Democratic Psy-Ops - Would love to get your take on this:

[calimary]

What one thing would you cite as your favorite reason to support Barack Obama for President? There was a thread about this elsewhere and there were LOTS of great and MOST usable answers.

I thought of one, and then started thinking about the PSY-OPS behind it, how the very image of Obama, the very looks of him, are emblematic of the change that we want. The reasons stare at you as plainly as the nose on your face - beginning on the surface and seeping in, deeper down. I want Obama to be the guy we all look at, BECAUSE OF WHAT THAT'S GONNA DO TO THE MINDSET, AND HOW IT'S GONNA WORK ON THE MINDSET.

THE MINDSET.

THE NATIONAL ZEITGEIST.

THE PERCEPTION.

BECAUSE PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING!

AND IF YOU MANAGE PERCEPTION EFFECTIVELY, YOU MOVE LARGER AND LARGER NUMBERS OF PEOPLE BY INFLUENCING THEIR THINKING, AND YOU WIN.

I want THAT FACE sitting across the bargaining table or in the opposite chair with the other world leaders. I want HIS face to be America's Face to the World. I want HIS face speaking to all the other nations with which we share this planet. I want the rest of the world to develop the mindset that HE is America, too. A radical departure from the same Anglo middle aged/elderly male faces that have paraded in and out of the White House over the years. One basic type. With the same or similar backgrounds, many with pedigrees. But nonetheless, multiple versions of the same basic middle-aged-or-old white guy. One Anglo middle-to-old man after another. Well, as Obama himself would say, "not this time."

I think, human nature being what it is, and humans' tendency to learn and absorb concepts visually. The majority of humanity is visually-oriented and that's how information is processed and how learning occurs. So we, citizens of Planet Earth, start seeing the America Guy as a tall, thin, middle-aged African-American guy instead of ALWAYS some middle-to-old-age white guy. It couldn't be more different from what we've been sending out there every four years for all of our history (unless it was a female - of any color). It would be emblematic and metaphoric of change. Change embodied. Change you can see just by looking.

What you see influences what you think. You start seeing something different, it influences and starts modifying your mindset, and you start responding accordingly - differently than you had before. It's an open invitation for all of the world to shift gears, try something different, close a chapter and open up a different one, or set the old book down and pick up a new one. It is FIRMLY established and agreed to by some 84 percent of Americans responding to a major recent poll that America has lurched off onto the wrong track. Eighty-Four Percent! That's an historic high! Never in my life... Given that, doing the same things that led us here, following the same priorities that led us here, with more of the same people from the same political mindset that led us here, is just one of the worst ideas ever, assuming that you, too, believe America's gone horribly wrong in every way imaginable, and you do NOT want to perpetuate the same abysmal results and human conditions that we have now - um - "enjoyed" - for the past several years (under bush/republi-CON leadership/stewardship).

So I'd like to harness that human-nature tendency and make it work for us - and for the Obama campaign, and ultimately, for our entire battered, humiliated, terrorized, brutalized, defiled, lied to, and jerked-around country. Yeah. It's a mind game. But it's a beneficial game - to introduce a very obvious-looking change agent in a time when change is longed for. And you REINFORCE the idea that WE are the change agents, that it WON'T be business-as-usual, what's been going on will NOT be continued, the same missteps WON'T be taken some more. The same philosophy of "leadership" and "stewardship" will NOT continue. We will be turning the page. Nothing UNDERSCORES that, subliminally, or telegraphs that outward as effectively as The Man of Change himself.

The world will look at who's representing us now and have to adjust its opinions and reactions of us as a result. We DESPERATELY NEED to advertise that We're Under NEW Management" and to MEAN IT! The way we prove to the world that we do indeed mean it is to show what kind of change we've already made. This president won't think, or do, act or react, the same as all the other same-ol's. And seems to me the world is rather desperately waiting and hoping - and even praying - to see that. In Catholic school, we learned about Outward Signs. Well, there he stands.

I've got a lot of other positive things Obama, but that's the one that comes to mind first, more often than not.

We were discussing this in depth, here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6386253

Anyway, this was my thinking in that thread. I was encouraged to post this separately. I think PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT is EVERYTHING, and that it's a game we not only must play, but that we must play TO WIN.

Call it OUR "Art of War."

What do you think?

As Thom Hartmann would say - "Tag! You're It!"

