This just in.  Consider the implications.  Is it possible that the "news" seen on Fox News, for example, is really military psyops propaganda, intended for foreign audiences, that has been redirected back to audiences in the United States?

I hasten to add that propaganda, like nuclear power, has negative connotations but is not in and of itself inherently evil.  It depends entirely on who is employing it, and for what purpose, and with what degree of integrity.  My own criteria, admittedly slippery, would be that it be used for benevolent purposes, and be non-hypocritical.  I would be hard pressed to believe that my criteria are being met by the Bush administration.

As a sort of aside, isn't it interesting how in America one of our most consistent and pervasive metaphors or paradigms is that of war?  In America we "fight" for everything, and against everything.  Even our elected representatives promise us that they will "fight" for us, their constituents.  Who are they fighting against, and why should they have to "fight" all the time?  How often do we as a culture think in terms of win-win situations?  I feel a contemplative essay about that coming on, if I can summon up the motivation to write it.

**********

By Adam Brookes, BBC Pentagon correspondent

Bloggers beware.

As the world turns networked, the Pentagon is calculating the military opportunities that computer networks, wireless technologies and the modern media offer.

From influencing public opinion through new media to designing "computer network attack" weapons, the US military is learning to fight an electronic war.

The declassified document is called "Information Operations Roadmap".  It was obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University using the Freedom of Information Act.

Officials in the Pentagon wrote it in 2003. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed it.

The "roadmap" calls for a far-reaching overhaul of the military's ability to conduct information operations and electronic warfare. And, in some detail, it makes recommendations for how the US armed forces should think about this new, virtual warfare.

The document says that information is "critical to military success".  Computer and telecommunications networks are of vital operational importance.

Propaganda

The operations described in the document include a surprising range of military activities: public affairs officers who brief journalists, psychological operations troops who try to manipulate the thoughts and beliefs of an enemy, computer network attack specialists who seek to destroy enemy networks.

All these are engaged in information operations.

Perhaps the most startling aspect of the roadmap is its acknowledgement that information put out as part of the military's psychological operations, or Psyops, is finding its way onto the computer and television screens of ordinary Americans.

"Information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and Psyops, is increasingly consumed by our domestic audience," it reads.

"Psyops messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public," it goes on.

The document's authors acknowledge that American news media should not unwittingly broadcast military propaganda. "Specific boundaries should be established," they write. But they don't seem to explain how.

"In this day and age it is impossible to prevent stories that are fed abroad as part of psychological operations propaganda from blowing back into the United States - even though they were directed abroad," says Kristin Adair of the National Security Archive.

Credibility problem

Public awareness of the US military's information operations is low, but it's growing - thanks to some operational clumsiness.

Late last year, it emerged that the Pentagon had paid a private company, the Lincoln Group, to plant hundreds of stories in Iraqi newspapers. The stories - all supportive of US policy - were written by military personnel and then placed in Iraqi publications.

And websites that appeared to be information sites on the politics of Africa and the Balkans were found to be run by the Pentagon.

But the true extent of the Pentagon's information operations, how they work, who they're aimed at, and at what point they turn from informing the public to influencing populations, is far from clear.

The roadmap, however, gives a flavour of what the US military is up to - and the grand scale on which it's thinking.

It reveals that Psyops personnel "support" the American government's international broadcasting. It singles out TV Marti - a station which broadcasts to Cuba - as receiving such support.

It recommends that a global website be established that supports America's strategic objectives. But no American diplomats here, thank you. The website would use content from "third parties with greater credibility to foreign audiences than US officials".

It also recommends that Psyops personnel should consider a range of technologies to disseminate propaganda in enemy territory: unmanned aerial vehicles, "miniaturized, scatterable public address systems", wireless devices, cellular phones and the internet.

'Fight the net'

When it describes plans for electronic warfare, or EW, the document takes on an extraordinary tone.  It seems to see the internet as being equivalent to an enemy weapons system.

"Strategy should be based on the premise that the Department [of Defense] will 'fight the net' as it would an enemy weapons system," it reads.

The slogan "fight the net" appears several times throughout the roadmap.

The authors warn that US networks are very vulnerable to attack by hackers, enemies seeking to disable them, or spies looking for intelligence.

"Networks are growing faster than we can defend them... Attack sophistication is increasing... Number of events is increasing."

US digital ambition

And, in a grand finale, the document recommends that the United States should seek the ability to "provide maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum".

US forces should be able to "disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally merging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum".

Consider that for a moment.

The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.

Are these plans the pipe dreams of self-aggrandising bureaucrats? Or are they real?

