Wake up Neo

In the 1999 film, The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers envisioned a dystopian world that anticipated the “new normal” of pandemic life with eerie and uncanny foresight. 

Concisely summarized by the website thematrix101.com:

In the near future, computer hacker Neo is contacted by underground freedom fighters who explain that reality as he understands it is actually a complex computer simulation called the Matrix. Created by a malevolent Artificial Intelligence, the Matrix hides the truth from humanity, allowing them to live a convincing, simulated life while machines grow and harvest people to use as an ongoing energy source. The leader of the freedom fighters, Morpheus, believes Neo is “The One” who will lead humanity to freedom and overthrow the machines. Together with Trinity (and a handful of other rebels), Neo and Morpheus fight against the machine’s enslavement of humanity as Neo begins to believe and accept his role as “The One”.

Agent Smith is the main adversary to Morpheus’s plan. A sentient program in the Matrix…Agents are supremely powerful, and no one has ever survived a standoff with an Agent before.

 Early in the movie, Agents arrest Neo, whose Matrix name is Anderson, ostensibly because he is wanted for multiple hacking crimes, but the Agents are aware that Neo has been contacted by Morpheus. They offer him immunity if he will cooperate with the apprehension of Morpheus.

Agent Smith tells Neo: “Morpheus is considered the most dangerous man alive- a known terrorist”.

Neo rejects the agent’s proposition, gives Agent Smith the finger, and demands his legal right to make a phone call.

 The Agent responds saying, “What good is a phone call if you’re unable to speak?”

 We then see Neo display panic and terror as his mouth literally disappears. The Agents erased Neo’s mouth, robbing him of his ability to speak or to protest. 

Later in the film, Neo accepts Morpheus’ offer to meet with him. Morpheus explains: “You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it…There’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad…”

“The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now in this room…You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work. When you go to church. When you pay your taxes”.

“It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. That you are a slave Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind”.

Sometime in the early 21st century, all mankind was united in a celebration. We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI (artificial intelligence). A singular consciousness that spawned an entire race of machines”.

 Further on in the plot, Morpheus explains how it all started:

“What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change the human being into this (Morpheus holds up an ordinary battery.) As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free”.

Pandemic Mandates Immersed Us Further Into The Matrix

The story of The Matrix is a metaphor for the escalating control exerted by centralized corporate powers that, for decades, have worked to transform global economies, culture, and society to suit their purposes. The purpose being to increase their power, profit and control over the world’s human population and the planet’s resources. To achieve that end, they restructure and reshape the life experience of billions of people who live within their scope of influence.

For corporations and the super-rich, global humanity translates to numbers, not people. To them, people are just billions of interchangeable and expendable units whose purpose on Earth is to be workers and consumers. They engineer and define the social and economic world in which we live, in order to maximize their power, minimize disruption of business and limit challenge, protest and dissent. They create a new (virtual) reality in which they are the supreme rulers and our masters.

In 1999, when The Matrix premiered, the film’s message was a warning to the public of what may happen if it did not wake up and see the bars being installed on its collective cage. They warned that we, the public, was the frog in the pot that failed to recognize the water being slowly heated… until it was too late- that the net was closing. After that, escape would be difficult to achieve, if not impossible.

In 2022, two years into the “new normal” of pandemic life, that message is no longer a warning of what is to come. Rather, it is more accurately a description of where we are living now- in a corporation/ government/media-generated dream world built to pull the wool over our eyes, blind us from the truth and keep us under their control.

“The Matrix is everywhere. It’s all around us”. It’s the endless news stories, warnings and detailed analysis of every aspect of this COVID phenomenon. It’s the constant and endless drama within our government, between government parties, personalities and so-called leaders. It’s the endless layers of bureaucracy that we are forced to endure as prerequisite to participate in society and economy. It’s the all-encompassing, life-consuming, never-ending, need to earn enough money to participate in an economic system that controls access to the basic essentials of modern life. We live within an economic system that declares nothing in the world has value unless it can be converted into money/currency. It’s the infinite rabbit hole of media, internet and other screen-based activity that parades across our senses seeking to pull us and our children down into a virtual fantasy world filled with nonsense, greed, sex, aggression and violence.

