Active Measures

"I'd love to change the world, But I don't know what to do, So I'll leave it up to you."

I find it bizarre today that when one disagrees with another individual, they do their best to obliterate that person. For example, when a Medical Doctor disagrees with a currently held belief, those in power have that Doctor disbarred and use the fact that the Doctor is disbarred to discredit them. There is a long list of government tragedies that were unbelievable at the time of the event and are now a fact of history, including the Tuskegee Experiment, Osage Indians, Reefer Madness, Gulf of Tonkin Incident, and the unintentional ones like the War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast. My all-time favorite was Operation CHAOS. Operation CHAOS was a covert CIA program during the Cold War to collect information on domestic dissidents, particularly those involved in anti-war and civil rights movements. The program involved spying on American citizens, infiltrating organizations, and gathering intelligence without the knowledge or consent of those targeted. I'm so glad nothing like that can happen today.

What are active measures? Thomas Rid defines active measures as a set of coordinated actions the government and intelligence agencies take to manipulate and distort information to achieve specific national goals. This involves propaganda, cyberattacks, forgeries, and other methods. These techniques are used to influence public opinion and incite people into action. Social media is the best place to spread disinformation, using trolls, bots, and fake news as tools of active measures. It works because factual information is mixed with bizarre stories to discredit those reporting the facts. Conspiracy Theories that are true stories, like the ones noted above, are combined with fake ones to wash out any hope of belief by the readers. Are we in a hopeless situation? Let's ask Benjamin about the Pigs, Napoleon, and Snowball.

Napoleon and Snowball gradually betray the original principles. They change the commandments to suit their interests and engage in behavior that contradicts the initial ideals of the rebellion. The commandments were altered to include exceptions or to be more favorable to the Pigs, and the Pigs eventually began walking on two legs and sleeping in beds, mirroring those they initially opposed. The transformation of the commandments reflects the corruption and betrayal of the revolution's ideals, highlighting the theme of the abuse of power and the betrayal of the common animals by their supposed leaders. Benjamin realized too late that he was hopelessly lost once he outlived his usefulness. At least he stuck around long enough to be sent to the glue factory. Blucher!