Totalitaria is any country in which political ideas degenerate into senseless formulations made only for propaganda purposes. Joost Meerloo
But this mass formation has only worked on a proportion of the population. The size of that caste is a matter of debate, as one of the biggest challenges is to assess how many people are genuinely the enemy of freedom and how many might number amongst the opposition. How to judge? Not politically, as far as I can tell. Certainly not in terms of the parties themselves, nor the voters, necessarily. Although there are some fairly large clues in the US, in the UK the party in power is right leaning, allegedly.
And, even in America, it would be inaccurate to tar all Democrats with the exact same brush. Moderates are nearly as disillusioned with the regime as Republican voters and it would not be unreasonable to assert that the uni-party pantomime within the Beltway results in many disaffected voters from both sides of the aisle.
Fearfulness and intolerance are, as we have seen, necessary components of a prototypical authoritarian state and they are more readily located in the left leading members of the community. A useful proxy for the fearful mindset would be aYouGov poll on the dangers posed by Omicron, conducted at the end of November. It demonstrated that 80% of registered Democrats were concerned about the newest strain and only 35% of Republicans were. Overall, only 38% of people were concerned. That number isn't high; certainly nowhere near the 72% who were fearful of Delta in June.(1) And intolerance? The left leaning, particularly of the younger variety, are more rigid in their opinions and certain of their own rectitude than any other demographic.(2)
Figure 1
Bear in mind that 850 people were polled and that Axios partnered in this study. Axios, itself, is left leaning. I can't say that I am surprised by these results. In the round, it seems far more sensible to suggest that the formulation that makes most sense is that personality dictates the politics and that those who want to 'progress', who are permanently outraged with what currently pertains and what they believe history to be (usually erroneously, on both scores), are likely to possess the most polarizing and strident opinions. How can it be otherwise?
In the UK, the 'opposition' is historically socialist, although little of the original appeal of the Labour Party remains. They have spent the entire pandemic supporting the government in its false narrative; they are no longer an opposition in the traditional sense, one with demonstrably different aims and policies. They are only the opposition inasmuch as they seek to do the same things as the government only better and it is prepared to cynically provide enough rope with which the government can hang itself. This is merely playing politics. It does nothing for the people they are supposed to represent:
“This pathologized official narrative is more powerful (and insidious) than any ideology, as it functions, not as a belief system or ethos, but rather, as objective "reality." You cannot argue with or oppose "reality." "Reality" has no political opponents. Those who challenge "reality" are "insane," i.e., "conspiracy theorists," "anti-vaxxers,""Covid deniers," "extremists," etc. And, thus, the pathologized New Normal narrative also pathologizes its political opponents, simultaneously stripping us of political legitimacy and projecting its own violence onto us.”(3)
There is something in this and it's possible that opposition parties across the Western world have surrendered their agency in the face of a crisis that they found themselves unable to refute. I think it far more likely that they calculated that it wasn't to their political advantage and, in certain countries at least, that will be manifested as poor judgement. Certainly, in the UK, where is the refuge for those right of centre who oppose the creeping authoritarian state? Their traditional home is the party leading the charge.
For this reason alone, this lack of representation for one side of the debate, calculating resistance on this metric would be a foolhardy endeavor. Perhaps on 'vaccination' status, then? Perhaps those who have refused to succumb to coercion and mandates? Whilst I think it is reasonable to aver that, after a year of resistance, those of us that remain unbowed are part of a mass that is not receptive to the system's blandishments. It is probably also true to state that a majority are resisting for moral as well as medical reasons.
But, it can't be the whole story. The official arithmetic is suspect and, given that lying about statistics is now second nature to the state and that they have plenty of motivation to make the refuseniks feel isolated and alone, I see no reason to reflexively swallow the numbers whole. And, of course, the motivations of the jabbed are also difficult to quantify. How many offered themselves up because they truly believed and how many did it because they either felt they should be a good citizen (not because they were fearful of disease) or because they were coerced by one factor or another? Simply saying that 60% or 70% of the population is on one side of the line and the remainder on the other is rather too simplistic. One thing is certain; there are more of us than we think there are; the state is extremely unlikely to be pretending that our ranks are more swollen than they really are, are they?
In the West, the only thing we can be sure of with government is that we can't be sure of anything. So, how do we get our bearings? What measure can we use? Because having some certainties is one way to resist the attempts to tear us loose of our moorings and enclose us in a closed loop system of 'facts', the better to manipulate us. In the current 'pandemic', which is the Trojan horse for the imposition of the future totalitarian state, I think some absolutes can still be trusted, although they may need to be carefully unwrapped if they are to reveal the full truth. Even something as seemingly incorruptible as the excess death rate, a metric that was popular in 2020 (although not so much in 2021), has to be carefully evaluated. Statistics can be manipulated, as we all know; for instance, focusing on specific age groups and selecting a moving average that presents things in the best possible light are the sorts of tricks that need to be guarded against.
