[Marxism] Fear Project

["Dylan Connelly" <dylanconnelly@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote this for a first year english paper, what do you think?

President Bush PhD


To start a war you need two things: A reason to go to war and support for
that reason. President Bush conjured up both with propaganda created by the
best spin-doctors the world has ever seen, American public relations firms.
With a budget into the hundreds of millions, the importance of psychological
operations to the government becomes apparent. Psy-Ops, as they are more
commonly known, are meant to convey selected information to a society to
influence their behavior, Psy-Ops are propaganda. The Bush administration
used propaganda to prey on Americans deepest emotions and ethics to convince
them that the war with Iraq was in their best interest.

Sheldon and Rampton state in ?Weapons of Mass Deception?that when being
questioned in his prison cell, Nazi R.H. Goering stated the common man never
desires war, whether he lives under a democracy or a dictatorship, but can
be ?brought to (the) bidding of the leaders? by being told he is under
attack and that the ?pacifists are exposing the country to danger?(1370.
Fear is the key to  deception. In The Art of War Sun Tzu teaches that ?All
warfare is based on deception?(qtd. in Rampton 69). The Bush administration
applied this teaching well. A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press showed that in October 2002, seventy-nine percent of Americans
believed that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons, which it did not, and
sixty-six percent thought Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of September
eleventh, which he was not (Rampton 78). This deception of the public was
not accidental, it was engineered.

E.L. Bernays states in his article ?Public Relations?, that the engineering
of consent is to use an ?engineering approach ?. (to get people) to support
ideas and programs?(159). By engineering approach he means to study your
target audience and build your ?consent? strategy around them. In this case,
the target audience was the American public. The Bush administration knew
that Americans would need a good reason to give consent for a war. What
better a reason than to catch the terrorists who destroyed New York and the
Pentagon? The problem was that Iraq and the September eleventh attacks had
nothing in common. To solve this problem they used the same method as ?Big
Brother? did in George Orwell?s Nineteen Eighty-Four  to convince Winston
that two plus two makes five. You drum it into his head while he?s in a
vulnerable state of mind. The September eleventh attacks took care of
putting the public in a vulnerable state of mind, so the administration just
drummed away.

?Connections to Al Queda?, ?Six months away from nuclear weapons?, and
?(Missiles) targeting the United States? were all given by the Bush
administration as reasons for war. These statements were known by the Bush
administration to be untrue but were said anyway. Why? Because the Bush
administration knew two important facts. One, that Americans fearful in war
time, which post September eleventh was, have followed their Presidents more
than any other time in history ( Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and
Bush Sr. all had their highest approval ratings during times of war.
(Rampton 144).And two, that media corporations, from fear of being the last
to broadcast new news, will repeat information prior to checking its
validity. Americans heard statements like those above over and over.
Wherever they went ?Big Brother? was banging his drum.

The administration used doublespeak (a language deliberately constructed to
disguise or distort its actual meaning) to take advantage of this media
avalanche and ?Operation Iraqi Freedom? was born. A perfect example of
doublespeak, ?Operation Iraqi Freedom? has nothing to do with freedom, as
its name would imply, and everything to do with control, which its name
doesn?t imply. The media parading this title around would influence the
American people into thinking they were actually freeing Iraq and all at no
cost to the government. Wow! Now that?s good business! Winston Churchill
once said that ?sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by
a bodyguard of lies? and freeing Iraq is just one of those lies(qtd. in
Rampton 66). Without these lies, or use of doublespeak, the truth of this
war would be clear as day and would be hard pressed to justify. The intent
or ?truth (that) is so precious? is that, without foreign oil, modern
America would cease to exist as the worlds only superpower. The common
American wants to be as happy and safe as any other person in this world,
but would never send his sons or daughters to die for oil. These core ethics
that control how people act must therefore be bypassed by the Bush
administration with the use of doublespeak. This war is about control and
without the use of doublespeak, ?Operation Iraqi Freedom? would be more like
?Operation Blood for Oil?, and that would be hard to control the American
people with.
        Ironically in both the Orwellian fiction novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and
modern day America, fear is the blinding emotion that permits compliance to
the ruling political power. Without this fear, the ruling powers would have
a harder time decieving their people, and would therefore be made to act in
a responsible and just manner. As time rolls on the differences between the
science fiction novel and reality become closer. The ruling American party
now has sweeping powers over it?s citizens own personal rights and freedoms
with the Patriot Act. Now, just like in Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four, the
government may do as they wish as long they say it is in the name of
protecting its people. Fear is what allows this intrusion. With the most
powerful military the world has ever seen at their finger tips and amazing
powers over the personal freedoms of their citizens, the politicians of
America are the ones that Americans should fear the most. As Sun Tzu states,
?Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?(Art of War).

Dylan



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