It’s not a physical enemy to combat but rather powerful messages lodged in millions of people’s minds. It’s come to rule over us.
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; U.S. Army General Henry Shelton, chairman, Joint Chief-of-Staff and Senator John Warner (R-VA), at Pentagon press conference. (Jim Watson, USN/Wikimedia Commons)
By Joe Lauria
Cathy Vogan, executive producer of Consortium News‘ webcast CN Live!, coined a new term to describe rule by psyops, or psychological operations: psyopcracy. And Consortium News‘ existence is devoted to fighting it.
According to Wikipedia:
“Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives.”
William Casey, C.I.A. director under Ronald Reagan, said: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Thus the American people are continuously subject to a number of psychological operations otherwise known as “the news.” Combating these false constructs of the world through media is Consortium News‘ mission.
Please Donate to the
Spring Fund Drive!
U.S. intelligence officials feed journalists disinformation to create a false narrative that is intended to mislead the public and cover-up what is actually taking place.
The constant reinforcement of these lies becomes entrenched in the public mind and after time comes to be accepted as unquestionable truth.
Here’s an explanation of how the C.I.A. did it in Vietnam:
Through such operations, the American people were led to believe for years that the United States was winning in Vietnam, when it was actually losing, as the Pentagon Papers proved.
Since then, many examples have followed of completely false stories being planted into people’s minds to start and keep a war going, the fake WMD narrative in Iraq perhaps the most infamous.
Today the wars people are being fooled about are in Ukraine and Gaza.
Sometimes a psyop doesn’t involve inserting false information, so much as leaving out what’s true.
Blind Faith (Eden Gallanter/Creative Commons)
The American people, and by extension people around the world, have been led to believe that an unprovoked Russian madman started the war in Ukraine.
That’s because they are purposely not told that the war actually began in 2014 after a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev led Russian speakers in Donbass to declare independence, after which the coup government militarily attacked them.
Other facts are removed from the story, such as Russia’s proposed treaties with the U.S. and NATO in December 2021 that would have prevented Russia’s intervention in the Ukrainian civil war.
The history of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine is also whitewashed to lead the U.S. public into believing that Israel is the “victim” that is only “defending itself.”
Robert Parry, the founder of this website, in March 2017 wrote the article, “How US Flooded the World with Psyops,” in which he reported for the first time:
“Newly declassified documents from the Reagan presidential library help explain how the U.S. government developed its sophisticated psychological operations capabilities that – over the past three decades – have created an alternative reality both for people in targeted countries and for American citizens, a structure that expanded U.S. influence abroad and quieted dissent at home.
The documents reveal the formation of a psyops bureaucracy under the direction of Walter Raymond Jr., a senior CIA covert operations specialist who was assigned to President Reagan’s National Security Council staff to enhance the importance of propaganda and psyops in undermining U.S. adversaries around the world and ensuring sufficient public support for foreign policies inside the United States.”
So many people are subject to psyops that telling the truth becomes a formidable task. You become the one that is out of step. You are the one that seems to be mad.
Consortium News‘s mission since 1995 has been to fight against psychological operations that have come to rule over Americans, convincing them of all manner of falsehoods, such as that their nation is motivated by humanitarian and democratic principles in the world rather than naked greed and a lust for domination.
And that the Ukraine war was unprovoked and Israel is just defending itself.
Help us fight the psyopcracy:
Please Donate to the
Spring Fund Drive!
the cia’s job is lying ,and there very good at there job.
It takes a personality with narcissistic or even evil-antisocial traits to utter the following statement: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” Casey had just outlined the blueprint for the downfall of a society.
The dissemination of authentic information plays a pivotal role in the proper and efficient functioning of a society. Similar to an organism, we rely on information to adapt effectively and function efficiently. Without it, we would be unable to operate successfully, as concealing the incongruence between falsehoods and reality is nearly impossible.
While disinformation holds power, there are constraints to its reach. For instance, efforts may be made to create an enemy out of the Chinese people or Xi Jinping. However, many of us have encountered admirable individuals from China or Russia who do not align with this portrayal. Similarly, there are commendable actions by Xi that defy the depiction of him as an ideal foe. Just like a cat eventually grows weary of chasing a fleeting beam of light, our endurance falters over time.
It is indeed disinformation that is eroding Western society. Figures like Casey find themselves at a loss in navigating this landscape. The threat of internal collapse looms large over Western society; trust is waning, faith in democracy and virtuous leaders is fading. The sole path for Western survival in the upcoming decade lies in reassessing their stance on Ukraine and Gaza; failure to do so may mark Ukraine as the crucible where the Western empire meets its demise.
