Robert Parry: Bush's 'Perception Management' Plan

Bush's 'Perception Management' Plan

George W. Bush has been criticized for disdaining fact in favor of faith in his own instincts. But he is savvy about the dangers that information can present to his authority over the government and the American people.

That is why the first priority of his second term has been the elimination of the few government sources of information that could challenge the images he wants to project to the public. Bush doesn’t want the State Department or the Central Intelligence Agency portraying his Iraq and other foreign policies as abject failures or reckless adventures.

So, by attacking these remaining pockets of analytical resistance, Bush is moving to ensure that his administration can keep much of the U.S. population seeing a near-empty cup as almost entirely full, a concept known in the intelligence world as “perception management.”

On a personal level, Bush appears to have found in his electoral victory a validation of his public-relations strategy of casting his foreign policy as a black-and-white war between good and evil. In this tough-talking approach, Bush has been helped immeasurably by the powerful conservative news media, ranging from AM talk radio to Fox News, from right-wing newspaper columnists to Internet bloggers.

more@link

He's just a Perception; only Fools see him as real ... actually rather sad when you think about it.

his own press?

<http://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/Story.asp?ID=4688>

this is US mind control ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

Just ask anyone in the pr business. You don't change the symbol itself, you just change the meaning. As Chomsky might say, you must re-manufacture consent. Demagogues and propaganda ministers don't have to come up with new methods. The tried and true always work.

There's some good history here about how Reagan and Bush Sr. also manipulated the CIA.

:dem::kick:

'BushSpeak' is text-book (1979 US Army Propaganda Field Manual 33-1) psychological manipulation and deception and it is working well on the large number of Americans who are suggestable through ignorance, disinformation, and emotional vulnerability.

Learn what works in language and persuasion technology and use these effective methods to shape people's opinions by countering the harm already done with good information and a clear concise explanation of the scam told in vocabulary the audience can and, most importantly, WANTS to hear.
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm33-1/

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHI411C.html

On Executions by "Terrorist Insurgents"
and other Propaganda Operations
by Larry Chin
<The pattern has been consistent and obvious. Every news report or scandal that has been detrimental to the Bush/Anglo-American war agenda has been followed, within hours, with shocking executions (real and staged) that are attributed to "terrorist insurgents", despite questionable circumstances, non-verifiable evidence and unreliable sources, such as "unnamed" intelligence and military officials...>

<What is clear, regardless of the identities of the perpetrators, is that the results have exclusively benefited the US/Bush administration war machine, while completely undermining the political and public relations objectives of anti-US/anti-occupation opposition movements and groups. The methods used in the kidnapping and murder of Margaret Hassan, Nick Berg and others neatly fit the profile of classic western intelligence and counterinsurgency operations.<snip>

I don't agree with every factual contention in the sources cited but this is a fair intelligence evaluation of the deaths of Pearl, Berg, and Hassan and otherwise seemingly nonsensical "terrorist" ops.