THE CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE STUDIES

             INTELLIGENCE BRIEFS

                           A publication of the Center for Intelligence Studies

 Vol. 18, No. 3                                                                                         December 2005

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 Science, Magic, and Mass Manipulation

                                                      Charles S. Viar

1926 marked a watershed for the field of biology. In that year Professor Jakob von Uexkull proposed an ingenious theory to account for the hitherto inexplicable fact that different species respond to common stimuli in dramatically different ways. On the basis of experimental data he developed while studying wood ticks, von Uexkull argued that organisms only react to those things in their environment that are relevant to their needs - to all else, they are either indifferent or entirely unaware. Dormant wood ticks, for example, will not respond to either light or sound, or extreme temperature variations; or the direct application of fire, submergence in water, crushing force, or even dismemberment. But even after prolonged periods of oxygen and sustenance deprivation, they will instantly awaken at the smell of sweat from a warm-blooded animal.

Von Uexkull described the range of stimuli that species respond to as their Umwelt. Although the English language offers no equivalent term, Umwelt can be understood as the range of biologically-based sensations that a member of any given species is capable of experiencing; and these differ from species to species in order of their complexity. But there is a deeper implication to the concept of Umwelt as well, for as von Uexkull noted, each environmental stimuli encapsulates species-specific meanings. Humans and termites are both attracted to wood, for example, but for very different reasons. To the termite, wood is sustenance; to the human, it may be fuel for fire, raw material for construction, or perhaps a conversation piece. 

                                                                  2.

Humans have five proven senses. These provide us with the ability to see, hear, touch, taste and smell. A sixth sense – widely acknowledged but as yet scientifically unproven – appears to be based upon an integrative function that permits us to make intuitive judgments and predictions. 

These senses define the human Umwelt; and even though scientific research falsified the presumption centuries ago, most people continue to believe that their senses accurately describe their environment. But in actual fact, we are immersed in forces and surrounded by factors that simply do not register upon us. We are oblivious to most of the light and sound spectrum; and under most circumstances, to fundamental physical forces as well. Apparently for this reason, scientists can only account for about ten per cent of the contents of the universe even when armed with the most sophisticated instruments. The rest lies outside the range of our technologically enhanced perceptions and remains unknown and perhaps unknowable.

But the fact that we cannot perceive a phenomenon does not mean it doesn’t exist, and cannot affect us. It may well exist; and like the raging forest fire that consumes the unsuspecting wood tick, it may impact upon us in a manner that lays beyond our comprehension.

                                                                   3.

More immediately relevant are phenomenon that exist at the outer limits of the human Umwelt. For there is a boundary area in which that which can be known fades into that which cannot; and in this borderland mystical phenomenon abound. It is a magical realm; and for generations untold, storytellers have delighted children by populating it with lords and ladies and fantastical dragons and demons and gremlins and goblins. More recently, parapsychologists have begun to explore it as well, in an effort to explain well documented but as yet scientifically inexplicable phenomenon such as ghostly apparitions, mental telepathy and precognition.

This perceptual borderland may enchant children and intrigue behavioral scientists, but for those concerned with the fate of the nation, it is the stuff of nightmares. For it is also the place where strategic deceptions occur; and from which broad sectors of the population may be manipulated.

                                                                   4.

During the Roman Empire, the magician Apollonius of Tyre gained widespread notoriety by levitating elephants, and making them disappear altogether. The crowds loved him, but the Roman authorities were far less amused. After supposedly swindling Caesar, he is said to have fled the Empire; but the story is likely apocryphal. For on the basis of the scant historical record, it is more reasonable to suppose the Romans feared his ability to manipulate large crowds.

History is littered with comparable figures possessed of similar skills; and not surprisingly, a great number of them ended up in serious trouble with their respective governments. But it was not until the first decades of the past century that governments themselves sought to unravel the mysteries of “magic” in order to manipulate the masses. And not surprisingly, some also began investigating the means and mechanisms of psychological control.   

Shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution, the great Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was co-opted by the new Communist government and charged with the task of developing techniques for controlling the human mind. Although the details remain classified, by the mid-1930’s Pavlov and other Soviet scientists had perfected at least one type of psychological domination. During the Stalinist show trials, senior Soviet political and military officials publicly confessed to one implausible crime after another while in zombie-like states. Much later it was revealed that Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Great Britain had developed comparable techniques; and in response to the brainwashing of American prisoners of war in Korea, the United States eventually did so as well. 

