Why are Americans so easy to manipulate?

SATURDAY, OCT 13, 2012 09:00 AM CDT
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We may be loathe to admit it, but behaviorism and consumerism are cut from the same cloth.

BY BRUCE E. LEVINE, ALTERNET
(Credit: Sebastian Kaulitzki via Shutterstock)

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

What a fascinating thing! Total control of a living organism!  — psychologist B.F. Skinner

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.

By VC: Irrational Consumerism (or The Few Companies Who Feed the World)

By VC | April 15th, 2011 | Category: Vigilant Reports

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Not many people realize that most of the processed foods available on the market, whether they be in groceries or fast-food chains, all come from the same few companies.  Even less people realize that these companies are major actors in elite organizations who decide health, social and economic policies around the world. We’ll look at the big three companies who feed the world, their many brands and the tactics they undertake to make people crave their products.

If one were to carefully study the labels on packaged products in an average grocery store, one would probably notice that the same company names appear repeatedly: Nestlé, Kraft, General Mills and a few others. Many brands offering good ol’ fashioned homemade or all-natural/organic foods are nothing more than subsidiaries of these few world-wide mega-companies. The major difference between the main brand and the subsidiaries is packaging and advertising, which are targeted to reach different markets. In order to preserve the carefully crafted image surrounding a product, connections to the mother company are often conveniently hidden. Imagine an advertisement for bottled water going like this: “Drink pure, clear, refreshing Aquafina water, bottled with care from remote natural sources in the Himalayas … BROUGHT TO YOU BY PEPSICO, THE MAKER OF TACO BELL AND CHEETOS MIGHTY ZINGERS!” That would probably spoil the healthy, natural image they are trying to create for the product.

15 Striking Print Ads That Show the Audacity of Nazi Germany

15 Striking Print Ads That Show the Audacity of Nazi Germany

October 22, 2009 in Advertising

The Third Reich, Germany’s Nazi era, existed from 1933, when Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Worker’s Party came to power, until 1945, when the regime collapsed at the end of the Second World War. At the time of Hitler’s rise to power Germany was recovering from the First World War and coming to terms with the conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

As evidenced below, the media of the Third Reich era were instrumental in creating the impression of a confident and stylish modern European country, with an air of optimism and triumphalism reflected in the print ads of the time.