PsyOps

From WWII to Mad Men to QAnon to "They're eating the dogs! They're eating the cats!" We're being manipulated.

Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

I’m having a period where things seem to be coming into focus. I’m not saying I’m any smarter, mind you. The dots and their connections are making more and more sense.

I’ve known for a long time I’m not the smartest guy in the room. I made it through college by substituting two Logic classes instead of any kind of Hard Math — like Trigonometry and whatever math there is beyond that. Basically, any math with elaborate symbols beyond plus, minus, divide and multiply. My Bachelor’s degree reads Leisure Studies though, in my defense, when I started the program it was Recreation and Parks Management.

Much sturdier, right?

My degree is from a state college that I chose because it was conveniently located near the Canadian border and the American War in Vietnam had not quite run its course. In addition, I caught wind that the state college ranked in the Top Ten in Playboy magazine’s rankings for ‘party schools’.

At the time, I was not a partier. I learned all of my drinking games after I became a river guide.

The game in the YouTube video below was my favorite. However, since I didn’t particularly care for hard alcohol, I played to “win”. I have alert reader Willie and Meltzer to thank for introducing me to this very effective brain cell reducer.

All of this to say, I am no intellectual titan.

Even so, decades of cultural observation, at the very least, give me perspective.

Decades of engaging in the human experience of this cultural phenomenon we call — for the moment — the United States, give me, what I like to call ‘everyman’, introspection.

Time, coupled with curiosity and an open mind and a certain self-awareness, give me the wisdom of having been there and done that.

So, this crystallization I speak of…

…and remember. I am not a researcher or a historian like Heather Cox Richardson. I’m just a gatherer of information who likes to connect the dots.

Doesn’t it seem crazy there appears to be two very distinct realities in America? Every day I feel as if I’m wandering about in a carnival’s Funhouse Mirror exhibit. The shit people believe in the shadow world is not only the polar opposite of what I believe. Sometimes it’s certifiably gonzo. Off-the-charts nutty.

I know it doesn’t come as a surprise considering the extent to which hate radio and Fox Entertainment and now hate podcasts have infiltrated society. But I think it goes deeper than all of that.

Psychological operations and warfare were used effectively, in a mass media sort of way, in the second World War. It was successful enough that the U.S. has had PSYOPs within the Department of Defense ever since. And like many things which emanate from warfare and the military (Velcro? the World Wide Web? Hummers? Not that kind. Let’s call them — Humvees, Camouflage as a fashion statement?) it eventually bled over into every day life by way of the Mad Men (and, presumably, surely, a few women) of marketing and advertising.

I mean, really. Where does psychological operations end and the hardcore advertising of Madison Avenue begin? They go hand-in-hand. The first paragraph on Wikipedia (please support Wikipedia whenever you can) states:

Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their motives and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and large foreign powers.

I’ll bet most red-blooded, patriotic, Gadsden flag flying Americans believe PSYOPs are what WE do to THEM. In other words, what the Good Guys (America) do to the Bad Guys (not American). I have news for those folks.

The internet — not around during the first four decades of my life — became the biggest Pandora’s Box ever opened. It was ripe for all kinds of mischief. All you really had to do was read a few of William Gibson’s novels to get an inkling of where things were going to go.

It only took a decade or so for the media merchants of Silicon Valley to figure out how to make being online as addictive as nicotine. Just as grocery stores are carefully laid out and planned to facilitate the spending of your money, internet sites and online games are designed to keep your eyes glued to the screen and vacuum as much cash out of your bank accounts as possible.

Or simply glean your information. We are — still, after all — in the Age of Information. And disinformation. And misinformation. And outright propaganda.

I’ve moaned and groaned about it all before.

The masters of psychological warfare must have thought they died and went to cyber-heaven. The whole world is online and…

There.

Are.

No.

Hard and Fast Rules.

And, even with rules, you could never hire enough enforcers to enforce them. All the good guys (known as the “White Hats” because everything “good” is white, and everything “bad” is black — and everybody knows this) could do is play whack-a-mole.