The fact that the "Information Operations Roadmap" is approved by the Secretary of Defense suggests that these plans are taken very seriously indeed in the Pentagon.

And that the scale and grandeur of the digital revolution is matched only by the US military's ambitions for it.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Published: 2006/01/27 18:05:49 GMT

(c) BBC MMVI

In the Comments to my last post, a surprising number of women admitted that yes, the female of the species is indeed evil.  Two women suggested that men are assholes making it somehow even out, but they offered no mathematical or other empirical proof, so their unsubstantiated opinions will have to be discounted as mere statistical anomalies. 

I realize that it's time for me to post some new content, but I've recently been under a cloud of depression even more severe than usual, so a purloined (GREAT word!) political observation, hopefully thought-provoking, will have to suffice.

As Civildis says, I love you all.

**********

I know this topic will shock most of you, coming from me, but I found this on NYCJOYCE's site and had to share it. 

We will disregard for the moment that the exact same proof could be applied to a grilled cheese sandwich. 

Since Rabookie's latest post was about dogs, and since a whole bunch of Xangans seem to be using pictures of dogs as their avatars these days, I thought I'd share the comment I left on Rabookie's post, slightly edited:

*****

Mad propz to Charles Earland for a succinct restatement of the Doody Dilemma.  R.I.P.

Edit:  For the uninitiated, Charles Earland was a jazz organist who died in 1999.  The CD I was listening to contains an original composition entitled "No Brain, No Pain".  Another way of saying, "The mind is a terrible thing," which is a slight bastardization of the United Negro College Fund slogan.

The Doody Dilemma was first identified around 1963 by myself and a high school classmate who is currently a physician in Chicago.   It is named after Eddie Doody, now a Chicago firefighter but then a neighborhood kid of less than average intelligence.  My colleague and I observed, over the course of a number of clinical trials, that young Doody, who lacked the wit to engage in what is now known as "critical thinking", was one of the happiest young men we had ever seen.  We, on the other hand, recognized the hypocrisies and injustices in the world even at age 13 (much like Anna_Lanche, though not nearly so clearly or articulately), and were not even remotely as happy-go-lucky as Mr. Doody.  Ignorance, therefore, seemed to indeed be bliss.  It was a conundrum for which we had no ready solution, and thus the Doody Dilemma was born as an identified psychological phenomenon.  We're still waiting for it to appear in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychological Association, but its non-inclusion to date in no way nullifies the legitimacy of the phenomenon.

Over time my physician friend has learned to cope with the Doody Dilemma by employing rationalizations and hypocrisies of his own.  I, however, never have.  If, as has been said, depression is anger turned inward and cynicism is frustrated idealism, I experience both to this day in full measure.

In my last post, in the Comment section, I included a couple of cliches that have proven, in my experience, to be true.  Here are several more, below.  Your assignment is to comment on the cliches - identify which ones are true, or which ones are false, and tell why.  I encourage you to also add your own cliches, with accompanying comments.  I'm sure there are some that make you glad or sad or mad, blow your skirt up or piss you off.  Be as detailed as possible.  It'll be fun.

1) "Don't worry, things will look/be better tomorrow."  In my mind this isn't necessarily true at all, unless WE do something to change matters or unless a wind of good fortune blows in off the coast, which rarely happens.  Why doesn't the person uttering the cliche HELP us to make things better tomorow?

2) "Everything happens for a reason."  Sure, but sometimes the reason is evil, or at least not in our best interests.  So your point is...?

3) "You're only as old as you feel."  Yes, and....?  What if I feel 90 years old?  Hunh?

4) "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."  Gee, aren't there any other alternatives?  Like maybe turning the stove burner down a little?

5) "Get a life!"  This, of all cliches, makes my blood boil the most.  Sure, we live in the most stunningly powerful capitalist country in history.  But where does one "get a life"?  Can I afford the wonderful life YOU have?  Can I find it somewhere on sale at a 90% discount?

I think the pressures of success have been getting to Theologian Dan lately.  In his need/desire to post two or three "thought-provoking" questions a day, his questions have grown increasingly jejune.  Or is that just my perception?

At the same time, I like many things about his format.  I appreciate readers' comments, and of course the best way to elicit them is to give them something to think about and respond to.  So I'm going to try to do a bit of that.  Not to get eProps or appear on Featured Content, but just to express a few of my thoughts, solicit yours, and get a conversation going.  I won't do this all the time, but I'll mix it in with other stuff.

