sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
POW camps in the Korean war explain a lot about the total capitulation to Covid today. Nearly 40% of US prisoners died, the highest death rate in US military history. But the camps were only weakly fortified, prisoners had adequate food and water and were usually not tortured. /1
3:03 PM · Dec 26, 2022
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
Replying to
@RageSheen
In fact prisoners were often rewarded with sweets and cigarettes. Nobody tried to escape, despite the absence of barbed wire or often even armed guards. But prisoners would often sit in their huts with a blanket over their heads, and just die. /2
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
After liberation, very few prisoners even wanted to do the basic act of calling family at home. And there was little camaraderie amongst survivors. The overwhelming culture of the camps and in survivors was one of hopelessness. That hopelessness was deliberately engineered. /3
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
For example, prisoners were observed interacting, and the small number among them (about 5%) who other prisoners looked up to, the socially popular leaders of the group, were then removed and killed. The Koreans also targeted the rewards (sweets and cigarettes) to those who…/4
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
…informed on other prisoners. Snitches. Also encouraged was extreme self criticism amongst prisoners, of the wrongs they had done and the good they hadn’t done. Confession, to erode self respect and personal worth. There were a variety of other techniques used to undermine…/5
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
…self-worth, and to sever any collective ties between prisoners and to their loved ones and country back home. (Some summarised here: https://302aw.afrc.af.mil/News/Commentaries/Display/Article/191174/the-prison-of-hopelessness/…) The relevance to Covid? Twitter for example is awash with the same feeling of hopelessness, every day. /6
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
Focused not just on the authorities who are doing nothing to lead a fight against the virus, but also against fellow members of the public who are perceived (often rightly) to be doing nothing to fight the disaster either. The core message for me is one I tweet about a lot. /7
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
That all of society functions by social rules, not political rules. What we call the economy, and capitalism, and power, are really all just manifestations of some basic underlying social dynamics. Conformity is the glue that holds all societies together, of any belief system. /8
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
Conformity is not the universal negative libertarians would have us believe either. To emulate others is a great way to learn and build upon progress in human affairs. The evil here comes from how conformity is led, because as the Korean camps show, it’s what that 5% do…/9
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
…that drives what everybody else does. Not because the 95% are sheep, but because nobody can do everything. We all ‘follow the lead’ in everything we do, there’s always a hierarchy of expertise and value that we draw upon, whether it’s playing guitar, cooking or voting. /10
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
The total Covid capitulation was and is led. Just as inaction on climate change is led. And for both, just like those US POWs, the majority of us feel hopeless, like there’s nothing that could be done, and we even turn on the public more generally, shocked at their apparent…/11
23.3K
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…stupidity. It’s all part of eroding the social dynamics that might lead to resistance to what’s going on. Government-friendly Covid experts are given the sweets and cigarettes (media attention, plum postings in advisory bodies etc.), to snitch on the rest of us. /12
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
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20h
To police the acceptable beliefs. Constant ‘freedom’ narratives saturate all media, but it’s not freedom from Covid or even from government, it’s freedom to conform to something once libertarian politics has removed as many of the hierarchies of basic social life as possible. /13
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
Clearing the jungle of complex, sophisticated due process of democratic society, with its overlapping hierarchies of expertise, and replacing it with a handful of simple rallying slogans. ‘Live with the virus’. ‘Just like the flu’. Removing that 5% that guide in every tiny…/14
18.6K
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…part of life, in everything we do, and replacing them with these rallying slogans. If you feel helpless and hopeless right now, it’s because that was always the plan. So that you’d hopefully then grasp the first slogan that came along, to ease these feelings. /15
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
The politics of hopelessness, or neoliberalism or libertarianism, whatever you want to call it, is entirely about taking control of that 5% space, so that social conformity will then do the rest for it. Telling everybody they’ll be free if they get infected, because then…/16
19K
4
94
522
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…not only can you avoid doing any public health work at all, but people will actually celebrate that absence as freedom. Millions die, and people do nothing, because conformity has been used to weaponise helplessness. 17/17
19.8K
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corinna vogel
@cv_au
·
19h
Replying to
@RageSheen
What a fantastic read, I've been more fascinated with the psychology of this pandemic. I been scratching my head for 3 years wondering what in the hell is going on.
12K
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Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
19h
Replying to
@cv_au
Thank you. As I often say, just remember high school, nearly all of the social dynamics playing out right now have their origins there.
