Nonetheless, that alarm is persuasive to many people, especially when people crossing the border are falsely portrayed as murdering, raping, pedophile narco terrorists.

Ban the speaker: The political right often criticizes the left as intolerant of opposing speech. They point to instances where speakers on college campuses are disinvited to speak. The left responds that the speakers are socially damaging in various ways, e.g., they are liars, or they foment unwarranted fear, hate, intolerance, etc.

In view of his past history of fomenting hate and racism, Australia canceled a visa for Milo Yiannopoulos to visit there. The Guardian reports: “Immigration minister David Coleman said on Saturday that comments about Islam made by Yiannopoulos in the wake of the Christchurch [New Zealand]massacre were ‘appalling and foment hatred and division’ and he would not be allowed in the country.”

The shooter in the Christchurch New Zealand mass murder was explicit in his ‘manifesto’ that he was murdering to divide people about guns and he used social media to spread his message of racist rage and hate while he slaughtered innocents and showed it online in real time.

Given history and human biology is it fair, objective and impartial to let people use dark free speech against the public? Or, because the courts have held there is no way to tell truth from lies, (1) allowing dark speech free reign is fair, objective and/or impartial, and (2) that’s the best that inherently flawed humans can do in view of their cognitive limitations?

Footnotes:
1. Dark free speech: lies, deceit, unwarranted emotional manipulation such as fomenting unwarranted fear, hate, anger, intolerance, bigotry or racism, unwarranted opacity to hide relevant facts or truths.

2. “Numerous polls suggest Trump’s decision was popular among his Republican base. But his decision to use executive authority to fund a wall along the southern border is opposed by a clear majority of the public.

That is reflected in six polls taken from early January to early March. By roughly a 2-to-1 margin, Americans oppose Trump’s decision to use emergency powers to build a border wall. That’s a wider margin than the Senate resolution to overturn Trump’s declaration of a national emergency, which passed 59 to 41.”

B&B orig: 3/16/19

The Subtle Power of Propaganda

In his short but mind blowing 1923 masterpiece on propaganda, Crystallizing Public Opinion, Edward Bernays describes his profession as a master propagandist. In his time, he was unsurpassed as a manipulator of mass public opinion. Bernays is considered by many historians to be one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century. He, along with a few other masters of 'public relations' (Bernays invented the term) transformed America from a needs based society to a desires based society. Bernays and a couple of other propagandists working for the US government coaxed a reluctant America to enter into the mindless slaughter of World War I, successfully using the powerful propaganda line of making the world safe for democracy. German Nazis learned their propaganda techniques from Bernays. After he learned that the Nazis were using his techniques to control public opinion and persecute people, he wrote this: They were using my books as the basis for a destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany. This shocked me, but I knew any human activity can be used for social purposes or misused for antisocial ones.

Bernays invented the term 'public relations' for propaganda after the Nazis made the phrase synonymous with lies, deceit, trickery, baseless emotional manipulation and authoritarianism. He went to his grave believing that using propaganda or public relations techniques to manipulate public opinion was for social good because the real goal of 'proper' propaganda is always social. History has proven that he was wrong about this and propaganda or public relations is still seen by many or most people as essentially antisocial, not essentially social. What Bernays taught the world was how to manipulate mass public opinion for any purpose, not merely for social good.

Cigarettes and light bulbs: To sell more cigarettes, Bernays created an advertising campaign that made women who smoked in public seem to be empowered and independent creatures of wisdom and grace. He coined the phrase *'torches of freedom'* for cigarettes and successfully made it socially acceptable for women to smoke in public. Obviously, conning both men and women into accepting women smoking in public did little or nothing to empower women, but that didn't matter. Cigarette sales skyrocketed, which was the only point of the ad campaign. Bernays also turned public opinion to acceptance of private ownership of electrical utilities after powerful individuals saw the vast amounts of money they could make by selling electricity themselves instead of having governments control the sales. Bernays' propaganda was a critical factor is establishing America's current capitalist vision of very powerful, very self-interested electrical utility companies. Opinions will differ as to how that has played out for the public interest in the last century or so.

Politics, truth and propaganda: Despite his dubious claim that he used propaganda only for the public good, see cigarettes above, Bernays was no fool about exactly what terrors and mass slaughter it could unleash. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, was acutely aware of the science of his time. He understood people's minds as well as anyone, and far better than most. His comments in *Crystallizing Public Opinion* make that clear. He wrote:

“It is manifestly impossible for either side in [a political] dispute to obtain a totally unbiased point of view as to the other side. . . . . The only difference between ‘propaganda’ and ‘education’, really, is in the point of view. The advocacy of what we believe in is education. The advocacy of what we don’t believe in is propaganda. . . . . Political, economic and moral judgments, as we have seen, are more often expressions of crowd psychology and herd reaction than the result of the calm exercise of judgment. . . . . Intolerance is almost inevitably accompanied by a natural and true inability to comprehend or make allowance for opposite points of view. . . . We find here with significant uniformity what one psychologist has called ‘logic-proof compartments.’ The logic-proof compartment has always been with us.”

His characterization of politics and truth strike this observer as stunningly accurate and deeply disturbing. Bernays clearly described in 1923 what is now the irrational and reality- and reason-untethered thing we call American politics in 2019. His comment on the relativity of truth depending on point of view is spot on. And, when a modern American politician or business mogul gets in hot water over some scandal, their usual first impulse is to call out a public relations folks to formulate the spin and lies they will use against the public to cool the water down so they can stay in power and effectively argue they never did what they did. That spin & lie trick is playing out with a vengeance right now in Washington politics. Propaganda lives. Propaganda works. President Trump is living proof.

A 4-hour documentary on Bernays' life and influence is here:



B&B orig: 3/20/19