Do you lay awake at night terrified that the Russians are able to control your mind with information warfare while the US government’s slavish devotion to democratic values leaves it powerless to stop them? Me neither. But according to The Washington Post, whose sole owner is a CIA contractor and Pentagon board member bent on hijacking the underlying infrastructure of the economy, we should be.
WaPo columnist David Ignatius, who has been one of the more hyperbolic promulgators of western Russia hysteria in written media, has published an article titled “Why America is losing the information war to Russia” about a new book by former State Department undersecretary for public diplomacy Richard Stengel. Stengel and Ignatius engage in a joyful Red Scare frolic with the exuberance of two little boys with a box of spray paints, each trying to one-up the other in hysterical apocalyptic ominousness about the way evil, authoritarian governments like Russia have been able to weaponize information while freedom-loving democracies can only look on in passive despair.
“The cruel paradox of the Internet, once hailed as a liberating force, is that it empowers governments that control information and enfeebles those that let it run free,” warns Ignatius.
“[Authoritarian governments] have gone from fearing the flow of information to exploiting it,” cautions Stengel. “They understand that the same tools that spread democracy can engineer its undoing.”
Unsurprisingly, at no point during this brotherly romp does Ignatius bother to make mention of the fact that Stengel is actually on record saying he supports the use of propaganda and believes the US government should be using it on its own citizens.
“Basically, every country creates their own narrative story and, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the ‘chief propagandist’ job,” Stengel said last year at an event organized by the shockingly ubiquitous narrative management firm Council on Foreign Relations.
“I’m not against propaganda,” Stengel said. “Every country does it, and they have to do it to their own population, and I don’t necessarily think it’s that awful.”
When an audience member objected to what he’d just heard, Stengel curtly dismissed him and ended the talk.
So anyway, that’s what the CIA/Pentagon/plutocracy-tied Washington Post wants you to be sure of: that evil governments are controlling your mind with information warfare, and that the US government is struggling to rescue you from that fate. Lucky for you, this report just so happens to be coming out at the same time as we’re learning that the Pentagon is already currently working on a program to protect you from wrongthink by controlling your access to information.
Congratulations to "online disinformation" alarmists who gave implicit approval to this new Pentagon initiative to "detect malicious intent and prevent viral fake news from polarizing society" https://t.co/LDQcNld55y
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 3, 2019
A recent Bloomberg article titled “U.S. Unleashes Military to Fight Fake News, Disinformation” reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding a new project called the Semantic Forensics program with which “the military research agency hopes it can spot fake news with malicious intent before going viral.”
“If successful, the system after four years of trials may expand to detect malicious intent and prevent viral fake news from polarizing society,” Bloomberg reports.
DARPA (formerly ARPA) is a top contender among some very stiff competition for the absolute creepiest of all US government agencies. Journalist Yasha Levine has done a lot of work documenting the way the agency has been intimately involved in internet surveillance since before the internet was even really a thing, beginning in the 1960s with its ARPANET program whose technologies went on to form the foundation of the World Wide Web. DARPA is also engaged in such charming activities as exploring ways to knit AI into human neurology, funding programs to control America’s election infrastructure, pouring billions of dollars into the creation of a robot army and constructing robotic insects which can crawl up walls.
Futurists have long envisioned a utopia where mankind reaps the benefits of soaring technological innovations which will overcome our every obstacle and lead us to an unprecedented state of human thriving. What they failed to account for was sociopathic government agencies like DARPA being intimately involved in those technologies from the very beginning.
Let’s please ban the word “narrative” from our discussion of the news and this president. There is only one version of the facts and the truth. Full stop.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) August 26, 2019
Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens, you can have power until the public gets sick of your bullshit and tosses you out on your ass. If you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there’s no limit to the evils you can get away with.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Governments understand this and so do their propagandists, and so, increasingly, do the rank-and-file public. Which is why you’ve now got establishment narrative managers like CNN’s Jim Sciutto saying things like “Let’s please ban the word ‘narrative’ from our discussion of the news and this president. There is only one version of the facts and the truth.” Mass media propagandists would like nothing better than to have people cease paying attention to the concept of narrative and go back to believing that when they turn on CNN they are receiving objective truth from the authoritative arbiters of absolute reality.
But that cat’s out of the bag. What has been seen cannot be unseen. A large number of people are aware that there are some very powerful forces who have a vested interest in controlling the thoughts that are in their head, and that number is growing every day. These powerful forces have responded to this new development by becoming increasingly ham-fisted in regulating the public’s access to ideas and information, and now it’s a race to see if they can slam the gates on us before we escape our cage forever.
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38 responses to “WaPo Warns USA Needs More Narrative Control As Pentagon Ramps Up Narrative Control”
Oohh, I found this.
