I've been thinking about the Moby story - about how he bragged to the press that US intelligence agencies were feeding him information about nothingburger Russiagate and telling him how important it was for him to get it out to the people.
Someone asked me - yeah, but how do you think that conversation went? Do you think the 3-letter agencies might have threatened Moby in some way? Maybe they had blackmail material on him? Or something else? No. I don't think they had to threaten him.
Think about it. They appeal to the ego. If that works, they don't have to coerce. And for a majority of people, appealing to the ego will work. People like feeling special. Feeling IMPORTANT. Feeling "in the know." Feeling needed. Look at the Twitter Files if you need to see how it probably played out. Most of those Twitter employees were positively GIDDY about meeting with the FBI and other 3-letter agencies all the time. They were GIDDY about being asked by the US Government to censor US Citizens and most did it without a second thought. Why? Because they felt special. Important. Needed. Like the STAR of the movie. They got to go home to their families the first time they were approached by a 3-letter agency and say, "You can't tell anyone this!!! I'm not even supposed to talk about it! But you won't believe what happened today!"
How do you get people to do bad guy stuff for you? You make them feel like one of the "good guys." Like they are on the "right side of history." While doing the exact opposite.
Consider the famous quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:
"To do evil a human being must first of all believe what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions....Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations."
All the government had to do, to get Moby to spread propaganda and false information to his fans, was to once again exploit the now very old left-right programming and to invoke the name of the then current boogeyman of the establishment: Trump. Most people, once programmed, won't evaluate a negative allegation on it's own merit. If it includes someone they have decided is a good guy - then they will say the story can't be true and they'll dismiss it. If it involves someone they have decided is a bad guy, then they will accept the negative allegation on its face alone, no evidence necessary. This is how most people are, even and especially adults, if you haven't noticed. It might even be how you are. We really have to fight against this tendency in ourselves all of the time if we want to resist it.
Some might ask: But why would Moby trust the Government? Why would he trust the 3-letter agencies? After all, we know the FBI wire-tapped John Lennon. We know about COINTELPRO. We know the FBI tried to get MLK to kill himself with their "suicide letter." We know about Operation Northwoods and Operation Mongoose, and how the CIA wanted to bomb American cities and kill innocent civilians and blame it on Castro. We know about Operation Mockingbird and how the intelligence agencies have used the press to spread propaganda to their own people. We know how the media spread the CIA's lies about yellowcake uranium in order to get us into the Iraq war. We know about the Twitter Files now and the Facebook Files. How on earth could an ARTIST, a MUSICIAN, a LIBERAL trust the government's 3-letter agencies? That is wild!!
But sir - you are living in 2023. Not the 1960s. The establishment has successfully co-opted almost every media outlet, academic institution, every celebrity, every famous "artist." How did they do that? How did they get the public to march in the street, calling themselves the #resistance, while actually supporting the status quo? How did they fool people into thinking that if they are on the same side as Big Pharma, Big Media, Big Banks, Big Corporations, Big Social and Big Government that they are somehow the "resistance?" That they are somehow the "good guys?"
They exploited the right-left brainwashing. It's very easy. If a war starts when it's a Republican in office, for example, they can count on the left to oppose it. I was part of the left when Dubya invaded Iraq. I opposed it. Still do. Ahhh, but look at what they can count on if it's a Democrat they've (s)elected for President and then a war breaks out. Ukraine flags of support for the Left, guys. You can turn a supposed anti-war party pro-war just based on the right-left tribalism alone.
Look at what happened during the Covid years as a another great example. How did they get the left, supposedly the anti-Big Pharma and anti-Corporatism side to go full hog on the government forcing authoritarian mask mandates, lockdowns, business closures and vax coercion? Vax COERCION. They exploited the left-right tribalism. Easy.
Most people, as it turns out, don't have principles; they have ideology. And they let their ideology, their tribalism, trump universally applied principles every time. Moby is no different.