Psyops is advertising. Social control-based advertising.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

According to PRpan's scorning of "huge conspiracies," there's no such thing as a national psyops program coordinated with regional centers, a system begun in WWII as the Office of War Information and as described recently in Army Field Manual 33-1 (Psychological Operations) or 100-20 (Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict).

source-
Army Field Manual 100/20
Air Force Pamphlet 3-20
12/5/90 version

Appendix E pages E-14 and E-15

Psychological Operations

......
Objectives

Psychological operations support the achievement of national objectives and target specific groups. The PSYOP objectives for the main target groups are as follows:

* Insurgents - to create dissension, disorganization, low morale, subversion, and defection within insurgent forces. Also important are national programs to win insurgents over to the government's side.
* Civilian population - to gain, preserve, and strengthen civilian support for the government and its counterinsurgency programs.
* Military forces - to gain, preserve, or strengthen military support with emphasis on builiding and maintaining the morale of these forces. The loyalty, discipline, and motivation of the forces are critical factors in combating insurgency.
* Neutral elements - to gain the support of uncommitted groups inside and outside of the threatened nation by revealing the insurgency's subversive activities. Also important is bringing international pressure to bear on any hostile power sponsoring the insurgency.
* External hostile powers - to convince the hostile power supporting the insurgents that the insurgency will fail.

National Program

The national PSYOP program contains national objectives, plans, guidance, and desired approaches. Planners prepare and coordinate an informational program at the national level. A single agency should be responsible for coordinating these efforts to avoid conflicting themes and programs.

Agencies at all levels base their PSYOP on the national plan, interpreting them in terms of local requirements, and coordinating them through appropriate ACCs [Area Coordination Centers]. To achieve maximum effectiveness, all informational activities depend on clearly established channels.

Civilian and Military Organizations

PSYOP organizations conduct and support informational activities at the national level and at the subnational and local levels.

A single agency at the national level -

> Plans a coordinated national PSYOP program.
> Organizes, trains, and allocates PSYOP units and resources.
> Conducts strategic PSYOP.
> Develops program effectiveness criteria.
> Monitors the PSYOP program.
> Produces, analyzes, and disseminates PSYOP intelligence.
> Provides an analysis of specific target groups.

At the subnational level, the ACC translates national PSYOP programs and directives into implementing guidance for local ACCs and all government agencies. At the local level, the ACC provides direction to area agencies, forces, and PSYOP teams.
Paramilitary organizations normally do not have their own PSYOP teams. Civilian or armed forces organizations provide PSYOP support.
......

[Zap]

Ohhh, so, the Army's manual for their foreign psychological operations is evidence of the CIA domestically using such tactics, but taken to extreme lengths, depths, and scale, and in total secrecy?

[Sweejak]

An Army civilian from a Fort Lewis, Wash., "force protection division" infiltrated a Seattle-area antiwar group posing as an anarchist who could steal classified information for the organization, according to little-noticed news reports.

A member of the antiwar group said documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that his friend and fellow activist "John Jacob" was actually military spy John Towery

"It's disturbing that military units are involved in any domestic law enforcement activity," said German, now an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who coauthored critical studies of the fusion centers in 2007 and 2008.

"It's unclear whether officials in D.C. understand what the military is doing in domestic law enforcement," German told SpyTalk.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/200 ... jeff-stein

[wintler2]

I find Hughs sifting of PrPan's post on pg8 illuminating.. Pans argument attempts to be emotionally manipulative and is repeatedly dishonest. Thats no basis for a relationship!

[Maddy]

The Military doesn't have a specific training for it either... or that satanists would use it or anything.

[Corvidaerex]

No one has control of you, Hugh.

If the CIA or Disney or whatever did propaganda -- they did, yes -- then boo to them.

But what do YOU do, with your life, today? Each morning we awake, and we have the next 24 hours to enjoy. Did you have a nice breakfast? Walk outside and see the blue sky and feel the breeze? Call your mom, if she is still alive, and think kindly about her if she has passed on?

Are there children who live wherever you live, Hugh? Did you say hi to them, and enjoy watching them play in the grass?

Birds? We have birds, still. Did you see some birds, maybe chatting at each other, maybe flying about, maybe eating the bird seed you put out for them, at a modest cost.

When you wake up and smile, you will have a happier day. You can do some "ops" on yourself, and perhaps hang a branch in your bedroom. When you awake and see it, smile! Breathe in, breathe out. You are a person. You are humanity. And you win by being human.

[MinM]

The association of civil rights issues - race - with a keyword as loaded as 'Pinky' (1949) and then the anti-union film 'On the Waterfront' (1954) makes an interesting example of how film can fortify fascist values while seeming to be progressive in another age. People think of 'Waterfront' as being pro-whistleblower in a conformist age but it was against unions which are portrayed as corrupt thuggish gangs...