I'll start with an observation of my own, and posit a question or questions related to it.  After receiving your feedback, I may or may not respond in an "Edit" with my own thoughts again.

To start off, one of my observations in life is that there are basically two kinds of people in the world: those with too much to do, and those with not enough to do.  The person who finds that exquisite balance between the two is quite rare.  Of course, a lot of it is age-dependent; parents with young children are definitely busier than elderly retired folks.

Anyway...which kind of person are you?  Which kind of person would you rather be?  Would you rather burn out or rust out?  And most importantly, what secrets have you discovered, if any, that enable you to be more balanced in terms of having plenty to keep you occupied, while still preserving some time to "smell the roses"?

It may seem silly for someone who blogs to be concerned about privacy issues, but I am.  I ran a Google search on my Xanga name, Eccentrique, and found a comment I had left on one of the posts at TheTheologian'sCafe.  That's the only Xanga entry I found under "Eccentrique", but it was enough.  A person could follow the link back to my blog, and from there all around Xanga.

So....does anyone know what the "rules" are in terms of how Xanga entries get archived by Google, and how to prevent them from getting archived?  It looks to me like it's too late, in any case.  And my guess is that even if a person totally shuts down his/her Xanga, the damned thing is archived somewhere for all eternity.  Anyone know for sure?

10 Good Things about Another Bad Year
    By Medea Benjamin
    

    Friday 29 December 2005

    As we close this year, a year in which we were pummeled by the Iraq war, attacks on our civil rights, and Mother Nature's fury of hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis, there is no shortage of reasons to feel bruised and beaten. But to start the New Year with a healthy determination to keep on fighting, we need to reflect on the good things that happened. And there are plenty.

    One continent alone - South America - could provide more than ten examples of wonderful progressive victories, but I'll just list some of the highlights.

    1. Hugo Chavez has shown how an oil-rich nation can use the country's wealth to provide education, healthcare and small business opportunities for its people - and we here in the US have discovered an oil company we can feel good about buying gas from: Venezuela's CITGO.

    2. Bolivians have, for the first time in their history, elected an indigenous president, Evo Morales. The former llama farmer and coca grower has fought against "free trade" and the privatization of his nation's resources, and has brought new hope to indigenous people throughout the continent.

    3. Anti-war activists - who once represented a much-maligned minority - now represent the majority of Americans who agree that the war in Iraq was a mistake and the troops should come home as soon as possible. And with Cindy Sheehan and Cong. Jack Murtha, we finally had spokespeople the mainstream media listened to!

    4. In an historic blow to the Bush administration's five-year attempt to destroy the Kyoto Protocol, the climate summit in Montreal ended with even stronger measures to combat global warming. At home, nearly 200 cities are taking their own Kyoto-type actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

    5. The Senate ended the year with a spurt of defiance, refusing to permanently extend the expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, blocking the Republican maneuver to attach Arctic oil drilling to a defense spending bill, and passing John McCain's anti-torture amendment.

    6. Despite a concerted offensive to lift the president's sagging public support, George Bush's approval ratings are still below 50 percent, his economic agenda (from the privatization of social security to the repeal of the estate tax) has unraveled, key cronies from Lewis Libby to Tom DeLay have fallen from grace, and 2006 might just put impeachment back into the congressional lexicon.

    7. Labor, community activists and women's groups have mounted a spirited campaign against the behemoth of behemoths, Wal-Mart. And a California jury awarded $172 million to thousands of employees at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., who were denied such basic rights as lunch breaks, with 40 similar lawsuits pending in other states.

    8. With the wild swings in gas prices, SUV sales have plummeted (Ford Explorer down 52%, Chevrolet Suburban down 46%), the sale of hybrids has doubled, and the US House of Representatives actually held a forum on the "peak oil theory."

    9. In a great win for farm workers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers forced the fast food giant Taco Bell to raise the price for picking tomatoes (nearly doubling many workers' salaries), and now they're ready to take on an even bigger bully: McDonald's.

    10. The global movement for peace and justice proved it was alive and kicking: witness Argentina during the Free Trade Agreement meetings, Hong Kong around the World Trade Organization ministerial, and the ongoing rallies against the war. The steady growth of the fair-trade movement also shows that we are not just protesting, but we're also building a more sustainable economy.

    Let's make 2006 the year we broke the right-wing tide, refused to give pro-war, free-trade Democrats a free ride, and built a "people's movement" with some muscle to it. We might just get some lessons from our southern neighbors. If Mexico City's progressive mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador becomes Mexico's next president, Latin America's revolutionary fervor will be smack up against the Texas border. Que viva el poder popular en 2006!