Apparently, after “coordinated” online attacks by those naughty, naughty “right-wingers”, the Ministry of Truth in the US has been put on hold. Perhaps Ms. (or is it Mx ?) Lorenz should dox these people - she’s good at that.
In a way, I’m disappointed. I really was looking forward to the burgeoning career of Nina J as she adapted all the old classics and posted them on TikTok.
I am the very model of a modern Major-General
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the deaths in England, and I quote the Pharmaceuticals
From sanitize to vaccinate, in order categorical
There’s no room these days for people to independently see a dumb (and dangerous) idea and individually attack it. No - it must be coordinated by some nefarious group with a hidden agenda.
Sound familiar?
Except that in the case of the apparently coordinated response and power-grab by governments across the world because of covid there’s much more evidence in favour of the conspiracy, the coordination. Although I should note that this evidence can be interpreted differently and it could just be a bunch of governments acting independently guided only by the very best and most trustworthy science.
You see, as a good believer in government truth, when OUR side does it, it’s proper information and true (because we told you it is), but when THEIR side does it - it’s all missy, dissy and mally information and, even worse, it’s freakin coordinated!!!
That’s how the game is played.
I do appreciate the irony of the fledgling Ministry of Truth, set up to protect us from online ‘misinformation’, coordinated or otherwise, being unable to protect itself and getting taken down by online attacks - presumably from people spreading mis/dis/mal-information about the MoT itself.
We really are at war right now - and I’m not talking about a physical war like Iraq, or Ukraine, which were the subject of invasion by foreign powers - I’m talking about an ideological war. This war is being waged on all fronts. Everything we thought was true and proper a mere handful of years ago is being deliberately undermined.
You can see what a truly coordinated attack looks like - we’ve had many examples to enjoy over the last couple of years. When Ivermectin was universally derided as “horse paste”, or terms like “safe and effective” were bandied about as liberally as an STD at a brothel, or that couple of weeks when all you could read in the news about covid were stories of people dying from covid, breathlessly struggling to get the words “I wish I’d taken the vax” out from past their intubation. And who can forget those special few days where anti-vaxxers were described in hundreds of news outlets, almost simultaneously, as “a threat to democracy”?
It’s kind of hard to take anyone seriously when the phrase “threat to democracy” is trotted out in these kinds of contexts.
Some people disagree with the government : a threat to democracy
Some truckers park up in a city and employ bouncy castles : a threat to democracy
Some people question The Science™ : a threat to democracy
Some people want voter ID : a threat to democracy
Some people want free speech : a threat to democracy
All of these vicious and terrible threats to democracy. What on earth are we going to do about it? How can we possibly survive?
Even the Washington Post is concerned - their slogan being “Democracy Dies in Darkness”. You mean like the darkness of a file cabinet full of drug trial data that is being stored in some secure warehouse for 75 years WaPo?
The Ministry of Truth, set up to combat that dangerous threat to democracy that is ‘misinformation’, was going to be a bulwark against the dark forces that threaten our very freedom. You see it’s only Government Approved™ information that is safe - no threat to our democracy there. Other non-approved sources of information - well, they’re dangerous, you see.
But the best way to combat this is to sing about it on TikTok.
And it’s not just covid-denying, anti-science, anti-vaxx, tin-foil nutters we need to worry about. I’m white and so my white privilege, whiteness, and white fragility have blinded me to the appalling rise of white supremacy. It’s only now we are realizing how it permeates everything. Everything, I tell ya. It’s worse now than it has ever been.
I’m also a bloke and so enjoy a bit of toxic blokesplaining at the weekend.
Scholars have been warning us about this kind of thing for at least a quarter of a century. Here’s something published in 1999
If, as a famous dead white European man once suggested, the point of studying racism is to change it, what can we learn about ending racism by studying it as whiteness? The first part of the paper summarizes some of the major issues and findings of recent studies of whiteness in the United States. It suggests that there is a hidden life at the heart of whiteness which is about preserving a set of specifically white constructions of masculinity and femininity, and that whites' lack of consciousness about this, and about white privilege in general, have undermined antiracist efforts. It summarizes some of the ways in which working-class white privilege is gendered, and how notions of masculinity and femininity are racial. Part II examines whiteness as ambivalence about the privileges and costs of whiteness as a useful entry point for understanding impulses to white antiracism.
It seems that, despite these grave warnings, things are every bit as bad today, if not worse, as 23 years ago.
White supremacy is everywhere, patriarchy is everywhere, anti-science thinking is everywhere, anti-vaxxers are everywhere, right-wingers are everywhere - all coordinated and working away to threaten democracy.
And us humble few who have had the temerity to wonder at the utterly disastrous response to covid we’ve witnessed - WE, apparently, are the “conspiracy theorists”.
If you were white and wanted to wear your hair in dreadlocks you were castigated for stealing the hairstyle from black people. If you were white and liked cooking Mexican food you were castigated for stealing the cuisine from Latinxy people (would a black person who liked cooking Mexican food be similarly castigated? I don’t know - I suspect not. Probably something about mumble, mumble, privilege, mumble, mumble, power). Notice how this idea of “staying in your lane” was seeded.
Is it a woman? How the hell would I know? I’m not a biologist
Is this person overweight? Beats me, I’m not a doctor
Is it a pandemic? I’ve got no idea - ask an epidemiologist
Racism exists. Of course it does. There will always be people who look at someone different to them and, for some inexplicable reason, convert that into hatred. Nutjobs and loons will always be with us. Diseases will always be with us.
The existence of these things is not in question. It’s the elevation to the Great Pedestal of Catastrophe for all these things that has been the problem.
When I see all these things that (we are told) are desperate and serious threats to humanity, or democracy, I think there goes another conspiracy fearist.
So am I being a conspiracy fearist when I worry about the global power-grab that appears to be going on right now? Maybe. I can only pray that I am wrong.
I always hear “threat to our democracy” as “threat to the bureaucracy”.
Just as some people tend to confuse the state of government finances with”the economy” they also seem to confuse the ruling party with democracy.
I am a “conspiracy theorist.” I believe that men and women of wealth and power conspire. If you don’t think so, than you are what is called “an idiot.” If you believe stuff but fear the label, than you are what is called “a coward.” ~David Cullum