FBI Informant: Ray Bradbury's Sci-fi Written To Induce Communistic Mass Hysteria

v3rgEz writes: The FBI followed Ray Bradbury's career very closely, in part because an informant warned them that his writing was not enjoyable fantasy, but rather tantamount to psychological warfare. "The general aim of these science fiction writers is to frighten the people into a state of paralysis or psychological incompetence bordering on hysteria," the informant warned. "Which would make it very possible to conduct a Third World War in which the American people would believe could not be won since their morale had seriously been destroyed."

Comments

Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is taking the position that saying things that disagree with the official government position on things are subversive, anti-American, defeatist, comfort-to-the-enemony traitors? Color me surprised!

Re:Wait, what?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This seems particularly absurd given that the point in question was 'not believing that World War Three is winnable'.

It takes pretty impressive doublethink to suggest that pessimism about a hypothetical nuclear exchange that the government's own strategists were talking about in terms of 'mutually assured destruction' and 'deterrence' is somehow a product of propaganda.

Re:Wait, what?

[MightyYar]

If this is true, then we should call the fire department and have his books burned right away.

Re:Wait, what?

[DerekLyons]

It takes pretty impressive doublethink to suggest that pessimism about a hypothetical nuclear exchange that the government's own strategists were talking about in terms of 'mutually assured destruction' and 'deterrence' is somehow a product of propaganda.

You've got your timeline all screwed up... The papers are dated 1959, when the "official" position was still (more-or-less) that a nuclear exchange with the Soviets was winnable and the effects of Tailgunner Joe's Red Scare still lingered on the political landscape. "Mutual destruction" and "deterrence" wouldn't become the primary US strategy until the Kennedy administration.

Re:Wait, what?

[LifesABeach]

Really? And I thought Oklahoma was another name for Texas Heights

Re:Wait, what?

[LWATCDR]

Actually from 1950 until around 1962-65 the US could have won a nuclear war with Russia without much damage. Europe would have been toast as well as Japan and Korea but the US would have been pretty safe. The USSRs bomber fleet at that time was tiny and lacked forward bases to make attacks deep into the US and the US had a pretty good Air Defence system. The R-7 ICBM took days to fire and was not a practical weapon system but it did scare the daylights out of the US. The most dangerous weapon system was probably the strategic nuclear torpedos the USSR developed. Those could have done a lot of damage to coastal cities in the US.
The Death toll would have been huge but the US would have come out ahead and would have "won".
MAD is what came after that period when the US decided it was too costly to win a nuclear war with the USSR starting around the late 1960s.

This kind of stuff is Exhibit #1

[Fire_Wraith]

All of the stuff written from the COINTELPRO/pre-Church committee era should be exhibit #1 for the case of why the national security apparatus needs to be strictly controlled, and heavily limited in its ability to spy on American citizens. We don't even have to go back far to see the rampant abuses, paranoid delusions, and intrusive actions taken with the intent of ruining the lives of those deemed to be political enemies, subversives, or anything else.

This sort of shit is un-american, undemocratic, and the sort of thing that should have no place in a free society.

Re:This kind of stuff is Exhibit #1

[TheCarp]

This. Every single time I hear them try to make a case that we should feel safe because there are such strict controls. Yes, lots of controls that you can't see and will be audited only in secret. Strict controls to make sure that you will never know what we really did.

Once the apparatus for mass surveillance exists, its a matter of policy how its used, and that policy can change a lot more easily than building the system was. Its not a matter of a guiltless organization of trustworthy angels.

History is repleat with instances of people abusing access to the personal information of others. When I was a teenager, and Princess Di came to the hospital my mother worked for, there was quite a little scandal about people accessing her personal info, in the 90s. Fast forward 20 years, and the single most common reason for someone to be fired from the hospital? Improper records access.

What does the system red flag? Access to family members, access to people living on the same street, etc, all flagged, why? because its all been abused, many times over.

There is no way I trust these promises.

Re:This kind of stuff is Exhibit #1

[pr0t0]

Let me FTFY: ...and the sort of thing that should have no place in a "free society".

Notice the quotes. A friend of mine spent a year in Canada consuming Canadian news. He said that the experience really opened his eyes to how much propaganda we (as U.S. citizens) are fed through our news outlets. I don't know if that's driven by government or quasi-government led efforts, or simply driven by economic realities of the news business. Either way, this is possibly further damning evidence (albeit anecdotal) giving rise to the notion that the US being a free society is a romanticized pipe dream. The Matrix has you.

Re:This kind of stuff is Exhibit #1

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Maybe the FBI were just reading too many actual Marxist manuals?

