Om dat doel te bereiken heeft de regering Bush ondermeer PR-firma Rendon ingeschakeld. 'Rendon is only one arm of the current administration's psychological war on terrorism. Another PR campaign, headed by Charlotte Beers, the former Madison Avenue CEO turned State Department undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, aims to produce pro-American television shows, featuring celebrities and sports stars, with "emotional messages." Her office "is a vital new arm that will combat terrorism over time," she told Advertising Age.'

Rendon is ook de organisatie die moest helpen met de uitbouw van het Bureau voor Strategische Beïnvloeding, dat inmiddels zou zijn opgeheven. Dit zegt natuurlijk niets over de samenwerking tussen Bush en Rendon. 'Bush shows no sign of taking his foot off the nation's—and the world's—adrenal glands. In February, the Pentagon extended its $100,000-a-month contract with the Rendon Group, a global PR firm hired on a no-bid basis to fight the psychological war abroad. Details are classified, but in the past, the company has provided focus groups, Web sites, news leads for foreign reporters, and government contacts for an exclusive, international client list that includes the CIA, Monsanto, and the trade agencies of Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, and Russia.'

'[An] omnipresent enemy and a climate of fear have always served to unite fractured societies and reinvent politicians' mandate for power', schrijft The Village Voice. [...] The Bush administration likes to brand the fight against terrorism as a new kind of war, with new enemies and new rules, but using fear to push policy has been an actual play in the White House book since the Truman administration began commissioning behavioral studies on "emotion management" during the early days of Cold War hysteria.'

1948, Project East River
'In 1948, Truman oversaw a secret and unusual study, Project East River, which looked into ways of using paranoia to control behavior. The results, according to political scientist Andrew Grossman, who uncovered reams of information for his book, Neither Dead nor Red, were simple. "Fear is good, panic is bad," Grossman says. "The Project found that fear could be used—channeled—to mobilize the people and push Cold War policy. With panic, however, they figured the shoe might fall off."
To prevent hysteria, the Project suggested calibrating the unease of the public by performing "ritualized training behavior," or civil defense. This meant duck-and-cover drills, bomb-shelter preparation, and asking citizens to keep a careful watch on others. Such measures gave people a sense of control over their fate [...].
[...]
Truman established agencies to oversee these programs—the U.S. Federal Civil Defense Administration (think Office of Homeland Security) and the Civil Defense Corps (think Bush's Freedom Corps) to teach civic vigilance. "It was social control," says Grossman. "Much more powerful than propaganda."

Just as the Bush administration signed up with the Rendon Group—and briefly floated the idea of a media-twisting Office of Strategic Influence—Truman's Civil Defense Administration kept its own PR team. Between 1952 and 1958, the agency produced over 250 million pieces of literature, like flyers, pocket guides, and training manuals. The basic message: Through civic vigilance comes nuclear salvation. The office also hit the road to sell civil defense with a traveling circus called Alert America. With three motorized convoys—each boasting 10 specially painted 32-foot trailers—Alert America could travel into 82 cities in a year and reach over a million citizens. "SEE THE INSIDE STORY OF ATOMIC WAR," howls one of the Truman posters, above a cute picture of a nuclear mushroom cloud.'

Oorlogsporno
De PR-firma's zijn niet de enigen die Bush helpen de getraumatiseerde bevoking zo lang mogelijk getraumatiseerd te houden. 'Oprah als propaganda', kopt het tijdschriftenrubriekje van de Volkskrant op 11 maart. 'Niet zonder patriottisme staat het februarinummer in het teken van vrijheid. De special is een grote lofzang op het land van de onbegrensde mogelijkheden. Een onopvallend maar belangrijk schakeltje in de oorlogspropaganda.' Een andere schakel is de altijd al nauwe band tussen Hollywood en het Pentagon. Bepaald niet de laatste uitwas van dit 1984-achtige heulhuwelijk is de film Black Hawk down, door de Filmkrant bestempeld als oorlogsporno. (Zie voor hoe het er echt aan toe ging de documentaire die laatst door Canvas is uitgezonden, Ambush in Mogadishu).

'[The] long-term effects of numerous alerts, stacked on top of each other, will be either mass anxiety or mental inoculation. "If the FBI's game is stimulus-response, they haven't followed through with the reward," says Dr. Fields [a Washington, D.C., psychologist who specializes in trauma and terrorism]. "There could be serious psychiatric consequences."
She brings up the example of lab mice. If given an electric shock, the animals will do anything to reduce the pain. That's how they learn, just classic conditioning. But if the mice are given no way to stop the shock—just as a citizen can do nothing to prevent a terrorist attack with the FBI's information—the critters go crazy. Humans interpret information differently from mice, Fields says, and some will simply shrug the alerts off. Others will experience lasting anxiety.' Om Grossman nog maar eens te citeren: '"Fear is good, panic is bad"'.

DaanSpeak
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