Tag Archives: mindbody

Tomas Schuman: Love Letter To America

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Note:

Please note. Bezmenov was talking about Soviet society and propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s. That means his analysis of the general dynamics of propaganda has to be cautiously reconfigured, when it comes to specifics. The US and USSR he described then (prior to the 1980s) had clearly differentiated economic/political systems. In the 30 years that have passed since, the ideological convergence he mentions elsewhere, has in many ways occurred, or is in the process of occurring. [I describe this in much greater depth in “The Language of Empire.”]

The USA hasn’t been free-market capitalist in any real way for some 20-30 years, at the very least. Instead, we’ve had ever-accelerating state intervention and crony capitalism that has turned into the final danse macabre of casino capitalism and pure plunder.

Thus the terms that Bezmenov uses in discussing the totalitarian communism of the Soviet system now actually apply to the US, albeit incompletely.

Bezmenov didn’t know, or perhaps chose not to express, since this was the country he defected to, that US propaganda and psyops were far more subtle, and thus in the long run more effective, than Soviet propaganda.

He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships were/are symbiotic and that they have ultimately led to the globalized kleptocracy, in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn the “third way” of corporatized politically-correct social democracy, which is the benign face of the corrupt neo-liberalism that has always been the power behind the throne of the multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF, EU, UN, and others…

There is no longer a west versus east polarity. The division is really between centralizers (neoliberal globalizers, central bankers) and decentralizers, in which, however, some of the decentralization is orchestrated to promote the globalizers’ agenda.  One has to know the specifics of every situation. They can’t be understood ideologically.

Tomas Schuman Yuri Bezmenov-Love Letter to America

Ex-KGB Describes Psyops In The US

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Update:

Bezmenov divides the stages of ideological subversion into four:

1. Demoralization  (15 -20 yrs) 2. Destabilization 3. Crisis  4. Normalization

My speculation:

1. The 1960s – 1980s is the period of demoralization

2. 1990s – 2001 The fall of the Berlin Wall marks the acceleration of this into active destabilization of the US’s economy and foreign policy (the neo-conservative paper, “A Clean Break,” as well as proposals for “full-spectrum” dominance; Yugoslav and Iraq wars; the total financialization and electronification of the US capital markets, leading to the stock market bubble). This period is initiated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989 (11-9-1989) and  George Bush’s statement about a “new world order” on September 11,  9-11-1990.

3. 2001 – 2008  Period that entails vast changes in the political and economic systems, following two crises – one, political, on 9-11 and another exactly 7 years later, economic, around 9-11 too.

We are now still in the period of crisis, which, in my opinion, will throw up further catalyzing “events’ of all kinds, whether occurring spontaneously in the realm of politics/economics/nature, or whether manufactured.

Note:

Bezmenov was talking about Soviet society and propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s. That means his analysis of the general dynamics of propaganda has to be cautiously reconfigured, when it comes to specifics. The US and USSR he was describing (prior to the 1980s) had clearly differentiated economic/political systems. In the 30 years that have passed since then, the ideological convergence he mentions elsewhere, has in many ways occurred or is in the process of occurring. [I describe this in much greater depth in “The Language of Empire.”]

The USA hasn’t been free-market capitalist in any real way for some 20-30 years certainly, even longer. Instead, its experienced ever-accelerating state intervention/mercantilism and crony capitalism. Now that has turned into the final danse macabre of casino capitalism and pure plunder.

Thus the Bezmenovian analyis might plausibly be applied both to the actual situation in the US, as well as to the propaganda the US directs toward its enemies.

Bezmenov didn’t know, or perhaps chose not to voice (since this was the country he defected to), the fact that US propaganda and psyops have been subtler, and thus in the long run much more effective, than Soviet propaganda.

He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships have become symbiotic and created a globalized kleptocracy in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn a “third way.”  This is the corporatized politically correct social democracy that increasingly seems to be the benign face of corrupt neo-liberalism, which is the power behind the throne of the multilateral institutions – the World Bank, IMF, EU, UN, and others.

