Last updated on 9th April 2021
If the pandemic has created one thing, it is controversy, leaving many governments feeling that they are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. But while justifying their actions with the need to keep society safe, the implications of a prolonged lockdown, societal breakdown, unemployment, depression and isolation could be far more reaching then the virus itself.
As such, the Daily Telegraph recently wrote an article titled ‘State of Fear: How Ministers Used Covert Tactics to Keep People at Home. The article is thought provoking, especially as governmental officials have been accused of ‘Weaponising Fear.’ And in some government papers it clearly advocates the use of ‘terror tactics to ensure that a lackadaisical and skeptical society is frightened into complying with the rules. Furthermore, other documents advocate different ‘scare tactics’, with these tactics being rated and their ‘negative spill overs’ calculated. One favourite is to use the media to ‘increase the sense of personal threat’. Even so, some officials have expressed their concern at the ‘British public being subject to an unevaluated psychological experiment without being told what is happening!’ The result of the elite forcing a situation to go the way they want it to go, rather than doing what is best for the people and the country.
As Terry Pratchett wrote in Interesting Times: “The Empire’s got something worse than whips all right. It’s got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do.”
As I said, the article provides plenty of food for thought and can be accessed online at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/02/state-fear-ministers-used-covert-tactics-keep-scared-public/ (for subscribers only
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