There's no point in using 'case' numbers, or unquestioningly believing in the existence of every new variant that happens along or even in the alleged percentage of 'vaccinated' versus 'unvaccinated' hospitalisations to illustrate the truth. The tests are inaccurate, the definition of 'vaccinated' is corrupted, the proportion of hospitalised 'with' rather than 'because of' almost impossible to unravel and complicated attempts to calculate under-reporting of 'vaccine' injuries are too theoretical to hold attention and too easily brushed aside. In a world where verifiable facts are at a premium, more informed guesswork (as opposed to acknowledged speculation) is pointless.
So, we are forced to rely, at least in part, on our own experiences, which is much closer to home and more real. We need to be rigorous; 'positive' tests of friends and family, without symptoms need to be discarded out of hand and even those with a sniffle or loss of taste cannot be said to be unquestioned victims of Covid, as the same afflictions are occasioned with the flu and other coronaviruses. Nonetheless, it's a start and may help give some context to the true nature of the 'pandemic'.
The other thing that must be remembered in this equation is the fact that nobody that you know has had access to early treatment (unless they ordered from abroad) and early treatments have been proven to be at least 85% effective at reducing hospitalisations and death; in fact, probably much higher if prescribed by a knowledgeable doctor who is aware of which combinations work best and when to give them. So, that calculation needs to be factored in, too. Now check and see how close your experience is to the one that the narrative tells you you're having.
If we wish to retain a true perspective, an open window to the world as it really is, we must try and grasp some of these basic truths about why we are where we are. It calms the mind and allows us to think. When we can think, we can apply logic and the exercise of logic will prevent us from firstly, falling victim to neuroses and secondly, tolerating the actions that are the result of neuroses in others. What is it that compels Ebola sufferers to go to the nearest international airport and those stricken with paranoia to inflict their delusions onto the rest of us? I can only answer the latter question – the desire to control their surroundings, driven by fear.
And, in reality, these people are the 'useful idiots'. While the classic cult leader might himself be only loosely tethered to reality, the totalitarians behind this latest attempt to subjugate us know exactly what they are doing. They are using different people in different ways. The apparatchiks within the system, the shouty paranoids and the compliant/complicit all have their part to play.
Interestingly, the percentages of 'unvaccinated' that governments are prepared to acknowledge almost all fall within the same range (around 25-35%), and are similar in size to the theoretical number of dissenters in a menticidal society. It may well be that this number is regarded as a useful proxy by the system. The ranks of the great unvaxxed are highly likely to comprise non-believers in the state, simply by virtue of the fact that they haven't been convinced by the relentless propaganda. And, despite the fact that the first half of the 'pandemic' occurred under a Republican administration in the US and a Conservative government in the UK, the dissenters are predominantly from the red side of the aisle. Personality trumps politics, again. And the same thing is happening everywhere:
“It isn’t national totalitarianism, because we’re living in a global capitalist empire, which isn’t ruled by nation-states, but rather, by supranational entities and the global capitalist system itself.”(4)
But, whatever the true numbers of cult members and opposition, the affects of mass formation have definitely left a large constituency unaffected. It's probable that the appearance of a more serious looking 'pandemic' will nibble at the edges of that cohort, but I suspect that a significant number will remain, whether confined to quarters or not. Something a little more hands-on will be needed to bring those people to heel.
So, what to expect in the immediate future? What does the play-book look like? One thing needs to be understood right away. It is extremely unlikely that they will stop, no matter what the field of battle looks like. This is not an on-the-fly, opportunistic attempt that is devoid of long term planning and which will collapse at the first sign of resistance. Nor is a logical construct that pays attention to what is actually going on in the world in real time and makes sensible decisions as a result. This has been in the works for years. Governments have entire units dedicated to gaslighting us. They didn't spring up by accident, nor are they going anywhere soon. So, please, do not think that we are in anything other than an interval in the Ring Cycle.