Although what is popularly referred to as “mind control” has certain applications – most recently, in the programming of suicide bombers – it is too costly and time consuming to use on a large scale. For that, a strategy of perception management is far more effective.

                                                                  5.

In the summer of 1952, President Harry S. Truman authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to initiate a large-scale research program designed to plumb the depths of the human psyche. Popularly known as Project MKULTRA, this effort was designed in part to replicate the previous success of Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Imperial Britain in developing “mind control” techniques and technologies.  But this was only one aspect of a broad and essentially open-ended behavioral science investigation; and among the many other questions it hoped to answer was how and why large groups of people are susceptible to manipulation. Almost coincidentally - and for very different reasons - the CIA’s newly formed Counterintelligence Staff began a systematic investigation into the tools and techniques of strategic deception. Despite stark dissimilarities in their methodologies and goals, the CIA’s Office of Science and Technology and its Counterintelligence Staff reached remarkably similar conclusions regarding the gullibility of both individuals and groups.

Simply put, conflicting instincts make it very difficult for the human animal to cope with uncertainty. Uncertainty evokes a sense of unease that increases in direct proportion to the saliency of the question at hand; and in order to escape the discomfort it causes, people are naturally inclined to resolve dilemmas by projecting the contents of their own minds upon them. This particular form of self-delusion begins at the boundaries of the human Umwelt; and it often ends at self-destruction.  

During the Twentieth Century catastrophic policy failures were not only common, but frequently provoked. Some of them – such as the outbreak of the First World War, or the American failure to anticipate the attack upon Pearl Harbor – were found to result from the mistaken but deeply entrenched beliefs of policy makers. Others – such as those resulting from the Soviet strategic deception operations known as TRIST and WIN - were clearly attributable to the human propensity for self-delusion.

Although the historically oriented findings of the CIA’s Counterintelligence Staff remained secret until the late 1980’s, those of the Office of Science and Technology did not. A very large portion of Project MKULTRA had been subcontracted to major American universities; and once the program was formally closed in the early 1960’s, the academics involved were quick to sell their expertise upon the open market. The “Golden Age” of advertising that dawned immediately thereafter was not coincidental.

Inevitably, the techniques and technologies of group manipulation developed in the course of MKULTRA and perfected by Madison Avenue found their way into the political process. Over the past half-century, symbol has replaced substance; and what now passes for political debate is often no more than vapid rhetoric. 

An early indicator of this trend appeared in the 1960 presidential debates. In contrast to recent practice, the Nixon-Kennedy debates were conducted according to more traditional rules and scored by judges. Although Nixon won the televised debates on points, the audience broke sharply in Kennedy’s favor. Style emerged triumphant; and politicians of both parties were quick to learn the lesson.

                                                                  6.

Marshall McLuhan is routinely misquoted as having said “the medium is the message.” In actual fact, he said the medium is the massage; and since the emergence of TV in the 1950’s, that massage has become increasingly puerile and vacuous. Although this may be good for advertising revenues, it is potentially disastrous for the democratic process.

Political advisors have been replaced by professional manipulators in the guise of “image consultants” and “spin doctors.” Although it perhaps remains true that politicians cannot fool all the people all of the time, modern techniques and technologies have made it possible for them to fool most of the people most of the time. Thus the phenomenon of governmental deceit in formally democratic systems.

One of the most glaring examples of this is the current effort to discredit the Bush Administration’s policy in Iraq. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, the steady stream of horrific imagery from the battlefield has made it possible for the opposition to persuade a majority of Americans that the war cannot be won; and that the United States should withdraw. In this, the Administration has been complicit; for while it has chastised its opponents for their manifest lack of patriotism and resolve, it has studiously avoided addressing their motives. For to do so would reveal the outlines of an elite consensus that has been carefully hidden from the public’s view.

                                                                  7.

Wars are caused by a variety of factors, but they are fought for one reason alone. Control of the future is the raison d’etre of war, for success in battle permits the victor to redraw maps, restructure economies, impose its beliefs and values, and perhaps alter the balance of international power. The issue is therefore not victory or defeat in Iraq, but rather the consequences that would likely flow from the one or the other.

