Obaganda

Propaganda is defined by Wordnet as “information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause.”  Sounds innocent enough, right?   However, Wikipedia gives us this definition:

Propaganda is the dissemination of information aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of people. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, often presents information primarily in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively (thus lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda.

Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.

—Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion

SourceWatch gives a similar definition, and, like Wikipedia, provides a lot more detail sbout what exactly propaganda is.  As we move toward tomorrow’s one year anniversary celebrating the PUMA Movement’s May 31, 2008 birth, I thought an examination of one of the prime elements that lead us to this point was overdue.

Many PUMA bloggers, myself included, in fact, perhaps myself primarily, have characterized the Obaminable tactics employed by David Axelrod and his minions on the Lyin’ King’s behalf, as Astroturf, when in truth, it is but one of the many tools of the Obagandists’ trade.   Such mislabeling is understandable given Axelrod’s status as Master of Astroturf, a title bestowed upon him by Business Watch in their March 14, 2008 profile.   However, Axelrod did not invent the tactic, nor is he a lone practitioner of the dark, dubious art.  Dick Morris’ buddy, Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Martsteller, and  Hillary Clinton’s once chief strategist, is said to be well versed in the tactic.  Penn, along with Morris, is also credited with being the architect of “triangulation” and pushing Bill Clinton to the right, as well as with identifying “soccer moms” as a group to be targeted and courted, like “active grannies.”  Whatta maroon.  FreedomWorks, Dick Armey’s Tea Party promoting Astroturfing machine is another, and DCI Group, another Republican public relations firm, is accused of posting a 2006 You Tube video spoofing Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” called “Al Gore’s Penguin Army” by “Toutsmith,” supposedly a 29 year-old amateur from Beverly Hills.  I’m sure however, that without too much effort, we could find that just about every public relations firm in the world Astroturfs to some degree for clients corporate and political.  Why not?  It works.

Astroturfing is technically the act of swaying public opinion through the use of  fake grassroots support, generated by paid staffers, or volunteers, inundating op-ed pages and websites disguised as representatives of phony organizations like “Fluffers for Change,” or, “Obama Lovers Anonymous,” or  “ProLife Is A Choice, Too,” or even, “Green Garbage,” or “Rooty Tooty Toothpaste,” who flood such outlets with entreaties, and/or venomous screeds for their particular agenda.  It’s cheap, easy and effective, requiring, through the use of sockpuppets, only a few imaginative employees and, only sometimes, multiple IP addresses.

According to Wikipedia, The Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937-1942) outlined “seven common propaganda devices.”  Though disbanded in 1942 for lack of funding, Aaron Delwiche’s Propaganda Critic took up the task in 2002, though it seems now to be largely inactive.  The basis of concern regarding the use of the various tactics of propaganda in advertising corporate and political, is not just its effectiveness at brainwashing gullible people, though that is one of the primary goals, but the far more pressing concern is with the conditioning aspect of prolonged exposure to it, coupled with the sheer pervasiveness of the technique, which threatens to make even the most cynical critical thinkers gullible over time.  Here’s Wikipedia’s description of the institute:

The Institute for Propaganda Analysis was a U.S.-based organization composed of social scientists, opinion leaders, historians, educators, and journalists. Created in 1937 by Kirtley Mather, Edward A. Filene, and Clyde R. Miller, the IPA formed with the general concern that increased amounts of propaganda were decreasing the public’s ability to develop their own critical thoughts. The purpose of the IPA was to spark rational thinking and provide a guide to help the public have well-informed discussions on current issues. “To teach people how to think rather than what to think.” The IPA focused on domestic propaganda issues that might become possible threats to the democratic ways of life.

The seven common propaganda devices outlined by the institute are:

1. Name-calling
2. Glittering generalities
3. Transfer
4. Testimonial
5. Plain folks
6. Card stacking
7. Bandwagon

Of course, Astroturfing, and the more recent mind control techniques employed by the Obamanoids to wrench control of the Democratic party, as well as the democratic process, as outlined in Time Magazine recently, were yet to be identified at the time of the institute’s existence.  But, anybody who has been following the Pretendident’s Path to Power will easily recognize when and how the devices were used.  Bloggers around the internet have illustrated many examples of how they feel propaganda is being used to mindfuck us all, like LezGetReal’s May 28, swine flu post, LightPondBlogger’s, “Propaganda or Opinion” examinationof the Sonia Sotomayor hoopla, and Shtuey’s delightfully wicked piece on marketing, pharmaceuticals, and, what else? Waffles Obiteme, at Oy…My Valve.

