Postmodern marketing hasn’t just permeated politics; it has invaded all aspects of life, including military planning and propaganda. In the lead-in to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, we first heard of “shock and awe,” an apparent sales pitch for the paralyzing effects of firepower. Another slick military term followed soon after, “The Voila Moment.” According to author Naomi Klein, VM was “likely the product of the Bush administration’s penchant for hiring advertising executives and flakey management consultants as foreign policy advisors.” She explained The Voila Moment: “That’s when Iraqi soldiers and civilians, with bombs raining down on Baghdad, suddenly scratch their heads and say to themselves, ‘These bombs aren’t really meant to kill me and my family, they are meant to free us from an evil dictator!’ At that point, they thank Uncle Sam, lower their weapons, abandon their posts, and rise up against Saddam Hussein. Voila!”
It turned out the Iraqis were less favourably disposed to a Voila Moment than the corporate mythmakers who dreamed it into being. It was all part of a well rehearsed folie à deux on the coalition side – a delusion shared by two or more people. There were also plenty of news consumers along for the ride, people who believed the Iraqis would greet coalition forces as liberators. As we all know now, that turned out to be another unwarranted projection onto a foreign people.
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Common Ground | Brands on the Brain - 0 views
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Five years ago, the World Wide Web, global in scale, was already more complex than a human brain and had surpassed the 20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence, as calculated by inventor Ray Kurzweil.
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As of 2005, according to former Wired editor Kevin Kelly, there were 100 billion clicks per day on the Web, and 55 trillion links between all the webpages on a machine that uses five percent of the global electricity, with its processing power doubling every two years.
Endless Knot | "Let soldiers blog, post to YouTube" - 0 views
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"In Changing the Organizational Culture, his article in Small Wars Journal, Caldwell writes that it's time for the Army to rethink its approach to the new media. Caldwell has some experience here: he was the person you saw in the Baghdad press conferences last year, speaking for the Multi-National Force [MNF, as he refers to it below]. Wherever you stand (or stood) on the war, what he's saying here bears reading, as he's proposing a new approach: Recent experiences in Iraq illustrate how important it is to address cultural change and also how very difficult it is to change culture: After MNF-I broke through the bureaucratic red-tape and was able to start posting on YouTube, MNF-I videos from Iraq were among the top ten videos viewed on YouTube for weeks after their posting. These videos included gun tape videos showing the awesome power the US military can bring to bear. Using YouTube - part of the new media - proved to be an extremely effective tool in countering an adaptive enemy."
Los Angeles Times | Hackers create opportunity for military firms - 0 views
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""Cyber-security is shaping up to be a major growth opportunity for the defense industry," said Loren Thompson, a military policy analyst for the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va. "We've spent the last 20 years putting all of our information onto computers. Now, we don't have any choice but to defend ourselves against foreign intrusion." "
BBC News | Meet USCybercom: Why the US is fielding a cyber army - 0 views
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The US is in the process of creating a unified cyber command, to fight the wars of the future. The Pentagon has no doubt that the next conventional war will include a cyber element.
NPR | Social Media And The U.S. Military - 0 views
Blog: Wounded Warriors | American Legion commander recruits with Twitter - 0 views
Network World | U.S. Army considers social networks as Generation Facebook enlists - 0 views
PR Web | U.S. Military Opens the Door to Social Media Use by Active Duty Personnel - 0 views
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According to Johnson, "We have built what we believe is a true social support system for current military personnel and vets. We offer a discussion forum, a bulletin board for posting events along with wants and needs, also the ability to form special groups, post information to help with relevant issues, a proprietary ISU - Installation Update Specific section and more
Monterey County Herald | VET SOCIAL CLUBS' NUMBERS SHRINK - 0 views
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"Part of it, I think, is because we don't have what it takes to offer to young vets," Bogan said. "They're looking for places with Wi-Fi (wireless Internet service) so they can sit down and do laptops. A lot of posts don't have this facility. They're just not into shooting pool. They'd rather play video games or use their laptops." The ambience of American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars halls doesn't appeal to young veterans, said Karl P. Karl, director of the Veterans Transition Center in Marina. Some of the turnoffs, he said, include drinking in the lounge - "many younger vets want a clean, sober environment" - a feeling among young veterans that they aren't welcome, and infighting within and fragmentation of veterans' organizations.
New York Times | James Cameron's Sci-fi Film Is Turning the Heads of Fans - 0 views
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To date, neither a trailer nor even a still photo from the film, which tells the story of a disabled soldier who uses technology to inhabit an alien body on a distant planet, has been made public by Mr. Cameron or Fox. Dr. Mario Mendez, a behavioral neurologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, said it is entirely possible that Mr. Cameron's work could tap brain systems that are undisturbed by conventional 2-D movies. One, he said, is a kind of inner global-positioning system that orients a person to the surrounding world. "Three-D demonstrably creates a space that triggers this GPS; it's really very stimulating," Dr. Mendez said. He added that he had used virtual-reality therapy in working with soldiers at the Veterans Administration hospital in Los Angeles - and found himself jarred by his experience with a "virtual Iraq" simulation. "It was with me for days and days," Dr. Mendez said.
Ryan Conklin To Iraq: 'Real World' Castmember Leaves Sunday - 0 views
USATODAY | Historians hope to preserve candid glimpses of war - 0 views
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The blogs that soldiers are writing from Iraq and Afghanistan may not be as valuable to historians as the letters and journals that troops, as warriors have done for centuries, are writing by hand.
Time | Meet Joe Blog - 0 views
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Over the past five years, blogs have gone from an obscure and, frankly, somewhat nerdy fad to a genuine alternative to mainstream news outlets, a shadow media empire that is rivaling networks and newspapers in power and influence.