I Would Like To Take This Day To Honor A Masterpiece

How my favorite movie foreshadowed the beginning and end of COVID-19

When I began writing this Substack on 2-12-22, one of my early hopes was that it might last long enough to make it to November 5th. I never imagined that not only would that happen, but the degree to which it would take off. Since we have once again arrived at November 5th, I felt I needed to revise and republish this article to account for all the other parallels that have emerged over the last year.

Ever since I saw the above scene (which incidentally provides a few metaphors to our current situation) , I have always thought over how I would answer the favorite color question so I did not succumb to the same fate as the indecisive knight. However, since I have not watched all that many movies, were “What is your favorite movie?” to be asked instead, it would be much easier for me to answer it correctly.

V for Vendetta is a masterpiece and has numerous lessons that directly relate to the situation we currently find ourselves in. If you have not seen the movie, I would highly recommend you watch the movie before reading this article. For those of you who are on the fence, I will try to write this in a manner that does not spoil too much of it.

Controlling Through Fear

I would like to begin by sharing the defining speech of the movie. From listening to it, the parallels to the last few years and the lessons within it should be obvious. If you only watch one video in here, please watch this one (it’s 3:57 long).

This speech once transcribed is as follows:

Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of the everyday routine, the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration - whereby those important events of the past, usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are celebrated with a nice holiday - I thought we could mark this November the fifth, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now orders are being shouted into telephones and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?

Cruelty and injustice...intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance, coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable. But again, truth be told...if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War. Terror. Disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you and in your panic, you turned to the now High Chancellor Adam Sutler. He promised you order. He promised you peace. And all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.

Last night, I sought to end that silence. Last night, I destroyed the Old Bailey to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago, a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice and freedom are more than words - they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest that you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek...then I ask you to stand beside me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament. And together, we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever, be forgot!

Every totalitarian regime faces the same struggle—how can a small number of people get a large number of people (the general population) to comply with something which opposes their fundamental values.

One of the most effective strategies ever discovered was to do so through instilling immense fear throughout the population. For example, to quote Scott Atlas (who was a sane doctor Trump brought onto the White House’s insane Coronavirus Task Force):

As often happened, Fauci spoke up to support Dr. Birx’s concerns, saying people need to be warned even more strongly about the dangers of the virus spreading, about wearing masks and distancing. He claimed Americans didn’t think the virus was serious, and that was the reason cases spread. I was honestly surprised. I thought people were already panic-stricken. Normal life had virtually ceased to exist, even eliminating serious medical care or last visits with dying family. Meanwhile the media were on-message 24/7, instructing the public about masks and social distancing; there were signs and announcements demanding masks and diagrams about distancing e and diagrams about distancing everywhere; healthy young people were outside riding bicycles or driving their cars alone, wearing masks. Indeed, surveys showed that most adults perceived grossly exaggerated risks, particularly but not only younger people; and yes, a high percentage were obeying the edicts, distancing and wearing masks, according to virtually every published survey.

I challenged him to clarify his point, because I couldn’t believe my ears. “So you think people aren’t frightened enough?”

He [Fauci] said, “Yes, they need to be more afraid.”

To me, this was another moment of Kafkaesque absurdity. I replied, “I totally disagree. People are paralyzed with fear. Fear is one of the main problems at this point.” Inside, I was also shocked at his thought process, as such an influential face of the pandemic. Instilling fear in the public is absolutely counter to what a leader in public health should do. To me, it is frankly immoral, although I kept that to myself.”

Note: Fauci also fear-mongered for his own benefit throughout the AIDS crisis (which amongst other things created significant stigmatization towards the gay community as Fauci asserted without evidence that HIV might be transmitted without physical contact).

V for Vendetta in turn explores exactly how one can go about dismantling a vast apparatus of fear that has become so powerful, citizens are willing to surrender their fundamental rights (e.g., the danger of COVID was used to rescind the freedom of assembly, speech and bodily autonomy). It should be noted that is precisely the situation our founding fathers repeatedly warned us against. For example to quote Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Note: although this quote is widely cited, there is some disagreement over what it means. I view it as illustrating how trading liberty for safety typically is a scam that causes you to lose both.

The mass formation hypothesis (which arose from the discipline of crowd psychology) argues that if enough people believe something, it can develop a life of its own and many people will begin to fanatically believe it (to the point good people will do evil things they rationalize are for the greater good), while the rest of the population will fully comply with those zealots because they fear the consequences of challenging them.
Note: Robert Malone popularized this theory (synopsized here) because he felt it provided the best explanation of why so many well-intentioned people were pushing along the horrendous measures we saw enacted throughout COVID-19.

