How to Escape the Matrix

Tips for recognizing false or probably false representations of what is going on.

Agent Smith in “The Matrix”

This morning a friend sent me a link to a long essay about our U.S. government’s ever-blundering Middle East policy, which included a citation of a 2019 Jerusalem Post report headlined: Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided. The report explains Netanyahu’s policy of supervising the transfer of funds from Qatar to Hamas:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s regular allowing of Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza, saying it is part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, a source in Monday’s Likud faction meeting said. …

The Jerusalem Post piece reminded me that within Israel, criticism and debate about government policy is the norm. This contrasts with the public forum in the United States, in which criticizing Israeli government policy is usually excoriated as being “antisemitic.” The report further states:

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, who resigned as head of the Defense Ministry over Gaza policies, said on Saturday that the payments are a “miserable decision,” marking “the first time Israel is funding terrorism against itself.”

Though I can’t be sure of the veracity of the Jerusalem Post report, it strikes me as credible. Upon reading it, I immediately thought of all the vehement assertions I’ve heard in recent months about perfidious Iran providing financial support for Hamas. So, what am I to make of this 2019 Jerusalem Post report that not Iran, but Qatar is a major funder of Hamas, with Israel supervising the flow of funds into Gaza?

It reminds me of the salient fact that most of the the September 11, 2001 hijackers were Saudi and Egyptian boys, some of whom received funds directly from the Washington D.C. Riggs Bank account of Prince Bandar bin Sultan’s wife, Haifa. In other words, NOT Saddam Hussein, but the Saudi Ambassador to the United States—a close pal of President George W. Bush—provided support for the hijackers.

Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, I’ve been in the habit of investigating major domestic and foreign policy stories, and I’ve noticed a conspicuous pattern—namely, the U.S. government and our mainstream media constantly lie about everything.

This brings me to the title of this post: How to Escape the Matrix. To do so, you must start with the following advice offered by the head of a mental health hospital in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether:”

You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”

Upon reading this, the reader will doubtless object that if he is to believe nothing he hears, he might as well just give up trying to understand anything about what is going on the world. I sympathize with this frustration, and I therefore propose this posture of extreme skepticism as a starting point. From this initial posture of skepticism, one may venture forth with an inquiry guided by the following practical tips.

TIP 1: Ask yourself what major interest group may be propagating the narrative.

Anytime we are told something of great import by our government and MSM, one should consider if the representation pertains to a decision that will result in:

1). A transfer of large sums of public money.

2). The use of military force.

3). The exertion of emergency or other extraordinary power.

4). A substantial benefit or advantage for political, financial, or industrial interests.

If any of the above is at play, it’s likely that what we are being told is NOT the objective truth of the matter, but a biased or distorted account that serves a powerful lobby or interest group.

TIP 2: Bear in mind that both political parties in the United States have been captured by interest groups. While the Democratic Party is more vulnerable to the influence of criminally insane interest groups, the Republicans in Washington rarely if ever take a principled stand for the citizenry. For example, with the exception of Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, Republican Senators went along lockstep with the suppression of early treatment for COVID-19.

TIP 3: Review the statements and publications by key players in any major interest group. This is especially useful in stories concerning the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex. Congress produces endless Kabuki Theater about gain-of-function work on bat coronaviruses that could have ultimately produced SARS-CoV-2. Senator Rand has repeatedly grilled Fauci about his NIH grants for such research, and Fauci has boldly lied about it.

At the same time, Congress NEVER subpoenas Professor Ralph Baric at UNC Chapel Hill. To understand the truth of the matter, one need only read the 2015 paper titled A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence by Veneet Menachery, Zhengli-Li Shi, Ralph Baric, et al. This study plainly states that the authors conducted Gain-of-Function research on bat coronaviruses in order to make them infectious to primary human airway epithelial cells and succeeded in their endeavor.

