Perception management is a term originated by the US military. The US Department of Defense (DOD) gives this definition:
‘Actions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning as well as to intelligence systems and leaders at all levels to influence official estimates, ultimately resulting in foreign behaviors and official actions favorable to the originator's objectives. In various ways, perception management combines truth projection, operations security, cover and deception, and psychological operations.’
‘Perception’ is defined as the ‘process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret the input from their senses to give meaning and order to the world around them.’
Veelzeggend is dat de ‘phrase “perception management” has often functioned as a euphemism for “an aspect of information warfare.”’ Bovendien geldt dat de ‘phrase "perception management" is filtering into common use as a synonym for "persuasion." Public relations firms now offer "perception management" as one of their services. Similarly, public officials who are being accused of shading the truth are now frequently charged with engaging in "perception management" when disseminating information to media or to the general public.’
Typerend is ook het volgende:
Beginning in the 1950s, news media and public information organizations and individuals carried out assignments to manage the public's perception of the CIA, according to the New York Times. Carl Bernstein wrote in 1977 that ‘The CIA in the 1950s, '60s, and even early 70s had concentrated its relationships with journalists in the most prominent sectors of the American press corps, including four or five of the largest newspaper in the country, the broadcast networks, and the two major weekly news magazines.’ David Atlee Phillips, a former CIA station chief in Mexico City, described the method of recruitment years later to Bernstein: ‘Somebody from the Agency says, “I want you to sign a piece of paper before I tell you what it's about.” I didn't hesitate to sign, and a lot of newsmen didn't hesitate over the next twenty years.’
Dat het begrip ‘perception management’ van doorslaggevend belang is voor de westerse beleidsbepalende elite, blijkt onder andere uit het feit dat ‘For years the FBI has listed foreign perception management as one of eight "key issue threats" to national security,’ en dat: ‘The FBI clearly recognizes perception management as a threat when it is directed at the US by foreign governments.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_management
De bekende Amerikaanse ‘television-host’ Bill O’Reilly merkte dan ook eens op: ‘U weet dat in showbusiness, politiek en al het andere, perceptie de werkelijkheid is.’ In de huidige collectieve westerse ‘perceptie’ moeten Oekraïners en hun corrupte regime in Kiev worden gezien als het slachtoffer van één man, ‘Poetin’ of ‘Poedler,’ zoals de Volkskrant de Russische president demoniseerde, als onderdeel van de bellicose propaganda-campagne waaruit elke nuance en elke context is verdwenen. Deze ‘perceptie’ is momenteel zo succesvol dat de werkelijkheid geen enkele rol meer speelt. Waren er in het verleden hier en daar nog mainstream-journalisten die niet ‘embedded’ waren, en de politieke en militaire propaganda met feiten onderuit haalden, vandaag de dag is hier geen enkele sprake meer van. Dit is de eerste oorlog waarbij het Westen is betrokken, die geen tegenstem aan het woord laat, geen dissidente visie toelaat, geen zinvolle wederhoor pleegt, geen bredere context belicht. Er is op alle kanalen slechts één officiële 'waarheid' te vernemen, en dat is dat ‘Poetin’ een ‘duivel’ is, en de Russen ‘een kwaad’ in de wereld vormen ‘dat geen grenzen kent,’ aldus de voorpagina van de Volkskrant van zaterdaqg 9 april 2022, onder een foto van dode en gewonde burgers ‘op het station van Kramatorsk.’
Ondanks het feit dat Russische autoriteiten ogenblikkelijk foto’s van de restanten van één van de twee raketten hebben gepubliceerd, die aannemelijk maken dat het hier een Oekraïense raket is, beweert de Volkskrant een dag na de aanslag zonder zelf enig onderzoek te hebben verricht dat de ‘aanslag op een vol treinstation in Kramatorsk in Oost-Oekraïne duidelijk maakt dat het geweld van het Russische leger geen grenzen lijkt te kennen,’ daaraan onmiddellijk de volgende retorische vraag toevoegend: ‘Wat kan het Westen doen om dit te stoppen?’ De ‘duivel’ en zijn ‘kwaad,’ dat is de kern van het westerse ‘perception management,’ collectief overgenomen door de zogeheten ‘vrije pers,’ zonder dat zijzelf ook maar enigszins beseft hoe 'embedded' zij functioneert. Niet dat ik hier beweer dat de Russen het niet hebben gedaan, maar net als mijn mainstream collega’s weet ik het domweg niet en hanteer ik de aloude journalistieke vuistregel van hoor en wederhoor, vooral ook omdat ik zelf regelmatig getuige ben geweest hoe de westerse media logen. De massa-vernietigingswapens van Saddam zijn daarvan slechts één voorbeeld, een oorlogsmisdaad die de hele regio van honderden miljoenen mensen in lichterlaaie zette.