A key aspect of the theory is that it can only be broken if enough people take on the personal risk that speaking out against the crowd entails, as once this is done, it gives a signal to everyone else that it is safe to break from the mass formation. This in turn is why horrific systems can be in place for years if not decades, and then suddenly rapidly break apart once the right catalyst comes along.

One of the best historical examples of this was the Berlin Wall, a hated structure which separated East (communist) Germany from West Germany (which arose from agreements made at the end of World War 2). The wall was manned by guards authorized to use lethal force against anyone who attempted to cross it, and had remained unassailable for almost 40 years.

However, due to a series of events that had happened in the two preceding months, on November 9th, the government accidentally gave a message to the media that undermined the mass formation that had held the population in check:

After hearing the 9 November broadcast, East Germans began gathering at the Wall, at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates. The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. At first, they were ordered to find the "more aggressive" people gathered at the gates and stamp their passports with a special stamp that barred them from returning to East Germany—in effect, revoking their citizenship.

However, this still left thousands of people demanding to be let through "as Schabowski said we can." It soon became clear that no one among the East German authorities would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so the vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens.

Note: those events are very similar to the ending scene of V for Vendetta—and I suspect may have been the inspiration for it.

Before long, the guards yielded to those wishing to cross, citizens with flowers gathered to greet them on the Western side, people began scaling the wall, and by the end of the day, citizens began dismantling the wall. Over the next few months, guards gradually gave up on trying to stop this or repair the wall, and half a year later, official demolitions of the wall began.

Mary Elise Sarotte in a 2009 Washington Post story characterized the series of events leading to the fall of the Wall as an accident, saying "One of the most momentous events of the past century was, in fact, an accident, a semicomical and bureaucratic mistake that owes as much to the Western media as to the tides of history."

Breaking Mass Formations

V’s strategy for breaking apart the dystopian system he lived within was to:

•Bypass the society’s censors in order to expose the population to a message that emotionally resonated with them, and more importantly to show them that they were not alone (something Substack has also been invaluable for over the last few years). The speech at the start of this article is remarkable, both in that it cuts to the heart of the fear that maintains each oppressive system and because it, in many ways, is just as true for our current era as it was for V’s fictional world

•Provide a safe way for the populace to show they agreed with his message through giving everyone a mask they could wear which simultaneously expressed the message.
Note: I often think of V’s response to someone asking him who he was (this comes up a lot given my anonymity).

•Create more and more triggers for the populace to see it was safe for them to begin speaking out (e.g., V continuing to act with impunity despite the government’s best efforts to silence him or repeatedly causing a frustrated and fearful government to make a bigger and bigger fool of itself). As more and more social proof emerged for V’s message, more and more people in turn began to be willing to take on the personal risk that speaking out against the system entailed.

This is critically important, because all the research on mass formations has found that their success or failure depends upon if a minority of the population is willing to challenge them and provide a signal to everyone else to do so as well (this in turn is why I have placed such a strong focus on highlighting and encouraging the psychological characteristics that caused individuals to break from a dysfunctional narrative). While many examples of this exist throughout history, one of the most iconic images comes from Nazi Germany:

Unfortunately, in most cases, people will not be that guy, because even if they disagree with what is occurring, they are terrified of the consequences of speaking out. This is highly problematic because as fewer and fewer people speak out, totalitarian leaders can tighten the range of acceptable discourse. As history has repeatedly shown, that censorship can rapidly increase (e.g., consider what’s happened over the last decade in the United States—particularly since 2020), and before long, create situations where things each citizen believed they had an unquestionable right to criticize can easily land them in jail or worse.
Note: this happening to my family in Nazi Germany is a large part of why I’ve invested so much of my time in speaking out against things that I feel are just not right.

As V’s campaign escalates, more and more people become comfortable speaking out against the injustices they see, until eventually a national talk show host decides to risk his career (and life) by speaking out against the regime:

Recently, I was reminded of that scene after a top producer who had been at Fox News for a decade decided to forfeit his career so he could speak out against the creeping totalitarianism he was witnessing in the United States (which is covered at the very start of this segment):

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Oddly enough, this act of civil disobedience was preceded by Biden giving a eerie speech where he demonized those who didn’t vote for him (something which would typically be unacceptable in an democratic republic), and did so in a manner which perfectly mirrored the dictator from V for Vendetta.

