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Perhaps a public debate on governmental lying and manipulation through the purveying of fear is about to begin. God willing, it will.
I raise this hope because of a remarkable article that appeared in the Daily Telegraph (UK). Excerpts follow. No comment seems required, except the obvious: This has been a Global phenomenon. Which means: coordinated.
Use of fear to control behaviour in Covid crisis was ‘totalitarian’, admit scientists
Members of Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour express regret about ‘unethical’ methods
Scientists on a committee that encouraged the use of fear to control people’s behaviour during the Covid pandemic have admitted its work was “unethical” and “totalitarian”.
Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) expressed regret about the tactics in a new book about the role of psychology in the Government’s Covid-19 response.
SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from Covid-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”.
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One SPI-B scientist told Ms Dodsworth: “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 way we have used fear is dystopian.
“The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.”
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One warned that “people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise… We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in”.
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Another member of SPI-B said they were "stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology" during the pandemic, and that “psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative. They have too much power and it intoxicates them”.
Oh. A bit like power and absolute power.
Steve Baker, the deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs, said: “If it is true that the state took the decision to terrify the public to get compliance with rules, that raises extremely serious questions about the type of society we want to become.
“If we’re being really honest, do I fear that Government policy today is playing into the roots of totalitarianism? Yes, of course it is.”
As Basil Fawlty might say, Thanks for enunciating the bleeding obvious.
On The Use Of Fear As A Government Tactic
History warned us... Fear mongering and propaganda and the spreaders of them both where what our founders referred to as demagogues.
Hamelton - Federalist No. 1: “History will teach us that … of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”
Mason - “the mischievous influence of demagogues” was one of the top two “evils” that can befall republican forms of government.
Elbridge Gerry - “Demagogues are the great pests of our government,”
Gerry explained this like a brick through a window by defining demagogues as "pretend patriots" seeking to push people into "baneful measurements" via "false reports".
Those demagogues, pretend patriots pushing baneful measurements are the majority of BOTH political parties, in DC, in our states and in our local politics...
Here is one of the most blatant confirmation of how rthe Democratic Party has used COVID as a tool: April 2, 2020 California Governor Newsom: "Yes, We Will Use Coronavirus to 'Reimagine a Progressive Era' “There is opportunity for reimagining a progressive era as it pertains to capitalism,” absolutely we see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern." Over the course of a month Newsom followed up with: May 8, 2020 "California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order permitting all registered voters in the Golden State to vote by mail in the upcoming presidential election, citing concerns stemming from the Chinese coronavirus pandemic."