""religious illumination," says Benjamin, must be shown to "reside in a profane illumination, a materialistic, anthropological inspiration, to which hashish, opium, or whatever else can give an introductory lesson." At the same time, new cultural forms must be found to increase the alienation of the population, in order for it to understand how truly alienated it is to live without socialism. "Do not build on the good old days, but on the bad new ones," said Benjamin.

The proper direction in painting, therefore, is that taken by the late Van Gogh, who began to paint objects in disintegration, with the equivalent of a hashish-smoker's eye that "loosens and entices things out of their familiar world." In music, "it is not suggested that one can compose better today" than Mozart or Beethoven, said Adorno, but one must compose atonally, for atonalism is sick, and "the sickness, dialectically, is at the same time the cure....The extraordinarily violent reaction protest which such music confronts in the present society ... appears nonetheless to suggest that the dialectical function of this music can already be felt ... negatively, as 'destruction.' "

The purpose of modern art, literature, and music must be to destroy the uplifting—therefore, bourgeois — potential of art, literature, and music, so that man, bereft of his connection to the divine, sees his only creative option to be political revolt. "To organize pessimism means nothing other than to expel the moral metaphor from politics and to discover in political action a sphere reserved one hundred percent for images." Thus, Benjamin collaborated with Brecht to work these theories into practical form, and their joint effort culminated in the Verfremdungseffekt ("estrangement effect"), Brecht's attempt to write his plays so as to make the audience leave the theatre demoralized and aimlessly angry."

Basically the long and the short of it was these these people were and apparently are trying to infect the arts and entertainment in order to get everyone bummed out enough to turn to communist revolution, by salting the depression with political statements. I'm not sure how bummed out you'd have to be to go that far but that didn't stop them trying. I mean why do you think that modern art is, sometimes literally, such a pile of shit?

Now just for clarity I don't agree with everything in that article, in particular his connecting art with religion - there may be a connection but it's far from as pervasive as he seems to think, however what I'm seeing happening in the arts and entertainment industries these days does appear to match the claims he's making.

Re:This kind of stuff is Exhibit #1

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

As a Canadian watching news from both sides of the border, I can confirm your friend's experience. When I watch Canadian news, I see pro-Conservative/Liberal/NDP news. That much is evident. But when I watch American news? Holy fucking hell, close your windows, lock your doors and stay inside your home or you're going to be fucking mugged/raped/kidnaped/killed within the hour. If the American News was a group of people, they'd be a bunch insecure, frightened paranoids nutcases.

Re:This kind of stuff is Exhibit #1

[sjames]

Of course it is. But it's tailored for the Canadian government. If you want to know what your government is REALLY up to, always look at other country's news.

yay, government

[Kohath]

Obviously we should give the government more power. After all, as Barney Frank says, "Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.”

You chose this, right?

What?

[jbmartin6]

"Communistic mass hysteria"? Not clear what that means. It looks like they played with the idea that making people think about society made people more susceptible to Communism. Probably true in some cases.

FBI personnel lobotomized before or after...

[gestalt_n_pepper]

I'm not sure these guys could distinguish a credible threat from a popular band fan base... Oh wait, they can't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

How did these idiots catch anyone?

[gurps_npc]

I really hope that the majority of the agents laughed at this stupidity.

We have access to literally MILLIONS of attempts at propaganda - both from the US and from outside agencies.

It's not that hard to recognize propaganda and his work is not it. You have to target your intended audience pretty highly and anyone not in the target audience can easily see through it for garbage.

Otherwise, it's not propaganda, it's truth that you disagree with. So you call it propaganda and pretend it is based on lies.

The reason for this is simple - the only way to convince someone that a lie is 'true', is if the lie is aimed directly at their own personal belief structure. You can't convince a liberal that there is a secret conspiracy in the US Government to 'invade texas' without a TON of proof, but you can convince certain conservatives with radio broadcast and an internet web page.

Similarly, you can't convince a Republican that the Pro-life movement is designed to keep women barefoot and pregnant (rather than to stop abortion), but you can convince certain liberals with an article and a news report.

As such, any real attempt at Propaganda is obvious to anyone not targeted by it, and it's ridiculous to believe that an author could engage in 'secret' propaganda.

Re:How did these idiots catch anyone?

[AntronArgaiv]

The only real way to fight this type of mass hysteria (be it communists or muslim terrorists under our beds), is to have and encourage a well-educated and critically-thinking public. Unfortunately, these abilities don't seem to be in vogue at this time. (Perhaps because they run counter to the interests of various religious and political groups).

An uneducated, docile public is easily led, while an educated, questioning public will loudly proclaim "bullshit" when presented with such.

The quote was shortened a bit.

