On Psy-ops, Demoralization, and Dystopia Porn

Originally published on Anarchonomicon

One need not spend long in radical or dissident Right discourse to encounter talk of Psy-ops and demoralization campaigns.

Some of this traces back to Yuri Besmenov’s work on subversion, some to speculation about “Operation Mockingbird” type media manipulation schemes, and some to simply obvious symbolic work being done for seeming for no reason except to horrify, offend, “blackpill”, and create a sense of helplessness amongst regime enemies.

One can point to the massive sentences for Jan 6th protestors, the recent charges of Trump (outside any norm or existing political theory or constitutional theory), or most ridiculous: Dystopia Porn news stories.

I recently heard a story repeated by a commentator of a news story of a trans-woman working with doctors to be amongst the first to receive a womb transplant which would allow a biological male to gestate a baby, this person was excited, completing the South Park plotline (seriously 2005 s09e01 “Mr. Garrison’s Fancy New Vagina” look it up), stating that they were excited that they might be the first trans -woman to get an abortion.

Why would the medical establishment play along and at least pretend to enable this obviously malicious and self-destructive wish? Why would the media bother to report such a crazy person’s putrid desire?? This religious commentator could only describe it as “satanic”, and speculated that it was a psy-op meant to break descent people’s will…

Setting aside the question of intention, and whether it wasn’t “just” medical professionals salivating at a paying guinea pig, and the media looking for clicks that aligned with their propaganda…

Why would it demoralize!?

Abortions happen by the hundreds of thousands annually, and the nightmare of the trans-medical process is visited on thousands of souls more sympathetic than this South Parkian weirdo every year… outside of the immediate outrage, such a bizarre one-off intersection of the two is basically of no broader political import… indeed if one is of the social conservative set one has seen rather major political victories on both fronts, with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade and the end of adolescent gender treatment across wide sections of Europe.

And yet for this one-off story of someone saying they would like to do something evil and stupid… you got outrage and horror and many an invocation of “It’s so over”.

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What are the point of Psy-ops? What is the goal of demoralization?

Well as a perfidious leaf I am uniquely positioned to tell you, indeed, indeed one might say my country only exists because of the greatest psy-op in human history…

No not anything to do with Trudeau sr. or the liberal government’s corruption and bribery to keep Quebec from leaving…

The founding Canadian Psy-op occurred in 1812….carried out by the greatest psychological warfare operative in human history, and Canadian national hero:

General Sir Issac Brock

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According to former President Jefferson, the conquest of Canada was to be “just a matter of marching”… indeed it should have been, the woefully outnumbered British Regulars and undertrained Canadian Militia should have been in no position to hold Upper Canada (now Ontario) and by rights should have lost what is now English Canada to American expansion… The defense of Canada depended on keeping America’s superior numbers on the far side of the St Lawrence/Great Lakes waterway bound up and unable to deploy in force for such an invasion …

a seemingly hopeless task since they already had a beachhead for such an invasion at Fort Detroit (site of the current, well former, major city).

So Brock went on the attack, marching on Detroit with vastly inferior numbers to even the Garrison.

His 1300 men of 3 different nationalities (British Canadian and Native) attacking 2500 unified Defenders across the massive Detroit River, in a prepared defensive position.

It should have been suicide… he didn’t lose a single man.

Brock dressed his militia in excess redcoat uniforms of British regulars to make it appear as if he had more professionally trained soldiers… then throughout his maneuvers created the illusion that he had vastly more men than his opponent, marching his men in circles to create the illusion from the walls of the fort that he had thousands more than reality.

He then wrote to his opposite general William Hull begging him to surrender, stating that he did not believe he could control his 3000 Indian allies (in reality just 600) and prevent scalping and war crimes once battle broke out.

Hull wrote back asking for 3 days to arrange the surrender, Brock gave him 3 hours.

Once surrendered Hull’s men spat on him seeing the inferior force they had just turned their guns over to.

At a court martial General Hull was sentenced to be shot, however, President Madison commuted his sentence to mere dismissal from the service… beginning a 200+ year-long tradition of US military retreat and lack of accountability.

In 1945 Candian forces would repeat this obscene tactic at the battle of Zwolle, when soldier Leo Major single-handedly tricked ~1500 German soldiers into believing they were surrounded by superior forces and retreating.

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Clausewitz teaches us that “War is politics by other means”… It was Vladimir Lenin who observed the inverse is also true: “Politics is warfare by other means”

It can thus be observed that Clausewitz’s core understanding of war as a contest of wills with the core objective of breaking your enemy’s will and forcing them to submit to yours applies just as much if not more so to politics, where the more forceful option of shooting your opponent and scattering his brains and wills across the concrete is usually not an option… unless you’re the CIA.

Psy-ops and Demoralization are thus best understood as the intersection of warfare and politic… planned attacks directly on the will.

