Identifying problems is one thing. If it's to have any impact beyond the merely academic, solutions also need to be proffered. This collection of essays has grown organically, each one (in hindsight) an examination of different manifestations of the same phenomena. The umbrella problem is fundamental; the West, in varying degrees, is a collection of democracies in name only.
Depending on such factors as your perspicacity, opportunity to study or willingness to confront awkward truths you will either have come to this conclusion some time ago, or will perhaps have found that the circumstances of the 'pandemic' response have resulted in a Damascene conversion. My first true inkling was the Brexit farrago, when it became crystal clear that the political class were having a great deal of difficulty in accepting the judgement of the people they claimed to represent.
In the US, at around the same time, the election of Donald Trump presaged what turned out to be a never-ending attempted coup, followed by what is increasingly looking like an actual coup in November 2020. The elites, the administrative state, big business and Big Media combined in a naked attempt to unseat a sitting President, resulting in two failed impeachments (one after he'd even left office). They are still trying to engineer a scenario whereby he will be precluded from running again.
Perhaps other parts of the First World did not experience such obvious abominations on their own soil and may well have consoled themselves with the thought that they were immune from those excesses. I would imagine that the onset of the 'pandemic' may well have disabused them of that notion. The influence of supranational organisations such as the WHO, the WEF and the EU together with organisations or publications which are regarded as de facto global authorities (the FDA, the Lancet, the NEMJ, JAMA) provoked a lock-step, slavish obedience from almost all developed countries and showed us that the elite cancer had metastasized.
We may still find ourselves wondering how we have reached this late stage in the authoritarian process without most of us noticing. However, at least some people have finally seen things for what they are. A large proportion of the citizenry, even now, are still asleep. But they are the most important players in the entire game. The only way that the 'Living Lie' can succeed is if it remains in the shade. Writing about it, talking about it, demonstrating that it exists by forcing it into the light is the best and only way of ensuring it fails.
The effort should comprise two tactics in the service of one overarching strategy; systems built from the ground up and peaceful non-compliance in order to give governments the space in which to reveal themselves for what they truly are. That is the strategy – to show the unaffiliated what the elites are truly about. Peaceful, not because of a pacifist bent, or through a belief that violence is never justified, but because we need to garner the support of the most important constituency. Violence, for them is a deal breaker, a turn off. For the regime, it's a gift. It allows them to concentrate on the way the point is being made, rather than the point itself. Violence is too easy for the state to deal with and it unifies the police and the military with the existing regime and against the protesters. It doesn't give the enforcers of state violence any space in which to reflect upon the morality of their actions and, even if force on the part of the dissidents were to be successful, the moral argument for a subsequent peace will not have been made. The idea wouldn't have won; the gun would have.
Wokeism, more than anything, is a personality type. This will sound harsh, but the 9-10% of the population who are genuine Progressives are not nice people. They are arrogant, whilst having nothing to be arrogant about. If one of their foundational beliefs is that there is no such thing as an external moral framework and that history dictates what is right in any given epoch, they can pretty much justify any action as long as it is in pursuit of whatever it is that they desire. It's a sociopath's charter. These people lie and cheat continually. There is no reason not to, as it isn't wrong if it gets them what they want. They epitomize a belief in the survival of the fittest, ironically.
They genuinely do not care what you think; if your vote meant nothing due to fraud, they wouldn't care. If you suffer physically, emotionally, psychologically or financially as a result of policies they champion, they don't care. If you're stupid enough to get 'vaccinated' and then suffer, they don't care. Please rid yourself of the impression that most of these people actually believe what it is that they are telling you; that the 'vaccines' are safe and effective, that global warming is destroying the planet. These tropes are a means to an end, nothing more. The Progressives just use people who do genuinely believe that nonsense.
They will not listen and they will not compromise. No negotiation is in good faith. They cannot be co-opted, only beaten. Their currency is deceit and bullying. We cannot play the game by their rules, by being reasonable, by engaging. These strategies are pointless and will be regarded as weakness. Never, ever apologize if you don't feel you have done anything wrong. Instead, tell them to Foxtrot Oscar. Ignore them as often as you can. If you don't want to engage, don't. They have nothing useful to tell us. They are arrogant bullies. I appreciate that I am probably saying the sorts of things that they say about us. The point that we have to grasp, and which we have difficulty with, is that these people cannot be changed. Their personality has chosen their politics. Trying to use logic to ween them off Progressivism is, therefore, doomed to failure.
If you're anything like me, then it's the constant lying, mischaracterising and bullying that is the most infuriating part of wokeism; the unfairness of it and the fact that it is never called out. But, and it's a big but, these people are the screechy minority. The reason that they are front and centre is that:
“The monomaniacs win almost every time because their advocacy is passionate and continual, while everyone else's opposition is only lukewarm and intermittent because they have so much else to do and think about.”(1)
They are not the whole story, but this is the dynamic we have to change and the only realistic way to do so is to enlist the silent majority. It isn't as though the politicians are going to help us out. It is almost impossible to find a single one of them who remains credible. For those of a British persuasion, the names Francois, Baker and Bridgen may offer solace, as dissenters against the autocratic overreach of the state.