Obaganda is particularly insidious because of its fraudulent use to get a woefully unqualified, mediocre TelePrompTer Reader elected by manipulating public opinion through trickery and deceit.  Selling a good product with clever marketing is one thing, successfully selling the equivalent of Pet Rocks and Ginsu knives as priceless, museum quality, collector’s items to the entire world is a Bernie Madoff shaming ripoff.  And, when Obaganda, Astroturfing, intimidation, and the exploitation of mass guilt are combined into a potent cocktail, and sanctioned by Big Brother, the resultant onslaught and assault on the sensibilities becomes irresistible to a society conditioned by years of constant bombardment of similar tactics used to promote similarly deficient products.  America, meet the McPresident.  You want fries with that?

Somebody knew that America could be sold a bill of goods, and that this guy fit that bill.  They paid a lot of money to see to it that the Obagandists had sufficient funds to complete their mission, and that no stone would be unturned.   From You Tube videos  designed to promote the subliminal Mandingo fantasies of women who would never admit to such a thing, and promote their candidate’s Mac superiority over his opponent’s PC-ness, to online death threats, to glitzy, glamorous “branding” campaigns, to press memos highlighting opponent’s “unfortunate,” inadverdant, or even potentially deliberate racism, to the outright purchase of enough of the superdelegates he once disdained to ensure a favorable outcome to a righteous challenge to his quest for enough delegates to justify his party’s nomination, though even after the injustice was done he still nearly came up short, Obaganda permeated every aspect of the campaign, and, now, his pretendidency.   Campaign donors who happen to own networks, newspapers, and the entire freaking internet worked, and continue to work, diligently to pretend that the razor thin resume of the part-time politician cum pew pimping community organizer has suddenly, miraculously, shhhh, don’t tell nobody-ly, become presidentially fat.  And, the well-propaganda-fed sheeple ate, and continue to eat, it up.  The fact that many of them seem ready to puke it back up is no real consolation, without another American Idol of the same corporate fueled type to capture their fancies, they will cling to the idea of him like a penniless abused woman, deliberately isolated from friends and separated from family, clings to the idea of love.

That’s the beauty of propaganda, the thing that takes the onus from those who foist it on the masses, at least in the perpetrators’ minds; in order for it to work, ya gotta wanna believe.  You have to really want sea monkeys to grow in a glass of water to buy the packet, you believe rocks in a box are worth money or you don’t buy them,  you don’t want to lose weight if you can’t have Twinkies or you don’t buy Miracle Slim, and your weenie’s embarrassingly tiny if you’re willing to send somebody money for a bottle of overpriced sugar pills to make it grow.  But, that’s what puts the onus right back on the fraudsters, Obagandists especially.  Like all the other shysters and scammers mentioned, and those who weren’t, Axelfraud, Inc. knew they were selling…nothing.  However, they also knew sheeple would buy a pretty box if they could convince them that it had dreams, and hope, and change, and absolution it it, and they would feel like it was a bargain at the three quarters of a billion dollar price.

Manipulation to influence those who manipulate us is the order of the day at Camp Obajunk.  Favored “journalists,” pseudo-journalists, talking heads, pundits, and bloviating blowhards (some who are some of the above, some, all of the above) are given preferential treatment; daily briefings, lunches, dinners,  Superbowl parties, minute-by-minute emails and press releases, deep background info to be printed without attribution, etc., while those who speak ill of Baracus Hubris Maximus, (Hail, Caesar!) are relegated to the back of the plane, or hanging on to the undercarriage of the bus, if they get to go along at all.  Corporate owned and operated suckophants are often given priority access to the Celebritician, like NBC was recently for an all-day, in-your-face taping of a mini-reality show to be aired at a later date.  I’d tell you when it is, but I don’t want you to watch.  It’ll probably be called Up Obama’s Nose, and, no matter how many people actually tune in, and how they really feel about it, we’ll be told millions of people creamed their jeans watching the elaborately staged production designed to look like an off the cuff, impromptu day-in-the-life of your average immortal superhero.

When ObAstroGanda is combined with good old-fashioned “ratfucking,” the cocktail becomes Molotov.  Luckily, when the sheeple are cowed to the extent American voters are, one only need show the wick to keep them in line.  So, Axelrove threatened his puppet’s famous “quiet riots” would erupt if Hillary Clinton kept threatening to kill his Spokesmodel, or refused to quit or the Usurper would rightfully lose.  If one can keep sheeple busy obsessing over ACORN and the ObaMassah’s seemingly tenuous ties to the organization, one can deflect attention from the organization’s leader’s crimes, links to unions he founded, and money-laundering philanthropic organizations of the sort the Obamessiah Community Organizer organized communities on the board of.

