FROM ROBIN MONOTTI & DR YEADON:
Dissident Dialogues: CJ Hopkins:
"Totalitarianism can be imposed on any society if the government, or whatever structure rules it, controls the essential elements of power (i.e., the military, the police, the media, the culture industry, etc.). Once the transition to totalitarianism begins, you can count on roughly two thirds of the society either embracing it or acquiescing to it, not because they are in some vulnerable psychological state,
@MMA@freeatlantis.combut rather because they correctly perceive which way the wind is blowing and they don’t want to challenge the totalitarian regime and be punished for doing so. They are not hypnotized or under any other kind of spell. It’s pure survival instinct."
Hopkins:
I realize my view upsets a lot of people because they want to believe that we are all fundamentally capable of resisting the rise of a clearly ultra-authoritarian or totalitarian ruling system, but we’re not, not all of us.
Historically, only about one third of us are, and it typically isn’t even that many of us, or not at first.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but most people are either perfectly content to conform to whatever type of society those in power impose on them as long as their basic needs are met, or they are not content, but they are cowards, so they stand by in silence.
You ask how we “undo” it. Well, if totalitarianism is an oncoming convoy of explosive-laden semi-trucks
driven by formerly basically decent folks turned fascist fanatics, you don’t stop that convoy by trying to “awaken” those drivers … you stop it by shooting the tires of the trucks. The drivers will “awaken” on their own as they crawl out of the wreckage, or they won’t. That’s not really up to us."
“The more moments they see of people standing up and saying, ‘This is insane, and it is wrong, and I’m not going to cooperate with it.’ Maybe I just have crazy faith,
but I just feel like all these little moments of friction, they can build, and they can create the resistance that we need."
Monotti/Yeadon:
I’m absolutely not braver than anyone else, or even than average.
CJH spells out precisely why I speak out & am completely lacking in any fear.
Because as he says, I’m simply not going to bow my head. I knew it early & I believe I’ve always been of that mind, from my earliest memories, aged 6 or 7. I recall clearly in situations where people with power
with power tried to force me to do things I knew was wrong. I looked them in the eye and though I wasn’t physically courageous, I know they knew I simply wasn’t going to & it didn’t matter what threats they might make. It has been called stubbornness. I don’t feel that’s it at all. I’m a highly cooperative person & I like to help, to accommodate anything that’s faintly reasonable
& quite a lot that’s downright unreasonable (under the right circumstances). But I’m simply not going to cross my own internal red lines, and that’s decided.
https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/dissident-dialogues-cj-hopkins