Cracking narrative: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-09-07/breath-fresh-air-pamela-anderson-takes-meghan-mccain-task-over-us-war-crimes
In praise of malicious intent:
We need malicious intent more than ever, and the more the better. We need the majority to express it not as individuals but en mass, in spades against the tiny ruling class with all the power, possessions, assets, investments, ‘interests’ and above all its ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. They’re responsible for the mess we’re in and they must pay the price. Enough is enough.
Our malicious intent, which the majority deep down surely feels even in an inchoate way now especially that capitalist rule is so naked and impudent, needs direction and a target to transform it from malicious intents against false scapegoats and the powerless into an overwhelming mass power, a torrent of the vast majority of the working population with a malicious intent to sweep away the rulers and their defenders; to expropriate the owners and replace their rule with soviets, ‘communes everywhere’, to oversee a democratically and rationally planned socialist economy and society.
Against the capitalist ruling class we must organise and direct our malicious intent through the real social power of the working class which alone can instantly stop the flow of profits, the alpha and omega of capitalism. The day when all of our malicious intents are melded into a single overwhelming malicious intent, expressed in a program that takes us out of capitalist irrationality and slavery to save our species from extinction, will be the beginning of human liberation.
Long live malicious intent, and may it grow with malicious intensity. And may it be directed unflinchingly at the ultimate source of all human misery, capitalism and its malignant offspring, imperialism.
BDS everyday, in whatever way you can!
Turn off the TV.
When narrative is controlled, it becomes narrowtive.
Guess we’ll be back to the days of curmudgeons handing out pamphlets on street corners. The internet will be dead as a means of honest communication.
that’s why i oppose gun-control. i trust my neighbors, including crazy ones, a LOT more than the jack-booted war criminals patrolling our neighborhood.
That is what I have been dreading all along. It was only a matter of time, once they lost total control over the MSM, for them to exert total control over the one alternative that allowed people to see the truth. Now it’s happening and there appears to be little we can do to stop them.
I tried that, but the pamphlets became a litter problem, so now I just talk to anyone that will look up from their smart phone long enough to listen.
I, for one, welcome a consortium of government and private-sector overlords’ intervention in this crucial and beleaguered nexus of public discourse.
Obviously, the only way to rid ourselves of the pernicious scourge of malicious, mendacious, inflammatory fake news and opinion is to replace it with Ministry of Truth-manufactured and approved coordinated inauthentic behavior.
After all, “academic, corporate, and governmental partners” practically invented coordinated inauthentic behavior. It’s about time they rode in like the cavalry to solve the problem professionally!
If anyone doubts that the US government is a master of coordinated inauthentic behavior, the proof is in the pudding: its duopoly-based electoral politics.
This article details some of the ways that the decline of truth, morality, love peace, justice, etc. have been degraded now to the point of threatening to destroy mankind on earth. Nietzsche summarized this fatal process as the “death of God”. It is as real and deadly as any material thing in the universe, and it is unfolding our doom as I write this…….
Sep 3 2019 The worst criminals have taken over our world. Instead of fighting to remove them, most citizens scramble to protect themselves, to deny what is happening, and even to abet those criminals in their reign of terror. This is where we are today, and the outlook is for things to get much worse in the near future.
why don;t you give a little credit to powerless people???? what makes you think that you are so woke and fighting and others are not???????? truly mystifying….
The Big Bro project grinds on, with human minds it’s grist. Stopping it’s relentless grinding will take more than a few lone Don Quixotes….
Somewhere from the depths of Hell, Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebbels are beaming with pride.
The narrative is how do you talk about anything everyday except the narrative. The narrative being the US d0llar and it’s role as the World’s Premier Reserve Currency. The rest of the world is working 24/7 in order to change the D0llar’s narrative as the World’s Reserve Currency. What gives the d0llar it’s excess value in relation to the rest of the world’s currencies? The d0llar is not a fiat currency, the d0llar is a commodity backed currency that is required by OPEC to purchase/sell crude oil. The d0llar just like the British Pound of it’s time, is also required to purchase opium and it’s derivatives, heroin, morphine and other opiates. The rest of the world is trying to break this linkage of crude oil and opium. Iraq tried to sell it’s oil in Euro’s and was invaded. The Afghanistan Taliban reduced poppy production to almost nothing and was invaded. Libya was about to sell her crude oil in another currency and was invaded. Our conflict with Russia, Venezuela and Iran is those nations do trade their crude oil, or oil substitutes (natural gas) in other currencies. Our problem with China is they purchase crude oil in their own or agreed upon currency. The narrative is as simple as this. Early next year, the Nordstream II pipeline is completed doubling the amount of natural gas Russia is selling into Europe using the Euro. The Siberian pipeline will be completed early next year increasing Russia’s natural gas export to China, selling in Renminbi. From now to then Venezuela and Iran will continue selling or trying to sell their crude oil in other currencies. Opium demand is being countered by synthetic opium in particular Fentanyl, manufactured in a lab. The narrative to be watching and talking about is the progress of Nordstream II and the Siberian Pipeline. The narrative to be watching is China’s Singapore Petrol Yuan exchange and what the volume of trade is. The narrative to be watching is what is Fentanyl’s marketshare of narcotics. The narrative expands about 20 miles each day in two different directions of natural gas pipelines. The narrative expands each day in additional crude oil tankers transporting crude to Singapore’s market. This is the ONLY narrative to be watching and talking about as the world creates a multi-polar world. Early next year, our Main Stream Media will counter the real narrative with the usual crap.
