Summary: It is clear now, to me, that tools, techniques, and methodologies of state capture and interactive internet activity deceptions are at play in the US in 2020. Below I break down the template methodology of a color revolution.

Color Revolutions explained, all Color Revolution posts

What is the nature of 2020? This is no longer an academic question, not merely a philosophical endeavor. The nature of the thing is key to understanding all of the noise and chaos around us.

 

In early March, sitting at lunch with a pastor friend he mused that perhaps China had cooked up the virus and then overblown their response to get others to follow. Obviously, we cannot know, even now, if his off-the-wall query was correct. We can know, based upon just plain old common-sense, that everything in 2020 is odd, so odd that it exceeds our tolerance for assuming coincidence.

 

As we approach a presidential election, the predictable, ordinary, and common chatter of absurd claims litter the airwaves. We have come to accept the absurdity of the election cycle. We have never experienced a period, not in living memory at least, where that level of chatter, magnified one-hundred times, has pervaded our entire culture and public dialogue.  Our 'most trusted' institutions have lifted and shifted from narrative to narrative, often conflicting with previous narratives (but in Orwellian fashion, when the narrative shifts we are told "Oceana has always been at war with Eastasia"). They have done this in a synchronous manner, with only minor degrees of separation between opposing views.

 

We have essentially divided into three broad groups at this point. On the far 'left' and 'right' many (still a minority) have polarized into deepening opposed points of view. These groups have cemented around their version of their interpretation of reality. The vast majority, folks that were originally highly interested and engaged early on as everything about our world was turned asunder, have become disaffected. Most have grown tired of the constant barrage on social media, current and former 'friends' arguing and bickering. Many are tired of being pounced upon if they make the smallest remark about the major issues of the day. For these, apathy has set in. Most people are tired of the fear, the lockdowns, the political bickering. That is understandable under normal circumstances. None of this looks or smells normal.

 

In cosmology, scientists are simply incapable of reconciling our conceptualization of the universe utilizing equations from generally accepted laws and theories. When they add up the observed and projected universe, apply various equations and projections, and account for gravity and other things something is missing. Some force or material exerts influence on the system that we have not discovered or proven to exist.  We call this dark matter, much as scientists in previous generations theorized about aether to explain elements in the universe they could not see. We know something has to be there, otherwise, all of our theories and equations are wrong.

 

I suggest there is something akin to 'dark matter' at play in our current environment. I cannot say, I doubt anyone being honest can say, what the nature of this dark matter is. Many people theorize about who and what this is, the theories are many and diverse. None of that is the point. We have little evidence to depict the 'who'. We do not know if there is one group or many, if they are ancient or new, organized and structured or simply an amalgamation of simple common interest. What we can know, is that we observe something outside of the norm is at play.

 

Let me explain.

 

I have come to the conclusion that this year appears to have many of the elements one would expect to see in a color revolution (or state capture if you prefer that term). I was hesitant to come to this conclusion, it is a dark and depressing realization. I did not arrive here readily. I have suspected, questioned, suggested openly for others to dissect and perhaps argue against the idea but I have not been certain up until this point. I know what I know, but it is not my point to ask you to believe my conclusions based upon that. I will merely present the 'cosmological equation' and ask that you consider if there must be something more.

 

Color Revolution and State Capture

Color revolutions are much more than a catchy title applied to popular movements that share certain aspects of their nature. In every case, these revolutions occurred only because of support by organizations and entities external to the 'organic' movements on the ground. The United States has played a significant role, overtly and covertly, in every color revolution since the early 2000s ( a practice that was not out of step with many of our clandestine operations since WWII.)

 

Marisol Nostromo (link here) provides a fair treatment of much of what a color revolution is and why he believes the same methods we have used in foreign countries have been utilized in the US. (he attempts to name the nature of it and give 'they' a name, I believe it is more complex than such a simple explanation - but I suspect the parties he identifies are certainly part of the effort)

 

The term may have its origins in the works of Gene Sharp, who wrote some guidebooks on how to organize popular revolts using Madison Avenue-style marketing techniques. He recommended to the sponsors that rather than confusing or boring the participants with too much political theory, they should motivate their budding revolutionaries with pop culture, using catchy, content-free slogans, logos, and team colors.

 

Funding and support for color revolution activities in foreign nations always involve non-attribution, much of the funding and support is distributed through third-party non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and is often coordinated through USAID (a component of the State Department that works closely with both the DoD and the CIA).

