How would you know? Chances are, you probably wouldn’t. Kevin posted today a link from Wired reporting on a military report of some kind about using bloggers as information warfare agents.
Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence… to pass the U.S. message. In this way, the U.S. can overleap the entrenched inequalities and make use of preexisting intellectual and social capital. Sometimes numbers can be effective; hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering. On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.
They also talk about going into blogs and changing the content in order to make them untrustworthy. So, even if I don’t work for the government, they could still come in and make it look like I do. What a fun game!
Hacking the site and subtly changing the messages and data—merely a few words or phrases—may be sufficient to begin destroying the blogger’s credibility with the audience. Better yet, if the blogger happens to be passing enemy communications and logistics data, the information content could be corrupted. If the messages are subtly tweaked and the data corrupted in the right way, the enemy may reason that the blogger in question has betrayed them and either take down the site (and the blogger) themselves, or by threatening such action
This whole thing reminds me of that book claiming that Abstract Expressionism became popular because the CIA funded the art movement to promote the intellectual freedoms enjoyed by US citizens amongst European intellectuals. I have no idea if that’s “true” or not, but it sounds totally cool.
Personally, I don’t see what the big deal would be if the government was, in fact, writing and manipulating blogs (and bloggers). If they had cool content which fit my “brand message”, then I would consider posting it where and when I saw relevant. You never know, really, where a piece of information really originated, or what agenda is associated with its being passed from point to point to begin with. The name of the game is just being nimble, being aware and making informed decisions at every step of the way.
One final point to consider: the internet is not a secure or private method of communication. Do not treat it as such and you will not fall into stupid traps laid for you by Roman spies.
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Once, I volunteered for an extended period of time in a disaster area within the U.S. The volunteers were a motley crew. Initially they accepted me. However, I am tall, white, and muscular. At the time I had a shaved head and a goatee. Additionally, I went to law school. Furthermore, from judicious research, I had an advanced grasp of certain things. At one point, an activist who happened to be a junkie with PTSD, in front of ten or twenty other activists, asked me if I was a cop. I said I was not, but I stressed that the only way to know for sure would be for him to conduct an independent investigation, since a cop would not admit to being a cop. But this “reasoning” seemed suspicious. Long story short, I was routinely accused of being a cop based on how I looked, and more significantly, how I talked. I could say nothing to refute the charges. I doubt anyone bothered to investigate the truth of the allegations, or would have.
You should read: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, by Frances Stonor Saunders.
Sometimes this stuff is fun to play with as a word game but people do really get hurt by this stuff. The first three posts, starting at the Malcolm X video and going back in time from there, are a good, modern, intro to this subject.
http://dreamsendweb.com/
Oh yeah, this is like Grade-A #1 psycho-paranoid way to fuck yourself up forever thinking about this stuff too much and taking it all too seriously.
Aside from the like word-game fun element of it (See RD Laing’s book “Knots”), I guess my other point was that I no longer think of “the government” as this big bugaboo evil monster. All they are after is survival and continuity through time, like any entity or institution. And most of the people I’ve met from “the military” are generally cool people with the right intentions and values, who work strictly in terms of practical matters: what works best to solve a specific problem within a specific situation. Strategy interests me to no end… it’s all about making the best decisions.
PS. For people battling this kind of conspiracy-paranoia as a personal demon: the way out of that mess is double binds, and learning how to spot and unravel them. RD Laing, RD Laing. Learn how assumptions create limiting and self-reinforcing observations within your perceptual system (RAW, NLP). Your mind is built to help you find whatever you’re looking for.
Start here if nothing else:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007/09/17/treating-conspiracy-addiction/
You can train your perceptual system and your mind to work EXACTLY in whatever way you want. You can do anything.
It’s true. Some of the better history books I’ve read are written for a largely military audience. They get rid of whatever political philosophy is fashionable and focus on what happened to who and what effect did it have. To paraphrase Ted, if we didn’t have a strong military we’d all be crushed like bugs.
I wanted to go to West Point really badly as a young teenager for a couple years. Then I got into art and everything went to shit!
What are the best military-based news websites around, based on that statement?
So you would probably disagree with Smedley Butler, that “War is a Racket?”
I suppose the “coolness” of the military excuses the fact that they are hired killers, albeit tax-payer funded, ritualistically attired, heavily promoted killers. And I’m sure their intentions and values were “right” when they fire-bombed the Vietnamese, who were being a problem by existing and defending their right to self-determination.
It’s easy to be taken in when you are not on the receiving end of their gun barrels, especially if you have been routinely inundated with jinogistic military propaganda from birth.
But, unfortunately, even if you are an American citizen, you are not necessarily protected.
The reason military histories outshine other kinds is that at the core of everything is the struggle for power, and the military is created to see it in such stark terms. This creates a refreshing viewpoint from the faux-ideology that infests history, where flowery arguments camouflage the Hobbesian realities underneath.
I frankly don’t understand why anyone would welcome an invasion and mutilation of their created works. Suppose the military changed your site to make you into an Al Qaeda supporter, retroactively, then tried you in their kangaroo court. That wouldn’t be very “cool,” would it?