It’s the constant vigilance required to prevent them from confiscating what we believe to be basic rights- to collectively decide policy and law (the priorities and direction of our government) by voting in elections, to earn a fair wage, to be guaranteed access to food, housing, health care and education, and to raise our children in a world that is healthy and safe. To protect our children from deprivation and exploitation. To be allowed the freedom to express our individual spirit, heart and soul. To exercise self-determination/mastery over our bodies and our minds. To live in communities that are safe from violence and toxins. The Matrix is also the hundreds of non-profits and charities that solicit the public for money merely in order to plea with the powers that be to grant us these rights that we believe to be basics of human life.

New Normal

Words have power and the choice of wording is frequently used as an effective tool to shape public perception and opinion. When this practice is used for (nefarious) less than noble goals, we label it propaganda. To describe the radically transformed social and economic landscape, in which we find ourselves, now as “normal”, plants the idea in the minds of the public that this new way of life is reasonable and nothing to worry about. It is the way the world should be. It’s the usual, average, typical state or condition. Nothing to see here.

Normal is used to connote good things- a normal temperature, normal weather for this time of year, behaving normally. We are taught to believe that normal means everything is right, even good and nothing to worry about. Life in 2020 and 2021 may be different but not to worry. It’s the new normal. Don’t sweat it. No worries. It’s all good. The whole nine yards. No need to even question it. No problem. It’s still normal.

http://www.frontiersin.org>research-topics>how-normal-is-the-new-normal

Words have power. In the past several years, the adjective for empathy has changed from empathic to empathetic. To be empathic is to show the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, to be compassionate, caring, having a sense of fairness, justice, and morality. To put oneself in the other’s shoes and imagine what their life is like and how they feel. An empathic American populace would recognize that our current capitalist society is profoundly unfair, rigged against workers, constructed/designed to enrich the very few. It results in widespread poverty and suffering which an empathic person would recognize is unjust, and unacceptable. So the trait of empathy was downgraded by changing the adjective to empathetic. The word “pathetic” is in empathetic. Unconsciously, subliminally, that slight alteration denigrates/erodes the force and meaning of having empathy and suggests that losers have empathy. In a social Darwinian world, empathy is literally for the losers because survival is for those fittest, most aggressive and self-interested.

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." Philip K. Dick, American science fiction writer (1930-1982)

It may sound extreme and alarmist, but assigning the term, “new normal” to our radically altered world seems like a deliberate strategy to brainwash the population to accept, without question or discussion, all of the sweeping, comprehensive and intrusive changes to our lives that have been imposed on us without our consent. It seems a deliberate strategy to pacify the population, to keep us from waking up and recognizing all that we have lost; all the fundamental aspects of human life that have been forcibly taken away from us, sinking us deeper into the Matrix that they have designed. Forget about all the radical changes. Everything is still normal. Go back to watching your screen.

Who are “They”? Who are the powers that be? The rulers? The masters? The ruling elite? Who are the entities that create policy and law? Who decides what is harmful and what is safe? Which behaviors are acceptable and which are punishable? Which values, opinions and beliefs are right and which are wrong? What is allowed/legal and what is prohibited/illegal? What are the rights of workers and the rules of employers? Who pays taxes? Who has the right to destroy, pollute, exploit and who has no right to protest and dissent? Who has the authority to create and enforce laws and what defines their moral code? Who has the right to question laws, and how far is anyone permitted to dissent what seems unjust and unfair? How much freedom/self determination/self-mastery/autonomy should individuals possess, and how much power and coercive control is permitted to be used against individuals/people?

Who are we?