Likewise, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and the World Economic Forum often tell the world about their schemes. For almost fifteen years, Bill Gates repeatedly stated his ambition to vaccinate all of humanity as frequently as possible. In 2010 he declared, “We must make this the decade of vaccines.” To pursue this objective, his foundation collaborated with the WHO, UNICEF, and NIAID “to increase coordination across the international vaccine community and create a Global Vaccine Action Plan.” Nine years later—at the January 2019 WEF meeting in Davos—he announced his foundation’s return on the $10 billion it had invested in vaccine development.

“We feel there’s been over a 20-to-1 return, yielding $200 billion over those 20 or so years,” he told CNBC’s Betty Quick on Squawk Box. This was, as he’d written in an essay for the Wall Street Journal the week before, “The Best Investment I’ve Ever Made.”

In other words, Bill Gates is obsessed with vaccines, wants everyone to get them, and has made $200 billion on his $10 billion investment in mass vaccination. The Gates Foundation also wields vast influence in the mass media. On August 21, 2020, the Columbia Journalism Review published long, meticulous report titled “Journalism’s Gates keepers.” The reporter, Tim Schwab, found $250 million of Gates Foundation grants to radio and television newsrooms (including $17.5 million to NPR alone) newspapers, journalism organizations, and advertising firms that create content.

The Foundation has also given grants to the Poynter Institute and Gannett, whose PolitFact and USA Today fact checking departments have defended Gates from what they characterize as “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation” about his influence over public health policy. As the author pointed out, “The full scope of Gates’s giving to the news media remains unknown because the foundation only publicly discloses money awarded through charitable grants, not through contracts.”

Consider this whenever you hear politicians, journalists, and academics insisting that ALL vaccines are “safe and effective.”

TIP 4: Consider that major government actions, including aid packages and bailouts, are invariably for the benefit of specific industries, interest groups, and preferred foreign countries. Whenever we are being blitzed with claims that a crisis is afoot, there are invariably interest groups that are already positioned to benefit from the crisis.

TIP 5: Get rid of your television. This is especially important if you have kids. Though estimates vary, it seems that the average American adult watches about 3 hours per day. Watching TV draws one’s mind ever deeper into the Matrix. Though I’ve wasted my own share of time, I’m proud to say that I haven’t watched television in 35 years. Much of the 38,000 hours I could have spent watching television I have spent reading or conversing with friends.

TIP 6: Do not trust stories that are being presented to you on your social media feeds unless you have already thoroughly vetted the sources. Social media algorithms quickly ascertain your biases and ruthlessly reinforce them by presenting you with more of the same kind of reporting.

TIP 7: Beware of the propaganda technique known as “flooding the zone.”

On the evening of September 7, 2021 Late-Night comedy hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers all joked about America’s multitude of rubes taking “horse dewormer” instead of getting vaccinated. Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were the most cutting.

We’ve still got a lot of pan-dimwits out there. People are still taking this ivermectin. You know the poison control centers have seen this spike in calls from people taking this livestock medicine to fight the coronavirus. But they won’t take the vaccine, which is crazy. ... Dr. Fauci has said that if the hospitals get any more overcrowded, they’re going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU bed. That choice doesn’t seem so tough to me. Vaccinated person having a heart attack, yes, come right on in, we’ll take care of you. Unvaccinated person who gobbled horse goo, rest in peace, wheezy.

This well-known propaganda technique, called “flooding” or “firehosing,” broadcasts the same message repetitively and simultaneously over multiple media channels. The Johns Hopkins pandemic simulation, Event 201, featured a conversation about this strategy. Planning board member Matthew Harrington, CEO of Edelman global communications, proclaimed:

We’re at a moment where the social media platforms have to step forward and recognize and to assert that their [claim] to be a technology platform and not a broadcaster is over. They in fact have to be a participant in broadcasting accurate information and partnering with the scientific and health communities to counterweight if not flood the zone of accurate information.

Whenever you see a blitz of messaging about something, you can be sure that a major, organized interest group is trying (and usually succeeding) in exerting the vast power of the Matrix.