Since at least the time of Woodrow Wilson, the Left has embraced the concept of “collective security.” Rooted in the belief that the current system of sovereign states is the underlying cause of international conflict, collective security was the ostensible reason first for the League of Nations and then for the UN.  From the standpoint of the Left’s policy-making elite, collective security and international organization are thus are tightly bound; as collective security is seen as the first and essential step towards a global regime.

Such a regime cannot be achieved as long as the United States retains the ability to act independently in the international arena; and for this reason, the Left has preferred defeat to victory in every conflict since 1945. It is why they systematically undermined American efforts in Korea and Vietnam, and why they are undermining American efforts in Iraq today.

The Republican policy-making elite shares the Left’s antipathy for the sovereign state system, but differs in terms of its preferred solution. In contrast to the Left’s goal of imposing a global political structure, the Republican policy-making elite favors a strategy of economic integration. According to this line of reasoning, global political structures will arise naturally from an integrated global economy; and by this means, a great deal of resistance may be avoided. Thus the Democrat Party’s insistence upon multilateral foreign and defense policies; in opposition to the Republicans’ preference for a more unilateral approach, discretely but deliberately shaped to encourage economic integration.

The relevant point, however, is not means but ends; and the policy-making elites of both parties share the same core belief regarding the present system of sovereign states and the same long-range goal of global integration. It is for this reason that the Bush Administration will not challenge the true motives of its opponents, or reveal its own. It will instead seek to cast the Iraq debate in terms of patriotic character and moral resolve.

For so long as it does so, the American public will continue to project their hopes and fears upon a second-order issue; and the globalist consensus of the policy-making elites will remain but dimly seen.

      INTELLIGENCE BRIEFS

                   A publication of the Center for Intelligence Studies

 Vol. 18, No. 2                                                                                        November 2005

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      Social Welfare, Mass Immigration,

            and the New World Order

After twenty nights of continuous violence, rioting by Arab and African youths appears to be subsiding in France. Although French officials have made a determined effort to minimize the havoc wrought, one life was lost; and estimates of property damage range as high as $10,000,000,000. When productivity losses resulting from absenteeism and interrupted production are calculated, the total losses incurred may be as great as $30,000,000,000.

Damage to the French national psyche may be even greater. According to the strict republican ideology of liberty, egality, and fraternity, that has dominated France for the past two centuries, the state is obliged to treat every citizen precisely the same. For that reason, the French government has refused to acknowledge the fact of ethnic, racial, and religious differences within its borders; or the corrosive effect of mass immigration upon French culture and society. Indeed, the French government has refused to collect statistical data on immigrants; and for that reason it is impossible to determine the number of Third World immigrants residing there.

Believed to number six million or more, these immigrants now constitute approximately 10% of the total French population. Although most are fluent in the French language, and a majority are believed to be French citizens, few of the recent immigrants have successfully assimilated to French society. Arab and Africans are conspicuously absent from senior corporate and government positions in France; and are rare even in the more accessible professions of medicine, law, and education.

                                                    Political Rigidity

Although France is routinely listed among the politically stable First World nations, a more careful analysis suggests otherwise. Since 1789, France has experienced a bloody revolution, two empires, two world wars, five republics, and - in living memory - a vicious civil war that culminated in a military coup d’etat. Although historians and political scientists dispute the reasons, two hundred and sixteen years after the French Revolution the political culture of that land remains badly fractured.

Successive French governments have attempted to bridge this chasm with social welfare programs, with mixed success. Although the reasons for this remain as controversial the political fracture itself, one of them is surely the absence of a modern conservative movement. In France as in most of the continent, the mid left and the far left dominate the political system; and to the extent there is a right at all, it consists of fringe movements populated by fascists and monarchists. Modern political parties comparable to the Conservatives in the United Kingdom or the GOP in the United States are altogether absent; and as a result, politics in most of Europe has been reduced to little more factional fighting on the left. Ideologically correct but factually estranged policies are one result. The near impossibility of adaptive change is another.

This is especially true in France, where tradition has reinforced ideological resistance to change. Because change cannot be achieved through the political process, riot, insurrection, or civil war, are the only plausible alternatives.

                                                  The Socialist Trap

Socialism is a materialist ideology; and socialists maintain that all conflicts ultimately stem from material inequities. It is therefore the task of government to design social welfare policies that will either alleviate or end them altogether. 