[puebloknot]

1. K&R I *think* that this is a stellar article!

I've also thought that for the world to see a handsome, literate, humorous, compassionate, *determined* black man in the top job for this country would be a neon sign, blinking and screaming that America has at long last begun to overcome its adolescence and actually deserve the respect we've commanded in the world -- albeit a "respect" often grudgingly given because no one wants to condescend to fight with a bully. (Shades of Faulkner -- hope you've gotten this far! :)

I often think of a segment from Star Trek, years ago, in which a "good guy," who is black on the right side and white on the left side, is chasing a "criminal" who is white on the right side and black on the left side (or vice versa ?), and how ludicrous it seemed in that television program that there was a fight to the death over pigmentation, randomly placed.

I'm often annoyed when preachers *and* politicians insist on repeating the same phrase over and over in a speech. Enough, I think. I got it the first time. But they know the power of repetition. Even more powerful than the spoken word is, as you say, the *image* of a strong leader who will be seen over and over again in the months to come.

It's time for America to pack away the old and put it in a trunk in the attic, honoring that it was all we knew then, but that now, we have a new face for the world to behold! When the world recovers from the shock that the new face is of a darker hue than is usual for the U.S. of A., they may ask us to R.S.V.P, and mean it!

Great thoughts in this article!

[calimary]

6. Thanks - and I sure do remember that "Star Trek" episode - with Frank Gorshin, if

I'm not mistaken. Great allegory then, and as relevant now as you bring it up.

The republi-CONS are all into the bells 'n' whistles. Style over substance.

What WE have, that they don't, again this time is Style AND Substance. Granted, we've certainly had it to some degree in both departments all along, although Gore and Kerry were painted unfairly and relentlessly with the anti-style brush. They can't get away with that so easily with Barack Obama. It's ari fleischer's sinister threat just after 9/11, but turned upside down and inside out. The bad guys know they have to be careful what they say, too.

About damned time they had to walk around with tight sphincters for extended periods!

[blondeatlast]

2. "Under new management," I love it! Excellent essay. I'm snagging that line for

a graphic; hope you don't mind!

[calimary]

4. I absolutely do NOT mind!

Go for it! Because that is the buzzphrase that we need to start pushing, in a positive way, overladen with positive vibes and other positive verbiage (American, faith, family, children, democracy, God, love, future, strong/strength, secure/security, blah-blah-blah). Think of what we've all come to recognize as "good" or desirable or positive words and phrases, versus "bad" or undesirable or negative words and phrases. Just rip out any page from newt gingrich's GOPAC "little black book" that taught how to use wording as weaponry because of the deep-down, knee-jerk, gut-reaction, emotional, shoot-first-ask-questions-later connotations in those words; that the use of those words and phrases helps to REINFORCE.

The republi-CONS are able to get people whose mentality allows their opinions to be manipulated because the GOP goes for the most rock-bottom basic emotional response - the first thing that strikes you. The notion that strikes you and the impression that's made immediately, before you have a chance to think about it dispassionately. It's "heart over head," "hearts and minds" - note how "hearts" appears first in that slogan. It's the quick-n-dirty gut-grab (maybe lower, even, because I can't help but feel that these bastards have some people by the proverbial shorts), the kind of thing that provokes such voter feedback as: "I dunno. I just like 'im," and "I know what I know" or - when presented with overwhelming evidence debunking whatever they said - "well... I don't know." The voter who says/thinks like this has made a snap judgment based on input usually only from one side - the wrong-wing; those dwindling numbers of Americans who remain convinced that Saddam was in cahoots with al Qaeda and/or had something to do with 9/11 also tell pollsters they get their news mainly from Pox Noise. The Pox messaging machine is SOOOO good at this - the gut-grab. From their bumper music with the ding-dong bells in them to their self-inflated stuffed-shirt hosts, they work on the subliminal, and they really work it over. Somebody on the Dark Side has made a mightily serious study of human nature and human reactions and information processing.