Note: Biden’s speech juxtaposed with the fictional dictator’s speech can be viewed here.

Free Speech

One of the most important lessons many of us have learned from COVID-19 is the critical importance of free speech—after all, had mass censorship (which often dovetailed with professional repercussions for speaking out) not been enacted, it never would have been possible:

•For the people responsible for COVID-19 (e.g., Fauci and Hotez through their gain-of-function research) to have been allowed to take control of America’s response to the pandemic.

•For an unscientific, non-sensical, and incredibly destructive pandemic response (e.g., the mass lockdowns) to have been inflicted upon the Western World.

•For dangerous and unproven protocols (e.g., remdesivir) to be effectively mandated in hospitals across America.

•For safe and effective (but off-patent) COVID-19 therapies to have been effectively outlawed across America.

•For dangerous, unproven and ineffective vaccines to have been mandated upon the world despite a deluge of warnings against them.

This in turn caused many, such as Igor Chudov, to realize that free speech threatens the entire Western power structure. Since our country has enshrined freedom of speech into the Constitution, we in turn have seen a variety of creative tactics used to undermine that right such as labeling dissenting narratives as “hate speech” or “harmful misinformation,” while simultaneously giving a pass to any false or hateful claims which support the existing narratives.

This is completely unacceptable, and my sincere hope is that the events of COVID-19 were such a strong shock to the citizenry that they will catalyze a return to liberty. To a degree, this appears to have happened as many topics that only a few years ago were completely unacceptable to discuss (e.g., antidepressants causing mass shootings) are now entering the popular discourse. In short, it appears that the anonymity the internet provides is effectively serving like the Guy Fawkes masks from V and providing a way for those who do not want to follow the societal insanity to safely do so and red-pill those around them.

Note: another major point V for Vendetta made was that when the dictator rose to power, he cracked down on undesirable minorities (e.g., homosexuals), and then gradually increased the umbrella of who his secret police could target until everyone was living in fear. This is a common tactic used by totalitarian governments and why every person who has survived those regimes emphasizes that is it critical to have a society that does not persecute unpopular minorities. Currently, we are seeing a more obfuscated variant of it being utilized where the DEI mass formation has led to anyone deemed to be “intolerant” to be publicly punished by the society. However, once you look past the surface, it is the exact same playbook (and hence why I feel it is so reprehensible Biden has vocally targeted his political opposition).

A prelude to COVID-19

One of the most fascinating aspects of V for Vendetta was its foreshadowing of COVID-19. For instance in this (4:41) scene, the film explains how an engineered virus was produced and then deployed upon the population so that a fascist government could take power in order “to protect” the populace from the virus:

Since the pandemic started, we’ve seen more and more evidence that (in addition to grabbing power) many of the key players in the pandemic (e.g., Fauci, Hotez and Gates):

•Had the foreknowledge COVID-19 would happen.
•Were directly involved in the risky lab research that created the virus (e.g., by funding it).
•Were directly involved in producing questionable countermeasures for a SARS pandemic prior to 2020.
•Did everything they could to dismiss any links to the lab origin theory (which has now essentially been proven).
•Did everything they could to spread fear of the virus in the national media and censor anyone who threatened their narrative).
•Profited immensely from the pandemic.

Note: I have provided numerous sources to substantiate the all of the above assertions throughout my Substack (the only exception being that I have not found proof Gates funded GoF research).

Despite these shocking parallels, I do not believe that V’s author had the foresight to predict COVID-19 (e.g., I have friends who have worked with the author of the graphic novel the film was based upon and they do not believe Alan Moore had any ties to the Deep State or its English equivalent). Rather, I believe Moore was using a rather common motif (theme).

In one of the most memorable examples, in 2009 the eccentric dictator of Libya utilized his once in a lifetime opportunity to speak before the UN to criticize numerous aspects of the organization and argue against exactly what transpired a decade later.

There are a variety of conflicting opinions on the dictator himself as beyond being highly eccentric (which is why he would openly discuss topics like the above one), he was responsible for some highly positive and negative things within his own country. The only person I know who directly knew Gaddafi (they worked with him for decades) told that Gaddafi started out as an idealist who wanted to help Libya and then turned quite bitter after numerous people (unsuccessfully) tried to assassinate him.

