I think it's worse than even all of this. What really lies behind these totalitarian mass-media assertions "we and your government (because there is not much difference anymore) are the sole arbiters of what is real and true" is mantaining the value of money, which has always been the really big lie we all are suposed to live by. So it's not really "the best way to keep the peace" or "the best way to manage a staged pandemic" that is important. These are just practice tournaments _during_ the big game, which is the value of money. Capitalism worked whilst there were natural resources to exploit. Then the real value of money was its power to buy natural resources, principally oil and the raw materials necessary for making weapons that could be used in the Middle East, Africa and latin America. When the natural resources started to become scarce the new capital had to be invented: ideas, mostly really bad ones like "how to make money running a fake international airline business" are now worth more than anything real. Those businesses aren't really profitable. What is profitable is just being one of those businesses and getting the Fed's bailouts.
I think it's worse than even all of this. What really lies behind these totalitarian mass-media assertions "we and your government (because there is not much difference anymore) are the sole arbiters of what is real and true" is mantaining the value of money, which has always been the really big lie we all are suposed to live by. So it's not really "the best way to keep the peace" or "the best way to manage a staged pandemic" that is important. These are just practice tournaments _during_ the big game, which is the value of money. Capitalism worked whilst there were natural resources to exploit. Then the real value of money was its power to buy natural resources, principally oil and the raw materials necessary for making weapons that could be used in the Middle East, Africa and latin America. When the natural resources started to become scarce the new capital had to be invented: ideas, mostly really bad ones like "how to make money running a fake international airline business" are now worth more than anything real. Those businesses aren't really profitable. What is profitable is just being one of those businesses and getting the Fed's bailouts.