Dr. Keith Ablow asks, “Is Obama waging psychological warfare on Americans?”
Having never considered this question, I was intrigued. Who better to answer this question than Dr. Keith Ablow?
I believe that the Obama administration is conducting psychological warfare on conservative Americans. Not only that but it is also waging this war on all Americans who previously viewed themselves, their country, their Constitution and their overwhelming belief in God as a force for good in the world.
Interesting. So, what is Dr. Keith Albow’s evidence for said beliefs?
The psychological warfare began with an apology tour in which President Obama publicly “confessed,” presuming to speak for all of us, for the shortcomings of America and our supposed contributions to tyranny and all manner of evils around the world.
I’m familiar with said apology tour—the name of which is controversial in some circles since Obama never technically apologized–but had never considered that it might be pyschological warfare. But, in hindsight, it was sneaky of our elected leader to claim to speak for the country.
This confession planted in the American mind the notion that our values and beliefs might not be in line with freedom and truth.
What evidence is there for that? Well, never mind.
It was reinforced by the first lady stating during the 2008 presidential campaign that she had never felt pride in our country.
If I recall my logical fallacies correctly, post hoc ergo propter hoc is among them. But pre hoc ergo propter hoc is not! So, QED, Dr. Keith Albow is probably right.
These statements were seemingly shrugged off by Americans who, collectively, seemed to be telling themselves that they were hearing discontent channeled from disenfranchised groups in our nation who, nonetheless, loved the country—and all of us, too.
But, deep inside the American psyche, something more malignant could have been planted—the seeds of self-hatred and self-doubt. And I no longer believe that those seeds were planted unintentionally by people as smart and capable as the president and first lady.
So, we go from two “seems” and a “could have” to something that definitely happened deliberately. Why not? And he mentions that these people are “smart and capable”—a confession against interest—so he’s probably not biased in any way.
Psychological warfare has been described as a set of techniques aimed at influencing a target audience’s value systems or beliefs and inducing confessions of wrongdoing or attitudes favorable to the group proffering the techniques.
Pretty much everything any politician says or does falls into that description. And Obama’s a politician. Indeed, a smart and capable one. So, yeah, he’s probably engaged in psychological warfare.
The techniques are often combined with black ops strategy, in which covert initiatives seek to dispirit, disempower and confuse adversaries.
Now, Ablow doesn’t give any examples of Obama doing this. But, hey, he’s already documented that Obama is a politician. A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse. Say no more.
The psychological warfare has continued, I believe, with other opportunities the president has had to make American’s question their individual freedoms and autonomy.
This has included misrepresenting horrific crimes, such as the one which unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut, as evidence of the need for gun control measures, when they clearly evidenced a need for revamping our mental health care system.
So, apparently, evincing policy disagreements with Dr. Keith Ablow is a form of psychological warfare? Well, it does fit the definition previously offered by Dr. Keith Ablow, noted expert on psychological warfare.
Gun rights are inextricably entwined in the American psyche with freedom to defend oneself. Attacking gun rights, I believe, is an element of the psychological warfare on the American belief that force is justifiable when confronting evil.
So, any attempt to change any pre-existing opinion is psychological warfare? This is a bit confusing. For example, until reading this article, it had never occured to me that Barack and Michelle Obama were conducting psychological warfare on the American people. So, is Dr. Keith Ablow, noted expert on psychological warfare, conducting psychological warfare in trying to convince the American people that Barack and Michelle Obama are conducting psychological warfare on the American people? That’s pretty heavy.
My belief that psychological warfare is being deployed on Americans by this American president and his administration has been solidified as news has come out of the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.
This black ops targeting doesn’t just have the effect of slowing the financial momentum of these groups. It has the goal of dispiriting them and making them feel helpless to achieve their goals.
Aside from the lack of evidence that this American president or his administration ordered the review of Tea Party groups, and the fact that Tea Party groups are allowed to operate with or without approval, he has a very good point here. I mean, we all know Obama doesn’t like the Tea Party and doesn’t want them to achieve their goals.
If liberal Americans stand by and do not seek swift and severe justice for those who perpetrated these acts, then they will have tacitly been victimized, too. Because they will have tacitly agreed that it is acceptable for their government to target certain political movements for persecution—and that will have fundamentally changed the psyche of America.
Strangely, this actually makes sense. Although I’m not sure what it has to do with psychological warfare.
Seen through the lens of psychological warfare, the failure to defend our embassy in Benghazi need not be understood simply as a screw-up. It could reflect an actual strategy on the part of the administration to reinforce the notion that homicidal violence born of hatred toward America is understandable—even condonable—because we have generated it ourselves and are reaping the harvest of ill will we have sown. In other words, we should take our punishment.
Apparently, my psychological warfare lens is cloudy because I’m just not seeing this one. Even if we grant that Obama intentionally left our embassy unprotected while anticipating an attack—an assumption for which no evidence exists—the notion that it would have that impact makes no sense. When have Americans ever taken an attack as a sign of their own failings? Certainly, they didn’t in this instance.
The president said as much when he blamed the murder of our Ambassador to Libya on a film that criticized Islam.
My faith in Dr. Keith Ablow is declining rapidly. I’ve criticized the president for this particular statement and, indeed, for previous statements criticizing Americans for making inflammatory videos or statements that insult Muslims. Freedom of speech is virtually absolute in our tradition and American presidents should honor that. But Obama never suggested, in any of these instances, that Americans deserve to be attacked or “should take our punishment.” He’s merely suggested that we shouldn’t do things that will provoke action from religious zealots. I disagree with that rather strongly; we shouldn’t give a veto power to thugs. But he’s not justifying violence against Americans but rather trying to prevent it.
This misstatement may disclose not just incompetence and may not just be evidence of a cover-up, but may be evidence of exactly what I am theorizing here: that the president, with the help of his administration, is attempting to conduct psychological warfare on Americans who value autonomy and free will and free markets and small government, by convincing them that they are wrong-minded, prejudiced and pathological and should deeply question their beliefs—including some ensconced in the Constitution.
Again, we have a lot of “mays” leading to some rather bold conclusions here. But, again, he’s defining “psychological warfare” so broadly here that it amounts to “persuasion.”
The wiretapping of journalists would be, then, just another black ops technique in an ongoing war against our freedoms.
It would! Except that there’s no evidence that the administration wiretapped any journalists. Unless we’re redefining “wiretap” to mean “look at phone call logs.”
There will be those that say that many American leaders have sought to target groups hostile to their views. Some will point to President Nixon or Senator McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover. And that debate can be had.
That’s some pretty slick psychological warfare right there . . .
But I assert that this administration is engaged in a coordinated attempt to dispirit, disarm and disenfranchise large portions of the American population and to weaken our founding principles through what is best understood as psychological warfare.
Well, if Dr. Keith Ablow asserts it, who am I to argue? My doctorate is in political science, not psychology. And he’s given some evidence that Obama wants to thwart those who want to run him out of office—which is surely dispiriting to them!–and to disarm—or at least, not allow to buy arms without background checks—some people. It stands to reason that he wants to disenfranchise them, too, right? Well, no. But it could be a black op.
And with that statement in the public domain, let us, at least, be aware and notice how many events unfold in-keeping with it, over the next months and years.
Who could oppose situational awareness?
The enemy of psychological warfare is the knowledge of what is really happening to us and remembering who we really are.
Knowledge and memory? I’m for those, too.