 

Likewise, state capture is a real phenomenon, these operations have occurred in developing nations. There is a significant amount of academic work on the issue (search state capture on JSTOR). State capture can and has occurred, via private interests and through private and nation-state partnership (much like color revolutions).

 

State capture is "a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state's decision-making processes to their own advantage". Generally, this occurs through pay-offs, blackmail, and subtle threats that usurp the ordinary functions of government for the benefit of private interests.

 

Combine the historical templates of state capture with demonstrated methodologies of color revolutions and add in the significant advances in interactive internet activities (IIA) then the argument that what is occurring right now is not just coincidence or an accident takes on much more weight.

Color Revolution Phases

Strategic planners in the government love five-phase operations. Color revolutions and state capture is conducted in five phases (not a very creative lot). Visualize the chart above with an objective listed to the right (not depicted) and a concise mission statement filled with action verbs (also not depicted). We cannot know the objective nor the mission statement, that would be conjecture. We can know the lines of effort and the various supporting efforts that always go into these sorts of operations.

 

Each long block on the diagram is a line of effort (LOE). LOEs build toward the next LOE, they can be sequential or contemporaneous. Some tactics are one-time things, others are 'rinse and repeat' as required.  In a nutshell, this is design methodology, and the chart represents a template design methodology for a color revolution. If you can visualize the flow, horizontally and vertically, building toward an objective, you understand enough about the methodology to read the chart.

 

Information operations are key to these efforts, propaganda to use a disfavored term. Technology now plays a key role in this, specifically interactive internet activities(IIA). IIA is non-attributed internet activities made to appear to be opposition or support. True IIA is much deeper than mere bots and fake accounts. The nasty stuff targets individuals by their digital profile, it knows who they are and what they think, and appeals to them through attractive personas. As data about us has proliferated building such a profile for exploitation is much easier.  Think of this as targeted marketing to your very soul; there is technology that can do that.

 

If you step back for a moment about what you personally think and believe about the virus, Trump, impeachment, the protests, riots, and everything else in 2020 - that is hard to do, but read the chart as objectively as possible - then you should begin to have questions. You can see how we arrived, perhaps a month or so ago, at a critical mass of separation and labeling. Friends no longer speaking, families mad at one another, community disintegrating in many ways.

 

This was accomplished via many methods, I will provide just a couple of examples.

 

Over information and changing narrative - 2020 has been a continuous news cycle. In December, I thought it bizarre that the impeachment was delayed for almost a month. If Trump was the dangerous criminal claimed, he should have been removed immediately. Instead, we moved it between "WWIII" and COVID. Since then, news has been constant. The newest dire threat warning continual. Stories have changed, the threat has changed, but the pace of the news cycle remained. This was key.

 

We have been called to action without sufficient facts and told that the official story is the only moral story. This builds division.

 

Events like the "White Coat Summit", where doctors come out, say things a large portion of the population wants to hear, millions see the video, and then it is banned. People then believe it all has to be true, "they' are suppressing it" many yell. A day or so later, 'they' expose one of the doctors as someone with heterological religious views. This makes those that supported the video publically look foolish. This is classic pride and ego up/down, an extreme form of gaslighting used in interrogations, here applied across society. It is designed to make one doubt their own conclusions and force them to trust the 'authority'.

 

The mailbox hoax is similar. Thousands retweeted and shared on social media images of mailboxes on trucks and warehouses filled with items that were proven to be old pictures. (this is perhaps not controlled disninfo but rather overeager supporters of a theory seeking proof). The USPS narrative itself, however,  is a deception. Told repeatedly it is building toward greater chaos. Many accept this story without any hard proof and only spurious claims.

 

We have this year a couple of examples of 'whistleblowers' releasing information, variously supporting the narratives of each extreme. Upon further inspection, these appear to be what is called a "limited hangout", official information released in such a way as to cover up a bigger story. Often, the whistleblower is defamed, therefore diminishing the limited information they released and everyone moves on thinking it was all a hoax.

 

We have been provided labels to easily identify which side of the created separation we stand-upon. Mask wears versus skeptics, BLM versus law an order types, etc. We have readily complied with this self-labeling. There are too many videos to count of ordinary citizens ready to fight one another over masks. We did this, we gladly put on uniforms of the various false divisions.

 

Apathy or Doubling Down

We have clearly, in my observation, entered phase four. Some of us, just a few, have solidified on the poles. Most of us have lost the friends we were going to lose through self-identification. Many are now sad, frustrated, some hopeless, and most just tired of all of this. Most just want nothing more to do with it. We are apathetic. This is exactly where we are supposed to be right now, according to the template.