My interests were satisfied and I moved on to other subjects before I got a computer so I’ve never tried to find a good military history website. Since you brought it up I’ll have to go looking. When I find some good ones I’ll get back to you.
Snorkage,
I have begun to look at “the State” as in various States, you like The US, Russia, China, etc. as superorganisms. Think of them as giant flatworms. I mean life on the flatworm level is prety direct and to the point. See somthing, eat it or try to mate with it, if you can’t do either…run away.
Organisms live by the four ‘F’s”
Fleeing
Fighting
Feeding
and er…Fornicating
So anyway, you could also look at it like this: Simple multicelled organisms, can usually get along pretty good at the single cell level. But for whatever reason they decide to get together.
So anyway, people are like cells. They get together and form states. Police are like the immune system, government is the brain. The Superorganism still has to do all the things organisms do, like fighting, reproducing etc.
So that is why states war. Its just like any other organisms fighting. So yeah, sure its a racket. So is clubbing a woodchuck over the head and throwing it in a stew pot.
Now the fornicating occurs on a memetic level. Sometimes fighting comes before fornicating. If you can’t kill it or eat, fuck it. US corporations are spreading their seed all over the place, basically.
By the way I am actually a team of 6 disinformation agents.
The thing about the poly-culture vs. the monoculture that Tim brought up in another post, raises some interesting points.
The US kind of embodies the beauty of poly culture with the different states that are semi-autonomous. States, ie. Georgia, California, can be testing grounds for various types of democratic expiriments. If somthing works it can spread.
We have all this diversity, and so we kicked ass in a century long military conflict against a Central Planned communist monoculture, monolith that was the USSR.
But the draw back is, Liberal Democracy creates “the liberal” bleeding heart types that hate war and want to be all lovey dovey. But it actually makes for a stronger country than a nation of psycho-hitler youth. Other wise we wouldn’t have crushed Gemany in WWII.
So the super-organism needs to lie to itself, for the same reason people lie to themselves. People have moral standards and a self image, but underneath it all people want to fight and fornicate. So we hide our actual motives from ourselves for doing things.
That that is why we have all this covert stuff going on. disinformation, propoganda.
“By the way I am actually a team of 6 disinformation agents.”
I’m confused. What was the question you’re disinforming me about again?
No, I would 100% agree with that. War is completely a racket!
Yes, that is *precisely* what I’m trying to say.
Yes, I think now you’re just paraphrasing what Julia said though.
I guess you need to try harder then!
Actually, I think that would be *the essence* of cool. I invite and encourage them to do just that! Because you know what? I can’t fucking stop them and I have better damned things to worry about!
Ted:
I’m not sure we did crush Germany. It may have been more of the Soviet weight, although I haven’t studied it in ages. But it also may be that we didn’t win at all and that we *all* were taken over by the same group of technocrats running the Nazi experiment, and all the other little test cauldrons all over the world.
Those people have no bearing on anything when it comes to military decision-making because they don’t have any guns.
Bleeding hearts have lots of bearing, because we live in a democracy. In a total dictatorship there would be no need for propoganda or disinformation, just raw displays of power.
People embodying the essence of a peace loving democracy are very very important.
Its just that these values are at odds with killing people and taking their stuff. Which is what States do, when they make war.
A lot of this is paradoxical. When you come to a paradox you need to transcend it with a higher order of thinking.
I guess you could say everything is based on luck. or whatever As Luck has it Europeans invented guns and had steel and Germs and whatever. Jared Diamiond’s thesis.
I am not disputing that, but you can’t leave out the fact that memes evolve and evolution slects for more elegant designs and this process is based on competition.
States evolve at a memetic level. States compete through warfare. Most wars are much longer than the actual conflicts. They last until one political paradigm defeats the other.
Liberal democracy and free market capitalism has wone out over fascism and comunism. Its a better design for winning wars. War is a group effort.
If everyone in your country is hating life and thinks the counrty sucks, you can’t win a war.
The so-called bleeding heart types, historically-speaking, HAVE prevailed against militaristic forces, but this is less talked about during times of war.
Not with regard to the second Iraq war, though.
“Liberal” and “bleeding-heart” and “anti-war” do no automatically go together, no matter how much it gets repeated on the news. Plenty of self-identified conservatives despise the war. If “liberal” market-tested better than “conservative,” “bleeding-heart” and “anti-war” would be associated with it.
In any case, you cannot sincerely be both a Christian AND a follower of a militarist, war-mongering state, I don’t care how many times you quote Jesus saying he came to bring the sword. The fact is, killing is taboo, forbidden, considered morally reprehensible. How many times do defense attorneys argue that their client should be let off because the killing was morally permissible?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that if one accepts the precept that if killing humans is wrong, then war must be wrong.
But then we get into questions of self-defense. Killing in self-defense is legally permitted. The morality of it is thornier issue, believe it or not. I don’t think intelligent people sincerely believe that Vietnam or Iraq were threats from which we had to defend ourselves. In any case, the state has routinely used the “we were attacked first” argument to go to war; in such cases, these events have frequently been found to be fabrications, distortions, or the result of provocations.