The problem is that social welfare programs are so enormously expensive that they can only be paid for generationally - as a practical matter, an ever-increasing public debt must be passed from one generation to the next. But this strategy can only work if the overall economy grows faster than the accumulated debt. And to do so, at least one of two conditions must be continuously met: either the population of each successive generation must increase over that which preceded it; or economic productivity must increase in a comparable manner. 

But science, technology, and deliberately induced social changes have conspired to reverse population growth. In order to maintain current population levels, French women must bear an average of 2.2 children each; but the French fertility rate hovers around 1.5 instead. As a result, the native-born population is in sharp and possibly irreversible decline.

French productivity has fared almost as poorly. Economic productivity can be increased in three basic ways: enhanced labor productivity, managerial innovation, or through the acquisition of more efficient plant and equipment. But in a socialist society that coddles workers, and encourages large, heavily regulated industries, the only realistic option is to invest in new plant and equipment. The effectiveness of this approach, however, depends upon a poorly charted technological cycle; and for the moment at least, the ratio of capital investment to increased productivity is at an historic low.

In the face of falling birth rates, stagnant worker and management productivity, and at the limits of capital-driven productivity growth, the French socialists have resorted to importing an offset-population from the Third World to finance their social welfare expenditures. But rather than acquiring assimiable producer/consumers, they have created a Fifth Column instead.

                  Race, Religion, Culture and Language

In recent decades it has become fashionable to deprecate the significance of race, religion, culture, and language. But despite contemporary denials, they remain important because they are among the things that make us who we are. For better or for worse, they are touchstones of our individual identities.

Of these, religion, culture, and language, are especially important. Religious beliefs shape our worldview in a manner than can only be described as profound – they permeate the warp and woof of our psyche and, indeed, they mold its very structure. Almost as important is culture, through which the accumulated wisdom of generations are passed. Language may be most important of all, for the process of learning a language has been shown to alter the physical organization of the human brain. Linguistically distinct groups not only speak differently. Quite literally, they think differently as well.

This is not to say a person of a different race, religion, culture, and language, cannot assimilate to a society created by others. It illustrates the difficulties involved instead; and suggests that the likelihood of success is determined in part by the degree of separation. It is one thing to assimilate an immigrant of the same race and religious tradition, and who hails from a comparable culture and speaks a related language. It is quite another to assimilate an immigrant of another race, an entirely different religion, an alien culture, and a dissimilar tongue.

                             Models of Assimilation

At the present time, there are two basic models of assimilation – the French, which has been applied with various degrees of precision throughout continental Europe; and the Anglo-American, which has been adopted more or less uniformly by the English-speaking world. The French model couples a rigidly impartial state to an inflexible demand for cultural conformity. The Anglo-American only requires immigrants to accept the responsibilities of citizenship. Historically, the Anglo-American model has worked better; but neither has worked especially well with the recent influx of Third World immigrants.

Although the wave of violence that began on October 27 and continued in France for twenty consecutive nights appears to have subsided, few observers expect it to end entirely. Indeed, most counter-terrorism experts privately agree that the end of the riots marks the beginning of a new phase of violence. Most regard France as ripe for Islamic terrorism, and many believe that yet another civil war is in the offing. With an estimated six million Muslims in France and at least as many more scattered throughout the rest of Europe, the failure of the French model of assimilation has made a bloody and brutal conflict all but inevitable.

In Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and perhaps New Zeeland, the prospects for widespread violence are slightly less. Anglo-Saxon culture sprang forth for an assimilative process; and the Anglo-Saxon countries have traditionally been far more accepting of immigrants than their European counterparts. Moreover, the Anglo-Saxon countries have traditionally been more favorably inclined to the small and medium sized business that create the majority of jobs; and as a result, offer far better financial prospects to new arrivals. Nonetheless, Great Britain and the United States have both suffered devastating attacks at the hands of Islamic terrorists; and terrorists have targeted Canada, Australia, and New Zeeland as well. Fortunately, the latter three nations have so far been spared by good luck and effective police work.

                          The American Experience

After more than a century of neglect, the United States undertook an ambitious effort to assimilate blacks into the mainstream of American life; and after forty years of affirmative action and an estimated $2.5 trillion dollars of social welfare spending, that effort has reaped modest success. Blacks can now be found at all levels of American society and government. But a depressingly large proportion of African-Americans remain mired in poverty, despite the extended and expensive effort.