However, none of the above started voting against the government until March, 2021; a full year after the imposition of lock-downs and other damaging measures. In the US, Republican titans such as Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have picked their battles, preferably those that result in some theater and favorable headlines. Neither of them (nor their British counterparts) have come out against the 'vaccines'. None of them has condemned the denial of early treatment and the number of needless deaths that have resulted. The political class is unified against the majority of the people:
“It is also no accident that these modern yeomen have gradually seen their political representation diminish over the course of the last 100 years, in whichever developed society one cares to name; the politicians they would elect would be mostly interested in getting the state out of the way, and modern politicians’ incentives all incline in the opposite direction. Their interest is in the inexorable growth of state power, because that is from where their legitimacy derives.”(2)
This isn't specifically about Democrats/Labour versus Republicans or Conservatives. Yes, the Progressives are from the Left and communism is always going to be an ideology more easily identified as authoritarian. But the only effective resistance to any of the governments that have traded in oppression has been the ordinary citizen. And it's been a particular class of ordinary citizen. There's a reason for this:
“In a developed economy, most of the professional classes – doctors, academics, teachers, civil servants and the like – derive their incomes and status entirely or partially, directly or indirectly, from the existence of the state. If they are not civil servants, their status is built on regulatory apparatus which only the state can build and enforce. This is also, of course, true of the underclass, who are often almost totally reliant on the state for the meeting of their needs. The members of these classes pose no threat to the state’s legitimacy, because, simply put, they need it. It, as a consequence, is perfectly happy to tolerate their existence – and, indeed, it wishes all of society were that way inclined. A population entirely reliant on the state is one which will never question the necessity of the growth of its power and hence its capacity to buttress its own legitimacy.”(3)
The workers, the entrepreneurs, small business owners, truckers don't fit into either of those categories. While the number of protesters that have taken to the streets for months has been impressive, they have also been easily ignored by the elites. The media has routinely failed to cover the marches and downplayed the support they have garnered. The political opposition have not dared to show encouragement, for fear of undermining their own privileged position. It was only when the Canadian truckers took on the mantle and (peacefully) went about non-compliance in their own way that the Canadian regime paid any attention, because they had to. It was too big to ignore and there were actual consequences to face. And, in this way, the truckers forced the regime to reveal itself and the Canadian junta is no different to the American, the British, the Australian, German, Austrian, Dutch...you name it, they are all the same, as they have repeatedly demonstrated.
The truckers showed themselves to be decent people who were protesting on principle; after all, 90% of them were 'vaccinated'. They just didn't see why the state should be allowed to continue flouting their fundamental rights with impunity. Legal redress hadn't helped – indeed, where has it made a lasting difference? Judges, like doctors, don't want to swim against the tide. Very little of the framework that exists to normalize and serve society has done its job. It really is going to be the people taking on the establishment and their sociopathic cheerleaders. Be enthused, however. There are a lot more of us than there are of them.
The Progressive activist type really does only make up 9-10% of the population. There are solid majorities on pretty much all the topics that you and I probably agree on. Nearly 60% think the media is the enemy of the people; only 7% trust them.(4) When Americans are polled, 74% believe race has become too much of a focus in schools and 86% believe that schools are pushing a political agenda.(5) 84% oppose de-funding the police,(6) 71% believe it is unacceptable for people to enter the country illegally.(7) These numbers may surprise you. It seems that a lot more people still have the odd brain cell to rub together than we might think and that quiescent support for a return to something approaching normality does actually exist.
Conclusion
Non-compliance is a way of holding up a mirror when the state is trying to sandbag us. The clear objective is to show the unengaged majority what the state's agenda really is, to get the elites to reveal their true selves and to engage the masses' sense of fairness. It's not as though they are entirely unaware of what is going on; it's just that they prefer to be left in peace. Our mission must be to show them that they won't be, that choosing the quiet life will result in a form of slavery. These are the same people who took the 'vaccine', either out of some sense of societal responsibility or because they felt they had to in order to preserve their job, marriage or social circle; whatever reason it was, absent the only one that should have counted, which was that it was actually necessary to their well-being and that of others.
Working from the top down is an exercise in futility. If any of them were any good, we'd know them by their actions already. If we place our trust in the political opposition to do the job for us, they will slow walk it, the momentum will dissipate and we'll find ourselves in the same position again in a few years time. Only this time, free speech will be even less available than now and we'll be paying for everything via a chip in our hand.
Alternate systems, ones that we set up to truly service our own best interests, rather than those of the elites, are the practical way of doing something positive, rather than merely oppositional. These will grow organically and encompass the social, the working, the financial areas of life. They already are in pockets in the US and, I suspect, are coming into existence elsewhere. They will be necessary if we wish to reduce the power of the state and increase the power of the individual.
This is not going to be easy and it's not going to be quick. What has taken decades to put together will not be dismantled overnight. And it must be done peacefully, at least initially. Without majority support, violence will be counter-productive and will drive potential allies into the arms of the state. The state will provoke us as much as it can. The elites have the monopoly on legitimate violence and that will allow them to goad us incessantly. Indeed, the appearance of violent opposition from the people (not the fact of it) is almost certainly going to be necessary in the US, at least. The Democrats' polling is horrific and the regime is about to be castrated in the mid-terms, but they aren't even bothering to protect themselves. That doesn't smell right. And if the US falls, the rest of the Western world will come under enormous pressure, both materially and politically.
Things really are that bad; this really isn't going away on its own. If the authoritarians are to be successfully resisted, we will need numbers. The current resistance is too small to succeed by virtue of its own efforts alone. But it can stimulate the majority into action and that is where the battle can be won.
Citations
Theodore Dalrymple
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/society-vs-state-canada-reveals-core-conflict-our-age
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/society-vs-state-canada-reveals-core-conflict-our-age