ORIGINAL POST

March 07, 2009 — Yuri Bezmenov 1983 Soviet subversion of Western Society

Yuri Bezmenov, a.k.a. Tomas Schuman, soviet KGB defector, explains in detail his scheme for the KGB process of subversion and takeover of target societies at a lecture in Los Angeles, 1983.
Yuri Alexandrovitch Bezmenov is a former KGB propagandist who was assigned to New Dehli, India, defected to the West in 1970, and was interviewed by Edward Griffin in 1985. Bezmenov explains his background, some of his training, and exactly how Soviet propaganda is spread in other countries in order to subvert their teachers, politicians, and other policy makers to a mindset receptive to the Soviet ideology.

He also explains in detail the goal of Soviet propaganda as total subversion of another country and the 4 step formula for achieving this goal. He recalls the details of how he escaped India, defected to the West, and settled in Montreal as an announcer for the CBC.

Note: As I said before about the wikileaks video, the notion that you need to ferret out secret documents, hack computers, or conduct spy v spy ops to understand what’s going on is simply romantic myth. 85% of KGB intelligence ops in the US, according to Schuman, is about ideological subversion or aggressive propaganda, which is intended to demoralize the population so that even when presented with all possible information it’s unable to draw common sense conclusions, protect its own self-interest, or act rationally. Even when confronted with evidence of war atrocities, such as those on the video, people will simply reframe the facts to fit their ideological predisposition.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Education Today Provides Conditioning…

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This is a brief excerpt from a live interview with legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright (June 18, 1957), when he was ninety. The audio isn’t very clear, so I’ve provided a transcript. The words are pungent and speak succinctly to the task of weaning people from dependence on the state:

“Education has been unrealistic.
Education has not seen the nature of the thing we needed as a people.
Education has not provided enlightenment. It’s provided conditioning
By way of books, by way of what has been, by way of the past,
By the habituation of the human species to date.
And it hasn’t taken the views of the men who are capable of looking beyond
and seeing what the nature of the thing was.
What is the nature of this thing we’re in.
Now that’s the grace(?) of seeing in, not seeing at.
And all education today is a seeing at.”

The Cat They Sent Out Into The Cold…

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The more you dig into the history of the CIA’s covert programs, the more it resembles not so much a fast-paced who-dunnit as a low-rent why-ever-did-they-do-it. Only it wasn’t low rent. A hefty wad of tax-payer money subsidized such expensive follies as Project Acoustic Kitty, in which the agency’s whizzes tried to turn man’s favorite feline into a wired-up bot that would snoop on conversations in back-alleys:

“Victor Marchetti, a former CIA officer, told The Telegraph that Project Acoustic Kitty was a gruesome creation. He said: “They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up. The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that.”

Mr Marchetti said that the first live trial was an expensive disaster. The technology is thought to have cost more than £10 million. He said: “They took it out to a park and put him out of the van, and a taxi comes and runs him over. There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead.”

The document, which was one of 40 to be declassified from the CIA’s closely guarded Science and Technology Directorate – where spying techniques are refined – is still partly censored. This implies that the CIA was embarrassed about disclosing all the details of Acoustic Kitty, which took five years to design.

Dr Richelson, who is the a senior fellow at the National Security Archive in Washington, said of the document: “I’m not sure for how long after the operation the cat would have survived even if it hadn’t been run over.”