We are the masses, the rabble, the workers and expendables who make up 99% of the US population. We number around 337 million people vs maybe 3 million who represent the 1%. We are the laborers- both blue and white collar- the unemployed, the retired, the children, the soldiers who fight and die. We are the 99% who depend on public institutions- who send our children to public schools, public universities and vocational colleges. We are the 99% who rely on Medicare, Medicaid and employer-sponsored insurance to pay for health care. We are the people that live from check to check, that are bewildered/ boggled/ scammed/ shiestered by mortgages, loans, retirement funds gambled in the stock market, and who worry whether we’ll have money to support ourselves after retirement. We are the people who hope, in vain, at every election cycle, that a change in leadership will bring real improvement to our lives and that of our children. Will bring peace, prosperity and fairness for all.

When we look at policy and law, it becomes more clear who gets to make the rules for our world. In theory, average people, every adult American citizen has the right to vote. Even if that was true (which it is not), we do not vote to enact specific policies and laws that we may believe are just and fair. Instead we vote only for the personalities who give speeches about what they stand for. However, once elected, they are under no obligation to actually carry out the wishes of the majority- those people that elected them.

It has become increasingly clear that whoever has the most money gets to decide policy and law, regardless of how the people voted. Government leaders are beholden only to wealthy corporations and the super-rich individuals who profit from corporate business laws. Lobbying is a multi-billion dollar industry that is employed by corporations and foreign governments to gain access and influence policy and law for their selfish benefit. Rallies and demonstrations is the lobbying of the working class. Power’s response to that is often police in riot gear or now, suspension of public assembly.

In this new normal that has been evolving for the past few decades, most elected government officials are beholden and controlled by the super-rich. They pass legislation that creates policy and law. They appoint Supreme Court and federal justices who interpret and implement laws in their favor. Their constituency is themselves and whatever legislation and policy they enact is to their benefit. Their sole interest is to consolidate, increase and preserve their money and power- their domination over the rest of humanity who they prefer to be passive and compliant automatons that do not question, protest or resist.

There is no such thing as a moral, ethical, altruistic billionaire. If he truly possessed those traits, he would not be a billionaire. He would recognize the injustice of terrible income inequality in which millions of people lack basic needs such as food and shelter. He would distribute and share his enormous profits with the workers who toiled to create this wealth for him. He may donate 50 million dollars to charity but each billion is 1000 million dollars (1,000,000) so even 50 million is only 5% of his wealth of 1 billion dollars. Surely a man can live comfortably on $500 or $100 million or even $50 million.

Like Morpheus, there are members of the public that are awake to the false reality, the false normal that has been imposed upon global humanity. Many others see only part of the deception. Like a skillful magic trick or con, there is a feint within a feint within a feint. The layers of pretense, deception and distraction are so complex and numerous that most of us will probably never realize, comprehend the whole picture- which we must do to be truly and fully free. We are also kept too busy toiling to keep our heads above the economic waters, provide for our basic needs and have little time or energy to untangle the lies.

Neo’s gift lay in his unique ability to recognize the endless web of deception that composed the Matrix. Because of that, he was not fooled/confused/controlled by its falsehoods and shams. He was the proverbial prophet who was able to unravel the whole deception and recognize it for what it was.

To the ruling powers, any awareness of the truth that endures within the public mind constitutes a potential threat to their authority and domination. Morpheus is “the most dangerous man alive. A known terrorist.” You can be certain that today’s rulers will take any measures they deem necessary to eliminate, suppress, and stamp out any challenge to their authority. Whether that challenge is from (an articulate and effective Neo-like visionary or from movements such as Black Lives Matter, and climate justice groups like the Sunrise Movement) an organization or an individual, the rulers will employ censorship, lies, intimidation or violence to discredit, marginalize and silence any and all opposition. Those who speak out against them are in potential danger and at risk of having their voice silenced in one way or another.

Take Robert Kennedy Jr. as an example. After he began publicly questioning the pandemic mandates, including vaccines and passports, he was removed from Google searches and YouTube. The New York Times published a front page article reporting on alleged past struggles with addiction and other personal challenges. They included quotes from family and others who felt he was deluded, misguided and wrong in his assertions about mandates. The masters acted quickly to discredit him, malign his character and erase his message from the internet and social media. 

"Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. They never have and never will... Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace".   Frederick Douglass

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason… There can be on right of speech where any man…[is] compelled to suppress his honest sentiments. Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker." Frederick DOUGLASS In famous plea for free speech in Boston 1860 American abolitionist, author, orator (1817-1895)

The caring and benevolent master

Certainly the powers that be, the kings, rulers and super rich who run the world prefer wearing the cloak of the benevolent and caring father figure, rather than that of oppressive and cruel master, (to accomplish their goals). The appearance (or introduction) of COVID-19 gave them perfect opportunity to assert more coercive and comprehensive control over the public, but in the guise of benevolent parent who cares deeply about the safety and welfare of common people. They utilized a familiar old strategy that has worked well for past regimes. First they identify and market the idea of a serious danger. Typically they would frighten us with the specter of an “enemy” nation or “terrorist” group intent on attacking America somehow. The next step is to instill confusion, fear and panic among the people (the rabble as Noam Chomsky likes to call us). Then they present themselves as the savior, the hero and protector. Convince us that they will protect and save us if we obey their instructions. It usually entails/includes personal sacrifice, and to relinquish/ give up/ surrender/ cede individual liberties on the part of the general public/ the workers, but we are told it is all done for our benefit.

In 2020, lacking a new foreign political/military threat, the rulers capitalized on COVID-19 as the newest crisis which justified another round of profiting and social engineering. They made us believe that relinquishing our freedoms and civic institutions we cherished would protect and promote the welfare/health of the nation- that our sacrifice was virtuous and noble. Expound/speak/broadcast rhetoric that promises monumental government response/intervention to address the crisis. Declare and debate in Congress but meanwhile accomplish very little that actually benefits the people.

Meanwhile they conduct business as usual, passing huge budgets for the military industrial machine, “bail outs” for billion dollar corporations, give-aways to the health industry and fossil fuel giants and the deposit of money into their own pockets. And like always, they fail to honor promises to prevent global environmental catastrophe, to treat workers more fairly, to restore fairness in the electoral system.

The rulers deflect attention from their own power grab by accusing those among the population who question, doubt, resist and dissent as selfish villains who care nothing about their neighbors, about killing grandma and grandpa and jeopardizing the security of the nation. Meanwhile the masters present themselves as working tirelessly to protect the people from harm when the reality is that they really don’t care about average people. The evidence is right in front of us. In early 2021, as soon as Biden was sworn in, he proposed a $780 billion annual budget for the Defense Department. More accurately called the War Department. Already increased beyond the 2020 budget, Congress added $25 billion more to buy attack submarines, Navy destroyers and jet fighters. Yet amidst the greatest health crisis of the century, they failed to legislate universal health care, paid family medical leave, or a $15 minimum wage. There was no money for infrastructure improvements such as for public schools and universities, for health clinics, for safe and affordable housing, for nutritious food and drinking water that is free of chemicals and toxins.

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The parallels between The Matrix and our pandemic world began to be obvious/noticeable/evident in the first few months after our world and our lives abruptly stopped. Suddenly, and without public discussion or the public’s consent, our in-person world and our lives were completely suspended. We were mandated to immerse ourselves in a visual world through expensive computers, ipads, tablets and phones that we had to purchase, along with the monthly subscription fees. Our virtual lives could now be tracked/ monitored/ wiretapped, mined for our personal data, our faces and fingerprints. Our interests, social connections, political affiliations, purchase histories, sexual proclivities are now recorded, compiled, profiled sold and marketed back to us. Our purchases and transactions become digital with data compiled, rather than cash which cannot readily be traced and tracked. Politicians, government officials, “medical experts” and the corporate media bombarded the public with warnings of impending catastrophe that was repeated daily in big headlines. News that seemed intended to create fear, confusion, disorientation and panic. It’s like they yelled “fire” in a crowded theater.