The absence of free dictates that the true adversary, to which even Casey succumbs, is our culture. Our dysfunctional culture over the years has fostered traits that are no longer beneficial to our existence. It is imperative that we acknowledge our culture as the primary threat to our survival, necessitating immediate action before is too late.
I meant: The absence of free WILL dictates that the true adversary, to which even Casey succumbs…
All, Empires did not last forever. 500 years from now if they still teach history in schools or whatever they may be called, people will wonder whatever happened to the people that used to be called Americans. “What happened to them”.
It is indeed a physical enemy for some of us. That still does not mean a physical response beyond resistance and protection. Attack is not always best responded to in kind.
If the US-America didn’t lie it wouldn’t talk.
Awh, the “sweet,’ “fumes of “chloroform” seemed to have closed over” [The Divided $tates of Corporate America],” rendering it unconscious. Anesthetized. Numb to the deception, destruction, death perpetrated & provoked by The Beast, IMO, “pissing,” 24/7, on planet Earth, i.e., * “In the presence of *bromin the chloroform, which settles to the bottom, assumes a yellow color,”
No doubt, the level of deception, destruction, deaths; &, “chloroforming,” everyone, is off the f/chart!!! WORSE, “Accountability,” is M.I.A., GONE!!! Hence, IMO, “The Beast,” the USG in partnership with/the WH + Company, w/o restrictions, remorse &/or regret, runs rampant, a rogue administration*“looting, destroying, exploiting,” planet Earth”s plant, animal & human life.
“Where a donkey falls is slippery ground,” i.e., 1) Psychological operations (PSYOP); 2) Chloroform, “a volatile liquid haloform (CHCl3); formerly used as an anesthetic. “Doctors used to put people under by chloroforming them;” and, YES! 3) “PSYOPCRACY,” 100%, defines the fakery & the phuckery, “Just a little “chloroform,” i.e., “Countering Foreign Propaganda & Disinformation Act,” fka Countering Information Warfare Act,” (MAY, 2016).
DECEMBER, 2016, “Merry Xmas!” &, “Happy, 2017!” U$President, #44, Barack Hussein Obama, “[QUIETLY] signed the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. DEEP within the act is a controversial provision, the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act (CFPDA).
…… #44’s “Game of F/u..nction:” 1) [ESTABLISHED] a Global Engagement Center under the State Department; 2) [CONSOLIDATED] “POWER” of several federal broadcasting entities under one authority; 3) [COORDINATED] efforts to counter foreign propaganda; 4) FOCUSED on Russia & China [aka “BRICS”] that is aimed at undermining the United States’ national security interests.”
The fundamental$ are set in stone.. USPresidents’, 40-46, “partnership” w/the WH $taff, Admin, Israel, MIC, CIA, FBI, DoJ, & Congress, has locked arms! Weapons cocked!! Bombs, on the ready, to be dropped!!! IMO, “we,” the people, have been used, abused, betrayed, abandoned, f/chloroformed! It’s scan-f/scamdalous!!!
Concluding, “Greed is the root of all evil;” AND, “Never Say Die,” Cathy Vogan, the executive producer of Consortium News‘ webcast CN Live!, concisely, consistently, imo, Cathy Vogan, 100%, f/rocks @ “unpacking,” the Beast that “gots” its dirty, grubby, bloody, infected claws in every nook & cranny of plant, animal & human life. And, “YES,” Cathy Vogan w/CN “is a neighbor; NOT, a fence.”
L O N G Live Consortium News.dot.com! “Keep It Lit!” Keep in mind, CN offers many option$.” TY. Ciao
* “Chloroform,” any Search Engine via the World Wide Web.
* “The Useful Idiocy of Donald Trump,” Chris Hedges, Mr. Fish @ hxxps://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-useful-idiocy-of-donald-trump/
* “NDAA-2017,” @ hxxps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21689725.2017.1349618
…p.s., Itsa FACT: * “Bromine, a nonmetallic chemical element of the halogen group that is used especially in the production of flame retardants and formerly in gasoline additives and medicines.” As well, “Lithium is a key ingredient in electric-car batteries, and bromine is used in flame retardants.” “Bromine & chlorine are halogen elements that are chemically related, but exist in different states of matter at room temperature—chlorine is a gas, while bromine is a liquid.”
… p.s.s., GAME ON, NOW!!!: FUTBOL, 1) EURO 2024: Switzerland vs. Germany; 2) Game, later: Copa America, USA vs. Bolivia…..in joy….