From “CIA Recruited Cat To Bug Russians,” The Telegraph, November, 2001

Israel-Palestine Problem Exhibits Wound Of PTSD

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At Forward, Leonard Fine puts his finger on the emotional trauma underlying the intellectual and political impasse in the Middle East:

“From time to time in this space, I’ve made passing reference to the post-traumatic stress disorder that afflicts Israelis (and the Palestinians, too). It may be a bit of a stretch, but there is a growing literature that suggests that not only individuals, but social institutions, can suffer from PTSD. Thus, for example, Loren and Barbara Cobb, in an article entitled “The Persistence of War,” argue that “specific symptoms of untreated PTSD are particularly troublesome for the social institutions of a society suffering from epidemic levels of these disorders. These symptoms are: hypervigilance, emotional numbing, denial and avoidance, seeing the world in black and white, magical thinking, and apocalyptic thinking.”

They go on to quote Dr. Jonathan Shay, widely regarded as among the giants in the study of PTSD: “Democratic process entails debate, persuasion, and compromise. These presuppose the trustworthiness of words. The moral dimension of severe trauma, the betrayal of ‘what’s right,’ obliterates the capacity for trust. The customary meanings of words are exchanged for new ones; fair offers from opponents are scrutinized for traps; every smile conceals a dagger.”

In the American military experience, PTSD most often arises when a soldier has witnessed the deaths or terrible wounds of his or her comrades. That happens in Israel, too, of course.

But in Israel, whole societies are the witnesses, and the word “post” is, alas, premature. The traumas are very much ongoing, and we do not yet have the clinical vocabulary to comprehend them.

For Jews, the great trauma is, of course, the Holocaust itself, the systematic and ultimately incomprehensible slaughter of one-third of world Jewry. That left a wound that will never quite heal, but that might by now have formed a bearable scab.

But mini-traumas ever since have picked at that scab, rendered the wound ever-raw. The excruciatingly painful list of suicide attacks, the hateful rhetoric, Sderot and the entire aftermath of the withdrawal from Gaza, and now, around the corner, Iran.

And then there have been and are the politicians who whether out of conviction or for purposes of dreadful exploitation pick at the scab and refresh the trauma. For Menachem Begin, Beirut was Berlin and Yasser Arafat was Adolf Hitler; for Benjamin Netanyahu, this is 1938, Tehran is Berlin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is Hitler. It was ever thus, it will ever be thus, hence it is here, now: They hate us. “Never again” may be our common oath, but “always, everywhere” is our common belief. The wound will not heal.

And the Palestinians? Betrayed by the corruption of their own leadership, theirs is not only the Nakba of defeat and displacement in 1948 and again in 1967; it is daily humiliation both thoughtless and intended, new bypass highways for the Jewish settlers in their midst, still more than 500 checkpoints and barriers to clog or block their own roads and travel, a security fence that slices and snakes through their fields and their farms and their villages and their cities, reminding, reminding, insulting.

Over Gaza, a sky from which at any moment death may be launched; in the streets of the West Bank, raids and roundups. Ongoing trauma, ongoing disorder. The wounds will not heal.

The Palestinians say: Without justice, there will be no peace. The Israelis say: Without peace, there will be no justice. Both sides are stuck with their wounds and their traumas; they need not only diplomacy, they need therapy. Their empathic capacity has been battered. They cannot place themselves in the shoes of the other, nor can they see themselves as the other sees them.”

Business Managers Need To Change Their Framework

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The Economic Times notes the poverty of management frameworks rooted in the demands of mass manufacture (Fordism and Taylorism):

“Ramnath Narayanswamy, professor of economics and social science at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, who teaches a course on spirituality at the workplace, explains: “Management as a discipline quite literally originated in North America against the historical backdrop of Fordism and Taylorism. While its reach is indeed universal, its origins are very North American and in some respects, the discipline is still a prisoner of its historical orientation.

The excessive emphasis on analytical intelligence as opposed to emotional and spiritual intelligence is a case in point. The overwhelming predominance of “reason” and “science” when in fact it’s our daily experience that all life is based on faith and sacrifice, is another. Or the importance accorded to tools and techniques in MBA education at the expense of neglecting character, values and attitude might be yet another.”

