Piece of Mind

As citizens and media consumers, we are embedded and embroiled in a battle for our minds.

When we actively tune into television news or other programming, read the major newspapers, seek out alternative media, play video games, watch a movie, or browse the Internet, we are subject to the influences, overtly and covertly, of people, organizations and ideologies which remain hidden to us.

There is also increasing evidence that we are subject to having our thoughts and mental processes surveilled and affected, even passively, beyond our choice or recognition.

This six-part series will examine the news media, propaganda, social agenda setting, the influences of corporations, the Pentagon, the CIA and related organizations, in driving not only what you perceive but also how you perceive it, what you think you understand, and perhaps how you will behave in a given socio-political context.

Several cases studies will be presented.

Numerous articles and other sources will be noted.

In some cases, this effort is focused on the masses… reaching tens of millions of people at once, or repetitively.

In other cases, the focus is on driving an agenda through the influence of a few.

In some cases, the technologies can focus on a single individual.

The six sections include:

Introduction: Propaganda and Public Relations

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?automodule=blog&...

The CIA and the Pentagon
-- Operation Mockingbird
-- “The Mighty Wulitzer”
-- “The Provocateur State”
-- Black Budgets, Manpower and Record-“Keeping”
-- The Office of Strategic Influence
-- “The War on Hostile Media”

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Surveillance: Feedback Loops to the Benefit of Whom?
-- Echelon, Commercial Espionage and Data Mining

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?automodule=blog&...

A Few “Case Histories”
-- Iran-Contra, the CIA and Drugs
-- The Kennedy Assassination
-- Flight 800
-- 9/11 (with a tip of the cap to "George Washington")

-- The Anthrax Matter
-- The Valerie Plame Affair

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CONUS
-- “The Mind Has No Firewall”
-- The War at Home
-- New Weaponry
-- Psychopharmacological Warfare

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The Present and the Future
-- ‘What’s Wrong With This Picture?”
-- Repeated Trauma and Deliberately-Induced Fear
-- Computer-Age Information Warfare
-- Electromagnetic Weapons and Psychological Control of Civilians

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This series is not about commercial product placement in movies, subliminal programming, or other “hidden persuaders”, though these are in use.

Similarly, it is not about memetic engineering, though this is also present in our cultural discourse.

It will not discuss the way in which TV viewing can induce mental states highly susceptible to suggestion, for which there is much evidence.

"Americans no longer talk to each other; they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas; they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities, parables, and public opinion polls. Because of this, it is even possible that someday soon a movie actor may become president of the United States."

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death,1985.

Coda:

“If you’re not in a conspiracy, you need to start one”
Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power

http://carolynbaker.org/archives/conspiracy-if-youre-not-in-one-you-need...