Dalton Sherman – The ‘Michael Jackson’ of right wing think tanks and the crypto-fascists who fund them

By: Danny Weil

Believing is better than asking questions, or so says the ruling class and their lap dogs.  Appealing to irrationality instead of rationality is an old sophist trick refined by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud.  Initially applied to the Creel reports during World War I, Bernays went on to not only show how advertising can engineer desires but also institutionalize ‘propaganda’ which he coined “public relations”, in an attempt to escape the negativity conjured up by the use of the term ‘propaganda’.  Walter Lippmann, a follower of Bernays and a writer for presidents during the early 1900’s, took the psychological manipulations founded by Bernays and applied them to society as a whole – arguing that by appealing to the animal instincts of humans, the ‘id’ as Freud called it, politicians and public relations engineers could “manufacture consent” for what he termed “the bewildered herd” or the hoi polloi.  The disdain for democracy and freedom was and is palpable.  Today it is also computerized within the ‘image’ broadcast on the walls of Plato’s contemporary caves.  Today Plato’s Cave is now equipped with TV and electronic medium.  The medium is not only the message; it is a means to manipulate the mind.

Getting people to wrap their arms around that which derails their own self interests in favor of the engineered desires, emotions and feelings is the role of advertising, be it in politics or in the sale of consumer goods.

Child labor never died, nor did it go away.  It has become sanitized in many respects and nowhere can this be seen with crystal-like clarity than in the use of children to sell ideas, products and capitalist solutions to social problems.   Take Dalton Sherman.

Dalton Sherman is a young black motivational speaker who has been employed (or “pimped” to be more specific) by the masters of capitalism to promote individualism in favor of class consciousness.  As the ‘Michael Jackson’ of the crypto fascist right, he is one of the darlings of the ruling class billionaire supported think tanks, like the Fordham Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and other similar ‘mental’ brothels that are looking to destroy public education.  You can see his famous speech at http://www.schooltube.com/video/70dd826ff5664d968e05/Do-You-Believe-Dalton-Sherman.

Whether it is using children in advertising or using them in political propaganda the methods are always the same – they are based on selling ideas and people as commodities with the intent to manage the dark, murky cauldrons of desires and irrationality that lurk deep in the human mind.  Right wing think tanks understand this quite well for they are paid by the forces of darkness to engineer desires and manufacture consent.  They the bastion of psychological operations meant to control the mind.

The racist ruling class in this country will stoop to any lengths to promote insidious individualism for they abhor and fear an organized working class that seeks ‘individuality’ not crass individualism.  They fear any messages of solidarity and thus they seek out any vehicles they can use for pimping ideas that will serve to benefit the few at the expense of the many.  In this case, it is an eleven year old boy preaching individualism as the divide and conquer strategy employed to prevent social unity.  Sherman knows just what he is doing for he is a ‘sophist’ in the traditional Greek and American sense of the term.

But this is nothing new.  A cursory look at any corporate ads will find children being sold in the interest of profit accumulation for a select few.  Think ‘McDonalds’.  This, of course, is child exploitation.

You might also wish to see how a video on this issue and other issues of educational concern are ‘spoofed’ at Xtranormal.   In the video by Xtranormal, you can see and hear the sardonic truth regarding Dalton Sherman’s speech appealing to an irrational and not very well educated public.  You can go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1xDmhgki8 to see Sherman’s speech on Xtranormal but do check out the many Xtranormal videos that not only spoof the deplorable illiteracy being proposed by Race to the Top, aka No Child Left Behind, but also uncover the treachery called “capitalist economic public relations” and the ‘rhetoric’ used to sell individualistic nightmares.  As you listen, pay close attention to the ‘buzz words’, the ‘feel good words’ that are employed to purchase American dreams and substitute for them American schemes.