"The essence of totalitarianism — regardless of which costumes and ideology it wears — is a desire to completely control society, every aspect of society, every individual behavior and thought. Every totalitarian system, whether an entire nation, a tiny cult, or any other form of social body, evolves toward this unachievable goal ... the total ideological transformation and control of every single element of society ... This fanatical pursuit of total control, absolute ideological uniformity, and the elimination of all dissent, is what makes totalitarianism totalitarianism."(5)
It's not so different from the old Soviet Bloc – a supranational system, only this time it's not governments, central and satellite in which the power resides, but institutions and global capital enterprises instead. Governments are now the handmaidens. And what they need to do now, probably more than anything, is isolate us again. When we can get together, we enjoy the sustenance of human companionship and the oxygen of information exchange. But when everyday interactions are forcibly curtailed and the stimulus of social contact is removed, an entire personality may change:
“Our instinct of curiosity demands continual feeding; if it is not satisfied, the internal hounds of hell are aroused.”(6)
I'm fairly sure that Omicron was intended to act as the pretext for more international lock-downs. Even when it stubbornly refused to play ball and the South Africans had to be punished for not talking it up, some countries still went ahead with lock-downs anyway, because that's what it said in the manual; the Netherlands and Austria among them. Holland is still locked-down as I write this and has been since 19th December.
All the while, a seasonal virus has suited the narrative, but with caveats. Flu and coronavirus 'pandemics' are certain to become less virulent within a fairly short time period and they are, of course, seasonal. Keeping people cooped up all year round is, therefore, a fairly big ask and when they are allowed to congregate together, morale improves and discussion ensues, in ways that are impossible to control. Whilst the wave pattern of restriction followed by New Normal is achieved, the easing off periods have a tendency to last too long.
There will be further crackdowns on speech; well, on certain types of speech. Any opinion that opposes the system will be 'hate' speech, any parents who stand up for their children will be labelled 'domestic terrorists' and any use of the government's own statistics to demonstrate their mendacity will be 'misinformation'. One of the most damaging effects of the totalitarian method is the loss of logic, the sense that nothing has any validity any more. The most recent example of misinformation - Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor stating that there were over 100,000 children in US hospitals as a result of Omicron and that many of them were on ventilators (an egregious falsehood) – did not, of course, elicit any rebuke from Big Media and the White House, because this type of lie is encouraged.(7)
“He who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind.”(8)
The system that they want to impose upon us cannot be allowed to be exposed. They know that they cannot win any argument on the detail; that's why the first verbal tool that they reach for is the ad hominem attack. Their assertions are always downstream of the evidence, never encompassing of it, because their world is one of illusions. If the resistance is allowed to shine a light upon their construct for any length of time, not only will the rest of the opposition gain heart, some of the undecided but compliant might gain knowledge that is dangerous to the regime and the other compliant cohort – the one that never believed from the start – might sense the tide turning and switch sides.
“The system defends the world of appearances in order to defend itself.”(9)
And it won't just be shadow banning and de-platforming. It will be attempts to label critics of the system as a threat to life itself.
Presently, there is either disagreement behind the scenes or a co-ordinated attempt to confuse and disorientate. Different countries are suddenly doing different things, having been marching in time previously. As already noted, some are in full or partial lock-down. Others are half-heartedly imposing meaningless and easily avoided measures, some (like the US) have the executive branch blindly pushing mandates, while other parts of the government undermine them and the courts block them. Both Austria and Israel have pushed mandatory 'vaccinations' back to April 1st (appropriately enough), but Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Italy and France are still galloping towards ever greater victimization of dissenters, while simultaneously pretending the internet doesn't exist and that none of their citizens can see what they are trying to do. Perhaps it's accidental or perhaps we're supposed to be helpless in the face of their arbitrariness:
“If the complexity of a country's political and economic apparatus makes the individual citizen feel powerless...if he has no sense of participation in the forces that govern his daily life...he will grasp at the totalitarian opportunity for belonging....for a simple formula that explains and rationalises what is beyond comprehension.”(10)
There are any number of ways in which the regimes will attempt to target the significant rump of citizens who refuse to submit. Some of these are already in the works. In the US, for instance, there is legislation pending that will severely curtail the Second Amendment and corrupt the election system in perpetuity. The intention is, firstly, to make guns increasingly difficult to own and to find out where they all are, preparatory to seizing them and secondly, to fix the voting system so that there might be one party rule from here on in:
“Totalitaria is any country in which a single group – left or right – acquires absolute power and becomes omniscient and omnipotent; any country in which disagreements and differences of opinion are crimes, in which utter conformity is the price of life.”(11)
If we are honest, we are not far removed from the above wherever we are. And I would add a caveat; Joost Meerloo, the author of that quote, was writing in the 1950s when the left-right dynamic was still the dominant political paradigm. As I've noted elsewhere, this is no longer the case. Coalition governments and uni-parties have come to predominate. It's a more vertical structure now; either top down and authoritarian or bottom up and libertarian (for want of a better definition) and only the former is widely in evidence. Political opposition is chimeric, about whose turn it is to pursue broadly the same policies with the backing of the same entities that also back the other party.