[Minwee]

"The general aim of these science fiction writers is to frighten the people into a state of paralysis or psychological incompetence bordering on hysteria,"

"...and believe me, you're talking to a man with a _lot_ of experience with psychological incompetence bordering on hysteria."

re: Vietnam

[King_TJ]

I'm no professional historian, but I question your assertion.

American lost the Vietnam War because we weren't able to cope with a situation where there was so much guerrilla warfare taking place. Everything was a big question-mark. Did we eliminate all of the enemies in locations A and B? Did those snipers shooting from unseen locations in the jungle represent the only 1 or 2 enemies left, or were there many more? We kept dumping loads of money on equipment and manpower without any ability to see clear results.

I think we saw the same issue with the "war on terror" in countries like Afghanistan, except this time, it's notable that reconnaissance missions played a very big role with liberal use of drones, spy satellites and more. There's a growing realization that even if you're technically winning a war, you're still losing if you can't tell the current "score of the game".

Pretty sure it's true

[honestmonkey]

I know that when I was a kid, every time I read a Bradbury story I got into a state of communistic panic, and it took a hot dog, piece of apple pie and a baseball game to calm me down.

Excuse me, but.... "win"?

[bickerdyke]

Wait....

"Which would make it very possible to conduct a Third World War in which the American people would believe could not be won"

Does that mean anyone in the FBI was crazy enough that a 3rd world war could actually be "won" in some kind?

Re: Vietnam

[Nidi62]

I'm no professional historian, but I question your assertion.

American lost the Vietnam War because we weren't able to cope with a situation where there was so much guerrilla warfare taking place. Everything was a big question-mark. Did we eliminate all of the enemies in locations A and B? Did those snipers shooting from unseen locations in the jungle represent the only 1 or 2 enemies left, or were there many more? We kept dumping loads of money on equipment and manpower without any ability to see clear results.

America lost Vietnam precisely because of the political pressure at home, which indirectly caused much of what you describe above.

A little history lesson:

The Tet offensive in 1968, which garnered a lot of negative media attention in the US, effectively broke the back of the NVA. Until that offensive there were quite a few "traditional" battles. Remember, the NVA was a professional military force complete with armor and aircraft (in the case of the North Vietnamese air force). For several years after this the US was mainly fighting the VC (the guys in black pajamas), not the NVA. The NVA and the VC did most of their training, troop movement, and had much of ther senior command based in neighboring Laos. The US knew this, but apart from some small actions earlier in the war, barred the military from conducting operations in Laos due to fears of being seen as "widening the war". Had the US been able to put pressure (and keep it on) these troop marshaling areas and supply routes they could have pressed their advantage in both manpower and weaponry.

The negative publicity and public sentiment was not just felt in the White House and Pentagon, but in the squads and platoons climbing those hills for the 2nd and 3rd time. They knew the war was unpopular, had no real clue why they were there beside some vague notion of stopping the Communists (believe it or not, give soldiers a good, real reason to fight and they will put up with a lot), and very likely were against the war themselves in the case of draftees. When your primary goal is to survive your 1 year tour as opposed to winning the war, you probably are not going to win.

Re: Vietnam

[93 Escort Wagon]

America lost Vietnam precisely because of the political pressure at home, which indirectly caused much of what you describe above.

America lost Vietnam because the people at home came to realize we had wasted more than 50,000 young American lives fighting on behalf of a tyrannical, oppressive government the Vietnamese people hated, and were doing so not to oppose communism but mainly to protect rubber plantations belonging to companies like DuPont. There was no good point to the war, and people eventually wised up.

"Investigation" doesn't mean "harrassment"

[DG]

And as a corollary:

"Hello, Authorities? I think this man is up to No Good. I'm seeing behavior that leads me to think a Plot is Afoot.".

"Thank you Sir. We'll check it out."

[an Investigation is Conducted]

"Well, it turns out that there's nothing going on that contravenes the law. No Nefarious Plot. We'll file this in our archives and move on to something else."

The fact that an investigation was conducted in response to a complaint is *to be expected*. That's what the "I" in "FBI" is all about. The good news here was that when the investigation turned up nothing illegal, it was shelved.

Now it is certainly true that during the McCarthy Era, there *were* investigations that went too far, and innocent people suffered consequences even when they were never charged and convicted. There was much for law enforcement and government to learn during this time period. I'm certainly no fan of witch hunts - especially ones where the definition of "witch" is not well defined.

But it is also true that there *were* foreign agents about, and they *were* seeking to do harm. Investigating leads that might end up in a legitimate conviction is a good thing. Dropping an investigation that proves unfounded is also a good thing.

But Oh Noes! Government! Security! These things must be bad, right?