There is a lesion in this – that assimilation depends in part upon the desire of those to be assimilated. Removing racial barriers and providing educational opportunities, jobs, and housing, helps those that wish to join the larger society. But it an extravagant waste for those that don’t.  

On the basis of experience the United States should be highly selective with regard to prospective immigrants, as indeed, it once was. But the Immigration Reform Act of 1967 effectively abolished standards for admission to the United States, while increasing the number of legal immigrants by six-fold. At the same time, the United States abandoned all pretense of border control. Since 1967, the United States has accepted an average of 1,200,000 legal immigrants annually; and turned a blind eye to an approximately equal number that have crossed our borders illegally each year. As a result, the ratio of native born to immigrant is now at the lowest level in American history; and if left unchecked, half of America’s population will be either foreign born or first generation Americans by mid century. Moreover, the very face of America will have been irrevocably altered: if present trends continue, by 2050, whites will be a minority.

                      Rethinking the Welfare State

As in Europe and the rest of the developed world, American immigration policies – despite all official claims to the contrary - are driven by the financial requirements of the welfare state. Social welfare spending is enormously expensive; and in the absence of assured population growth, prohibitively so. Even in America, where unions are comparatively weak and the “social safety net” relatively small, and where managerial innovation is celebrated, the economic growth required to sustain social welfare spending cannot be achieved without massive and sustained immigration from the Third World. American voters are therefore being forced to make an unstated choice between their present or anticipated social welfare assistance – including Social Security - and their country, culture, and way of life.

It is a cruel and unnecessary dilemma, because most of the present social-welfare functions now performed by government could be performed better and cheaper by private companies operating under government supervision. Mandatory “social safety accounts” established at birth would pay far higher dividends than any existing social welfare plan; and could be designed in such a manner as to assure current levels of financial safety.

Unfortunately, the political left in the United States is wedded to a neo-socialist model of government that is roughly comparable to that of France; and their vehement opposition to the relatively modest changes President Bush proposed for the social security trust fund suggests that they are unwilling to examine any proposal that would diminish the size and scope of government. Moreover, the political left is supported by a financial left that is firmly convinced that their profitability depends upon the establishment of a single global market, regulated by a single global government. As a practical matter, the survival of America depends upon overcoming the combined opposition of the two lefts.  

                             The Fate of Nations

The peace of 1648 marked the emergence of the modern state. For Treaty of Westphalia reserved sovereignty – that is, the supreme law-making authority – to states alone. 

America’s victory in its war of Independence resulted in the first formal fusion of nation and state - that is, a state ruled by and for its people. This was followed by a second fusion of nation and state in the course of the French Revolution, that was later and paradoxically spread throughout Europe by Napoleon. By the time of his defeat in 1814, the concept of the national state had achieved near universal acceptance. For true or not, governments thereafter claimed to rule in the name of their peoples.

Implicit in the concept of the national state was the idea of a distinct nation – that is, a group of people bound together by geography and a shared sense of history. Granting notable exceptions, a common race, religion, culture, and language were presumed.

But the ideal of the nation-state prevailed unchallenged for less than a half-century. By 1870, it had been renounced by Communists in favor of a class-based state; and it has been subject to episodic attacks from the left ever since. Europe’s democratic socialists spent most of the past century equivocating upon the issue; and even today, they occasionally engage in nationalist rhetoric. But for the past fifty years they have been quietly building a new form of transnational structure – now known as the European Union – and they have been more than willing to sacrifice the traditional characteristics of nation to finance social welfare programs.

A similar phenomenon has lately occurred in the English-speaking world; and it is perhaps most clearly visible in the United States. For it is a fact that immigration has grown almost precisely apace with social welfare spending.

The links between social welfare spending, mass immigration, and the abandonment of nation are clear, direct, and nearly precise. Moreover, they have proven almost impossible to sever through traditional political means; and with the passage of time, extraordinary and widespread violence provoked or enabled by present immigration policies seems increasingly likely.

For that reason, it is essential to reconsider both the contemporary welfare state and the policy of mass immigration that sustains it. Assuming that developed countries are not first torn apart by ethnic violence or fatally stricken by nuclear terror, new and innovative ways to assure “social welfare” through for-profit market-based mechanisms must be found to preserve the traditional nation-state for posterity.

For in the absence of these new mechanisms, the nation-state will most likely morph into a “social welfare zone” within an as yet undefined New World Order.

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