We Are Being Programmed (Part 5): CIA Takes Over

We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied.  The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something.  In this installment we take a look at what happened to the enormous propaganda machine after WWII was over.  Once the Office of War Information was disbanded in 1945, the Central Intelligence Agency took over the domestic operations and "assumed many of the information gathering, analyzing and disseminating responsibilities".  So, what would the CIA use its new found domestic propaganda powers for?  In the early 1950's, Frank Wisner (head of the Directorate of Plans for CIA), Allan W. Dulles (Director of Central Intelligence) and Cord Meyer (Office of Policy Coordination) started Operation Mockingbird.  By 1953, Operation Mockingbird had "major influence over 25 newspapers and wire agencies".  We also touch on the House Un-American Activities Committee and the CIA's Project MK Ultra program.  [Click to Listen]

We Are Being Programmed (Part 4): The Golden Age of Propaganda

We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied.  The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In the forth episode of this series we take a look at the Golden Age of Propaganda, World War II.  We do this by analyzing several audio clips from films played in motion picture theaters during the 1940's.  The clips include: Education for Death (made by Walt Disney), The Batman - The Electrical Brain (an 8-part serial), Japanese Relocation (Office of War Information), Our Enemy - The Japanese (United States Navy Training Film), Remember Pearl Harbor - Buy War Bonds (again, the US Government), Wartime Nutrition (Office of War Information) and It's Your War Too (made by the War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry and the US War Dept.).  [Click to Listen]

We Are Being Programmed (Part 3): The Lab

We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied.  The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something. In the third episode we play a couple of clips of commercial radio from the 1940's, then we enter 'The Lab'.  Once sound film is perfected (more or less), Hollywood productions are now the great laboratory of for propagandists experimentation.  Any good propagandist would look at the sheer numbers, up to 90 million moviegoers each week, and start drooling at the possibilities.  One homogenized audio/video message seen in just one week by 90 million people?!  This had never been an option in all of human history before motion pictures with sound were invented.  Brave new world.  American politics took notice of the potential for reaching so many people with one homogenized message and took action.  Those white men in power in Washington D.C. started hanging out with those other white men in power in Hollywood...a lot.  This is the moment when American politics had to first, and evermore, deal with what they will look like to the public.  People in politics/industry quickly figured out how to sell the image needed to get citizens/consumers to choose their product.  Oh, and then WWII started and the Golden Age of Propaganda was about to begin. [Click to Listen]

We Are Being Programmed (Part 2): The Switch

We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied.  The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something.  In the second episode of this series we take a look at the early, early days of advertising...before cars took people to stores miles from their house.  Back in this time period, the merits of a consumer good or service were believed to be enough to sell the item.  At the turn of the century (1900) we were still considered 'citizens' by those in positions of power (government and industry), but this was all about to change.  After the success of the Committee on Public Information, a WWI organization in charge of swaying public opinion to support the war, the same techniques used to sell the war to the citizens of the US were adapted by big business to more effectively sell their goods and services.  Edward Burnays was a member of the CPI and the leading proponent of switching the citizenry into consumers in the post WWI years. In the mid 1920's, he successfully combined the philosophy of Wilfred Trotter (and his idea of "herd instinct") with the writings of his uncle, Sigmund Freud.  The successful techniques pioneered by Burnays are still being used to sell us consumer goods today; press release, celebrity endorsement, testimonials, sex, product placement and the idea that buying a consumer good that we don't need will fill that empty hole in our lives. [Click to Listen]

We Are Being Programmed (Part 1)

We are all affected by it...call it advertising, propaganda, programming, social engineering, psychological operations, or whatever other term could be applied.  The act of a force outside of your mind trying to convince you to do something.  In the kick-off episode of this series we go over the etymology and definitions of the above terms and then get into an example of how 'conversations' on this topic usually play out within the corporate media [hint: they suck].  We also take a listen to some shitty pop music and ask 'how do the lyrics affect the human brain', mainly in an unconscious way.  We conclude part 1 with an adaptation of the Zen TV Experiment and how it could be used with any kind of screen, to the benefit of us all.  [Click to Listen]