 

Most of the riots have settled down, minus the diehards in the Pacific Northwest. Most Americans are tired of seeing all of that and pay no attention. In most places, we are getting back to something approaching quasi-normal in terms of the virus. In terms of the template, this is also predictable. Too much lawlessness, too much fear can push people in unpredictable and uncontrollable directions. Ordinary Americans would have to be apathetic in this phase, not taking to the streets. And, in the template, if apathy begins to wane into skepticism, turning back on some of the previous elements of crisis and chaos is always an option.

 

Summary

That is the 50,000-foot view of the methodology with just some examples of how it has been and is being applied here. You have to step back, divorce yourself from favorite theories. This cannot be just Russia, read my article on that. This has to be something from within, and it probably has to cross traditional party lines. I did not, and will not, mention how I became convinced this is not theoretical. I know only that I was certain before this week and wanted it not to be so. If you apply the template and look at the world as it is, you will also see that 'dark matter' has to be out there without additional 'proof'.

The Very Bad News

If I am correct, there is very little that we can do about this. All of us come into this will our worldviews. Those worldviews will compel us to want to see 'them' as a preferred and customary enemy. That is a mistake.

If I had to guess I would assume that 'them' is a cabal of establishment type politicians and corporate investors/executives that never again want the threat of a populist candidate for president such as Sanders or Trump. Sanders would have taxed their investment income, Trump hurt their profits from globalism. One need only look at what the DNC did to Sanders in 2016 and 2020 to understand how much they do not want an outsider. The RNC's treatment of Trump was more subtle, but just the same. You need to be neither a Sanders nor a Trump supporter to see that they are far outside of the traditional alliance between politics and the corporate world. And even if you hate Trump, you have to admit, he is the first president since Carter not to invade anyone or start a new war and he angered the Neocons by pulling out of Syria. War is a big deal to the establishment on both sides, trillions of dollars ride on that. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex, Kennedy warned of the corruption of the media and 'dark forces'. If I had to guess about who 'they' are, I would suspect we see them on television a lot, in office, in uniform (or recently retired)and behind anchor desks.

But, we may never truly know who 'they' are. If they are successful, we will have a revolution without ever knowing it fully. They will fundamentally change our system just enough to prevent unwanted interruptions. Most will be none the wiser.

That said, there is no 'fighting this'.  If this all goes poorly and fighting occurs it will be a proxy fight, 'us' against 'them' but never against the folks pulling the levers. Fight we might, and we may eventually have no choice to pick a side. It is more likely that our apathy will make that unnecessary. When the putsch occurs, the big crisis that forces a culmination to all of this, most of us will just be happy all the chaos is ending.


The Good News

Clearly, the conditions and circumstances that have made us so susceptible to deception on this scale did not just spontaneously generate this year. When we, generally and broadly, accepted an attack on the existence of the foundational objective truths that shaped us as a people and a nation that was the first, and perhaps greatest deception. That occurred over many years, a few centuries in fact.

Our institutions were not usurped, hijacked, and made either ineffective or tools of the deception only recently. It took an assault on the education system combined with some targeted grooming to turn the fourth estate. Our churches have demonstrated something many suspected, they contain a great illness. Many have so lost their way they were incapable of serving as a permanent thing of culture this year, others are so far gone they aided in the deceptions.

We, as a people have tolerated growing divisions, whether organic or contrived. These divisions were natural friction points that have been exploited this year. We have, through ignorance or avarice, flirted with absurd ideologies.

Considering what we have become and what we have tolerated and what we have given up, 2020 is not that unprecedented at all.

If there is hope, it is not in a political solution, although that will certainly play a part in it. It will likely not be corrected merely by Divine fiat, although God is in control, we have a large role to play.

If you are apathetic or sad and just want it all to end, be careful what you wish for. This is precisely where 'they' want you to be. No people are destined for oppression, but only vigilance and action combined with prayer and perhaps fortune can save us.

Twelve men wrote in 1930 of what they saw of the future, I have replaced "industrialism" with "deception" because the fears they saw eventually manifested into our post-modern deceptions.

“For, in conclusion, this much is clear: If a community, or a section, or a race, or an age, is groaning under [deception], and well aware that it is an evil dispensation, it must find the way to throw it off. To think that this cannot be done is pusillanimous. And if the whole community, section, race, or age thinks it cannot be done, then it has simply lost its political genius and doomed itself to impotence.” - I'll Take My Stand