The dissenters will be attacked on all fronts; via the job market, where the 'vaccination' will be used to disadvantage us and force obedience, through our children's schooling (using the same mechanism), by restricting our ability to travel, obtain loans, medical cover...you name it, they'll have a reason to make it difficult. They will do everything they can to prevent us communicating with each other, most of all. Some of us, if we are obdurate enough and live in a particularly unenlightened country – currently that would be Canada or Australia – will find ourselves sampling that particularly malodorous subset of food, detention cuisine. Australia, in particular, is rapidly constructing Centres For National Resilience (prison camps) in at least three states. They are going to try and turn us against each other and break us:
“The collective behaviour of the group is not simply shaped by the sum of its individual dispositions, but is shaped by how group members perceive the group as a whole, as well as one another and the situation they find themselves in.”(12)
These things are coming. They have not gone to all this trouble for nothing. They are not building camps for no reason, nor drafting complex legislation so that they might fill their day and expending vast amounts of political capital in gaslighting us from morning 'til night without a plan.
Seeing things for what they are and being able to do something about them are obviously two different things. How is it that we resist and thrive? First things first; it's not going to come from existing political entities. Most of them are part of the problem and those that aren't, are not equipped to oppose totalitarianism. They are still using outmoded tactics and language. In the USA, we still hear Republicans wittering on about bi-partisanship. In the UK, the party leading the way is the one that should be on the front lines of opposition. These entities are too much a part of the system to see that it is the system itself that is the problem.
The true opposition is what Václav Havel labelled 'pre-political' because
“...the most intrinsic and fundamental confrontation between human beings and the system takes place at a level incomparably more profound than that of traditional politics...”(13)
His point is that approaching fundamental issues such as man's right to freedom from a top down, political perspective is doomed to fail. The way to overcome the corruption of a system that has allowed us to arrive at this place, is not through tinkering. It's through the fundamental moral reconstitution of society; through the rehabilitation of values like trust, openness, solidarity, responsibility and love. The ties that bind, rather than the sterility of technology, online living and separateness. Structures that grow from the ground up do so because they evolve from the challenges of life, not from an ideology. And there is a need to focus on the here and now, not 'some day' scenarios.
In practice, we will create a parallel society. I say 'we will' rather then 'we need to' because it's already happening. Adapt to overcome. There are communities of people who want to 'live the truth' and they are arranging themselves in practical, local, face to face and hands on ways. They home school each others children, they support each others businesses, they find doctors and professionals that feel the way they do and they live as truthfully as they can. They socialise together and they know which churches won't make them mask up for services. They are growing something from the bottom up, but it is not overtly political. It might become so eventually, if there is no choice in the matter.
If enough similar communities are founded, it might become a movement difficult to ignore. Then the system will have a choice, the only two options this system has; either to adapt or repress. If it adapts, it will try to alter the DNA of what it sees before it as a threat. It won't adapt because it accepts the premise of the movement. It will adapt in order to snuff it out. It'll just take longer than immediate repression, but the result will be similar. At that point, the resistance will have choices of its own to make, because these parallel structures and parallel world are not a group solution that has nothing to do with the overall situation. They can't just be renegade society's equivalent of a militia's retreat into the woods. They can't just be avoidance. They have to be connected to the other world, the one where people live the lie. They are based on human values that are universal; they were formed because people cared about a moral reading of the world. If this parallel society was just another group that cared not for others, it would be a contradiction in terms, a traitor to itself. This is why it is essential that these societies are also locked in to the official one.
Havel's prescription was two fold. The second prong was a commitment to using the legal framework against the system. His contention was that it was this structure that is essential to the world of appearances. It can be flagrantly ignored, but it gives the system its legitimacy and it can therefore be targeted. I think that this can work when the laws themselves are legitimate; when a regime plays lip service to a genuine set of laws that a dispassionate observer from abroad, as an example, would regard as acceptable. But when they use that same legal system to pass laws that are obviously unconstitutional, the regime uses that weapon against the people, instead. There is some traction in attempting to use international law or treaty agreements to hold the system to account, but if the entire international community is part of the same framework, this approach is also compromised.
The answer, I think, lies in once again focusing on the immediate and local. On rules, regulations and lawsuits that constitute small wins, but ones that will prove to have a substantial impact on real people. And it's important to make sure you win; pick those battles. It's good for morale.