Writer Budd Schulberg dies at 95

Won an Oscar for 'On the Waterfront'

By Duane Byrge and Gregg Kilday
Aug 5, 2009, 09:08 PM ET
Updated: Aug 5, 2009, 10:27 PM ET

Budd Schulberg, who won an Academy Award for the screenplay for "On the Waterfront" and penned the definitive portrait of a Hollywood hustler in his novel "What Makes Sammy Run?" died Wednesday. He was 95.

His wife Betsy told the Associated Press that he died of natural causes at his home in Westhampton Beach, N.Y. He was taken to a nearby medical center, where efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.

Alternately scorned and lionized by Hollywood during the course of his career, Schulberg, the son of a powerful studio executive, was a writer of varied forms, including magazine articles, novels and screenplays. He adapted his short story "Your Arkansas Traveler," about the rise and fall of a popular entertainer, for the screen as "A Face in the Crowd," which Elia Kazan directed in 1957.

Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating allegations of Communism in the motion picture industry, Schulberg was vilified for appearing as a friendly witness, naming Hollywood colleagues as Communists, a political philosophy he admitted to having flirted with during the 1930s. He contended that he named only names that were already known to the red-baiting committee.

Born Seymour Wilson Schulberg on March 27, 1914 in Harlem, he was the son of movie producer Benjamin P. Schulberg. While a youngster, his family moved to the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. The elder Schulberg partnered with Louis B. Mayer in an independent production company. But when B.P. Schulberg and Mayer dissolved their partnership, Schulberg's father went on to become production head of Paramount Studios.

While a teen, Schulberg wrote press releases for Paramount, cranking out outlandish stories for the fan magazines. His specialty was concocting colorful and endearing stories about what stars did for a living before they made it big.

He attended Dartmouth College with the intention of becoming an archeologist, but instead he developed his writing talents, turning out magazine articles. The college's Winter Carnival would later become the setting for his novel "The Disenchanted," in which he based a character on his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Upon his college graduation, Schulberg returned to Los Angeles, where he found work as a writer on a number of studio assignments, contributing uncredited work to such movies as "Nothing Sacred" (1937) and "A Star Is Born" (1937).

His anthropologist's bent for analyzing cultures stayed with him. While contributing to screenplays, he also wrote offbeat stories, ridiculing contemporary fads...

[brainpanhandler]

Conspiracy themed Hyundai marketing campaign in preparation for the big Super Bowl advertising blitz:










http://www.compactconspiracy.com/

[82_28]

Cool. Thanks for bumping. I was wondering where to put a link to this commercial I saw last night and has been sitting in an open tab for awhile.

[brainpanhandler]

I reread this thread. I assume the impetus that impelled it's creation was the frustration Hugh felt in some other thread merely establishing the fact that domestic psyops and social engineering exist at all. So his contention here is that we can all agree that advertising exists? Right? And we can agree that the advertising industry employs state of the art persuasion techniques that are at least partially inspired by sophisticated cognitive neuroscience disciplines. Right? Et voila... psyops propaganda is just social control based advertising. This of course requires a little leap since the actual proof is somewhat lacking.

Barracuda's first objection is that it's a bad analogy "in that the psyop must actually be poised against the general cultural grain (as opposed presumably to advertising which goes with the general cultural grain) - the creativity of individuals, invention, the zeitgeist itself, literary, musical and artistic output, etc., which is orders of magnitude larger in scope than the size any psyop campaign could possibly attain."

While I agree with him, roughly speaking, that doesn't make it a bad analogy.

A politcal ad denouncing universal healthcare has to go against the general cultural grain. I mean how else do you get so many people supporting policies against their own best interests or opposing policies which are in their best interests?

While I would not argue that any one ad conclusively cinches the deal with a consumer, whether the product be a Hyundai Elantra or a political message, and that there are always other factors which weigh more heavily than the machinations of the mind fuckers, nonetheless, wouldn't we all agree with the general proposition that the advertising industry taken as a whole has been pretty successful at creating and reinforcing a sense that consuming stuff is the path to happiness? Is that against the general cultural grain?

So, just as any one psyop ad/technique might not be a conclusive factor, could we say that the psyops/social engineering enterprise taken as a whole has succeeded in creating general attitudes helpful to the state and it's interests or at least not unhelpful?

[brainpanhandler]

BTW Hugh,

I learned way too late that adding rational history and science about social control and oppression to the CIA's W.O.O. (Wonderment Occluding Objectivity) psyops decoyt topics like 'UFOs from outer space' is detrimental to that history and science. The sociological term for this is "proximity contamination."

posting.php?mode=quote&f=8&p=379635

I couldn't determine that "proximity contamination" is some pat phrase used in sociological literature. I think you just made that up.

[barracuda]

I reread this thread. I assume the impetus that impelled it's creation was the frustration Hugh felt in some other thread merely establishing the fact that domestic psyops and social engineering exist at all.

