The Unethical Use of Propaganda by Sam Zemurray in Advancing UFC’s Commercial Interests.
Rich Cohen’s biography of Samuel Zemurray The Fish that Ate the Whale refers to Zemurray as America’s Banana King, because to the extensive amount of wealth and political influence that he accumulated while commercializing the banana fruit and making it America’s national fruit through his firm – United Fruits Company. However, some of Zemurray’s business practices were not ethical. He was known to frequently deploy the use of propaganda when he realized that things would not go his way. Zemurrays’ use of propaganda was not ethically justified since it was driven by the need to meet the ideals of corporate greed at the expense of nurturing a socially responsible organization that is keen on improving people’s welfare. Edward Bernays was Zemmurray’s spanner boy tasked with implementing the unethical propaganda campaigns. In his 1928 text aptly named Propaganda, Bernays seems to pre-empt his effective propaganda campaign by stating that “the intelligent and conscious manipulation of organized opinions and habits of masses is a necessity in any democratic society” (Barney 7).
Propaganda works on Huxley’s premise that it is easy to condition the human mind to perceive certain moral ideals as the truth (Huxley 23). Sam Zemurray contracted Edward Bernays to deploy a propaganda campaign to boost United Fruit’s public image and counter any dissenting sentiments. Edward Bernays first set out to shape public opinion in Central America by coming up with news publications both within and throughout the area. United Fruit’s employees in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama each received a copy of the weekly “Latin America Report” which was the creat...
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...topple the Guatemalan government just for the sake of his self-preservation. These actions were founded on unethical corporate greed which had led to a long period of undesirable economic and social consequences in Guatemala.
For Guatemala, Zemurray’s propaganda led to the collapse of the land reforms which would have empowered the peasants by turning them into producers. As Huxley (76) implies, individual stability precedes social stability. Multinational businesses like Zemurray’s United Fruit Company owe their hosting societies the obligation to act in a sustainable and socially responsible manner that would empower the locals. The use of propaganda by Zemurray was not ethically justified as it destabilized the broader society and led to a strained relationship between the majority Latin American nations and their American neighbors which persists the present.
Rigoberta Menchu, a Quiche Indian woman native to Guatemala, is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for politically reaching out to her country and her people. In her personal testimony tittled “I, Rigoberta Menchu” we can see how she blossomed into the Nobel Prize winner she is today. Following a great deal in her father’s footsteps, Rigoberta’s mobilization work, both within and outside of Guatemala, led to negotiations between the guerillas and the government and reduced the army power within Guatemala. Her work has helped bring light to the strength of individuals and citizen organization in advocacy and policy dialogue on the world scale. In a brief summary of the book I will explore why Rigoberta Menchu is important to Guatemalan development, what she did, and how she helped her people overcome the obstacles thrown their way.
During the second half of the twentieth century, when the Cold War was on its midst, the United States played an important role in world affairs. The increasing military power that the United States had during the Cold War, allowed it to influence the political decisions that many countries had during this time. The United States directly opposed the idea of communism, which the Soviet Union promoted. This conflict between this two great powers, lasted for five decades, and it tremendously affected the political ideologies of the world. Both countries tried to push their political and economic interest to as many nations as they could, especially those close to their borders. During this time, Guatemala was undergoing a social revolution with communist ideas. The revolution happened as a response to the social injustice committed by the United Fruit Company. The United Fruit Company started to lose land, due to a land reform passed b...
... to overthrow the democratically elected (1950) Guatemalan leader, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Apprehensive of Arbenz’s land reform efforts and the freedom afforded to the communist party under the current regime, President Truman authorized the shipment of weapons and money to anti-Arbenz groups. Within five weeks the operation to topple Arbenz quickly fizzled when representatives loyal to the president uncovered the plot and took steps to solidify their power.
However, this does not necessarily mean colonizing Latin America, but rather having it allied and influenced by the United States' mentality and agenda. The book describes the tactics used by the United States to align these countries' policies and politics with its own. The book effectively portrays the role of the United States in the political affairs of Latin American countries. Higgins examines the Eisenhower administration's invasion of Guatemala, which resulted in a revolt to remove the leftist President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. The Arbenz administration posed a threat to the dominance of American companies in Guatemala, particularly the United Fruit Company.
Take a second to think about the word propaganda. What comes to mind? Do events such as World War II or The Cold War? According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, propaganda is a noun which means “the systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.” In other words, propaganda, in this particular definition, is viewed as the deliberate transmission of an idea or document that a group of people believe in. This definition suits the description of propaganda in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. The Inner Party is pushing the concept of “Big Brother,” the ultimate leader. But words can have multiple meanings and can leave room for interpretation. In an alternate definition, from The Analysis of Propaganda by W. Hummell and K. Huntress, propaganda is defined in a different manner:
Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, showcases a world alternate from ours, in a dystopian setting. Where human morals are drastically altered, families, love, history, and art are removed by the government. They used multiple methods to control the people, but no method in the world is more highly used and more effective than propaganda. The world state heavily implemented the use of propaganda to control, to set morals, and to condition the minds of every citizen in their world. However, such uses of propaganda have already been used in our world and even at this very moment.
... Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia 1500 to the Present. ABC-CLIO. 2003. Google Books. Web.12 April 2011.
“"Propaganda is as powerful as heroin, it surreptitiously dissolves all capacity to think” by Gil Courtemanche connects to the sad fact of using propaganda as a deadly weapon to feed people with false information and stop them from thinking. George Orwell’s novel, 1984 describes a totalitarian dystopia society where the Party is constantly brainwashing its citizens with information that is beneficial to its own rights. On the opposite side people are working for the party just like dominated slaves for their masters without knowing of what’s going on. But, in order for the party to achieve this goal they have to use different techniques of propaganda in Oceania to create fear for people so that they can obey the rules. The use of propaganda
In the book, Propaganda, author Edward L Bernays, who is nephew of Sigmund Freud, transcends the public relation industry. This short, 13-part instructional manual delves deep into the intricacies and usage of propaganda. Bernays claims that the public is in a constant state of manipulation. He argues that in order for a society to be highly functioning and stable, public opinion must be manipulated and swayed. While I find his claims disturbing, it was refreshing to read something so blunt. Bernays’ use of psychological techniques to work the mechanics of public opinion truly classifies him as the “father of public relations.”
From any corner in the world you will be surrounded by propaganda: in the streets, in your house, even when you’re driving. Propaganda appears in many forms but I personally believe it to be the shaping of public beliefs, in which communication is used with the intention of manipulating. In short, propaganda is the art of brainwash. This form of art has been going for many centuries and has played an important role in the history of art, especially during the 20th century in which propaganda was used to persuade people to join the military service or to stand for their countries during wartime. At that time the objective was only one, nowadays there is more than one objective; how does propaganda influence the way 21st century society pre-establishes ideas and makes contradictions within taboos such as tattoos, marijuana and sexuality?
In the article, "Propaganda Techniques in Today's Advertising" the author, Anne McClintock, introduces the notion that she thinks as individuals we’re “all victims” without realizing it. To add, McClintock goes onto explain the origins of propaganda and hence why it has a direct effect with us. As a result, she brings up the fact that even those that think don’t think they can be engorged by propaganda are the main individuals that are affected by propagandists. Overall, McClintock goes on to explain the dynamics of propaganda including, how advertisements of renowned companies entrap us with various methods of propaganda.
Pratkanis, A. (2002). Age of propaganda: the everyday use and abuse of persuasion. New York: W.H. Freeman.
While the word has gained a bad reputation due to its connections with the Nazi propaganda machine, in Edward Bernays’ time, propaganda purely meant information that was used to sway people to a particular cause. While not an entirely negative idea in and of itself, propaganda has historically been (and still remains) an important political tool that is used to maintain and protect certain systems and ideologies. Propaganda is especially important to maintaining the system of capitalism. It is used to persuade the public that capitalism is not only a good, beneficial system, but also a necessary system, a system that promotes and preserves the American ideals of freedom, liberty, and expression. Propaganda also says that capitalism guarantees access to the things that are needed, but also to the things that aren’t needed. This propaganda says that capitalism breeds wealth and luxury, making it accessible to everyone. As a consequence, this propaganda also breeds a desire for wealth and luxury, an insatiable desire that keeps the public locked into a quest for class mobility. Propaganda says that hard work is rewarded, teaches that one earns their station in life and that it is possible to “move on up.” This propaganda can be found everywhere, from books to movies to television and movies, from advertisements to public institutions to individual conversations born from internalized capitalistic
In trying to implement this program, laws were created that allowed the government of Guatemala to “expropriate private and government-owned land,” that was then allowed to be divided among farmers and peasants who had no land of their own. This land reform program was created after looking at a land consensus in 1950, the consensus showed that “2.2% of all landowners possess 75% of all land privately owned, and 76% of them own only 10% among them.” This meant that most of the land were owned almost entirely by 2% of the population while the majority of the population only owned 10% communally. This program called for the “Guatemalan government’s “seizure” of more than 200,000 acres of the company’s land on the west coast of Guatemala.” After having dispersed this land among the peasants, the United Fruit Co. appealed to the Guatemalan government to give back the land. The company argued that since the land was theirs, the government had no right to distribute the land, especially because that land would help for emergencies… Arbenz denied this appeal and United Fruit Co. later moved to appeal to the Guatemalan Supreme
“ All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.” This quote from George Orwell's book, Animal Farm, is one of the mottos that the pigs from the story would use to convince the other farm animals to do what they say. This type of manipulation is known as a propaganda. A propaganda is information used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Although some believe that propagandas are ineffective, this commonly isn't the case because there are a variety of ways that propagandas have been shown to be potent in both history and current events.