There is a realisation that management theory has to be home grown and not just transplanted from the West. Satish Pradhan, executive VP-group HR, Tata Sons, says, “Western thinking has been dedicated to frameworks and metaphors, and the poverty of these frameworks is revealing itself — it’s not intellectually robust.”

In contrast, says Pradhan, thinking in this part of the world isn’t linear, so one cannot simply take ideas and replicate them. By the same token, this makes it difficult for Eastern concepts to be understood or grasped fully by Westerners. “It’s much like how the Americans wondered, ‘The Japanese are hiding something’ when they visited factory shopfloors of Japanese companies to learn the secrets of their success in managing costs and quality in the early ‘80s.”

Vandana Shiva on Nishkama Karma

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Physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva on the practice of Right Attitude, or in Hindu terms, devotion to work without attachment to reward (nishkama karma):

“If you do anything with a narrow mindset, it makes you think according to a calculus of success and failure. Obviously when you are up against powerful interests, there are greater chances of failure than success. But when your work is inspired by a way of life and thinking, that process becomes a reward unto itself. That’s also what the Gita says, that you don’t count the results, you do the right thing according to your context. A spiritual outlook helps you see what the right thing in your context is. What matters is fulfillment, and that cannot be measured by the yardstick of society and its view of you, but by how your soul feels. Then the awards don’t matter, the brickbats don’t matter, the lousy rumors don’t matter. Nothing affects you.”

Maya Angelou On What People Remember

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“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

— Marketing saw, quoted by Maya Angelou

My Comment:

This quote led me to think of the way in which political debates these days have become entirely devoid of emotional intelligence. I’m convinced that the way we debate things is at least as important as what we debate. Maybe even more important.

There’s something fundamentally wrong with the media when it humiliates public figures, either directly and anonymously on the internet, or indirectly though misrepresentation and innuendo in print. There’s nothing funny, liberated, or “free speech” about any of it. It’s an abuse of speech… a form of violence.

Now if you cuss out someone who’s provoking and attacking you directly, that’s one thing. Turn about is fair play.

But using sexual humiliation as a tool to demonize political candidates (Sarah Palin) or feeding public voyeurism about prominent figures with no political relevance (David Letterman, John Edwards, Tiger Woods) is morally wrong and socially dangerous. It feeds a constant cycle of partisan retaliation that drives everyone but the most insanely ambitious out of politics.

Then, of course, the media turns around and complains without irony about how insanely ambitious politicians are.

Reporters are professionals. They have standards to adhere to. It’s not their job to simply supply a demand. It’s one thing to follow stories that interest people (within certain boundaries of what’s relevant to public discourse). That’s fair enough. But reporters can’t just cave in to whatever it is they think people want to talk about.

You could, after all, argue that people like watching snuff movies. Does that mean the media feeds that appetite too?

Demand doesn’t just come into being. It’s created. And that’s not a one-way thing. There’s a feedback loop. Demand feeds supply, which feeds demand. There’s an addictive element to the whole thing.

That means writers can’t just give up their own moral freedom to feed a demand for immoral things. They have to make a conscious choice to go against what’s in their (or their publisher’s) economic interest and do what’s right.

Admittedly, it’s hard.

As for the so-called hypocrisy of politicians, politicians (and entertainers) aren’t meant to be moral exemplars, so the question really shouldn’t arise at all.

Since the public expects a certain image, politicians have to conform if they want to get elected. Wanting that image to reflect reality strikes me as an example of the foolishness of the public, not of the hypocrisy of politicians.

Public figures are more and more simply the victims of mob mentality. From that perspective, John Edwards did quite right to deny the scandal until the end. It’s no business of the mob’s to know everything about a politician’s marriage and demand a standard from him that the vast majority of people don’t hold to.

Now, Edward’s team members are a different issue. They sacrificed money and time and they might naturally feel betrayed. That’s a different matter. Perhaps they should have researched him a bit more before latching onto him. That they didn’t suggests they have a problem too – mindless hero worship.

