Psy ops (alternately PSYOPS, Psychological Operations, or Psychological warfare) is a behavior intended to psychologically weaken a target. The US government is renowned for this.

While I don’t know what is an intentional psy op in my life and what isn’t, I know fear is psychologically harmful to me and those around me. To live in a constant state of fear is hell. It shortens life and reduces the quality of the short life you have.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/allan-stevo/the-fear-mask-and-the-i-surrender-pose/

By Allan Stevo

“For if you put me to death, you will not easily find another, who, to use a rather absurd figure, attaches himself to the city as a gadfly to a horse, which, though large and well bred, is sluggish on account of his size and needs to be aroused by stinging. I think the god fastened me upon the city in some such capacity, and I go about arousing…”

-Socrates, as reported by Plato in The Apology

A gadfly friend of mine has never done the pose of submission to the great state, the “I surrender” pose.

You know, the one where you stick your hands up in the air when someone points a gun at you, exposing your vulnerable torso and midsection.

You know, that “I surrender” pose – the pose that is drilled into you every time you pass through airport security. You must enter the naked body scanner and do the pose of submission. If you don’t you will be barked at, eye-rolled at, and huffed at until you do.

Notably, this “I surrender” pose is mere security theater. It looks like it works. It doesn’t actually work. That, alongside the dehumanizing: take off your shoes, get groped, and throw away whatever items you recently bought that happen to be more than 3.3 ounces.

3.4 ounces will take down a plane, we are assured. 3.3 ounces can’t.

Oh really?

Yes, that’s why it must be confiscated. Otherwise, we would never do such an awful thing like confiscate your private property. A half-full 3.4 ounce container can take down a plane too.

Oh really?

Yes, that’s why that too must be confiscated. It’s for your own safety.

Fascinating fiction, this US security theater that doesn’t actually work. But what it does work at is taking some of the most affluent members of society – air travelers – and bossing them around until they submit. The more affluent you are (to a degree) the more you travel by commercial air. The more you travel by commercial air, the more you get put through the compliance tester and obedience enforcer. This is a predictable way to make the most affluent in a society more compliant.

What a toxic thing for America.

You can almost imagine a table of Bush era stooges saying to themselves over beers “What’s the stupidest thing we can get people to do?”

“I know. Hold their hands up in the air for no reason like someone is pointing a gun at them.”

“Let a stranger go through their underwear.”

“No I’ve got one better: Let a stranger CONFISCATE their underwear.”

“This is way better: Let a stranger take photos of them naked.”

“No. Even better. Let a stranger touch them in between the legs.”

“No this is way worse. Get a rattled mother to voluntarily throw away pumped breast milk, because it’s a risk to national security, even if that means her baby goes hungry on a flight and screams for three hours.”

You now know the “I surrender” pose I mean, right? Read the rest of this entry »