We are not lost yet, but we are a long way down the road. It is dumbfounding to realize how conditioned we have allowed ourselves to become. The truth is still out there, but difficult to access accurately and almost impossible to broadcast in a traditional way, unless it validates the narrative. The institutions of government are still legacy items, tasked with providing evidence to the people. They are often under-powered and corrupted, but we are not yet in the position where they can get away with demolishing all the various structure and traditions. They are doing so gradually, but we are still in transition.
The majority of Western and European countries have been in lock-step for two years. Those whose personalities predispose them to brain-washing are lost, at least for now. These are the people who are pathological, and/or paranoid, who lack the ability to think critically but who nonetheless think that they have the right to hysterically enforce the narrative. So, it's not just the state and its organs. It's also the unofficial guardians, the ordinary citizens who are subsumed; the true believers. Then there are the compliant, who don't believe, but aren't required to as long as they keep their heads down and pay homage to the world of appearances. And, at some point (usually quite early on), compliance morphs into complicity and these people then have skin in the game; they are now invested in the process, too. They become assimilated, at least for some time. We are having to gain some knowledge of these formerly obscure phenomena to make sense of the world around us.
And we should be encouraged by the sub-optimal nature of the chosen weapon; or, at least, the one they've utilized so far. This 'pandemic', whilst effective, does contain several fatal flaws. Not only does it suffer from the fact that it isn't a real pandemic, the medication chosen to 'treat' it doesn't work. We may surmise that this is by design, which it almost certainly is. But, because it doesn't work, boosters are required. While the zealots will queue up so that they might provide further proof of their devotion to the cause, the undecideds will be less effusive, remembering (as they will) that most of them did not want to take the shot in the first place, and did so only because they were informed that this act would resolve the 'pandemic'; or because they were forced into it by a mandate. A goodly proportion of them will reject the booster.
Not only that, but they are likely to be an active constituency, rather than a somnolent one, because their fate is still up in the air. This, I believe, is a mistake by the elites. They should have continued isolating the resistance, while keeping everyone else on board the compliance train, whether voluntarily or reluctantly. They have given us the opportunity to bring others
over to our side or, at the very least maintain neutrality. Yet one more reason why the alternative polis must keep a foot in both camps.
If they stick with Covid, they are going to have a problem. Which means that they probably won't, although I wouldn't bet against a period of tone-deaf attempts to blow air back into the balloon. It could be that they believe that they are far enough down their chosen path, that they have no need of any further pretense, so they can go full-on. Certainly, Israel, Canada and the Down Unders seem to be going that way. In those countries, it has become blatantly obvious that the issue is compliance, not prevention of disease.
We must be prepared for the system to react in inappropriate ways. It's nearly always a shock when the totalitarians meet resistance, mainly because they often have no way of knowing the extent of it ahead of time; it's a world of appearances, not a world of truth, created by them. What chance have they given themselves to acquire the knowledge necessary to anticipate problems? They attempt to offset this by pre-emptively labeling anyone who disagrees with them a 'terrorist'. We are seeing this now, but it's not new. It's just one more tactic, this time an attempt to keep the majority on board if there is open revolt. But if oppression is total, it is also vulnerable to exposure in a multitude of ways; at every point at which the lie is necessary.
According to Havel, the opposition is any element of society that “denies the claim that the system has an absolute claim on the individual.”(14) However it is that you arrived here, reading this, whether it be purely as an ongoing reaction to the regime's handling of the 'pandemic', or from a wider concern about the erosion of our fundamental rights, it's worth remembering:
“This isn't an academic argument over the existence, severity, or the response to a virus. This is a fight to determine the future of our societies. This fact, above all, is what the global-capitalist ruling classes are determined to conceal.”(15)
We mustn't let them.
Citations
(1) https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/11/30/omicron-variant-concern
(2) https://www.generationlab.org/_files/ugd/b2ee84_a922fc4cede84e45856dedde927d5ef0.pdf
(3) Pathologised Totalitarianism 101, C J Hopkins, Mercola website
(4) https://consentfactory.org/2020/10/13/the-covidian-cult/
(5) https://consentfactory.org/2021/10/12/the-great-new-normal-purge/
(6) Joost Meerloo, The Rape Of The Mind, pg 85.
(7) https://nypost.com/2022/01/10/white-house-is-mute-on-sotomayors-covid-misinformation/
(8) Joost Meerloo, The Rape Of The Mind, pg 26.
(9)Václav Havel, The Power Of The Powerless, pg 42.
(10) Joost Meerloo, The Rape Of The Mind, pg 120.
(11) Ditto, pg 118.
(12) Christopher R Browning, Ordinary Men, pg 234.
(13) Václav Havel, The Power Of The Powerless, pg 99.
(14) Ditto, pg 58.
(15) Pathologised Totalitarianism 101, C J Hopkins, Mercola website