In plaats van zelf te onderzoeken wat de waarheid zou kunnen zijn of daadwerkelijk is, beweren de westerse media onmiddellijk dat de Russische strijdkrachten de schuldigen zijn, terwijl de westerse pers uit ervaring weet hoe NAVO-autoriteiten kunnen liegen. Ook een politieke brokkenmaker als D’66 minister van Defensie Kajsa Ollongren suggereert zonder enig bewijs dat Rusland de dader is, want ‘The horrific images from Bucha and other reports of crimes against innocent civilians must have an international response. War crimes must be investigated and documented so that those responsible can be brought to justice and punished.’ Vanzelfsprekend kan in haar optiek de Oekraïense neo-nazi’s deze ‘oorlogsmisdaden’ nooit hebben gepleegd, want in dat geval is ook Nederland, door haar wapenzendingen, juridisch aansprakelijk voor het militair steunen van oorlogsmisdadigers.
De huidige politieke maskerade in het Westen trekt zich nauwelijks nog iets aan van democratische spelregels. Dankzij het ‘perception management,’ in handen van de politieke-, bureaucratische- en media-elite, kan het bewustzijn van het grote publiek voortdurend in de juiste richting manipuleren. Dit wordt nog eens vergemakkelijkt door de westerse censuur én vooral door de zelfcensuur het journaille. Terecht waarschuwde de dissidente Australische journaliste Caitlin Johnstone op 8 april 2022:
Twitter consults with the US government when deciding what to censor, consults with US government-funded think tanks to determine what people see on the platform, conducts censorship in favor of US government narratives, and has the gall to label others ‘state-affiliated media.’
Bijna niets kan aan het boze oog van Big Brother ontsnappen. Nagenoeg alles wordt vooraf gecontroleerd, overtreders worden met een banvloek gestraft, en monddood gemaakt. Zodoende worden de mainstream-journalisten er nog eens aan herinnert wat de elite wel of niet wenst te vernemen. De vooraanstaande correspondent Patrick Lawrence, die voor de ‘International Herald Tribune,' werkte, en 'columnist, essayist, author and lecturer’ is, stelde al op 8 maart 2022 onder de kop ‘The Casualties of Empire’ allereerst het volgende:
Diabolic methods of propaganda and perception management are at work now that have no precedent. This is war waged in a new way — against domestic populations as well as those declared as enemies.
The news reports come in daily from Moscow, Kiev and the Western capitals: how many dead since Russia began its intervention in Ukraine on Feb. 24, how many injured, how many hungry or cold, how many displaced. We do not know the true count of casualties and the extent of the suffering and ought not pretend we do: This is the reality of war, each side having its version of unfolding events.
My inclination is to add the deaths in Ukraine these past two weeks to the 14,000 dead and the 1.5 million displaced since 2014, when the regime in Kiev began shelling its own citizens in the eastern provinces — this because the people of Donetsk and Lugansk rejected the U.S.–cultivated coup that deposed their elected president. This simple math gives us a better idea of how many Ukrainians are worthy of our mourning.
As we mourn, it is time to consider the wider consequences of this conflict, for Ukrainians are not alone among its victims. Who else has suffered? What else has been damaged? This war is of a kind humanity has never before known. What are its costs?
Among paying-attention people it is increasingly plain that Washington’s intent in provoking Moscow’s intervention is, and probably has been from the first, to instigate a long-running conflict that bogs down Russian forces and leaves Ukrainians to wage an insurgency that cannot possibly succeed.
Is there another way to explain the many billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and matériel the U.S. and its European allies now pour into Ukraine? If the Ukrainians cannot win — a universally acknowledged reality — what is the purpose here?
Whether this strategy goes as Washington wants, or if Russian forces get their work done and withdraw to avoid a classic quagmire, remains to be seen. But as Dave DeCamp noted in antiwar.com last Friday, there is no sign whatsoever that the Biden administration plans any further diplomatic contacts with the Kremlin.
The implication here should be evident. The U.S. strategy effectively requires the destruction of Ukraine in the service of America’s imperial ambitions. If this thought seems extreme, a brief reference to the fates of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria will provide all the compelling context one may need.
Brzezinski’s Plan in 1979
President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser saw nothing wrong with getting into bed with what became Al–Qaeda. Now it is the Nazi militias that infest Ukraine’s National Guard that the U.S. arms and trains.
If the record is anything to go by, this conflict could well destroy what remains of Ukraine as a nation. In the worst outcome, little will remain of its social fabric, its public spaces, its roads, bridges, schools, and municipal institutions. This destruction has already begun.
Here is what I do not want Americans to miss: We are destroying ourselves and what hope we may have to restore ourselves to decency as we watch the regime governing us destroy another nation in our name. This destruction, too, has already begun.
Many people of many different ages have remarked in recent days that they cannot recall in their lifetimes a more pervasive, suffocating barrage of propaganda than what has engulfed us since the months that preceded Russia’s intervention. In my case it has come to supersede the worst of what I remember from the Cold War decades.