The problem with state as macro-organism model, aside from being an over-simplification, is that individuals ultimately make decisions. The government is more like an unthinking body that follows “rules” “orders” and “directives” because it has to. The process by which said “rules” are created, and then implemented is more nebulous. But ultimately, the trail goes back to individuals. Things like “states,” “governments,” “religions,” and “corporations” are fictions through which individuals operate to escape liability for their actions. If individuals took certain actions themselves, they would face criminal and civil liability. Done through organizations, their liability is eliminated, or greatly reduced through plausible denial.
The military is one such example.
Generally speaking, people who go around torturing, killing, and destroying or stealing the property of other people are vilified as criminals and locked up. But if people do this under the aegis of the state or one of its contractors, then they are considered “heroes.” The raison d’etre? The former creates relative economic uncertainty and unpredictability, and is therefore condemned as being anti-social. The latter creates RELATIVE economic certainty and predictability. Certain sectors do well during wars; certain institutions profit. Plunder and booty are to be had and distributed amongst powerful groups and individuals. But their actions are no different; in fact they are worse because they take place on a greater scale.
Military people, like lots of people, are cool when you know them as individuals in their non-combat roles. But when they have disassociated or assimilated into their military hive-mind role, well then, you’d better watch out.
Just because the military has a lot of power does not mean that it is omnipotent. It is probably not impossible, or even extremely difficult to guard against website manipulation, since the defensive tasks may be automated to a certain degree, and you may keep a version of your web-site off-line. In any case, they would probably be breaking the “law” by doing that, or at least attracting undesired publicity, so if discovered, they would back off like roaches fleeing the sunlight.
Surrendering to the belief that you are powerless and they are all-powerful shows that their propaganda has worked. I really don’t think you would want three to ten years of your life stolen by the military just for the “coolness” of it.
The ruling mindset found in all institutions is more or less the same. The Nazis were inspired by the genocidal campaigns of the Euro-Americans against the Native Americans, and also by the PR campaigns used to incite the Americans to go to war against the Germans during the First World War. The Nazis, the Soviets, the Chinese Communists, various Imperial European countries, and the Americans all copied from one another based on what they perceived to work.
The Soviets did the bulk of the fighting because they had no choice; they were invaded. The U.S. invaded when it became fortuitous to, so they could seize as much of Europe as possible at the least cost, thus they got the greatest value for their sacrifice.
No, it just means that I’m a Taoist…
TTC 22
If you want to become whole,
let yourself be partial.
If you want to become straight,
let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full,
let yourself be empty.
If you want to be reborn,
let yourself die.
If you want to be given everything,
give everything up.
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html
I really don’t think this is true. Read the Prince. The essence of politics is stagecraft. Raw displays of power are only useful if them are *read* by target audiences in the right way: through disinformation and propaganda.
Yes, exactly! Positive leadership examples within communities work!
Wars are not fought to be won. That’s an out-dated business model.
All wars have different goals some are meant to be won, others not. Long wars like the cold war are meant to be won, others like Vietnam and Iraq not.
Yeah, I should read the Prince. But you are saying I am going by an outdated bussines model. I have read stuff along the lines of Machiavelli but relavant for today. Stuff coming out of political thinktanks and political philosophers in power now.
But anyway, here is my basic idea: There are levels of human social organization.
little tribes of hunter gatherers, not much more complex than groups of chimps or dolphin pods other social animals > chiefdoms> Principalities > Kingdoms >State Nations> Nation States
One thing people like to do is overly romanticize social organization at the tribal level. This is due to the idea of the Noble Savage. But anyway, warfare was a big part of tribal life. Just like it is for dolphins and chimps. Dolphins and chimps all know what it means to kill the enemy.
Also people in advanced western nations aren’t violent themselves and so they assume it is not mans nature to be violent. Because people tend to attribute their own qualities to others.
But the reason we aren’t violent is because we live within a state that monopolizes violence. The state does our violence for us. We are like cells in a body. The white bloodcells do all our defense. So the State wants us to be peaceful and law abiding and respectful of our neighbor, because the state is really big and has a lot of diversity. So that creates an attitude that we should be peaceful to everyone on the globe and respect all global diversity. But that is because we are not in a position to make that decision. We aren’t white bloodcells. We are stepping outside of our area of expertise.
Now, some people are disinfranchized with the greater society and become criminals and form a criminal underclass. They often form violent gangs and war amongst themselves. That is the closest look most of us living in advanced western nations will get to tribal violence. But thats what it looks like. It looks like the bloods and the cripps, only its in the jungle, or the savanna or the prairie and not on the streets.
Thats what the building block level of human social organization is the tribe. and tribes fight. That’s why they speak different languages. They aren’t into communicating with outsiders.
Only when people are dominated by a powerful hierarchy to they become harmless.
Its like Gehengis Khan, uniting all the mongols and bringing them the law.
I just saw this at the Madison film festival:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416044
That’s the way it was. The Mongols were a ragtag bunch of warring clans raiding and stealing and killing one another. Until Timudgin (Ghengis) became “Khan of Khans” and united everyone and laid down the law:
1. Don’t kill women or children
2. Never dishonor your Khan
3. Remember your debts.
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