COVID-19 became the biggest celebrity of 2020. The most famous plague of all time. It deserved to be Time magazine’s person of the year. People magazine’s sexiest virus. Newspapers and 24 hour television “news” coverage focused on every aspect of this rising star. In exhausting detail, the media covered its origin story, the statistics, demographics, and predictions for its rocket to fame. There were charts, graphs, and interactive maps that described its every move. They should have told us which designers the virus wore, what car it drove and which brand of vodka it drank. They made COVID-19 the phenomenon it is today. It’s really the classic rags to riches story that people love. There was a brilliant public relations campaign, complete with sentimental, heartbreaking, and anecdotal human interest stories about losing beloved elderly parents and personal opinions about measures that should be taken. There were heroes, villains, low points, high points, inspiring accounts of personal sacrifice in the face of impending doom. It was romantic, epic, tragic and bitter sweet.

This same message was endlessly repeated by every major entity that had access to the microphone. There was little to no alternate narrative, analysis or perspective. Yes, we we told that President Trump and his people held opposing views but even that seemed to be lip service, more another strategy to sow confusion and conflict within the public during a crucial election year. Somehow, COVID-19 became another division between Blue and Red, creating anger, insults/disparaging statements and conflict. “Those crazy anti-vaccers”. Corporate Democrats encouraged the narrative of fear and catastrophe in order to justify the unprecedented authority of government and hybrid government/corporate entities such as the FDA and CDC that mandated confinement, distancing and submission. Republicans continued their strategy of inciting their followers to reject government authority vociferously in favor of trusting no one except super rich Americans like Trump himself.

"It is a quite special secret pleasure how the people around us fail to realize what is really happening to them." -Adolph Hitler

"We have to put a stop to the idea that it is a part of everybody's civil rights to say whatever he pleases". -Adolph Hitler

"The Big Lie is a major untruth uttered frequently by leaders as a means of duping and controlling the constituency". -Adolph Hitler

"Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it". -Adolph Hitler

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses." MALCOLM X 1963 

"Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing." Eric Arthur Blair or George ORWELL British novelist and essayist (1903-1950)

“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution”. Aldous Huxley

"This is the secret of propaganda: Those who are to be persuaded by it should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it". Joseph Goebbels

"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down". -Frederick Douglass

A curtain had suddenly come down over normal discourse and familiar reality. There was no allowance for doubting or opposing authority. Suddenly the net was closed. We all were caught in a trap that we were frightened into building, a cage for ourselves and our neighbors. When they closed society, mandated masks and strict social distancing, suddenly many felt like Neo- wanting to make my phone call but finding that we had no mouth. We had all lost our voices, our ability, our permission, our right to speak and decide/determine our individual actions.

I’ve always had a strong mistrust of authority. In the past 50 years, I have seen authority, experts, government and corporate leadership make arbitrary decisions/rulings and lie to the public time and again about crucial issues affecting our lives. The mainstream media amplifies and spreads the lies. If one repeats a lie enough times, people begin to believe it is true. In the Spring of 2020, I couldn’t understand why most people around me accepted and believed the master’s message that we were in mortal danger and the future of human civilization was in jeopardy. I was dumbfounded that almost everyone around me became ardent and zealous adherents and enforcers of the pandemic rules and restrictions. We were sheep and servants, dependent and obedient to our masters on high.

At times I felt like I was in The Body Snatchers. If I ignored pandemic rules, like not wearing my mask at all times, even outdoors, or went the wrong way in a supermarket aisle, everyone would see I was not converted/brainwashed, a believer/disciple/devotee. I expected that the zombies around me would point and make that silent scream which is both an accusation and a warning that I was dangerous, alien, heathen, an ignorant barbarian, a heretic not part of the collective. The government/corporate media machine had convinced the public to police each other, shaming and punishing anyone that doubted the company line.

In the movie, the Matrix was created by an artificial intelligence that had achieved domination over humanity and the planet. It wished to perpetuate its dominance and control without opposition from humans. The AI relied on human bodies as its power source. It designed the Matrix to be completely immersive, engaging and alluring/appealing in order to keep the human population passive, distracted/ diverted/ hypnotized, like zombies or automatons. The Matrix was intended to eliminate the risk that humans would wake up and challenge their authority.

