Winning the Battle for Hearts and Minds

[Ed Jewett]

Winning the Battle for Hearts and Minds

How do we transform our anger about assassinations, false flag attacks, torture, war crimes, corruption, war-mongering for profit, and the psychopathology of our current leadership into something that speaks to and sustains joy, community, and life?

What does it mean for our life, our families, our community, our spirit?

How do we recapture the rights, wealth, opportunity, image, and grace
that have been taken or destroyed?


How do we move forward with certainty into sustainability,
personal, social, familial economic/environmental health and well-being, survivability, and vibrancy?

There is a need for spreading insight, perspective and information,
for fomenting inquiry, for fostering awareness and mindfulness,
for empowerment of person, collaboration, community ...

but can I do more?

Can "we" collectively have some impact?

If so, what should be our focus?

As Lt. Col. John Boyd (USAF, deceased) (referencing and improving upon Clausewitz) would ask in war-like terms, what is our schwerpunkt?

What is our "weight (or focus) of effort"? What is the glue that holds the degradatory, destructive, criminal nexus together?

How can we improve our outreach and efficacy?

How do we win the battle for our own and others' hearts and minds?


I asked these questions of Magda Hassan...

• her response, my own thoughts, some material from Justin Boland,
  
• a short look at 5GW (5th Generation Warfare) [size=12]and [/SIZE]
  
• a glimpse at alternate reality games
  

have all been posted at E Pluribus Unum.


Member participation over there will start in about 8 PM GMT on 6/5/09.

Other material and articles will be added over time, and hopefully some cross-talk and cross-collaboration, fresh ideas, expanded awareness about functional and effective approaches, etc., will follow.


Section Header
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...wforum=165


temporary intro
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8198


Preface and Thematic Question
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8199


Magda Hassan's comments (thank, Magda!)
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8200


My own thoughts
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8202


Material from Justin Boland
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8203


5GW: 5th Generation Warfare
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8204


5GW and Invisible War
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8205


alternate reality games
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...topic=8206


If you are not a member with posting privileges over there but wish to comment,
send it in an e-mail to epudirection [at] gmail [dot] com.


Or post your comments right here, and I will get them cross-linked.

I hope to get it linked and posted elsewhere as well.

[Ed Jewett]

A new section -- "Get There if You Can" -- has been added:

http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Un...try3639125

[Ed Jewett]

The Digital Dictatorship

February 22nd, 2010

If you pretend that the author is referring to the U.S. when he mentions countries like Iran and the former East Germany, this is much more informative.


Via: Wall Street Journal:


Since the publication of John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” in 1996, they have been led to believe that cyberspace is conducive to democracy and liberty, and no government would be able to crush that libertarian spirit (why, then, Mr. Barlow felt the need to write such a declaration remains unknown to this day). The belief that free and unfettered access to information, combined with new tools of mobilization afforded by blogs and social networks, leads to the opening up of authoritarian societies and their eventual democratization now forms one of the pillars of “techno-utopianism.”
…
Will Twitter and Facebook come to the rescue and fill in the void left by more conventional tools of diplomacy? Will the oppressed masses in authoritarian states join the barricades once they get unfettered access to Wikipedia and Twitter?

This seems quite unlikely. In fact, our debate about the Internet’s role in democratization—increasingly dominated by techno-utopianism—is in dire need of moderation, for there are at least as many reasons to be skeptical. Ironically, the role that the Internet played in the recent events in Iran shows us why: Revolutionary change that can topple strong authoritarian regimes requires a high degree of centralization among their opponents. The Internet does not always help here. One can have “organizing without organizations”—the phrase is in the subtitle of “Here Comes Everybody,” Clay Shirky’s best-selling 2008 book about the power of social media—but one can’t have revolutions without revolutionaries.
…
In an environment like this—where it’s impossible to distinguish whether your online interlocutors are your next-door neighbors, some hyperactive Iranians in the diaspora, or a government agent masquerading as a member of the Green Movement—who could blame ordinary Iranians for not taking the risks of flooding the streets only to find themselves arrested?

Our earlier, unfounded expectations that the Internet would make it easy for the average citizens to see who else is opposing the regime and then act collectively based on that shared knowledge may have been inaccurate. In the age of the Spinternet, when cheap online propaganda can easily be bought with the help of pro-government bloggers, elucidating what fellow citizens think about the regime may be harder than we thought. Add to that the growing surveillance capacity of modern authoritarian states—also greatly boosted by information collected through social media and analyzed with new and advanced forms of data-mining—and you may begin to understand why the Green Movement faltered.

Posted in COINTELPRO, Dictatorship, Social Engineering, Surveillance, Technology