Enemy image

Enemy image (Ad hominem, Illusion, Prejudice, Propaganda technique)
File:Dagbladet-ond som Hitler.png "As Evil As Hitler" reads the caption under the image of Putin
File:Enemy Image.png
A misleading view of a person or people, which hampers reconciliation and real communication.

Enemy images are labels applied to others to justify their own opposition to them. In conflicts between two groups, enemy images are often mutual and arise from polarising perspectives or splitting. Although widely employed by propagandists and the commercially-controlled media in general, enemy images are not wanted on this website. Groups such as the Integrity Initiative are used to build them up in preparation for war.

Glossary

The term "Enemy image", promoted by Marshall Rosenberg, refers to a view of a person or people which is influenced by animosity, and as such hampers reconciliation and real communication. The successful manipulation of large groups of people (e.g. the general public) has often been achieved through the nurturing of their prejudices and fear through such images.

History

File:NWO globalist.jpg

A faceless bureaucrat to represent Mr. Global? Or is it a reference to the US Deep state?

Worldwide, people have told stories about strangers with incredible and threatening powers, or about dragons, demons or other such monsters, which can be seen as a projection of their fears, disowned (suppressed and/or split-off) aggressive, sexual and other parts of self. In Europe in the middle ages, religious authorities lead a drive against witches, Catholics, Jews or other perceived enemy groups provides a forceful illustration of the power of enemy images to subvert clear thinking.

Post WW2

Full article: Strategy of tension

Set up at the end of WW2, and nominally run from NATO HQ in Brussels, Operation Gladio was a Europe-wide network of deep state functionaries who carried out assassinations, kidnappings and bombings to order. Exposed only in the 1980s, this network was used to promote fear of communism (the enemy image) by carrying out false flag attacks.

Manipulating and controlling others to make them believe and act upon (i.e. attack) enemy images is known as projective identification, particularly a psychopathic variety, which then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, the outcome of which the psychopath may cite in a game of I told you so.

Cold war

Full article: Cold war

Although an ally against Nazi Germany, the USSR quickly became a cogent enemy image for the populations of Western Europe and USA. This played a large role in perpetuating the nuclear arms race and cold war. George H. W. Bush used the phrase "New World Order" which was understood by many as the result of successful manipulation by use of enemy images and the "ordering" of the world by the ensuing wars and conflicts.

1979 Jerusalem Conference

Full article: Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism

The 1979 Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism saw a large number of deep state operatives convene for a conference which attempted to promote the enemy image of a USSR-backed international campaign of "terrorism". This conference laid the groundwork for the 9-11 event and launched the enemy image of the "Islamic terrorist]". This was given a lot of traction after the end of the USSR say NATO replace Operation Gladio with Operation Gladio B.

File:BinLadenRabbitHat.jpg

A US lapel pin identifies the conjurer, suggesting Operation Gladio B.

9-11

Full article: 9-11

The administration of George W. Bush used the 9-11 attacks to promote the enemy image of "Islamic terrorism" in general, and Ossama bin Laden in particular. The US police state was advanced through laws that were passed through congress after terrorisation projects such as the Amerithrax attacks.

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}}

“The events of 9/11, we were told, changed everything. The globe was now divided between the forces of good and evil. Bush communicated this quite clearly in an address to the nation just days after 9/11: “Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.””
Danny Sjursen (25 October 2017) 

Post 9-11

File:NWO scum.jpg

Protestors outside the 2002 Bilderberg meeting.

In the same way that knowing a spider is harmless does not necessarily reduce fear of it, awareness of the facts about deep politics does not necessarily entail abandoning emotional attachment to the concept of the enemy image.

Psychological role

{{#subobject: |Has superobject=Enemy image |Has objectClass=Quotation |Has author=Anna Motz|+sep=, |Has text=“[P]rojective identification ... in which all bad is located in another person who is then annihilated, only evacuates these feelings temporarily, and is ultimately destined to fail.” |Is about=Enemy image,scapegoating, projective identification, projection, enemy image|+sep=, |Has wikipediaPage= |Has location=|+sep=, |Has publicationDate=2008 |Sourced from=The Psychology of Female Violence: Crimes Against the Body |Has sourceDetails=Routledge, London |Has sourceTitle= |Has sourceName=The Psychology of Female Violence: Crimes Against the Body |Has sourceURL=

}}

“[P]rojective identification ... in which all bad is located in another person who is then annihilated, only evacuates these feelings temporarily, and is ultimately destined to fail.”
Anna Motz (2008) 

Enemy images promote violence by promoting fear and stress, decreasing propensity for empathy.

Dehumanization

Full article: Dehumanization

Arguably, "terrorists", "paedophiles" or in some cases even "Muslims" could be understood as enemy images, in that people do not sympathise with them as fellow human beings in a process of dehumanization often proceeding and facilitating an attack on the perceived enemy.

Less arguably, establishment organisations such as the commercially-controlled media nurture people's fear not only to sell copy but as a tool of social control. The complicity of intelligence agencies remains a matter of some conjecture in more modern cases, but it well established in Operation Gladio, where false flag attacks were carried out and falsely blamed on communists. Post 9-11, Gladio/B has substituted Muslims for nationalists.

In advanced cases of mass psychosis, dehumanization goes so far it can be termed "demonization", where the sub-human other to which the image is applied are portrayed as the common enemy. After a period of humiliation, they are subject to increasingly violent attacks. This happened to Jews in Germany in the 1930s, and COVID-19 dissidents in 2022, incited by national leaders.

File:Everyone I don't like is Hitler.jpg

Scapegoating

Full article: Scapegoating

Scapegoating has happened for thousands of years in a wide range of societies.

Selected examples

Post WW2, communism/capitalism were launch as enemy ideologies on the west/east sides of the Iron curtain. Adolf Hitler was heavily promoted as an enemy image, with such effect that the power of this image lasted into the 21^st century.

Party politics

Full article: Party politics

Many nations which a democratic process in practice have just two large political parties, which through the polarising perspective of party politics were often seen as opposites. These nations' political discourse is often dominated by enemy images, which represent an emotional barrier not only to people's reconciliation, but also to more important realizations about the state of society - such as, for example, the role of the deep state in nurturing factionalism. Enemy images hide the fact that the party political system has little real cogency, but this realization in itself does not necessarily entail rejecting enemy images.

File:Shoot all bombers.jpg

The cover-page of UK's Daily Express from 23 July, 2005, the day after Jean Charles de Menezes, an unarmed man, was killed by the Metropolitan Police.

File:Infowars bilderberg.jpg

Infowars makes extensive use of enemy images, especially about deep state milieux such as the Bilderberg Group.

Iraq War

Full article: Iraq War

Steven Green, a US soldier who in 2006 took part in a gang rape of a 14 year old girl and the subsequent killing of her and her family, exemplified the impact of enemy images. He stated about Iraqis that "There's not a word that would describe how much I hated these people. I wasn't thinking these people were humans."

7/7 Bombings

Full article: 2005 London bombings

After the 2005 London bombings, UK commercially-controlled media repeated their procedure after 9-11; they responded not with a careful reporting of the story, but with use of enemy images.

"Conspiracy theories"

Full article: Conspiracy theory/Academic research

The use of enemy images is most obvious when it involves simple name calling, but it is a deeper phenomenon; it includes more subtle characterizations of "them" as fundamentally different and inferior to "us", implying dehumanization by suggesting mental illness and/or the threat of an impending attack. The term "conspiracy theory" is a deprecatory label (albeit one with little remaining power in that regardTemplate:Cn) and researchers into them almost never entertain the possibility that they may be correct. Instead, they project their refusal to engage onto "conspiracy theorists", concluding that they are emotional needy.

File:Enemy image of Klaus Schwab and The Great Reset 2022.jpg

A 2022 enemy image of Klaus Schwab and The Great Reset by Bob Moran.

File:Bill Gates says time to install your update.jpg

Street art from 2020 in Melbourne highlighting Bill Gates' promotion of mandatory COVID-19 jabs. The suggestion of hellfire in the background qualifies this as an enemy image.

The Great Reset

COVID-19

Full article: COVID-19

During COVID, enemy images have been an important tool.

The "Anti-vaxxer"

Full article: Anti-vaxxer

"Anti-vaxxer" as applied to COVID-19 dissidents is a crude term, including people who have taken the COVID jabs and even vaccinologists such as Robert Malone.

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan labelled Clive Palmer an enemy of the state for his dissent around COVID. In January 2022 Emmanuel Macron lead a number of national leaders in their rhetoric by announcing his plans to "piss off" (enmerder) those who decline the experimental COVID jabs.

In Fiction

George Orwell's 1984 features the "Two Minutes Of Hate" in which party members are expected to hate a person named "Emmanuel Goldstein".

Non violent communication

Full article: Non violent communication

Marshall Rosenberg created non-violent communication, a system of communication in which awareness of enemy images is crucial to enable dialogue and empathy. Rosenberg identified judgmental language or labels as violent definition of what others should be or constitute, which very often ends up in a fight about who's right and prevents mutual understanding and empathy. He cautions not to use judgmental language or labels, which he calls "jackal language" and instead train the ability to listen for needs, wants and feelings in self and others. This way solutions other than punishment (which is the proposed "solution" to deal with dehumanized enemies) become possible - by trying to meet everybody's needs.

References