As Joe knows full well, Michael Parenti described this panopticaa phenomenon and said it best, with a massive dose of jaundiced NY Italo/Jewish twinged street smart humor. Pull up the sizeable archive of his more-relevant-than-ever recorded lectures on YTube which never fail to delight or disappoint.
The first official act of the coup government, on Feb. 23, 2014, the day after it seized power on Feb. 22, was to repeal Ukraine’s regional languages law. Viktor Yanukovych had signed this law, which had been passed by the Ukrainian Parliament on July 3, 2012, on August 8, 2012. It granted official status to minority languages, including Russian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Armenian, Yiddish, Tatar, German, Polish, Romanian, and others, in the oblasts in which the mother tongue of 10% or more of its population was one of these languages.
In 2014, 30 per cent of the population of Ukraine and 75 per cent of the population of the Donbas spoke Russian. Official status meant that government business in Russian-speaking areas, including teaching school, could be conducted in Russian as well as in Ukrainian, similarly to French in Quebec or Spanish and Chinese in San Francisco.
Russian-speakers demonstrated against the repeal of this law and were violently attacked by Banderite extremists, culminating on May 2, 2014 in a massacre in Odessa in which a number of Russian-speakers attacked by Banderite Russophobes took refuge in a government building which their attackers set alight using Molotov cocktails, killing more than 40 people. Full-scale civil war ensued.
It doesn’t take much to get the ‘average citizen’ to imbibe the claptrap of the day. If, unfortunately the man in the street can be manipulated – which is usually the case – then no amount of retrospective or ‘common sense’ will alter the fact that in reality, they neither raise nor decide issues, but the issues that shape their fate are normally raised and decided for them. Those in charge with the dissemination are picked out for their ”expertise” – get that! And moreover they seem totally unaware that they know less than those who they are quizzing?!
Living in the U.S, I have many entanglements with the Government here, but I try to limit them as much as I can. (Nader’s advice in the 1970s to pickup the responsibilities if citizenship left me cold, at the time) It’s far from the cry that “I hate America”, it’s that I expect better representation from them, or any representation from them at all. The Government seems to have gone increasingly batty, separating citizens from each other and from their government.
“Batty” or by design?
My university and seminary professors got it right–question everything, investigate everything, dig, dig, dig for the truth, and don’t believe your own shit. Fifty-six years later, I am eternally grateful for brave and clear-eyed educators who did not buy BS and did not back down. They saw their profession as a sacred trust.
Two points – one, I always assume that whatever a western government & its officials are saying is false, either wholly or partially. Two, I start by reversing the blame or attack on the supposed ‘enemy’ to see if it fits the accuser. More often than not it does. So when the US says Russia is doing something, I test the reverse to see if it is likely that it is the US doing it, and not Russia.
These two approaches help me refute much of the propaganda and psyops, but don’t help much in terms of determining the real facts. That’s where the digging comes in, and for that I avoid all MSM outlets, and instead cover a wide range of independent media sources.
Even if I can’t get to the truth, I would much prefer to remain in ignorance than believe the lie.
You are quite fortunate! When I attended an orientation for a local seminary back in the early 2000s, at the last group gathering I reiterated Bishop Tutu’s statement about Christianity being responsible for slavery, the Holocaust, and apartheid. One of the professors cried out, “They weren’t Christians!” (I have no idea what world she lives in, apparently one where history is not taught.) I chose not to spend money on that poor an education and continued on my autodidact path.
It appears, a perhaps un-testable theory, that Reagan was disabled by a lone gunman, after which Ronnoe could not continue to fight for the downs in an up-down continuum. RR came from a labor-perspective, in the beginning. He might have died, in that incident, except that mood-and otherwise-challenged individuals are not highly trained marks-persons as are back-up assassins in some other notable cases in US history.
Reagan came from a labor perspective?!?!?!? Reagan was a wholly owned creation of Lou Wasserman (essentially a mobster) who got him the job of heading the Screen Actors Guild. Your comment is unbelievable.
What is it specifically, that first inures/accustoms the population to be susceptible to the influences of the ‘psyopcracy’ begins in earliest childhood.
Specifically, it begins with the initial, formal ‘indoctrucational’ schooling processes.
“indoctrucational…” Very good, I will remember that one!.
?
??
I would say it begins in the family with parents telling children: You did not see what you saw. You did not hear what you heard. And you did not experience what you experienced.
I’ll grant that parental family nurturance and schooling may be a chicken and egg situation; hence schooling processes!
Great new word. A definition of “manufacturing consent”.