Sidebar: I keep hearing allusions to Dec 17 UFO US govt revelations as a psyop. Is there a good write-up on this theory? I concur that at first glance it was odd and came out of the blue and seemed to have almost no lasting impact, which leads one to suspect it was designed to have no lasting impact, the way you try to sneak bad news into a Friday 6pm press release or something. Tying it to the Blink182 dude seems also crafted to turn up the meme-factor.
I'm one of those folks who believe that you control mankind by controlling its belief system, so it's serious business.
I don't think you can take the idea that it had 'no lasting impact' at face value. For starters we don't know what impact it had. We know that nobody talked about it much across the media that are usually talking about each other's content. That's not odd in this context. It happens routinely. Its a conversation people prefer to have in private. The media dampens down a lot of stuff that is contentious or edgy. Stuff gets reported one day and there is no further mention of it. Maybe the editor/owner doesn't want that content in their paper? Maybe the journalists have no belief the content is real and don't want to repeat it? Maybe some government dude said 'stop it'?
I don't think you can 'control' via beliefs, but you can certainly influence and persuade and manipulate. The CBC's Ideas program's show 'Woke Washing: the problem with 'branding' social movements' is a disturbing and sobering.
https://podcast-a.akamaihd.net/mp3/podcasts/ideas-QgL0O6OF-20190612.mp3
I am reading (audiobook) Graham Hancock's 'America Before' at the moment. Graham exposes the determined efforts to block awareness of an alternative history of humanity (based on a mountain of data). Its been his passion for ages, and he has been slowly amassing data and argument that is now beyond compelling.
Between all the influences of religious dogma, materialism, politics, marketing and the general run of cultural and intellectual fantasies and fashions, nurture and the plain psychology of personal experience you gotta marvel that we think we have any sense of reality at all.
For me the idea that there is some masterly influence pulling the levers is crazy. There are undoubtedly some who imagine they are. And we see the sorry wreckage of their delusions littering history. The complexity of human experience and the diversity of individuals is such that its a lot like herding cats. There will always be breakouts, the non-compliant, the non-conformist and downright cranky radicals.
The Dec 17 thing could also be just what it seems - a one-off flash - because that's all it was ever going to be. The temptation to overthink things is strong in this age of conspiracy theories. Now, I have no doubt there are real conspiracies to distort and conceal truth. But that's par for the course in a complex culture. But organised to the level many claim? I am not convinced. I have not yet come across a single argument that has nailed a case for me. Mind, some have come close, and are in my uncertain file.
For me the maxim that 'the price of liberty is eternal vigilance' holds especially true when it comes to our intellectual and spiritual freedom -m and I hold conspiracy theories just as dangerous as the 'lies' they claim to liberate us from.