People can have extraordinary talents but it doesn’t follow they’re perfect human beings, and there’s something deeply troubling about the urge to demand perfection from mere human beings…. and then attack them when they can’t supply it.

If I were Edwards, I would have banged the door on reporters who hounded me, a long time back. I would have turned the tables and started asking them a few questions about their private lives.

I suppose that’s why I have a degree of sympathy for people who’ve played the game back at reporters, like CEO Mark Cuban..and lately, Patrick Byrne.

Cuban has used Web 2.0 to his advantage against regulators as well.

A New York Times article in 2007 described how John Mack Mackey of Whole Foods and even disgraced and convicted financier Conrad Black of Hollinger International posted anonymously on message boards to counter negative posts about their companies. [The articles noted that they ran the risk of violating securities laws, especially if they disclosed company business in their posts].

Perhaps that’s where the problem lies. We have laws to stop CEO’s of companies defending themselves against attacks, but none for the people who do the attacking, even if they have a financial motive for it and even if their attacks are founded on semi-truths and lies indistinguishable by casual readers.

Mack Mackey used the handle rahodeb, an acronym of Deborah, his wife’s name, and he even commented on how cute he looked with a new hair-cut.  Byrne, on the other hand, has used a pseudonym Hannibal (the ruler of Carthage, not the star of “Silence of the Lambs”), but always signs his name underneath. Both took up the pen to counter attacks on their companies by anonymous internet posters.

It seems to have become a real problem.

In 2008 Apple CEO  Steve Jobs finally had enough of the rumor-mongering about his health and called Joe Nocera of the New York Times a juicy epithet I will chastely refrain from repeating.

[Since I’ve begun contributing to Deep Capture and enjoy a degree of bloggeraderie with them, I’m refraining from commenting directly on Byrne’s running battle with the media, about which I’ve written before. I will just admit to being on their side versus Goldman and the short-raiders. I think they tell it like it is. But any obscene rants at reporters’ expense don’t earn brownie points with me. And I maintain a neutral rating on Overstock, since I just don’t know enough about that end of things].

Either journalists act like a responsible press, or they are paparazzi, in which case they should expect to be hounded and harassed in turn. If reporters want access to the highest levels of business and government, if they want to report on subjects that are socially and politically important, then they should show some respect for their jobs, qualify themselves, adhere to professional standards of behavior, and avoid tormenting other human beings just to make their names.

Remember these are the same reporters who failed to report accurately or in time on one of the biggest stories in a hundred years. And why was that? Because (with honorable exceptions) they were either too comfortable with Wall Street, too lazy to do the research, too ignorant to know where to look, too provincial to read the people who could tell them, and too venal to go against their interests…. or all of the above..

This kind of public exposure we subject people to is not a one-time business. There is a record of the Edwards saga for ever on the net, visible to the whole globe….every little painful detail. What kind of sensitivity to a sick woman does that show, just to take one angle.

Or consider their children..

Isn’t it a kind of torture?
And doesn’t it make us, as it makes any kind of torturer, bestial?
Meanwhile, the victims never forget…..

MindBody: Reading Between The Tea-Leaves

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When I was young – around 11 or 12 – I recall having very strong hunches about things that would pan out. Nothing weird, simply day-to-day things. I’d lose my stamp album and then I’d go to sleep and in my dreams I’d see it was in the bottom drawer of a cupboard. And when I woke up and went to the drawer, I’d find it. I  would have very strong feelings I’d pick up from other people’s emotions. When someone said something, I’d feel the emotion from which they spoke. I’d hear anger, and overlaid on that, jealousy or envy. I’d often have a sense of what someone was going to say before they said it.

None of this was overtly alarming. It blended very easily into what I considered normal and never made me feel different. I didn’t talk about it to anyone, except my mother, who dismissed it as “just imagination.” But I always knew it wasn’t either “just” or “imagination.” Continue reading →