BY JAMES MELVILLE

Sooner or later the people in this country are going to realise the government doesn’t give a fuck about them. the government doesn’t care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn’t give a fuck about you. It’s interested in it’s own power. That’s the only thing…keeping it, and expanding wherever possible.

^{George Carlin}

Literally everything is questionable now. The lines between fact and fiction have become blurred. What our leaders and mainstream media peddle as the truth is often misinformation. And what is really the truth is smeared as misinformation. In an era of rolling news and social media, the bamboozle has captured us. In particular, our ‘elites’ masquerading their greed as virtue. 

Jean Baudrillard (below) has been referred to as “the high priest of postmodernism.” He theorised that the hyperreal is “more real than real”: something fake and artificial comes to be more definitive of the real. Baudrillard’s observation holds true now more than ever. The modern world is a simulacrum, where reality has been replaced by false messaging and imagery, to such an extent that one cannot distinguish between the real and the unreal. And as a result of this, everyone squabbles through the prism of their own confirmation biases to claim what they consider to be their own truths, when actually they are blindsided by their own false superiority of sanctimony and virtue. 

As a consequence of this mentality, we end up arguing about the washing up while the house burns down around them. And those who hold the matchsticks and petrol are laughing their heads off.

The matchsticks and petrol holders are a sociopathic group of individuals in the world that have an unquenchable thirst for power and money, and they don’t care what they have to do to get it. And that includes tricking people into thinking they are the virtuous good guys who are here to keep us all safe. And tragically, millions of people are completely duped by this. What we have witnessed over the Covid response, the war in Ukraine, the Net Zero agenda on climate change and many other current issues is a movement of faux-virtue that has been carefully crafted by corrupt politicians, messengers within legacy media outlets, greedy corporations, messiah delusional billionaires and undemocratic technocrats to create the impression that they are the virtuous ones who are our friends. These people are not our friends. Their primary objective is to hoodwink us into believing and complying to their virtue, but in reality being tricked into giving away more freedoms, power, wealth and assets to these virtue vultures. 

A prime example of this bogus and at times, distastefully hypocritical virtue grandstanding is shown at the annual virtue ego-fest of The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP). While our private jet and motorcade travelling political leaders hypocritically virtue signal at COP27 in Egypt (sponsored by Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest plastic bottle polluter), they have conveniently forgotten that their Covid responses significantly contributed to an environmental catastrophe. Over 3 billion Covid masks now pollute the oceans. But shhh. This is barely mentioned within the walls of the COP27 conference rooms. It’s an inconvenient truth that doesn’t fit into their virtue narrative. 

The reality of all of this is that we are sleepwalking towards the biggest asset grab in the history of the planet. They are trying to destroy farms, land, businesses, freedoms, housing, individual wealth, travel and own them or sell them off to the highest bidder. And at the same time, they are trying to ring-fence society into the entrapment of being controlled by data – either through health passports or the slow mission creep towards central banking digital currencies (CBDCs). It’s a giant asset grab of what we own and control. They frame all of this being in our best interests. But it’s the biggest swindle ever.

This gargantuan virtue con-trick also comes with a huge slice of authoritarianism. Anyone who sees through it, questions it, stands up to it or shows opposition to it are immediately ridiculed and ostracised by the group-think virtue mob:

Question the Covid response? 
“Covidiot”
Question the war?
“Putin apologist”
Question net zero?
“Climate change denier”

This is gutter politics designed to shut down and undermine any opposition or questioning.

We should always question the set narrative driven by the established elites, and ignore their attempts to begrudge our questioning and opposition towards this. Asking questions on the war does not make someone a Putin sympathiser. Asking questions on the Covid response does not make someone a Covid denier. Asking questions on Net Zero does not make someone a climate change denier.

But not questioning the virtue narrative is a huge form of denial. Because any government, technocrat or organisation that advocates medical discrimination, suppression of civil liberties and a transfer of wealth and public assets to the rich while the rest of society endures a cost of living crisis is not your friend. Don’t be fooled by their virtue. It’s a giant con. In reality, they are indulging in a massive asset grab. They are treating the world as feudal overlords indulging in their own personal fiefdoms while us plebs are left to feed off the crumbs from their table – but all under the guise of “it’s for our own good” or “safety” while pretending to be humanistic and empathetic convincingly, along with glib charm, is the primary weapon that power hungry sociopaths use along with dogmatic zealotry. Religious leaders used heaven and hell as a form of social control. Today, our politicians and media use health and safety as a form of social control.

Fake virtue peddled by governments, rulers and authorities for mass compliance and social control is oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook. Don’t be fooled by it. Don’t sleepwalk towards it. Instead, walk away from it. Because when totalitarianism arrives, it will come cloaked in virtue. But, as George Carlin said, they don’t care about you. But they want to fool you into thinking that they do. 

James Melville is Managing Director of the communications consultancy, East Points West, based in Cornwall, London and Scotland. He also writes regularly for Al Jazeera.