In January 2021, NATO published the final draft of a lengthy study it called Cognitive Warfare. Its intent is to explore the potential for manipulating minds — those of others, our own — beyond anything heretofore even attempted. ‘The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century,’ the document asserts. ‘Humans are the contested domain. Cognitive warfare’s objective is to make everyone a weapon.’
In a subsection headed ‘The vulnerabilities of the human brain,’ the report has this to say:
‘In particular, the brain:
is unable to distinct [sic] whether the information is right or wrong:
is led to believe statements or messages it has already heard as true, even though these may be false;
accepts statements as true, if backed by evidence, with no regards to [sic] the authenticity of that evidence.’
And this, which I find especially fiendish:
‘At the political and strategic level, it would be wrong to underestimate the impact of emotions… Emotions — hope, fear, humiliation — shape the world and international relations with the echo-chamber effect of social media.’
Cognitive Warfare is a window onto diabolic methods of propaganda and perception management that have no precedent. This is a war waged in a new way — against domestic populations as well as those declared as enemies.
And we have just had a taste of what it will be like as these techniques, well-grounded in cutting-edge science, are elaborated. Yet more disturbing to me than the cold prose of the report is the astonishing extent to which it proves out. Cognitive warfare, whether or not the NATO report is now the propagandists’ handbook, works, and it is working now on most Americans.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/08/patrick-lawrence-the-casualties-of-empire/
Het is griezelig te zien hoe weerloos de opportunistische politici en pers zijn geworden, hoe gemakkelijk zij gemanipuleerd zijn, en hoe braaf de bevolking alle propaganda slikt. Het is allemaal al uitgebreid gedocumenteerd beschreven door grote westerse denkers, maar helaas: vergeefs, wanneer ik naar de reacties om mij heen kijk. Dit totalitair functionerende bestel is erin geslaagd de alledaagse realiteit te laten vernietigen door de virtuele werkelijkheid van de elite. Opvallend genoeg hebben zowel George Orwell als Aldous Huxley gelijk gekregen: het klassieke beeld van de mens als een autonoom reagerend individu heeft al lang plaats moeten maken voor de consumerende massamens, wiens handelingen geconditioneerde reflexen zijn. Op deze wijze is de politieke macht in enkele handen gevallen. Dat laat ook de Duitse vrouwelijke kunstenaar Hito Steyerl zien in haar opzienbarende tentoonstelling in het Amsterdamse Stedelijk Museum. In haar essaybundel Duty Free Art (2017) toont zij aan hoe de democratische werkelijkheid een visuele werkelijkheid is geworden. Zij stelt:
Political power is increasingly being eroded. Who achieves or doesn’t achieve political representation matters less and less. Even people with full political privileges, members of parties — even parliaments — are increasingly ignored. Because whatever the people want, whoever they are, and regardless of who represents them, the contemporary sovereigns are mainly the ‘markets.’ The markets, not the people, are to be appeased, satisfied, and pleased by the political class. In the area of economics, representation exists too. Participation in economic processes is measured by the abilities to get credit, to own, and to consume. This also explains the contemporary rage against what is essentially economic or consumer exclusion. Many contemporary riots do not have political goals—why should they, since political action proves powerless in many cases?—but strive for economic participation: the most concentrated expression of this is the looting of shopping malls.
This erosion of political power is a result of decades of redistribution of wealth, opportunity, and actual power from the poor to the rich. While it was possible, the poor were appeased with credit and indentured shopping. Now that this no longer seems to work, economic participation has become a battleground.
But what does all this have to do with fascism? On the surface, nothing. But these phenomena are all symptoms of what could tentatively be called post-democracy. In post-democracy, politics is successively abandoned as a means of organizing the common.
Post-democracy is also felt within political institutions. Citizens of the European Union, for example, are faced with a host of institutions that are not democratically legitimized (among these, again, financial institutions, which are not subject to any political control). The votes of citizens do not have the same weight, depending on their citizenship, thus creating different classes of political representation. Within Europe and beyond, oligarchies of all kinds are on the rise. Retreating bureaucracies are replaced with authoritarian rule, tribal rackets and organized vigilantism. The so-called monopoly of violence is increasingly privatized, handed over to private armies, security companies and outsourced gangs. Forces that could be controlled democratically are weakening, while states and other actors impose their agendas through emergency powers or “necessity.” There have been so many examples of this over the last few decades that I don’t even want to start listing them.
All of these symptoms intensify anxieties around the idea of political representation as such. Weren’t we promised equality? Yes, we were. Wasn’t the idea of democracy that we’d all be represented? No, we aren’t. Political representation involves a certain arbitrariness and randomness — to a certain extent they are inherent in it, but they seem to be accelerating at a tremendous rate right now. It involves instability, unpredictability, and a large dose of futility.
De virtuele 'democratie' is alles dat overgebleven is van de werkelijkheid. En de media verspreiden vrijwillig deze virtuele 'democratie.' Meer daarover later.
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