9,685
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
12h
Just as background to my earlier thread about Korean POWs. This is a direct quote from Major William E. Mayer from the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Mayer was commissioned to study the returned prisoners. See full quote at: http://koreanwar-educator.org/topics/pow_mia…
5,005
1
10
68
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
15h
@RageSheen
POW camps in the Korean war explain a lot about the total capitulation to Covid today. Nearly 40% of US prisoners died, the highest death rate in US military history. But the camps were only weakly fortified, prisoners had adequate food and water and were usually not tortured. /1
3:03 PM · Dec 26, 2022
291.7K
Views
720
Retweets
216
Quote Tweets
1,896
Likes
Tweet your reply
Reply
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
Replying to
@RageSheen
In fact prisoners were often rewarded with sweets and cigarettes. Nobody tried to escape, despite the absence of barbed wire or often even armed guards. But prisoners would often sit in their huts with a blanket over their heads, and just die. /2
29.2K
4
26
351
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
After liberation, very few prisoners even wanted to do the basic act of calling family at home. And there was little camaraderie amongst survivors. The overwhelming culture of the camps and in survivors was one of hopelessness. That hopelessness was deliberately engineered. /3
28.7K
3
37
386
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
For example, prisoners were observed interacting, and the small number among them (about 5%) who other prisoners looked up to, the socially popular leaders of the group, were then removed and killed. The Koreans also targeted the rewards (sweets and cigarettes) to those who…/4
28.4K
1
29
348
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…informed on other prisoners. Snitches. Also encouraged was extreme self criticism amongst prisoners, of the wrongs they had done and the good they hadn’t done. Confession, to erode self respect and personal worth. There were a variety of other techniques used to undermine…/5
27.9K
2
27
347
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…self-worth, and to sever any collective ties between prisoners and to their loved ones and country back home. (Some summarised here: https://302aw.afrc.af.mil/News/Commentaries/Display/Article/191174/the-prison-of-hopelessness/…) The relevance to Covid? Twitter for example is awash with the same feeling of hopelessness, every day. /6
28.5K
1
53
438
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
Focused not just on the authorities who are doing nothing to lead a fight against the virus, but also against fellow members of the public who are perceived (often rightly) to be doing nothing to fight the disaster either. The core message for me is one I tweet about a lot. /7
27K
1
38
397
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
That all of society functions by social rules, not political rules. What we call the economy, and capitalism, and power, are really all just manifestations of some basic underlying social dynamics. Conformity is the glue that holds all societies together, of any belief system. /8
27.8K
5
76
599
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
Conformity is not the universal negative libertarians would have us believe either. To emulate others is a great way to learn and build upon progress in human affairs. The evil here comes from how conformity is led, because as the Korean camps show, it’s what that 5% do…/9
24.8K
1
41
403
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…that drives what everybody else does. Not because the 95% are sheep, but because nobody can do everything. We all ‘follow the lead’ in everything we do, there’s always a hierarchy of expertise and value that we draw upon, whether it’s playing guitar, cooking or voting. /10
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
The total Covid capitulation was and is led. Just as inaction on climate change is led. And for both, just like those US POWs, the majority of us feel hopeless, like there’s nothing that could be done, and we even turn on the public more generally, shocked at their apparent…/11
23.3K
1
94
586
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…stupidity. It’s all part of eroding the social dynamics that might lead to resistance to what’s going on. Government-friendly Covid experts are given the sweets and cigarettes (media attention, plum postings in advisory bodies etc.), to snitch on the rest of us. /12
21.1K
3
58
507
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
To police the acceptable beliefs. Constant ‘freedom’ narratives saturate all media, but it’s not freedom from Covid or even from government, it’s freedom to conform to something once libertarian politics has removed as many of the hierarchies of basic social life as possible. /13
19.2K
1
39
382
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
Clearing the jungle of complex, sophisticated due process of democratic society, with its overlapping hierarchies of expertise, and replacing it with a handful of simple rallying slogans. ‘Live with the virus’. ‘Just like the flu’. Removing that 5% that guide in every tiny…/14
18.6K
2
43
380
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…part of life, in everything we do, and replacing them with these rallying slogans. If you feel helpless and hopeless right now, it’s because that was always the plan. So that you’d hopefully then grasp the first slogan that came along, to ease these feelings. /15
17.1K
1
33
412
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
The politics of hopelessness, or neoliberalism or libertarianism, whatever you want to call it, is entirely about taking control of that 5% space, so that social conformity will then do the rest for it. Telling everybody they’ll be free if they get infected, because then…/16
19K
4
94
522
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
20h
…not only can you avoid doing any public health work at all, but people will actually celebrate that absence as freedom. Millions die, and people do nothing, because conformity has been used to weaponise helplessness. 17/17
19.8K
47
108
852
corinna vogel
@cv_au
·
19h
Replying to
@RageSheen
What a fantastic read, I've been more fascinated with the psychology of this pandemic. I been scratching my head for 3 years wondering what in the hell is going on.
12K
3
13
315
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
19h
Replying to
@cv_au
Thank you. As I often say, just remember high school, nearly all of the social dynamics playing out right now have their origins there.
9,685
10
14
304
Show replies
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
12h
Just as background to my earlier thread about Korean POWs. This is a direct quote from Major William E. Mayer from the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Mayer was commissioned to study the returned prisoners. See full quote at: http://koreanwar-educator.org/topics/pow_mia…
5,005
1
10
68
Henry Madison
@RageSheen
·
15h