Right on!
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The most important question is whether the US will start more wars in an attempt to delay the inevitable, and will any of those wars be nuclear.
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Remember, the US has already PROVED to the world that it WILL use nuclear weapons under certain circumstances — for example, even when it knew it would defeat an “enemy” in the very near future.
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What will the US do when it knows that its “currency’s” hegemony will certainly be “defeated” in the near future, and that that defeat means that the standard of living of the vast majority of its citizens will be drastically reduced?
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As far as the power of narrative goes, there is a very real limit to that power — where a false narrative butts up against harsh, unforgiving reality. For example, the narrative-controllers have for many decades produced and promoted a narrative that declares that the “the American people are the most exceptional and indispensible people on planet earth”. IMO, most Americans have swallowed that narrative hook, line and sinker. (It makes “we came; we saw; he died” so much more palatable.)
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The reality of the world is that, for Americans, “might makes right” and that “exceptional” has meant that Americans, through their government, have proven themselves, at least since at least the end of WWII, to be “right up there” with the meanest, most ruthless murderous monsters on the planet.
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Ironically, I would say that the one and only thing that that narrative/belief in American exceptionalism DOES prove beyond any shadow of doubt is that America’s foundational belief is a priori RACIST!
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The obvious reality (to anyone who has not been subjected to US public school and MSM brainwashing their entire lives) is that Americans are NOT the most exceptional and indispensible people on the planet. So, again, the most important question for humanity is as follows. Will the people who believe that they are the most exceptional people on planet earth once again use nuclear weapons to prove it, even if it means their own destruction?
From your comment.
What will the US do when it knows that its “currency’s” hegemony will certainly be “defeated” in the near future, and that that defeat means that the standard of living of the vast majority of its citizens will be drastically reduced?
I would disagree with this statement completely. The US will do what the French did in December 1789 when France was about to lose their role as the World’s Premier Reserve Currency when France issued Assignat’s. The US will issue a new currency, the Governor of the Bank of England basically stated this is going to happen. Whether this currency is digital, land backed like the Assignat or money like Lincoln’s Greenback, there most certainly will be a new US currency and with that a rapid expansion of growth.
It’s not a downside to prepare yourself for, it’s an upside and in an upside involving as you put it, “The Exceptional Nation” will be much more terrifying than a downside. The Assignat brought about Napoleon, whatever new US currency is used, will certainly bring about someone similar. Without a doubt though, it is the coming Upside that you need to concern yourself with, just imagine how many wars we can get into, and the crazy crap we can do when we have money again. Coming soon.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/09/gray-champions.html
With your leave, I will advance a thesis that we can look at “history rhyming” within a generational framework, which has periodic growth decay, crisis and restructuring, 4 seasons: summer, fall, winter and spring.
This is not a new model of looking at history, and any good model can have great utility going into a historical epoch.
The Bolshevik Economist, Nikolai Kondratiev postulated waves of economic/financial cycle, posthumously named “Kondratiev Waves” (“K-waves”) in his honor, after Comrade Stalin found them to be counter-revolutionary or something, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave
A more recent adaptation of generational cycles of history is that of American authors, Strauss and Howe, who wrote “Generations” and “The Fourth Turning” in the 1990s.
Basically, there are 4-generational cycles of crisis, rebuilding, health, decay and again, crisis.
I’m a “baby boomer”, which is a “prophet generation”. My kids are millennials, “hero generation”.
It is a little hard to find a likable explanation of this theory, but this guy does pretty well.
https://medium.com/@moshemodeira/strauss-howe-generational-theory-is-the-closest-thing-we-have-to-a-crystal-ball-part-1-f9bc21e3fc75
Yes, the elites would like you to have seen wreckages of airplanes in the Pentagone and in a field in Pennsylvania where there have been no wreckages at all to be seen.
They want to substitute lies to the Truth, as you say, forever.
