“You’re being had” – A View From Ardistan

Part 1
“You’re being had.” – a meme on FB

Yup. Nothing new there. From your birth, it’s been the quest of the powerful to ensure they remain in power and you are a means to preserve it through mainstream cultural socialization and indoctrination by mandatory education, whether religious or secular. For those who wish power you are also a means to attain it through exposé, critique, anti-mainstream propaganda, extremism, counter-culturalism, and terrorism. By far the majority of humanity, not up to the task or unwilling to be so, are but grist for this mill, caught in the middle surrounded by promises of salvation by seemingly well intentioned salesmen and women guided by their prophets. Incredulous stories of dark atrocities, injustice and despair abound as does bright, illuminated, ‘idyllic’ imagined futures not unlike old posters of foreign lands seeking immigrants, 1950’s era American advertising and communist propaganda posters. Of course, reality is far from the ideal and through our modern multi-stream media the real and imagined has become such a confusing mess that reality itself begins to levitate, lose its grounding, in the swirling currents of accusations, fallacious argument, emotional entreaties and diatribes all vying for some secure footing and support. Sensationalism rules the day as various media vie for everyone’s attention. The media’s ‘sound bite’ and Twitter, Snapchat feeds reduce complicated issues to overly simplistic, agree or disagree, talking points appearing more like teenage peer pressure gossip than information. Circumstantial belief looms large over rational proofs as, against logic, correlation comes to directly imply causation and guides the highly unjust court of public opinion. Denialism is seemingly widespread, but, in fact, is not as two seems like two thousand or two million on the internet and in the media. Who to believe more? Who to trust more? The ‘war’ over hearts and minds becomes more of hearts than minds.

Thus the spectre of ultra-nationalism is on the rise as a viable antidote for the idea of a ‘deep state’ supranational New World Order that is trying to unify and take over the world thereby destroying national sovereignty and rights there in. This idea is largely maintained by what’s become known as ultra right conspiracy theorists. Hitler and Nazism used the International Jewish Conspiracy to great effect in stirring up people, and not just in Germany, a few generations ago. At the time this was reflected in the USA through the Make America Great Again campaigns led by the likes of Henry Ford. For years the Communists railed against the Global Capitalist Conspiracy. Likewise the Capitalist campaign against the Global Communist Conspiracy for world domination. Today, within this foggy sphere dwell nationalists, white supremacists, fundamentalist christians, muslims and jews, extremists – old and new, left and right, anti-visible minority whites, militia survivalists, various gun nuts and gun thugs fearing for their perceived ‘right’ to bear arms and that their race is being marginalized and must be protected from the yellow, brown, black (take your pick) peril. The once feared Communist Conspiracy has been defeated, but in its vacuum fell a much less defined and far more frightening ‘terrorism’ of emboldened entities. These entities, largely unknown outside their regions and once formally controlled by either the communist East and capitalist West, now loudly express their more regional voices. In spite of that the world has been more peaceful today than it has been for several generations. But, globally, today, if not a Jewish Conspiracy then the New World Order, or one of Chinese manufacture, and if not them then an American one, it seems we can’t exist without grand conflict. It’s odd/funny/strange that one or two centuries ago it was the machinations of the British, French and Germans and 50 years ago the Cold War of the Americans and Soviets all seeking domination of some kind or another in some way or other. In a perverse way there is seemingly no shortage of foes to help arms manufacturers and dealers, legal and not, stay in a thriving business regardless of the economic collapse of global oil and restrictions brought about by Covid-19. In that sense not much has changed in 500 years!

There is a group of folks who do believe they know a rebellion, of sorts, is coming against the ancient ‘ruling’ elite, who, they believe, in one form or state or another is/are trying to take over the world. These folks openly spurn the international community, globalization and global organizations as arms of an enormous conspiracy determined to lessen individual rights in favour of the New World Order. The online groups The Storm and The Great Awakening offer their interpretations and peripheral support along with QAnon (update: June 26, 2020 – please see the latest on this in the sources below) and a host of other commentators. This rebellion, largely indistinct with so many varying voices and leaderless, will take the world to enlightenment, brotherhood, freedom and security against the agents of a New World Order (NWO), such as wealthy folk like Soros and the Gates’, US Democrats, European aristocratic ‘royal’ families, particularly that of Queen Elizabeth II, not-so-secret secret societies both real and imagined like the Bilderberg Group, Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Priory of Sion, Bohemian Grove, Freemasonry, Committee of 300, Knights Templar. Add to this list of well known entities, self serving and self enriching politicians, mainstream media, scientists, pedophiles, socialists and Chinese communist/capitalists who sow disunity for their own enrichment, and who currently rule the world. Meanwhile, the vague QAnon group supposedly exposing in cryptic messages if only barely circumstantially, “deep state” conspiracies and plots to overthrow the world by Democrats, George Soros and many Hollywood celebrities. And very similar to fishing, a kind of bait, a claim with tenuous links to facts, is put on the hook that will draw attention to it by the conventional, or so called ‘mainstream’, sources of investigation, journalists of various media. Most often spurious claims are largely dismissed, but once in a while a claim gets attention and is bitten on and the resulting investigation has a life of its own, sometimes causing pain and injury to innocent people. The investigation is complicated and lengthy as determining fact from fiction and then determining actual causation beyond just correlation takes time. Good journalism takes time, bad ‘journalism’ mere moments. In the meantime, media favourable to the gist of the claim, that being to sow doubt rather than expose truth, use it to further their own political or financial goals and simply complicate matters for their own benefit. Of course, to gather attention the claim is sensationalized, over reported and further complicated as every little bit of information is shifted through and somebody somewhere determines what is important to report regardless of whether it’s true or false. In the end the claim is de-bunked, the hook removed, confessions and apologies made, but still doubt remains in some minds and the claim lays on the bank spasmodically twitching to life. The ‘pizzagate’ controversy is the best example of such a thing, see link below for details of this truly horrible story. Occasionally, when it suits them or some goal, a politician will repost some QAnon, or other alternate media, messages regardless of their veracity. This, of course, leads to further muddying of the water, deflection of scrutiny and inflames discontent on all sides. All of this further opens the door for home grown extremists, perceiving instability to take matters into their own hands. White and right wing in particular being the most noticeable, both secular and religious, voice their demands and make violent overtures to ensure they are heard as they see their world conspiring against them. It’s odd these right leaning conspiracy theorist folks fear the NWO when in fact they are hoping for one of their making to replace the OWO (Old World Order).

If we are being had, the question is by who and what? If we are being had in our current state, is that such a bad thing? Are we being had by those ‘conspiracy theorists’ who would like to trade places of power? Are we not then simply trading in one ruling elite for another? Tossing out one set of freedoms and restrictions for other, perhaps opposite, freedoms and restrictions, is this the blue pill versus red pill choice? One ‘rulers and the ruled’ perfect view of humanity gives way to new ‘rulers and the ruled’ perfect view of blissful humanity? And if mainstream media is an arm of propaganda for the elite and NWO, it stands to reason the alternate media is a propaganda arm of the ‘who’? Conspiracy theorists themselves, this ragtag bunch? If we know who the elite are, or may be, promoting the NWO, who are the elite of the opposing point of view? When advocating for truth why be untruthful? Why do they not come forward and champion their cause? Why leave it to disparate malcontent voices of cranks? This is my anti-conspiracy theory conspiracy theory.

But, by and large, and frustratingly so for the ultra-extremists, the folks in the middle, the ruled, adaptive and seemingly resistant as ever to the ebb and flow tide of power, remain unchanged.

part 2 Where do we go from here? coming soon

Some sources

Top 10 Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories

https://www.alternet.org/2010/08/top_10_right-wing_conspiracy_theories/

Top 10 Secret Societies