Yeaah, this thread was begun in the middle of an ongoing discussion, if you're wondering why I came in like such a dick. I mean, besides the fact that I'm a dick.

So his contention here is that we can all agree that advertising exists? Right? And we can agree that the advertising industry employs state of the art persuasion techniques that are at least partially inspired by sophisticated cognitive neuroscience disciplines. Right? Et voila... psyops propaganda is just social control based advertising. This of course requires a little leap since the actual proof is somewhat lacking.

Barracuda's first objection is that it's a bad analogy "in that the psyop must actually be poised against the general cultural grain (as opposed presumably to advertising which goes with the general cultural grain) - the creativity of individuals, invention, the zeitgeist itself, literary, musical and artistic output, etc., which is orders of magnitude larger in scope than the size any psyop campaign could possibly attain."

While I agree with him, roughly speaking, that doesn't make it a bad analogy.

My problem with the OP was with the analogy that "It's the same as Coke vs Pepsi where authority/power is Coke and anything that impedes Coke's market share is Pepsi." I don't have any issue with the idea that psyops is analgous to advertising.

A politcal ad denouncing universal healthcare has to go against the general cultural grain. I mean how else do you get so many people supporting policies against their own best interests or opposing policies which are in their best interests?

I think the reality is that most people worldwide don't actually support anti-healthcare policies. Even in this country, the only way the state has been able to avoid implementation of universal healthcare is by completely thwarting the obvious will of most people within the machinations of the legislative process, and convincing the republican/tea party types that somehow single-payer is socialism but Medicare/Social Security is not. Of course the contingent of persons to whom this makes sense are unlikely to be convinced of anything reasonable. They have no desire to be, and their entire self-image is based upon irredeemable qualities such as obsequience to the state, racism, greed, etc. Some people don't even require a psyop to make the wrong choice.

While I would not argue that any one ad conclusively cinches the deal with a consumer, whether the product be a Hyundai Elantra or a political message, and that there are always other factors which weigh more heavily than the machinations of the mind fuckers, nonetheless, wouldn't we all agree with the general proposition that the advertising industry taken as a whole has been pretty successful at creating and reinforcing a sense that consuming stuff is the path to happiness? Is that against the general cultural grain?

People have wanted stuff and more of it for as long as people have wanted, though. This aquisitiveness isn't a result of relentless advertising - it is clearly part of the human psyche.

So, just as any one psyop ad/technique might not be a conclusive factor, could we say that the psyops/social engineering enterprise taken as a whole has succeeded in creating general attitudes helpful to the state and it's interests or at least not unhelpful?

Maybe. But is there any doubt that these attitudes have existed for the last ten-thousand years of imperial culture, long before the advent of the existing network of advertising as we understand it existed at all? Behind the psyop has always been a rock, a sword, or a gun, and the overt willingness of the masses to acceed to the demands of the powerful.

Cool. Thanks for bumping. I was wondering where to put a link to this commercial I saw last night and has been sitting in an open tab for awhile.

Oooo, I like that commercial. I used to own one of those old Chryslers, a 1959 Dodge wagon. It looked exactly like this one:



Talk about arriving in style. I succumbed to the beauty of the thing, not the propaganda.

[Elvis]

That Chrysler commercial filled me with mixed emotions: sadness, grief and despair.



Hugh has shown pretty well that a lot people are paid to study full-time what he's talking about, but, like many, I question the depth and breadth of their work and its effects.

I guess this is neither here nor there, but I got curious and looked up the boards of directors for Coca Cola and Pepsico. Not a lot of difference. Not exactly "interlocking" but fascinating. Neither seems any sweeter than the other.

http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourc ... _kent.html

http://www.pepsico.com/Company/Board-of ... ttees.html

[brainpanhandler]

That Chrysler commercial filled me with mixed emotions: sadness, grief and despair.

That's not really a 'mix' of emotions, but yeah, I think it's intended to evoke a sense of nostalgic melancholia about the good old days when we Americans were stylin'. It's slick as hell. I guess it's aimed at one of the few sizeable demographics with any money anymore, the ageing babyboomers.

[Elvis]

That Chrysler commercial filled me with mixed emotions: sadness, grief and despair.

That's not really a 'mix' of emotions, but yeah. . . .

Well, I was trying to make a cute joke by naming the same emotion three times ("fail," as the kids say). (borrowed from the remark of an army officer being shipped home from the Vietnam war: "I leave Vietnam with mixed emotions: joy and happiness.")

Yes, the ad is definitely an appeal to lost greatness, layers of nostalgia reaching back to top hat days. What worries me about the thing is its appeal to form over function, "style" over substance. I want to hear about safety, fuel efficiency, maybe something new in fuel type, aerodynamics, recycling in manufacture, worker participation etc.

Hugh, what is your parsing of the Chrysler commercial?