In the current real-life version, it is not AI but rather the super rich who are the shadow rulers/masters of us all. But the motive and end result are the same. In our reality, AI is a powerful tool used by the masters for surveillance, manipulation and mind control/brainwashing/hypnosis. The pandemic mandates decimated all functions and institutions of civil society that happen/occur in real time in real physical group presence. All of the activities that brought people physically together in a real place and time stopped. School, prayer, support groups, art and performance, gymnasiums, sporting events, political rallies and the workplace. All of these were banned. The public was only permitted, rather forced/compelled, to participate in civil life through AI technology platforms on computers and smart phones. Now, every communication and exchange is easily traced, tracked and recorded. Even intimacy and sexuality streamed through a web browser. We lost the privacy that comes from in-person interactions, cash purchases and off-the-books activities.

A challenge for the rulers/masters was how to create a matrix for humanity in the 2020’s? What are the essential ingredients needed to create a fully believable simulation, one that the public does not even doubt is reality. How to transition millions, even billions, of people from a life that provides/entails substantial self-determination and free will to one in which choice and independence is substantially limited? How to design the construct so that it becomes permanent and self-perpetuating? So that once established, it maintains itself. How can it be accomplished with the least cost, and the least disruption to corporate profits? How to prevent the people from voting in the important November 2020 elections for candidates who are sympathetic to the people/workers and may oppose the master’s plans?

How could the rulers/masters achieve this outcome, ideally with the cooperation, or lack of resistance from the public- so that people willingly march into their confinement pods, their cells, without the masters having to appear dictatorial and coercive- or by use of punishment and force? They understood that marching people into their cells, into confinement/house arrest using force, would be messy and expensive. It would disrupt business and profit. It would likely trigger substantial resistance and they had already been trying their best to squash the Black Lives Matters and Climate Change street protest movements as well as deterring huge campaign rallies by more progressive presidential and congressional candidates. It doesn’t look good when the people/the nation watch videos of riot police attacking civilian protesters with batons, tear gas, pepper spray, tasers and rubber bullets. Those damn cell phones recording everything. Perhaps they can do something about that.

The ruling powers required some external threat to justify extreme measures. Their typical ruse is to use the threat of violence and war against the US by a hostile enemy nation to frighten people and suppress dissenting viewpoints as unpatriotic. But Iran and North Korea have not ripened into a menace that is useful. Russia had been relatively quiet and the super rich have too many investments in China to make them the prime villain. Fortunately an effective means presented itself. COVID-19 came on the scene, conveniently at just the right time, and suddenly the powerful had the enemy they require to instill fear and obedience among the rabble.

From the very beginning, the corporate machine began to prime the public to relinquish control and their autonomy to the ruling powers. They crafted a narrative that magnified danger and risk, cherry-picking carefully selected/chosen statistics that presented this flu as an impending global catastrophe that would kill tens, hundreds of millions and destroy the fabric of human civilization. They chose wording that was sensational and dramatic to grab attention and sell the story. They exaggerated the risk by publishing only those stories that supported their point of view, reporting on overwhelmed hospitals in Italy (the oldest population in Europe) and fast rising numbers of infections in China (with a billion people). They neglected to report aspects and events that did not support the narrative and message that they wished the public to take in.

In February and early March 2020, they laid the groundwork for their plans to take control of the population and the economy. They primed the public to anticipate some huge action and expect some comprehensive response/change. They kept repeating and expanding on the horror story they were writing in real time in newspapers and through television and government agency pundits. As is done with voter suppression legislation, the scripts were likely written by corporate think tanks with instructions from Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Military, Big Fossil Fuel, Big Ag.