Note: Shortly after this speech, Gaddafi was disposed of by a U.S. led military intervention initiated my the Clinton led State department. Many within the U.S. government (besides Hillary, who later bragged about it) questioned the wisdom of this policy (Obama considered it the worst mistake of his presidency as Libya remains decimated over a decade later), while outsiders such as Putin used it to justify their belief that the US could not remain the world’s sole superpower. Because of the controversy of this intervention, many potential motives were raised to explain it. After COVID-19 occurred, I always wondered if this speech played a pivotal role in the events which later took place.

Many others also echoed this motif after observing how the influenza “pandemics” were handled by the America government. Mike Adams for example, less than a year after Gaddafi’s speech made an over the top video satirizing the swine flu response which ended up perfectly predicting everything that happened over a decade later (which is summarized here).

At the same time, I should also note that the filmmakers who adapted V for Vendetta from a graphic novel to a motion picture have also made a variety of other monumentally impactful and prescient cinematic productions. This iconic scene for example speaks to their artistic mastery in the medium of expressive cinematography and utilizing multiple dimensions to convey their themes:

Note: years ago an associate told me that they were sent to a Chicago psychic by a friend, who in turn accurately predicted the life of my (previously skeptical) associate. They specifically recounted this story to me because both the psychic and their house was identical to that of the Oracle in The Matrix, so since the filmmaker’s grew up in Chicago, my associate often wondered if they had also visited her house. I hesitate to share this story but do given my complete trust in the authenticity of that story and because it provides another potential explanation for what inspired the filmmakers’s cinematography.

Conclusion

In late 2019 as I began reading about what was occurring in China through anonymous internet message boards, I became very worried this was going to turn into a debacle, and around New Years, I had a vision of how the next few years would unfold. Since that time, life has become the surreal experience of watching the nightmare become reality, and since 2020, I’ve tried to do what I could to stop it from happening (despite all my actions feeling like an exercise in futility).

While what’s happened has been absolutely awful, I actually am quite grateful things have unfolded the way they have, as everything could have easily become much worse. At this point, much of the public has been red-pilled on the deception around us and messages that people shouted into the winds for decades are suddenly catching on like wildfire (hence why this Substack, which I never expected to succeed, has instead gone viral).

Presently, as corruption metastasizes throughout our government, we are moving towards a very unusual period. On one hand, we are seeing a variety of unprecedented action being done by the American government (e.g., the judicial system being weaponized against the political opposition) while on the other hand there has been a profound change in the societal consciousness I’ve never seen throughout my lifetime.

All of this I believe is a consequence of the internet making the existing mode of governance (unilaterally choosing a policy and then forcing the public to accept it through a deluge of propaganda) no longer work because an almost unlimited number of private citizens can spend their free time making propaganda that runs circles around the expensive government campaigns. This in turn is requiring us to return to the alternative form of governance which had been proposed almost a century ago as the science of modern propaganda took off—creating an educated and empowered population who voluntarily supported government policies because they made sense.

I believe this is the direction we are heading in and why I too am working so hard to bring about that future and make the best use of the tremendous opportunity this moment in history has given us. At the same time however, humans always have difficulty letting go of power, and for this reason more and more outrageous attempts are being made to hold onto the power that is being lost due to the internet breaking the propaganda matrix.

Many of us believe that COVID-19 was a test run, and it is quite likely that something even worse will be attempted in order to restore regain that lost power. For this reason, it is important to remember that in the same way tyrannical systems (e.g., the Berlin Wall) which seem immortal can suddenly break apart, things can also go south very quickly—which is why it is so incredibly important to be eternally vigilant of the world around you and to do what you can to move things in a positive direction.

At the time I first wanted to write this article, the world was a very different place and some of the parallels I shared from V for Vendetta were not yet known. I believe this speaks to the timeless nature of the movie and I hope this article inspired some of you to watch it (note: I also strongly considered overtly sharing the “ideas are bullet proof” and dominos showing the threads of how everything was connected scenes but decided not to as they overtly spoil the movie). If you are unable to watch the full movie, please at least consider watching the speech at the start of this article.

Lastly, I would like to conclude this article but citing one of my favorite lines from V:

Never forget that.

Finally, I wanted to thank each of you for your support of this Newsletter—we’ve now passed 61,000 subscribers and I’m starting to periodically meet people who share that they read it (so a few of my Midwestern readers have met me without realizing it).

I have been trying to get information like this out to patients for years but over and over doing so was like trying to climb an impossibly high mountain and I never imagined I would have the opportunity to do so. Much of that has been due to each of you sharing this publication with people who you believe could benefit from it, and to thank each of you who has, I’ve set it up so that Substack will automatically provide complimentary subscriptions to you for referring this newsletter to your friends.