In a speech delivered before the Institute Of Public Affairs in Australia, writer and podcaster Brendan O’Neill suggested that ‘lockdown amnesia’ is a consequence of the shame people experienced during the Covid lockdowns.
Based on his observations that many people have completely forgotten some of the most outrageous violations of individual rights and freedoms perpetrated by governments during the Covid lockdowns – including the lockdowns themselves – O’Neill contends that “the state is complicit in cultivating this culture of forgetting.”
His view is reminiscent of Ches Crosbie‘s (of Canada’s National Citizens Inquiry) call to end the “censorship industrial complex” that he identified as also being complicit in cultivating a culture of fear and ignorance. “It must be eliminated before the truth reaches enough people and a proper reconciliation can be pursued.”
The censorship industrial complex is indeed ‘complex’ and can be said to include the ‘amnesia industry’ and the intentional manipulation of memory.
But one must wonder how much of the impetus ‘to forget’ is actually driven by shame or how much is driven by the fear of being held accountable. Either way, it appears that a great reckoning is on the horizon.
As more and more of the destructive and negative consequences of everything to do with the lockdowns become impossible to ignore and avoid, attempting to erase the causal history behind all of the destruction appears to be a viable backup strategy to keep a significant part of the public in the dark.
“It is an abomination to forget what happened,” warns O’Neill, “It is essential to remember to protect ourselves from the possibility it will happen again in the future.”
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the entire ‘culture of forgetting’ is the number of people who have forgotten what is Just Right, and in so doing, have just Left themselves to be manipulated by those who would destroy them.
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One Response to “861 – Lockdown amnesia-jumping down the memory hole”
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I found Brendan O’Neil’s presentation exemplary–until he mentioned the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7th. He then smeared all those who protest against Israel’s grotesque over-reaction since, in which they have killed over 30,000 Palestinians, close to half of them women and children. Anyone who has been paying attention to the protests knows that they are not anti-semitic, that many of the protestors are Jews, and that the protests are aimed at stopping the violence of the Israeli state. As the old saying goes, “two wrongs do not make a right”. Demanding that there be a cease fire in Gaza, that Israel stop dropping bombs on defenseless civilians, is not a denial that there was a Hamas attack on October 7th that killed people. Indeed, O’Neil should be asked WHY October 7th happened. He is, ironically, erasing the entire history of the relationship between Palestinians and Israel. October 7th did not just appear out of a vacuum. We need to consider the whole picture.