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Since the objective of warfare is simply to break the enemy’s will to fight, mere manipulation of his beliefs can win battles, entire campaigns, and entire nations… merely by making him believe that resistance is pointless.

Just as Brock made Hull believe he could not hold Detroit.

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So much of what we see in politics from the regime today precisely follows this structure.

A mere handful of Jan 6th arrestees are sentenced to decades in prison, and bots and feds pose as black-pilled right-wingers crying “Resistance is pointless, they’ll destroy your life whilst BLM loots America”, or Trump will be arrested and you’ll get similar commentary.

As if the fact that there was even a protest that threatened to overwhelm the capitol, and that the regime’s only response they’re seemingly capable of making is to create a few dozen examples in the desperate hope it might detter future resistance, and that America doesn’t learn the (obvious) lesson, which is that a very small number of American’s willing to drive a few hundred miles to DC could probably do to the congress, senate, and Soctus what the San Culottes did to King Louis and Marie Antoinette (detain them and use them as hostages to form a revolutionary government)

I know of one prominent and usually quite good Libertarian podcaster who bemoaned Trump was probably a bad candidate now… “Independents don’t like people who are charged or convicted. Ya its unfair and it’s a kangaroo court and the regime’s corrupt… but even though it wasn’t his fault isn’t the best candidate one who can win?”

This is a man who does work with the Mises Institute! He refers to the government as “The Regime”!

This is a man whose entire life has been attacking the foundation of the American elite and the tyrannical nature of US government.

The prospect of Trump being imprisoned or given the Kennedy treatment by the Deep State should have him salivating at the tens of millions of Trump supporters who’d immediately conclude America is not a democracy, the government can never be legitimate again… and only revolution can be the answer.

The prospect of Trump becoming the nominee, and then being imprisoned, or worse, would be the fastest path to “Liberty in our Lifetime”.

This very successful podcaster should be salivating at the Caesarian martyr his enemies are threatening to hand him and the anti-regime cause…

Yet he’s demoralized.

“Liberty in our Lifetime” for him means that maybe someone decent might maybe be elected, and they might maybe let a few good policies through whilst preventing the worst of the bad ones… And then maybe after a series of “victories” such as these, he’ll look back on a life of struggle, and see the first beams of a new liberty dawning for is grandchildren…

“Liberty in our lifetime” means for him that maybe the dawn might break in the last hours of his life if he lives to some great age… A final gift he might leave his great-grandchildren.

It is not, as every great man worth his salt must think of ANYTHING worth having, something to be claimed by fire and fury within the next 5 years if not the next 5 months.

By rights, Remaking an entire country or economy should not take much more than 10 years… looking at other successful ideologies like communism and fascism which both went from complete irrelevance to all but crushing their enemies within 5 years, and then restructuring their economies and finishing off the last vestiges of their hated enemies in another 5.

Now creating an ideology so pure it is able to execute such a revolution? Theoretically, it should take as long as writing a book, practically there are many false steps on the road.

But no conqueror or great statesman has ever spent his life in miserable obscurity only to be shown right and leave his utopia to his descendants at the very end…

Even Moses delivered his people from Egypt in his youth… the 40 years in the desert being purely a result of moral failure and folly.

But this is the effect of Demoralization, it limits the sense of the possible, and then slowly makes you accept your complete surrender as “winning the most you can”

This is almost certainly why Guntubers and Second Amendment focused Right-wingers tend to be the most moralized and optimistic… they spend their hours imagining and preparing for vastly worse fights against the strongest empire in human history turned tyrannical… and they prepare to win.

The ups and downs of culture war and fake and lame demoralization efforts mean nothing compared to the IR-enabled drone strikes they study to evade.

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This is the contrast of Brock and Hull.

Brock genuinely was set up to fail, outnumbered even by the garrison of one fort, the entire western 3/4 of North America set to slip forever out of British hands, his troops and the local government basically resigned to the idea they’d be conquered (many of his militia men abandoned their posts at various points, so much so he couldn’t even punish them, but merely reward the ones who followed basic orders)….

And yet his personal conviction and will was so strong he conquered, and almost certainly would have redrawn the North American map further had he not been killed at Queenston that October leading a successful defensive action against American invasion across the Niagara.

By contrast Hull, in a strong position, with more men, and more being raised, where merely doing nothing would have almost certainly won him and the young American republic the second half of North America… allowed himself to be demoralized. Allowed his enemies to make him tunnel-vision himself into surrender.

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This is why I cannot abide most Dystopia Porn, and couldn’t bring myself to really appreciate sad songs like “Rich Men North of Richmond” we stand on the same stage of history that Brock, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, and all the others once occupied…

And as I respect those men… and as I respect them I must respect their enemies… and I can’t quite bring myself to believe the sniveling losers and neurotics who comprise my foes are somehow a greater threat than they face.

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Always remember that the more your enemy tries to demoralize you, The more they betray that your confidence would comprise a threat.