(If you keep reading this far I’ll always try to reward you.  )

Wade Rathke is the founder of ACORN and co-founder of SEIU.  He lost his job as Chief Organizer of ACORN due to the best efforts of the ACORN 8, a group of former staffers assigned to look into financial irregularities in the organization of community organizers.  Wade’s brother, Dale Radke, embezzled almost a million dollars and funneled it through another ACORN organization, Citizens Consulting, Inc., but he still had a job, too until June of last year, after working out a deal to pay the money back, $30,000 a year at a time.  He got up to $210, 000, and some big old anonymous donor offered to pay it off, so, now he’s supposedly square.  But, the ACORN 8 are pissed, and say they were fired for saying, logically, if you knew this shit was going on at the top for 8 years, what the hell else might be happening?  Then, to make bad matters worse, they started looking into it.

Anita Moncrief testified that ACORN had ties to Obama above and beyond what the Obamanauts were owning up to, then claimed the New York Times sat on the story.  (Remind you of the L.A. Times, Rashid Khalidi tapes cover-up story, much?)  Anyway, the Obamalamadingdongs are currently in the process of Obagandizing that one.  This guy, Michael Gaynor, whoever he is, (probably a conservative ‘Turfer) say Obama/ACORN sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G they’re so tight.  But, what’s got my antennae throbbing enough to call on any PUMA willing to look into it, is the Tides Foundation.  Wade’s bio boasts that he was a founding member of the board of this interesting organization, too.  This little ACORN/Rathke money machine within a money making machine is a beaut.  They take rich folks’ cash and put it where the rich folks’ want it to go without anybody else knowing about it.   With SEIU alone throwing around numbers like 33 to 85 million smackeroos to the Obynasty, ya gotta wonder if there’s a Soros/Microsoft/GE/Google/Pepsi, etc., or other interesting connection to find.

I’ll be looking further into these bad boys in the very near future, but, before I go, I thought I’d leave you with a lovely little 1990 gem that lays out the Obama blueprint in a nutshell.  Tammerlin Drummond, an L.A. Times reporter back then, wrote a profile of Harvard University’s sophomore editor of the Law Review.  If you changed the dates and a few verb tenses, it could have been written any time in the past 10 years, and attributed to any of the mainstream media or Blogger Bullies of Cheetoville.  In fact, I’m sure large amounts of it have been, and, I’m equally sure that’s because they got the unattributed text in an Axelrovefraud email, press release or memo.  All the building blocks of the ObaCampaign are laid out in black and white, and, like most Obama supporters who have out lived their usefulness, Tammerlin’s under the bus somewhere by the bay.

Given the fragility of the carefully constructed protective shell the ObaMeisters have built around the Chirping Baby Chick-in-Chief, Team Obabysitter has to watch over its fledgling like an adoptive Mother Hawk entrusted to nurture and protect a quail egg.  Thus, every “I” and every “T” on every word written is dotted, crossed and double checked before it’s placed in large print on the Trusty TelePrompTer of Truthiness.  There’s not a whole lot of reason to doubt that every keystroke on every computer that dares to look at the UnWizard behind the invisible curtain with the clarity of a child viewing a strutting nude Emperor In His Own Mind is monitored, too.  Somehow, paid ‘Bots seem to have an uncanny 6^th sense when it comes to rejection of their Beloved, and pounce like hungry, wild-eyed, banshee-tiger cross-breeds from a madman’s lab, with claws out and teeth  bared anytime anyone anywhere says anything that can’t be described as a verbal genital lick.   Thus, the pre-schoolers over at Stupid Rumpies have an excuse for their existence; they’re Obacolyte AxelSoldiers on a Crusade-worthy mission to perpetuate the sham at all costs.  Either that, or, they’re just a bunch of assholes with collective woohoos big enough to fill a thimble with room left over for a thumb, a marble, two Cheerios, a roll of LifeSavers, a pack of Trojans and the equivalent weight of their tiny pea brains.

I’m sure this information can be easily verified at any of the regular circle jerks they constantly engage in as they one-hand type their equally smegma-tainted filth on their crusty keyboards located in their Addams Family basements; that is, when they’re not shitting in their hands or eating yellow snow.  Buncha booger sucking diddletwits.  Your mama got pulled off the tarmac by the Secret Service.

Remember PUMAs, it’s complacency that is our enemy; critical thinking and healthy skepticism are our long suits.  But, our ace-in-the-hole, the strongest trait we have, and must never lose, is our thoroghly justified, well earned, complete, total, fucking rage.