As IF Times

One of the surest ways to be successful in life, at least in the monetary sense, is to sell a product that people want or need.  Basic essentials to be sure, but there are lots of obstacles in that realm; thin margins, competition, economies of scale etc.

Another way, and which is better by far, is to sell something that people don’t really need but think they do.  The entire luxury goods industry is built upon this premise and this includes most everything we see advertised daily on all media fronts.  This consumerism is the engine behind all robust economies.  Think of watches that cost as much as a small villa when you could just as easily ask someone the time for free.  Once you have planted the idea in people’s psyches that they must have something, they will go to great lengths to get it, including of course taking on great debt.

This peculiar human frailty is rooted in insecurity.  People feel that they won’t measure up to others if they don’t achieve or possess that which everyone else seems to have.  The advertising industry figured this out long ago and they are very adept at tapping that inner need of humans to belong to a group.  Oddly, they sell group think in a me too kind of way.  A prime example of this is the Peloton fitness machine.  The idea of a stationary cycle was bad enough, but they’ve managed to sell a machine costing thousands of dollars to be hooked up to a network of other people riding in place.  Heaven forbid they should go out and ride a real bike in the fresh air.  The costly stationary bike is essential because there’s no money involved in having people run in place.

This same innate insecurity prevalent in people also has an associated emotion and that is fear. The combination of these two elements plays a big role in the human experience.  As we’ve noted, advertisers have already figured this out, but increasingly governments are also employing techniques to influence people using methods which address people’s fears. When governments use fear as a tactic to influence people, we know it by the more nefarious label of propaganda.  Looking back through history, this was the most powerful tool that governments had at their disposal.  Once you’ve convinced a populace of a narrative, the people will absorb the message and embrace it regardless of observable logic.

A man named Edward Bernays is probably unknown to most people, but he is considered by many professionals to be the father of Public Relations.  Bernays’ publications include the frightening titles of “Propaganda”, “Crystallizing Public Opinion” and “The Engineering of Consent”.  His ideas were considered quite dangerous by many, including a Supreme Court Justice at the time.  Essentially, Bernays opined that democracy should not be held in the hands of the unwashed masses, but that the world’s wealthy and powerful must “protect” those lower on the class rung….from themselves.

It’s patently obvious that the events of the past 20 months worldwide are manifestations of the ability of governments to tap into the fears and wants of the general public.  If you were to turn the clock back even 5 years, the very notion of people being masked, of being segregated from families and friends, of being denied access to places would be laughingly preposterous…much less a mandatory vaccine with unproven and questionable efficacy.  Governments could not impose such a regime unless they have carefully conditioned the populace to want such actions.  In essence governments have successfully made their citizens imprison themselves.  There is even a label for this kind of behavior and that is Stockholm Syndrome whereby imprisoned people eventually begin to actually identify with their captors.  We are now witnessing this on a global scale.

No amount of logical counter narrative is enough to move the opinions of the public once they have been convinced of the official narrative.  It’s no longer about fear anymore, it’s about belonging to a larger group.  It’s hard to know when or how the delusion will end since every day, governments get emboldened by ever more restrictive measures without pushback.  There is hope as some nations are experiencing more and more outrage by average citizens that have realized that government actions are not about health.  The absurdity of “do this for your own health or we’ll beat you” has finally beginning to dawn on people.  It’s no longer a health challenge, it’s an IQ test.

link: Booze and no shoes: Inside the Vancouver ‘makeshift nightclub’ that flouted COVID-19 orders (msn.com)

How many times have we heard the nauseating line expressed in the blog title? Sure, it usually emanates from the mouths of sanctimonious politicians and we expect that.  The underlying premise of every program that they foist upon the public must have the underlying plank of “it’s for the good of the people”, as if we needed governments to tell us what’s in our best interests, since you know, they govern mental inferiors.   Aided by a compliant media, the message seeps into the psyche of the general public as would the stench of manure from simply standing in a barn.  The genius of sanctimony is that it makes those not in compliance, automatically unvirtuous people.  The other line oft heard is “well if it only saves one life”.  These are the sentiments of idiots.

In effect this program deputizes the masses of morally weak sycophants to rush to prove their worth in the virtuous society. This dynamic is being played out daily now that the “great pandemic of 2020” has moved into the one year anniversary of a voluntary 14 day quarantine.  It’s like the infamous Gilligan’s Island 3 hour tour. Instead of abating, we are now to believe that, not just one, not two, not three but FOUR waves of this deadly malaise is wreaking havoc on all civilized societies.  Notwithstanding the glaring absence of healthy people falling like flies who are not connected to care facilities, people actually are embracing the tyrannical rules foisted on them by their political masters.   It’s bizarrely like the taste of very strong cheese, which is first repulsive and then you become acclimatized to the smell of a cadaver and the taste of mold and begin to like it.  They even coined a name for this phenomenon years ago, Stockholm Syndrome.

Those brave enough to question the preposterous edicts are gaslit to believe that they are irresponsible and anti social. Only now, they are under the beady eyed scrutiny of their fellow citizens if they dare to have opposing views.  Whole populations of Karens have emerged to enforce the dictates of pearl clutchers who were only elected to catch dogs, keep the water clean and the streets safe.  They were not elected to direct people how to assess risk in their daily lives.  As the edicts become more preposterous, the public seemingly has an unlimited capacity to bend to them.  Closing down businesses, losing income, banned contact with family, friends and church….the line keeps moving.  We’ve heard talk of double, triple, or even quadruple masking to ensure ‘safety’.  Let’s not forget anal swabbing, also on the horizon.  Canada has a policy of sequestering visitors in hotel rooms at traveler expense after spending 3 days in a Covid clink.  We’re not even sure who is supposed to be protected.

The scofflaws in the linked article held a party and invited people to it.  Presumably the attendees all knew the risks and they weren’t forced at gunpoint.  They weren’t going to a bubble wrap party. This is reminiscent of the infamous prohibition days when people had to knock on a door with a sliding slit to enter a premise with any booze.  If that seemed preposterous then, it’s worse now.  In Florida, a very popular and busy grocery store was filmed by a medical doctor and he took umbrage with all of the unmasked people assembling within.  In fact, he tweeted “I hope they all die”.  A doctor.

The threshold for personal indignities imposed by the elected braintrust will continue to ratchet up as new rules are made up to adversely affect the lives of normal people. The more Karens that embrace these rules, the more likely that the politicos are emboldened with their reign of terror.  For those skeptical of this, I refer them to the present day Kabuki which is airport security. We see the effects of this brainwashing by observing the airport protocols that were initiated over 20 years ago.  We are still taking off shoes and being felt up at airports though not a single terrorist has tried to run the gates in all that time.  As terrorism threats then are to Covid now, the  real viruses endangering people are compliance and stupidity.