How Can Government Mind Manipulation Be Bad?
By Thers, Whiskey Fire
Posted on April 25, 2008, Printed on April 25, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://whiskeyfire.typepad.com//83389/
Over at Winds of Change, noted Internets savant Armed Liberal explains
that people who dislike
propaganda are great big sillyheads:
The usual suspects are going bonkers - bonkers! - over the notion
that the Pentagon
briefed a cadre of retired military men who served as 'expert
commentators' in the media.
The thing is, you see, that we are involved in a "counterinsurgency"
(against foes who include
Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority, as AL explains in his comments --
I did not know that)
and that therefore the American government really should be relentlessly
evangelizing and
radicalizing the American people for the purposes of crushing the mighty
forces of Islamofascism:
So here's my problem. If we're engaged in counterinsurgency, public
diplomacy and
information warfare - which the insurgent side are very good at, spends a
lot of time doing,
and where the mainstream media only recently grudgingly backed away from
the most egregious,
falsified examples of their work - is a critical component, according to
pretty much everyone
who has written on the subject.
But - our government can't play. Not only are there legal
restrictions, but the simple
fact that information was given to commentators, bloggers, or reporters by
the government - in
the hopes that it can shape the information battlespace - is illegitimate,
and is itself a
major meta-story.
I don't think it's wrong to be concerned about the government shaping
the news. I think
it's necessary to shape perception as a part of any successful
counterinsurgency.
But those two principles seem to be in a midair collision, and as a
consequence it's going
to keep raining aluminum.
It's true -- the forces arrayed against us are masters of manipulation.
The amount of money
that Al Qaeda pours into the MSM is staggering; they've clearly bought off
the entire
Washington Post editorial board, which explains why that wise body has
consistently endorsed
boneheaded policy ideas that have in the final analysis have done at least
as much good for
anti-American Islamicists as for anyone else, and probably more.
At any rate, while it is certainly tons of self-flattering fun to image
oneself a heroic
warrior of the "information battlespace," it might just be a bad idea in a
democracy to ever
try to "sell" a war at all. This is especially true when the reasons for
the war are
strategically incoherent, as they are in this instance, since that means
you literally cannot
make your case without heaping in entire steaming mounds of bullshit.
In other words, if you want a war and know perfectly well you can't
convince anyone that it's a
good idea unless you're dishonest about it, you probably should rethink
your belligerence.
AL's airplane metaphor is illuminating. If take off knowing you're
inevitably headed for a
midair collision, you're kind of an idiot. And if you only figure out
after you're in the air
that the pilot got you on board under false pretenses and is deliberately
aiming straight for a
crash, wrestle away the controls and land the fucking plane.
The stuff he gets from his sources is likewise interesting:
It is as though we had entered some gladiatorial combat with helmet
visor closed, sword
dull and bent, and shield lying in the dirt. The United States, in
particular, it is argued,
possesses a ‘quagmire mentality’ which gifts its enemies with a playbook
for its defeat....
Basically, if you need to target your base and find that it is
fractured and lacks
purpose, lacks the attention span for in-depth appeal to argument but is
exquisitely sensitive
to manipulation and possesses an innate mastery of semiotics then you have
a problem. And if,
moreover, your opponent’s base is unified, has a sense of purpose, a rich
oral tradition which
lends itself well to story-listening (and telling) and is fairly credulous
when it comes to
conspiracy theories then you have got a very serious problem.
This is of course insulting, and dare I say, "elitist." But besides that,
it's incoherent on
its own terms. If you decide to step into the arena with your visor
closed, you have made an
extremely dumb decision. (I'm also amused by the suggestion that Americans
are sophisticates
who are suspicious of "conspiracy theories," given that the whole purpose
of Generalgate was to
sell the American public on a conspiracy theory, and the entire Right
Blogosphere still
believes in this theory with every fiber of their being).
But besides that, it reinforces the ridiculous, dangerous, but popular
notion among neocons,
neolibs, and neowingnuts that everything is a question of "willpower" and
not of material
reality. Why are we losing? Because we picked an unnecessary and
unwinnable fight against
sloppily defined opponents with no clear idea of what "victory" might in
fact constitute? Hells no!
We was done in by the flightiness of the American people, who just didn't
believe in the pony
hard enough. We have met the enemy, and it is... semiotics.
These people are completely barking insane.
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