This is just me spewing, mind you, but I like to study people and motivations and stuff. I think it behooves us to start encouraging this awareness and perhaps an expansion or adjustment of the mindset. "Under New Management." That's what the rest of the world is hoping for. If you watch, the bush junketing that has him joyriding around the world on a weird "farewell tour" has been somewhat flaccid. None of the much-vaunted overseas diplomacy trips with our charming host, contradicta rice, have produced any results. Everybody overseas is already focused on the election and who wins. Some world leaders, like Hugo Chavez I believe, have already made gestures of neighborliness aimed quite clearly at "the new American President." bush isn't even a factor anymore. He's irrelevant. Nobody wants to waste their time on him anymore. They know they don't have to, either. All they have to do is wait him out. But they're hoping and praying, across the globe, that we DO choose to hang out the "Under NEW Management" sign.

I forget where I saw this, but the quote from someone overseas was about wistfulness - how the rest of the world longed for the America it always loved and respected. The world wants THAT America back. So we have to work on Perception Management and make sure that the whole idea of "Under NEW Management" is reinforced A WHOLE LOT - and ALWAYS in a positive context. When "Under New Management" sets in as an accepted meme in a lot of people's minds, we score. Provided, of course, the folks in charge of running the "Obama = Change You Can Believe In" meme have done their job. The "Under NEW Management" meme establishes The Need. The "Obama = Change You Can Believe In" meme establishes that Obama is how you get to that "Under NEW Management" result.

Sorry for the insufferable bloviating here. I just think we should all be thinking about strategy, understanding it when you see others implementing theirs OR, better, thinking up your own and implementing it successfully (because you thought it up carefully and well). I think it's one way we can help our party win the White House in November. We can be there at the grassroots - the most foundational part of the party. If EVERYBODY'S thinking and watching and on their toes, we're far more likely to anticipate and gird ourselves against what the Dark Siders can throw at us. We know they throw A LOT. So we can't be too well-protected.

Remember what "Mad-Eye Moody" always reminded Harry Potter and friends in guarding against Lord Voldemort and his minions: "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!" We need it ourselves. This is a chess game. You've GOT TO try to stay two or three steps ahead of the enemy.

[blondeatlast]

3. This needs to rise, rise, rise. kick nt

[FrenchieCat]

5. very well articulated.......

and appreciated.

That's why we have no other option but to have Obama win this one....otherwise we will be sending the opposite message to the world. That wouldn't play very well!

[calimary]

8. You can say that again! We HAVE to send a message to the rest of the world that

we're not off on a bender anymore. We've snapped out of it and come back to our senses. The America you loved and trusted is back! Won't it feel good to be able to shout that in a few months? Focus on that feeling. Feelings are what it's about. That's what drives the perception home, I think.

Hey, whaddo I know? It just seems to make sense the more I think about it. I take subliminal messaging and perception management and all those damned word games very seriously because they ARE weapons of warfare. And I think we should be making use of them, for our own advantage. Besides, the bad guys could sure use some counter-balancing. Time to even the playing field again.

[musicblind]

7. Sent it a Kick and Recommendation. If it starts to sink we need to kick it again and again because

everyone needs to read this post. I can't say enough positive things about it!

:)

[calimary]

9. Kick!

A kick for George Carlin. I just found out. I'm bummed. A salute for him.

:patriot:

[marions ghost]

10. K&R

:applause:

[calimary]

11. Thank you!

It's kind of tedious stuff, and pretty wonky. Um ... most people actually have lives and don't jump in head-first and stay there like some of us do...

:P

[marions ghost]

12. yes

What you're talking about is how the wonky stuff gets translated into motivation to action on a mass scale. Critical, critical to winning in November and beyond.

Right--it's all about perceptions and psychology. Among more liberal voters one of the more stubborn obstacles to overcome is the cynicism and defeatism that results from years of suppression in a not-very free & democratic society. Our reactionary opposition has used this to their great advantage...keeping us on a tether. Downtrodden people need to be helped to break out of a negative mindset--they often accept their state passively rather than fighting against it. When trust in government is broken people often suffer in silence.

The optimists among us must continually push the idea that we CAN change this state of affairs. If we come together we can write a new script for the future. It really does NOT have to be the same as it always was. The non-bloody revolution happens when you win the hearts and minds of those who are not happy with the way things are (and that would be a LOT of Americans as you point out). The time is now.

The argument that the rest of the world is waiting and hoping for better leadership in America is a strong one. Most people know that the old ways are not working and this country is really losing it on the international scene. This gives people a point to rally around that is much more healthy than rallying around a bogus war that profits a few. We desperately need to improve our standing in the world community. We can't do it with the ugly & domineering BFEE Rethuglican image we have now.

Good thoughts--hope you post on this again.