Illusion

Let us imagine that I am writing a story. It is about a totalitarian country which wants to control the world, and uses many techniques in that effort.

They have an adversary whose country, if they cannot take over, they want to cause chaos and disruption in. They had managed to actually install a man as head of that country. Maybe they bought him, maybe they blackmailed him, or subjected him to mind control techniques which convinced him that the totalitarian country was his friend. Or maybe he was already of like mind for decades.

So they got him to run for leader of the adversary country, and then took advantage of the new technologies which had captured the minds of tens of millions of people, to where they would believe anything put on the media or computer sites. Lies, doctored photographs, completely fabricated stories of conspiracies. So that the people had no idea what was false, and what was true, and would be likely to believe what the agents of the totalitarian country, and their hand-picked candidates, would say about anything.

And they got him elected, and put in power. And they used him for their ends. One of those ends was to be able to take over another country which had immense natural resources. They were confident that their tool, or agent, or dupe, that they had installed, would enable them to do that, so that they might not even have to fight a war of destruction and conquest.

But this agent was unable to keep power long enough to force the country that they wanted to conquer, to acquiesce, or their leader to be removed. So they then went ahead with the war.

As the war continued, so they continued their efforts to take over their powerful rival, or at least disrupt them. They wanted to install some political figures in that country who would be on their side, and would help to propagandize in their favor. They already had control of the most watched cable news network, which supported them, rather than the democracy they were fighting the war against.

So in that effort, they found at least one person willing to do what they wanted They brainwashed him, or bought him, or took advantage of his greed, ambition, and nature as a pathological liar, or maybe all of it. They were gong to install him into office, into the legislative body of their rival, the body which was appropriating funds to the country that the totalitarian state was fighting the war against. He would be a voice for them; and of course the news network they controlled, would give him a regular forum, in the effort to stop that country from sending funds and weapons to the war.

But this dupe, this tool, or agent, had to win his race. He needed to be made over, to be turned into a lie, the way that they had managed to turn the internet into a miasma of lies in order to get their agent elected as head of the country six years earlier.

They gave him plastic surgery. One could see the smoothing, the plasticine face. the vacuousness of expression. They like the concept of plastic surgery. Then they needed to invent a new identity for him.

He was very malleable. The totalitarian state is a country which hates Jewish people, so how amusing would it be to have their dupe pretend that he is Jewish. He would go to Jewish organizations, and enlist their support in his campaign. He would claim that he had been a corporate executive, who employed many people, some of whom were killed in the 9/11 attacks. That would gain him sympathy. He would say that he had gone to the best schools, when he had not gone to any of them. And he would say that he was wealthy, when he was actually working in a call center before being groomed for office.

And then they gave him money. They always have money. They gave him at least $700,000 which he claimed to have loaned to his campaign. But that was not his money, it was their money, used for their purposes.

And somehow, and they may have counted on this, or didn’t even need it, the party that was the opponent of the party their created persona was running as a member of, did not have the capacity to find out what a fraud and lie was being perpetrated. Not one word did the public hear about any of this. It is very hard to believe, but this is a story that you are to imagine that I am writing. Then, six weeks after the election, a major newspaper, one which had almost certainly helped the totalitarian candidate win the election for head of their adversary, six years before, wrote a long article about the avalanche of lies from their candidate, who had been elected.

How was it that they did not have this information during the entire campaign? Or did they have it, and deliberately hold it, as they have made a practice of doing? Consider that.

Conveniently for the totalitarian state, it appeared to be too late, at least for those people who believe in democracy. The party which the fraud candidate belonged to, only cares about winning and power, so they wanted him to stay in his elected position, no matter how he got there. The totalitarians had counted on that.

The totalitarians celebrated the victory. They had plans underway to do this again, many times. They would find more people who would take their money and accept their control. They would invent more resumes, more false identities. Who knows what to believe?, that is their byword and unofficial motto. Maybe this or that person supports us, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe she is in our employ, maybe she just decided to leave the party where she ran for President. Maybe he is rich, maybe he is poor. Maybe he is of this ethnicity and religion, maybe he is not. Maybe gay, maybe not. Just listen to what we tell you, and then realize how stupid and credulous you are.

And they dd not stop with this, but intended to accelerate it. Create bots who looked like people, and put them in as candidates. Write programs which come out of their mouths as words. Create faces which were malleable, smooth and devoid of personality. Like commercials. Buy us. Vote for us. Use other bots to push these candidates, like they do with movies or drugs. Fake people telling you that the products worked for them, or that they loved the movie, and that anyone who didn’t, is stupid or unappreciative.

Who will know if the next candidate is a real person; a jerk, but real, or a bot? You can try to figure out what his or her positions are, that will give you a clue, but they can lie about that, too, just as with newspaper and broadcast headlines about emails, or internet fantasies about cannibalism, have done.

Who is George Santos? Who created him? Who controls him, or his image on the screen? That is the story which I ask you to imagine that I am writing.

“The beam becomes my dream/My dream is on the screen/Fade away, and radiate” (Blondie, 1978).

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