But it seems they will be late with their project:
http://frregisscanlon.com/index.php/2019/08/12/will-the-pope-and-bishops-save-us-from-a-chastisement/
It is obvious that the Second Coming of Jesus is very very near.
We have to pray the Rosary to hasten His Glorious return because I have really really seen enough of the bullshit.
No, you and Tim are lovely. I read your twits, but I’m not on Tweeter. On the off-chance you see this comment/question before your paradigm-shifting, epoch-making, earth-shaking podcast, I’d like you to speculate on the extent to which the democracy/freedom/truth-loving authorities are “interrogating” Assange. I have a recurring nightmare where Bloody vaGina Haspel fastens a cage of scorpions to Julian’s face. Sure, he was great at opsec, but when a cowardly third world puppet hands over his belongings, and the empire has Vault7 tech that renders forensic analysis irrelevant in perpetuity, what chance does humanity have?
“I feel sorry for people that don’t read the NYT”
– uttered by a friend
you are known by the friends you have around.
Great Article! I have found there are people here and there that “see” exactly as you do without having ever read you before. It’s Weird. I was one of them and know one or two more. It’s likely there are thousands who somehow have a vivid sense of awareness of the manipulation and control being laid down upon the planet and can see it.
I read you’re articles as if they are my own thoughts. At the risk of sounding a little spiritual it feels like there is
some unconscious connection sprinkled throughout the population that is able to sense the deceit and see through
it without effort. Although of late it’s becoming pretty obvious to anyone who thinks.
Thanks for bringing what many are seeing and feeling out into the open.
The first sentence cracked me up. THANK YOU!
I want to thank my tormentor for giving me a glimpse inside his mind, but let me just remind him that though he plays the part of a black woman, he is neither a woman or black.
Gee, that was great, I wonder if you ever wrote for the Onion, superb in every way.
This is why I do not have a television and I do not listen to any “mainstream” (aka “government”) media in the United States. They are all propaganda outlets for the interests of the military and the ruling class. Stick with the World Socialist Web Site and people like Caitlin, John Pilger, and even Chris Hedges (when he’s on form).
Thanks Caity – It’s increasingly & alarmingly bizarre how brazen Deep State bad actors have become in assaulting the Rights we once assumed having as US Citizens. I discovered this Bill Moyers’ 2014 program (also the year he ended his show). John Le Carre coined the phrase ‘Deep State’ based on his real life Intel career. This interview was MSM, specifically PBS. Nothing like it has been produced there since. And nothing like will ever be again. Only our Indie Journo’s such as you, Assange, Pilger & others in AM aka Alternative Media will keep us informed at this point in time. I also recommend The Solari Report & Catherine Austin Fitts as a guiding mentor in your expanding communication & information efforts. As Lee Camp encourages us all – Keep on fighting!
https://youtu.be/EYS647HTgks
Gosh, I sure appreciate your perspective. And wit. Often, after reading you, I find myself immediately re-reading the following analysis to remind me what we’re up against. It helps to keep perspective of the magnitude of the energies we’re dealing with. I hope you get a chance to take a look at this.
https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/seeing-wetiko-on-capitalism-mind-viruses-and-antidotes-for-a-world-in-transition/
Great article, Gary Posselt, thank you! Wetiko is really just an older word for sociopathy as seen from a slightly different perspective. How interesting that the Native Americans had an expression for it and understood its destructiveness. Sociopaths have been described as intra-species predators, effectively making them cannibals, just as the wetiko term defines.
Gary I also thank you for pointing us to that. Thought provoking article and website.
“Two Independent Investigations, Nukes caused WTC Collapse” > BeforeItsNews(.)com
“Breathtaking: Solving Nuclear 9/11” > VeteransToday(.)com
Heinz Pommer at > 911history(.)de
“Unequivocal 9/11 Nukes” > principia-australia(.)org
We are all victims of 9/11….the horror….the lies….the endless wars
The laws of physics got totally hacked that day.
Anything could have happened, anything…
there must have been many Assanges blowing their whistles as loud as they could. we rarely hear them, though, as the narrative controllers block their voices and actions out, as if they never happened. Roger Waters performed to rally the people around Assange, and not one of these presstitutes reported it. the ‘Not Backing Down” event, though thousands attended, was reported by no presstitutes either.
but you bet there will be thousand more Assanges, leaking truth and blowing their whistle. you’re absolutely correct, Caitlin, the cat is out of the bag.
Correct. I’m pleased to be able to say I watched it live and shared it as widely as possible. Free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning!
yes, at the end of the day, we are many and they are a few.
*Originally spelled Richard Stengel as Richard Engel, who is another guy.
What no comments? Great stuff
I wonder how the Russians have supposedly got to me? If they are spreading propaganda on the net I would have thought I might have heard something pro Russian or something similar That will be the day