Psyops Playbook Spelled Out

Immune Resistance to Propaganda

Let America be America Again

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.

I am the redman driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope.

I seek and finding only the same old stupid plan

of dog eat dog, of mighty crushing the weak.

Langston Hughes

The Plandemic has been called the Greatest Psyops in History, without elaborating. Had to do some light reading to define this for my Faithful Readers, (being optimistic there). Psychological Warfare and the American Mind by AnnaleeNewitz, (W.W. Norton & Company, 2024) fit the bill at the library. Annalee identifies as a they/them, both a science journalist and science fiction writer, (non-binary lately). They “spent most of their life at that crossroads between hard realities and the fantasies we entertain about them.” Somewhere On the Road, (between Liberty and Freedom, Maine?Nevermind, a hitchhiking story.).

Psychological warfare and culture wars are waged there, since “successful propaganda always contains a slice of the truth.” Propagandists refer to actual events and “true histories, but decontextualize them”, aiming to relocate our narratives to “an imaginary terrain of mythical bad guys and good guys”, Deep State and White Hats, Angels and Demons, Yogis and Fakirs. This Binary Barb worms into our hearts and guts. (Earworms and Brainworms are different lures.)

Benjamin Franklin used his revolutionary printing press to befuddle British readers of his fake news paper in our Revolutionary War. That was from his own devious mind, not a coordinated war effort. Concerted, scientific tactics were first employed by the US War Dept (when it was upfront about its mission), during WWI. Their Psychological Subsection of Intelligence Division hired tabloid (when they all were) journalist Walter Lippman as deputy assistant. Renamed Propaganda Section in 1918, printed up million of leaflets in German, text bombs dropped from airplanes in enemy territory to “undermine morale of troops and civilians.”

Seems like bombs would be more effective. About as scientific as vaccine safety. At home, they strictly censored the news about a deadly illness spreading from doughboy garrisons. Neutral Spain’s non censored news, got this flagged as Spanish Influenza, not Kansas Flu where US soldiers were the original vector.

Propaganda was perfected by Edward Bernays, Freud’s less famous cousin, who developed modern advertisement campaigns. “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”, his 1928 book, Propaganda, claimed on the cover.

Spinning this as ultimately benevolent, “merely the mechanism ideas are disseminated on a large scale to spread a particular belief or doctrine, using everyday mass communication with existing and emerging platforms.”

Lippman believed propaganda was more coercive than journalism or commercial advertising, placing military psyopson in extremities of that continuum of influencers. He exposed the tightening vice of the invisible government in his 1922 book, Public Opinion, although his solution was an “independent, expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make the decisions.” FactChecker.org on steroids.

Paul Linebarger defined modern psychological operations after WWII, since they were still dropping leaflets on Japanese soldiers during. Installed in the Office of War Information in 1942, he was a Far East specialist, fluent in Chinese and German. Linebarker “leaked the Japanese government’s offer of surrender while terms were still being negotiated”, with B-29’s unloading the official text. To nullify any kamikaze attempt to “whip its people back into frenzy for suicidal prolongation of war.” .

Instead of being prosecuted for divulging classified information, Linebarger headed Special Operations to train military agents to influence and deceive the enemy at Fort Liberty, (Fort Bragg once again, but not the treasonous Bragg). He wrote the manual Psychological Warfare for U.S. Army in late 1940’s.

Newitz burrowed through his archival boxes at Hoover Institution at Stanford University. (My body of work is buried out back.) Linebarger also wrote under pseudonym Felix C. Forrest in the lit/fiction genre of women’s inner lives. More popularly as Carmichael Smith with Cold War spy novels, and Cordwainer Smith writing science fiction stories and novels. This Smith became a cult figure in the 1950’s and 60’s because readers were convinced he was an “actual time traveler.”

His acolytes are Plandemic Plotters spinning imaginary worlds like Chinese plates. Science Fiction and Thrillers, tools of war? The same manipulation of narrative to create confusion, builds suspense like chaotic and unpredictable warfare.

The fog of uncertainty forcing decisions without enough information was weaponized, so “the enemy no longer trusts their sources of news.” Citizens become desperate for answers, “vulnerable to misleading propaganda” when military psyop tactics blowback on the Home Front. Culture warriors leading the charge.

Linebarger wanted a psychological disarmament after WWII, using propaganda “to end war, not inflame more, as nations needed to rebuild shattered public spheres, rotted through by years of disinformation.” Proposed using Psychological Warfare to promote “the affirmation of human community against the national divisions otherwise accepted in war.”

Reconstruction was needed, investing in public education, a robust, independent press, opening borders to migrants. He was a career military man, so rosy optimism dropped from later editions. The Cold War and proxy conflicts needed psyops galore.

“All good black propaganda is to confuse the enemy authorities while winning the thankfulness of the enemy people, building up the myth that large, well organized groups of revolutionists are ready to end the war when their time comes.” Military psychological influence operations to combat a foreign enemy, “bled over into civilian conflicts, creating a flood of disinformation and deception, fake news and information wars.”

Keep our heads in the cloud, while others lose their minds.

Immune Enhancement: Venting is Better than Stewing. Confluence of concatenations and we’re shouting on the sidewalk. Apology Tours are worth the wait.