Strategy: Scare the people with the specter of disease, death, and the collapse of civil society. Think your worst dystopian futures. Once primed with anxiety, in late March they yelled “fire” in the crowded theater. Suddenly we were all instructed to stop everything, run home, lock our doors and close the shutters. Students had no time to empty their lockers, or workers to clean out their offices. We were instructed to isolate, confine ourselves at home, and distance from family, neighbors, friends. Nothing was open. Everything was forced to close. Towns There was nowhere to go. Many towns ordered curfews after which people and cars were forbidden to be out. We were warned to wear masks outdoors and approach no one. People jogged alone wearing masks, or hiked in the woods wearing a masks. Many crossed the street to avoid proximity to others. Playgrounds were closed. Team sports was banned. Basketball courts were caution taped and nets removed.

The lockdown curtain fell fast and hard. The central authority decreed harsh, strict, and arbitrary draconian measures ostensibly to control spread of a virus but in reality their intent was to control the people, the workers, the rabble. Borders were closed to interstate and international travel. Motels, hotels, restaurants all closed. For most people, there was no escape.

Their authoritarian reach extended into our family lives. Family events such as weddings, baby showers, confirmations, bar mitzvahs, funerals, birthday celebrations and reunions were banned. Women had babies alone in the hospital. In need of medical treatment, people waited in emergency rooms alone, recovered from surgery alone and sometimes died alone without family by their side. Many young children never met grandparents and extended family. Old people confined to their homes withered away without socialization and exercise. Those of us lucky enough to have spacious homes and outdoor areas suffered less than others living in cramped and crowded apartments without private outdoor space. Imagine living in the projects, or other high rise apartment buildings, confined at home without space to find peace. Having to navigate stairs and elevators to exit the building, while fearful of contagion, sickness and potential death- as you’ve been instructed/warned by the experts/ the authorities.

Imagine being in lockdown, solitary confinement with a less than ideal family. With an abusive spouse. With abusive parents who may inflict physical, emotional, sexual abuse upon you. To be an LGBTQ teen trapped in a home with angry, hostile parents. To be a child, a teen, a young adult who has lost any safety net/lifeline previously available at school, church, community center, support group, neighbor’s house. To be poor and hungry and to lose that school breakfast, school lunch. To lose activities that built and supported self-esteem such as sports, performance, art and music. To lose love, romance, dating, relationships as you cower alone in your parent’s basement having cyber-sex and watching online porn. While you pay web services to seek romance and sex.

Millions of people with pre-existing anxiety, depression, PTSD and addiction experienced exacerbation/worsening and relapse of symptoms. Meanwhile, clinics, peer support groups, sobriety 12 step meetings are disbanded while the official press and government authorities hammer home the message of extreme danger from a virus and from contact with other people.

Lockdown and confinement creates boredom and anxiety and is conducive to development of unhealthy behaviors, obsessions and addictions. Anxious people trolling through Amazon, compulsive shopping. Young people spending countless hours playing video games, often hyper-violent ones. Sitting for hours in front of their television, computer, smart phone passing hours and days watching videos, social media, instagram, snapchat and tictoc. Children washing their brains with frankly stupid or even worse, inappropriate sexual and violent content. Increased drinking and drug use. What previously may have been occasional and recreational is now daily dependence, compulsion to numb, distract, self-medicate in isolation. Pornography sites offer an easy and endless stream of sex videos once you click the button that confirms you are 18. Besides millions of adults in lockdown watching numerous hours of porn, teens and tweens are probably viewing very inappropriate explicit content, changing/influencing/forming their expectations for relationships and sex.

Stockholm Syndrome: From psychiatrist Frank Ochberg:

First people experience something terrifying that comes at them out of the blue. They are certain they are going to die. Then they experience a type of infantilism- where, like a child, they are unable to eat, speak, or go to the toilet without asking permission. Small acts of kindness- such as being given food- prompts a “primitive gratitude for the gift of life.” The hostages feel a powerful primitive positive feeling towards their captor. They are in denial that this is the person who put them in that situation. In their mind, they think this is the person who is going to let them live.

And so the masters gain our passive acceptance and later endorsement of our restricted liberties and diminished existence.