Revealed: CIA weaponized modern art

SquidInk · Post by **SquidInk** » 06-10-2014 11:10 PM

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 78808.html

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art - President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: "If that's art, then I'm a Hottentot." As for the artists themselves, many were ex- communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.

Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.

The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the "long leash" - arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.

The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.

Their influence has only grown since then. I'll wager at least half of everything we see (like movies, t.v. "news", art, etc), hear (talk radio, popular music, sports, political speeches, etc), and read ("bestsellers", academic journals, the web, etc) is directly and heavily influenced by these people.

We can't even imagine the ways in which they attempt to mindjack us every minute of every day. Scary stuff.

Post by **Fan** » 06-11-2014 12:59 PM

I came here to post this http://www.blacklistednews.com/Animal_F ... 8/Y/M.html

We can't even know who told us what we believe. Our brains have been jacked from the beginning by these sickos.

SquidInk · Post by **SquidInk** » 06-11-2014 03:38 PM

Fan wrote: I came here to post this http://www.blacklistednews.com/Animal_F ... 8/Y/M.html

We can't even know who told us what we believe. Our brains have been jacked from the beginning by these sickos.

If the link above isn't working for you, here's an alternate: http://goo.gl/vWQj5Z

So... in the ultimate recursive "gotcha", the entire concept of an "Orwellian Big Brother" was likely approved and even funded by an actual Orwellian Big Brother?

I bet if I were to say, "Prism" in a crowded room, most people would look at me with a blank stare. After all, it's been six months. Move along, Nothing to see here. These are not the tyrannical profit driven control freaks you are looking for. <waves hands>

Time to get drunk.

Post by **Fan** » 06-11-2014 03:53 PM

SquidInk wrote: If the link above isn't working for you, here's an alternate: http://goo.gl/vWQj5Z

So... in the ultimate recursive "gotcha", the entire concept of an "Orwellian Big Brother" was likely approved and even funded by an actual Orwellian Big Brother?

I bet if I were to say, "Prism" in a crowded room, most people would look at me with a blank stare. After all, it's been six months. Move along, Nothing to see here. These are not the tyrannical profit driven control freaks you are looking for. <waves hands>

Time to get drunk.

The CIA had their hands in everything, still does. You have to view all culture as possibly being engineered to suit a purpose, a malevolent one at that.

For music one needs to read the whole series Inside the LC at http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/ - it is not coincidence how our popular culture met certain goals.

Post by **Fan** » 06-11-2014 03:53 PM

SquidInk wrote: Time to get drunk.

The CIA approves of this particular method of escape.

SquidInk · Post by **SquidInk** » 06-11-2014 08:56 PM

Fan wrote: The CIA approves of this particular method of escape.

I see what you did there, and I obviously can't argue with you.

I actually get worked up thinking about this stuff - how the whole concept of freedom/liberty/etc is completely lost on people today; how absolutely everything has been corrupted, and even our cultural goals (known where I live as "the American Dream") are sad and tainted with evil.

Sometimes I wonder ...

Post by **Fan** » 06-12-2014 08:08 AM

Those goals, the ones promoted by the media and by popular culture, are the wrong ones. Those are fake. However, it doesn't make everything fake.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » 06-12-2014 09:25 AM

SquidInk wrote: I see what you did there, and I obviously can't argue with you.

I actually get worked up thinking about this stuff - how the whole concept of freedom/liberty/etc is completely lost on people today; how absolutely everything has been corrupted, and even our cultural goals (known where I live as "the American Dream") are sad and tainted with evil.

Sometimes I wonder ...

Another mouthful:(