When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn't about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.
When I go back to America, after a few days I am once again filled with this kind of angry alienation and disgust with this thing there that America has got - you have no idea how pervasive it is there. The public relations and propaganda put out by the corporate mono-culture there is so pervasive.
The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the 'engineering of consent' by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays.
Public relations is at best promotion or manipulation, at worst evasion and outright deception. What it is never about is a free flow of information.
I'm an officer in her Majesty's Royal New Zealand Navy. I'm a public relations officer in the Royal New Zealand Navy. Sounds good, doesn't it?
In this digital age, there is no place to hide behind public relations people. This digital age requires leaders to be visible and authentic and to be able to communicate the decisions they've made and why they've made them, to be able to acknowledge when they've made a mistake and to move forward, to engage in the debate.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
My view is different. Public relations are a key component of any operation in this day of instant communications and rightly inquisitive citizens.
All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed.