Mentis Imperium

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On 31 October 1938, the Mercury Theater On The Air, directed by 23-year-old Orson Welles, adapted H. G. Wells' outstanding science fiction novel, "War of the Worlds," as a radio play describing the events in the book as if they were an actual newscast.  It was essentially an elaborate April Fool's joke broadcast on Halloween night.

There was no television at the time, so the only sense the audience could rely on was their ears.  The Mercury Theater was well-known, and Orson Wells' voice was easily identifiable, given that he was the voice of "The Shadow," a famous radio show, and one of the most popular radio productions of all time.

Anyone who tuned in a bit late, and tuned out early, might have missed the announcer introducing the Mercury Theatre on the Air, or Orson offering the broadcast as a Halloween prank for purely entertainment purposes.  Maybe they didn't recognize Orson's voice, or those of his co-stars Joseph Cotton and Agnes Moorehead.  Perhaps they were talking on that new-fangled telephone contraption and overheard (it was a party line) someone talk about the invasion from Mars.  Perhaps they were fans of Perceval Lowell, the popular astronomer, similar to Bill Nye the "Science" Guy, who fancied he saw canals on the surface of Mars at the time (see Edgar Rice Burroughs and other pop fiction of the era).

Whatever the reason, a lot of people believed - for at least one hour of their lives - that Earth was under attack by Martians.  Not everyone, of course.  At the very least, folks in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, were well aware that it was a fiction.

This period was a heady time in mass media.  The very concept of mass media had only recently been invented.  In a short space of time, from the late 1800s until the mid-1950s, things like photography, telegraph,  cinema, radio, and audio recording were a new technology that gave humans access to information from around the planet in relative real time.  And they gave unscrupulous figures a new power never before unleashed on our species.

Until the advent of the 20th century, information could only travel as fast as a human or animal could run.  Though the concept of editing was well-known from print, which was already 400 years old, applying it to the senses of sight and sound were unthinkable until the advent of motion pictures in the first decade of the 20th century.

On the first of November 1938, though, the world changed.

Even now, nearly a century later, the masses are blissfully unaware of the power of mass media.  However, on that fall morning in 1938, a group of people at CBS and in the Mercury Theater on the Air became aware of the power they wielded.

Orson knew.

Just a year and a half earlier, the most dramatic event ever recorded live in human history, up to that point, had occurred.  It went live over the radio in May 1937, and within a week, the newsreels were showing the shocking images to adult audiences all over North America.  People were shocked, dismayed and emotionally damaged by that event.  The Hindenburg was a technological marvel, akin to the Titanic of the air.  It was a powerful propaganda piece, and its demise was as powerful as its existence.

In the space of two years, two events - one real, one imagined - had demonstrated the vast and untapped power of mass media.  Executives were busily calculating the economic value of that power, while the academics were busy analyzing it.  The former were seeking all the possible ways to capitalize on that power, while the latter were pondering the immense implications of it.

These two events launched an entire new industry, that of controlling and manipulating mass audiences.  They launched the careers of people like Walt Disney, and created demi-gods out of performers and shysters.  They weaponized advertising and marketing, and turned something called "news" into an industry, and later a control mechanism of unimaginable power.  Suddenly, things as ephemeral as light and sound waves were exponentially more powerful than stone monuments and the printed page.  These media were cheap and the delivery systems ubiquitous, and more importantly, required almost no effort on the part of the audience.

All of which begs the question, just how good have the techniques for manipulating and controlling humans gotten through the media?  Glad you asked.

Our favorite scientidiots, some of whom dwell in the country of England, have admitted unsing coercive and manipulative media messages to instill fear in the population for the purposes of controlling their behavior. 

Let that sink in for a moment while I go on to say, "I told you so," many times in fact, right here in these 12 years worth of blogs.  It's not often, though, I get to point to actual quotations and admissions by the perpetrators.

The article in the London Telegraph quotes an unnamed participant (I hesitate to use the title of Scientist) talking about the nature of the decision:

One scientist with the SPI-B admits that “In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear.”

The unnamed scientist adds that “The way we have used fear is dystopian.”

Though this is certainly not the first time this has been done, it is rare that anyone admits to it, since lucrative careers are built on such skills.  There are two primary techniques used, known simply as personal benefit and personal threat, or more colloquially as "the carrot and the stick."

In the personal benefit category, the audience is told how they will gain prestige, wealth, admiration, or other vanity-stroking boost by acquiring a product or service.  In the personal threat category, they are led to believe that they will lose any of those benefits, become a laughing stock, or otherwise be humiliated in the eyes of their peers if they don't acquire the product or service.  

The former category includes luxury products or uniformed service providers emblazoned with the proper logos. For example, buying Nike shoes or a BMW will draw the admiration and envy of anyone who sees you in possession of these products.  Perhaps a particular cologne will attract more desireable mates.  Dining at a particular restaurant might impress others with your taste or sophistication.

In the latter category, you will be ashamed that your whites aren't whiter, or your body odor is offensive, or even repulsive.  Perhaps sweating will reveal your nervousness, or the label on your clothes will reveal that you are a cheap bastard.

These are pretty run-of-the-mill and every single advertisement you have ever or will ever be exposed to uses one or both techniques to motivate you.  For instance, you have bad breath and it offends others (threat), so buy our mouthwash and never worry again (benefit).

However, these techniques can and have been weaponized to control and manipulate entire populations.  During the Cold War, the constant threat of nuclear annihilation kept Americans docile and subservient to government interests.  A few of us remember "duck and cover" and air raid sirens going off every Friday at noon as constant reminders of just how fragile our grip on existence was, and of course voting and supporting government forces were the only viable solution.

In our current situation, the fear messages began as early of January of 2020.  Media showed us images of people dropping in the streets, packed hospital wards and footage of ambulances and emergency services in action.  Few folks noticed that almost all the images shown were stock footage from past crises, like chemical plant explosions, or even just random shots of Saturday night outside the local charity hospital.

We immediately panicked - on cue.  We were told to lock ourselves indoors, buy copious amounts of sanitizer and apprise "authorities" of any signs of illness of any kind anywhere at anytime.  Curiously, Americans also went on a toilet paper-buying rampage.  I've yet to figure out where that came from, but apparently folks figured wiping their butts was far more important than eating and taking vitamins.

The message was very powerful: an invisible enemy was all around us and could kill us in a particularly painful and horrific way if we didn't cower in our homes, avoid all human contact, and (most importantly) trust the people paraded on the evening news to lead us to health and safety.

It was all completely and entirely manufactured.  We were manipulated.  The "experts" we were told to follow were in on the deception, in fact some are even guilty of conceiving and launching the deception for the purposes of their masters.

The fear campaign has intensified in recent months to include vaccines as the savior - the solution - that offers the benefit of freedom from fear.  This is a curious thing, because the intangible and unseeable fear is now remedied by an equally unknown product, and the benefit is only relief from fear, not the return of liberties that were taken in response to the fear.

In other words, the relief from fear is nothing more than being stabbed with a needle (more fear) containing a substance that no one really knows what's in it.  For all we know, it is just salt water with a nifty label on the vial that has the magical spell "vaccine" printed on it.  Of course, that's not the case, since so many people are in fact dropping dead or having life-threatening events because of it.

This is unlike any campaign I have ever seen, though it is operating according to very precise phases that i am familiar with.  Phase I is threat - the who, what, where of the operation.  This was the early reports and images back during January to May of 2020.  Phase II is worry - the audience internalizes the threat and panics , seeking some outside entity to rescue them.  Phase III  is hope - solutions are proffered and focused on the entity that will deliver the remedy.  Phase IV is enlistment - once the remedy is made available, members of the audience who are susceptible to control are enlisted to coerce more resistant members using "carrot and stick".  For instance, a wary husband might be coerced by his wife with promises of intimacy once he is "safe" from the vaccine.

This process is essentially a complex form of the Hegelian Dialectic - thesis, antithesis, synthesis.  There is a problem for which a solution is found and all participants are made whole again by partaking in the solution.  Thesis: there is a deadly virus.  Antithesis: wash hands, stay indoors, avoid contact.  Synthesis: vaccination restores normalcy.

 We have been deceived.

The thesis or threat may or may not be real.  We have no way of knowing from the evidence currently in the public domain.  All we know for certain is that a number of performers in white lab coats have told us there is a "new" virus that causes deadly symptoms and there is no "known" cure for this situation.

The antithesis is that we must lock ourselves in our homes, avoid all contact with other human being and surrender ALL of our basic human rights - assemble, worship. speak, travel, choose, etc.

The synthesis is a substance that has not been tested, uses a completely new technology and may cause unforeseen harm.  You MUST submit to having this substance injected into your body by lab-coated performers before what you used to call rights, but are now just privileges, are partially returned to you...maybe.

To say every part of this scenario is wide open to deception, manipulation and coercion is an understatement.  In fact, the entire Damn-Panic is one massive conspiracy theory, for which there is exactly zero incontrovertible proof.

Ask yourself this: has anyone anywhere at any time in the past year held up a vial labelled "SARS-COV-2 - Live Sample," carefully removed its contents, placed them under a scanning electron microscope, and shown you point by point why this virus is any different from the Common Cold, or why it might be more deadly?  We won't even talk about the alleged "variants" that magically appeared right after the vaccines started rolling out.

You would think that an emergency of this scale involving an object smaller than we can perceive with our eyes would call for extraordinary educational efforts.  In fact, not only have the performers NOT done this, they have constantly changed the story, moved the goal posts, given and rescinded privileges, and essentially told us absolutely nothing of any value concerning this situation.  We are told to respect, trust, submit, and not ask questions.

We have been deceived by masters of the game.  It is a marketing plan that has been weaponized, utilizing psychological tools to manipulate our most basic instincts.

We are at fault.  We surrendered.  We were uncritical and credulous.  We were fearful and weak.  But it's not the end of the world.  It's time to wake up from the spell, realize  we've been had, and take back our agency as free adult humans.

WWOD? (What would Orson do?)