Children playing whack a mole arcade game at an amusement park. dreamstime.net

‘Bad actors’ formed armies of trolls and legions of bots to convince your grandmother that Hillary Clinton drank the blood of babies and George Soros — a billionaire of Jewish heritage — funded every grass roots protest ever held. Even our insipid president-in-name-only, parroted the obvious PSYOP that Barack Obama did not have an American birth certificate. It didn’t matter to the PSYOPs people that it was easily disproven. What mattered was that it was repeated endlessly.

Creepy, eh? Thanks MeidasTouch Network!

Here’s the thing.

The ‘bad actors’ are not exclusively foreigners. There are Americans, like retired General Michael Flynn, who would gladly unleash PSYOPs on American citizens. But has he already? I wouldn’t put it past him, or Steve Bannon, or Roger Stone, or Ali Alexander, or Stephen Miller, or hired underground ‘bad actors’ we don’t even know about. Flynn wanted an army of digital soldiers and said he HAD an army of digital soldiers.

I’d call them digital mercenaries.

QAnon was the test drive. QAnon paved the way for the felon’s cult. If you’re wondering why you can’t move MAGA people with coherent arguments, it’s because they are the zombie army of two decades of intense, internet-based psychological warfare.

The base was laid in the decades preceding but, as I said to my brother the other day, the earlier era was a time when conservatives cared about the rule of law and the country’s founding statement. Conservatives always wanted to win but, in today’s world, they don’t care how they win. The people behind the PSYOPs are convincing your neighbors, your loved ones and your fellow citizens that anyone leaning slightly toward identifying themselves as “woke” is pure evil. These are the same techniques used to dehumanize populations and soldiers in every war every fought.

Now, people like former General Michael Flynn — who Barack Obama specifically warned the felon in 2016 that the man was politically radioactive — has unleashed digital mercenaries to dehumanize a segment of the American population.

I think it explains the rise of extremist ideology.

I think it explains young men souring on diversity, equity and inclusion and gobbling up everything hate podcast hosts say.

I think it explains the intransigent behavior you run into constantly online.

I think it explains how otherwise mild-mannered Americans believe incredible, unbelievable, idiotic things.

I think it explains why MAGA worships a con artist who puts P.T. Barnum to shame, and goes forth into the world waving flags emblazoned with the same man’s name, plastering their homes, cars and boats with banners declaring their allegiance to a convicted felon and behave maniacally in public as if they rooting for their favorite NFL team.

It’s a part of a whole ecosystem: the zone-flooding, alternative facts, whataboutism, bothsidesism, toxic prevarication which is on full display daily with our president-in-name-only.

For instance:

The felon gave his state of the union address the other day and he lied relentlessly.

The felon and his minions lied non stop while “negotiating” with the Ukrainian leader.

The felon can’t give a press conference without lying out of both sides of his mouth.

The felon lies as often as he breathes…

The Orwellian rabbit hole we find ourselves in is not wholly by accident. I believe there has been a well-funded ‘campaign’ with a specific objective. Radicalize just enough (3.5%?) people to believe a former reality show host was the only person who could “fix” the “ills” of society.

We’ve always known it’s possible. We’ve been funding psychological warfare for — at least — 80 years. We just never thought it would be used against us by our own people and now government.

Welcome to the 21st century.

---

This is a Boulevardier. Pre-prohibition drinks are all the rage these days, so I thought I would randomly share a cocktail you may not have heard of. Especially since some kind of Prohibition is probably on the horizon judging by current events.

From Liquor.com:

Employing whiskey, sweet vermouth and Campari, the Boulevardier is simply a variation on the classic Negroni that is adored for its deft balance of bitter, boozy and sweet. The difference in flavor, however, is anything but simple. While the gin-based Negroni is crisp and bracing, the whiskey-based Boulevardier is rich and warming. It’s the exact drink you want to reach for on a chilly fall or winter evening.

Also…

In reference to NFL fans (a word derived from ‘fanatic’), here’s a few reminders for shits and giggles.

And then…MAGA. Plus, you need to remember. This guy bridged the gap between QAnon and the attempt at throwing over the government the first go around: