The Emperor's New Clothes
This is the story of our time.
The Emperor was scammed by fake weavers, who used a clever trick: They posed as experts in their craft and declared their work invisible to simpletons. In other words, if you did not go along with the scam, it was because you were stupid or of low character. Or, in modern parlance, you were a conspiracy theorist or an anti-vaxxer.
The story applies to so many facets of present narrative — from Joe Biden’s transparently declining cognitive capacity to the preposterously phony war on “disinformation,” there is stiff competition for the best example. But if I had to choose, it would be the “safe and effective” mRNA shots — they check all the boxes: veneration of “experts”, political and business interests masquerading as “The Science” and disparagement of those who were skeptical as stupid, selfish, childish and evil. Any questioning of the safety or efficacy of the mRNA shots could get you attacked by angry online mobs, deplatformed from social media or even fired from your job.
Why are people going along with the “safe and effective” narrative in the face of an unprecedented number of adverse effects, the sketchy track record of large pharmaceutical companies in putting profits above safety, the rush of these products to market more quickly than any prior vaccine, the fact it has not been updated to reflect the new strains, its quickly-waning efficacy such that multiple boosters are already needed in fewer than 18 months, the fact it doesn’t stop (and may increase) the spread and the relatively mild nature of the virus for those under 50 who don’t have pre-existing conditions? Surely, this emperor’s pale, flaccid gluteus maximi are flapping about in public view.
There are certain conditions under which people are especially likely to pretend the naked emperor is dressed, all of which have been met in this case:
Many powerful people are pot-committed to “safe and effective.”
Everyone knows powerful people are committed.
Everyone knows that everyone knows powerful people are committed.
Every elected official who required mandates, every corporation who forced people to get the shot as a condition for employment, the corporate news media, its on-air hosts, executives and board members, every doctor who advised it, many parents who gave it to their kids, every person who shamed others for not going along — and there were many — heads of state, the CDC, the WHO, etc. are pot committed. (Pot-committed is a poker term for when someone has put such a large percentage of his chips into a pot there is virtually no way he can fold his hand.)
If the mRNA shot were shown to be unsafe, the liability, both legally (I know they received a waiver under the EUA, but fraud, for example, would invalidate that), reputationally and worse (criminal prosecutions might be warranted, given it was mandated) would be catastrophic for them. In other words, many of the world’s most powerful people have a lot to lose if the mRNA shots were shown to have harmed and/or killed thousands of healthy young people who were at minuscule risk from covid itself. They will not easily be persuaded this happened, and they have massive incentives to destroy anyone making headway in persuading others. There are powerful forces who need you to view the emperor as clothed.
The second condition is that everyone is well aware of this. Any researcher contemplating speaking out or going deeper into the data to that end knows he could be blackballed, cut off from funding and any prospect at a career in science or academia. Any person who speaks up knows he could lose his job, get deplatformed or run afoul of the soon-to-be-created Bureau of Disinformation. In fact, you would expect the powerful to create just such a bureau under these conditions — when they have too much to lose should the word get out.
Finally, it’s not simply that everyone knows, but that everyone knows that everyone knows, i.e., per Ben Hunt, it’s common knowledge that you don’t screw with the pharmaceutical cartels and those who do their bidding. It’s not just you who are deterred, but you know everyone else has a similar deterrent. People who blow the whistle therefore expect to be ridiculed, destroyed and tarred as conspiracy theorists and also don’t expect their friends and colleagues to come to their aid.
With these three conditions present, we can all hail the incredibly safe and effective mRNA treatments are a miracle! Thank God we have them and are finally able to get out of this pandemic! The emperor has such a wonderful suit of clothes!
In the story, it took a child to blurt out the obvious, that the emperor was exposing his sagging, unsightly posterior. Interestingly, once he did, everyone else acknowledged the obvious, but the emperor — and members of his procession, who were going along — went on with the show. They were in too deep to back out.
I suspect that’s going on now — the child has noticed, word is getting out. They are desperately trying to shut it down with the most Orwellian measures (Bureau of Disinformation!) They will not succeed, but lasting damage has been done, and more will be inflicted before it’s over. The biggest question now is the lengths to which the emperor’s minions will go — creating a ministry of truth is extreme, but that pales in comparison to, say, starting World War III.
There are other reasons for a world war too — the collapse of the giant global debt bubble and the fallout therefrom — but in both cases the stakes are nearly infinite for those responsible, given how much damage has been done to the average person. We’d be wise not to underestimate the risks they’d run to avoid accountability.