The fear was a real, but exaggerated threat.
When President Trump declared a national lockdown last year, something troubled me. It seemed strange to hide from a virus. This had never been done before in the history of mankind—though of course it was not possible till now.
It became more and more obvious that the virus was not deadly to most. More importantly the lockdowns did not save lives due to a variety of complex factors. So the Bubonic Plague itself could not justify such destructive measures if they did not work.
Online I encountered a ready made campaign filled with mindless slogans. These served both as propaganda and advertisements.
It wasn’t just a matter of “Stay home to save lives.” They were selling us a bill of goods the way advertisers do.
Advertisers say things like:
You deserve X.
Using Brand Y will make you irresistible.
Buy Z to become a worthwhile individual.
The campaign “sold” us nonsense like this.
Staying home saves lives.
Heroes wear masks.
We’re in this together.
I’ve always had a dislike for commercials since the lies they tell me are insulting even as they flatter. Like a drunken (and desperate) man, praising me for my beauty and charm in a slurred voice, while barely able to sit upright.
How do those corporate disciples of Edward Bernays know what I—an individual they don’t know from Adam—deserve? If Brand Y is readily available why should it make me more irresistible than any of the other countless consumers watching? One does not buy things to become worthwhile.
It’s all a false promise of gain, gain with no pain. Just like the bill of goods found in the Covid propaganda.
You don’t have to do anything to help others or go out of your way to save lives. Just sit home and be a couch potato. Let the State love your neighbor.
Wearing a rag over your face makes you a true hero. Move over William Wallace, Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Levi Coffin, Paul Revere, the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste… Anyone can be a hero now for the cheap, easy act of donning a face mask—and forcing everyone else to do so.
We are in this together. While we isolate at home. And quarrel on antisocial media as the closest form of human connection. And the white collar workers who could get paid from home mocked those going out of business or afraid of losing their homes. I call BE. Bovine Excrement!
Anyone who questioned the narrative was condemned as cruel, selfish. Even murderous.
There was no room left for discussion. It was an “established fact” that human faces were deadly and human breath a deadly pestilence.
I was no worse off financially than before the “plague” began. But it troubled me to see my neighbors facing bankruptcy. To see the looks of traumatized children—isolated and terrified of “infecting grandma.” Or getting sick and dying themselves.
(Covid is no worse than the flu for kids. Many bad cases were really bacterial pneumonia due to forced masking at those public schools. Those masks as worn by kids are unhygienic and unhealthy. Looking at a muzzled child makes me want to weep and scream at the same time.)
I donned a mask myself since I wasn’t sure why the media and politicians wanted everybody afraid. And it was hard to persuade people to even consider they might be mistaken. Or have an agenda. More power for our state officials seemed like an obvious motive.
Had a woman on antisocial media call me out for “masking up” for the wrong reasons. I had said that I was happy to observe the mask mandate to keep my neighbors’ businesses open. According to her I “didn’t care about saving lives” so my oxygen depriving self effacement didn’t count.
Never mind the fact that I disagree that masks save lives after doing a bunch of research outside of Big Tech. Because propaganda puppets and corporate shills on the idiot box said otherwise that kind will consider me a murderer. Fine. Considering the source I’ll take that as a complement.
In 2020, the agents of Hell accomplished a notable thing. With the help of their human pawns in the MSM they managed to sell cowardice as a virtue.
The Weapons Used
They used the two keys to manipulate people: fear and ignorance.
People are, generally, very risk adverse; doubly so for their kids and parents. What is a better means to induce fear than about health? Especially over something "novel" and of which they know nothing and can understand nothing about. Of course, in order to combat fear we apply the antidotes of knowledge and wisdom. So subvert the knowledge and wisdom of people.