Never let a good crisis go to waste. Perhaps one of the best modern examples of an outcome of this philosophy is the Patriot Act. Passed in the wake of 9/11, the Patriot Act enabled previously forbidden surveillance techniques to be used on everyday Americans, all under the guise of keeping us safe. What 9/11 did was change public perception. Seeing an attack on the homeland, Americans no longer felt safe at home. Under the pretense of thwarting threats from abroad that might take place at home, Americans were willing to trade a piece of freedom for the promise of security. The crisis of 9/11 was used by lawmakers to pass legislation that ultimately increased their control over citizens.
What if rather than waiting for a crisis to occur, lawmakers could change public perception through creation of a homegrown crisis, enabling them to enact desired legislation? That is a manufactured crisis: the conditions are nudged along until a tipping point occurs which sways public opinion, providing leadership with an engineered opportunity to implement a hidden agenda. Both natural and manufactured crises are powerful tools that can facilitate public support for targeted legislation, divert attention away from issues, lead to societal changes in morals and customs, and enable specific groups and organizations to increase influence.
Ottawa County Health Officer Adeline Hambley manufactured a crisis when she announced that the health department was going to close during the FY24 budgeting process. Her stated goal was to inform the public of county activities, but the result was public panic. The more obvious goal was to dishonestly change public perception in a way that discredited the Ottawa Impact supported county commissioners, most likely for a future goal of voting them out of office.
Likewise, the people behind the board of light and power charter change coalition (BLPCCC) appear to have made numerous attempts at manufacturing crises with the goal of discrediting the electrical utility. Claims that the BLP insisted on building a new gas-fired power plant, the BLP raised rates without public notice, and the BLP refused to work with the city on the clean-up of Harbor Island were all proven false. Thankfully the public saw through these attempts at manufacturing crisis by voting against their ballot proposal.
Natural and manufactured crises do not always have a direct cause and effect relationship like in the examples provided above. Sometimes policies spur smaller and different types of crises in a variety of situations. For example, in the education sector, the use of school-issued devices has become very common and the majority of student work is assigned and completed on-line. The desire for students to be familiar with current technology, so they are not left behind, has led to widespread acceptance of school-issued devices. …. But this acceptance is leading to crisis. The use of devices has effectively cut parents out of a large portion of their children’s education by making it extremely difficult to monitor assignments and provide assistance with homework. Perhaps one hidden goal of issuing school devices is to reduce the influence of parents on children resulting in a compliant society that accepts direction from government leaders and credentialed experts.
School-issued devices are equipped with cameras and monitoring software that violate privacy and enable the school district to establish rules and community standards. Data collected through school-issued devices has been used in baseless investigations against students and their families, and is also being compiled and used in marketing and social engineering projects.
The act of physically moving a pencil on paper when drawing or writing has been shown to be an important step in brain development. Note taking is another application of this skill. Skipping this step by introducing technology at a young age reduces the ability to logically arrive at solutions to problems. Cathy O’Brien, a local survivor of horrific abuse, explains in her article Freedom is Within that “writing by hand activates the critical analysis part of the brain, opening neuron pathways in the brain to transfer information over to writing where it then can be consciously acknowledged on paper.” Reducing the use of books, pencils, and paper also results in a more compliant society. Transitioning students to completing schoolwork on devices is likely a key component in several different hidden agendas.
Children across America are being introduced to sexual topics at increasingly younger ages which is another indirect cause of manufactured crises. Through school discussions of what it means to be transgender and explicit sexual content offered in library books and the internet, the oversexualization of children has led to confusion and is a contributing factor in some cases of sexual assault. For example, a female Loudon County, Virginia high school student was raped in the school’s inclusive bathroom by a boy dressed as a girl. Every sexual assault is a crisis that can be taken advantage of to further additional hidden agendas such as removing guns from citizens, and dividing the population along racial or ideological lines.
In Ottawa County, several parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) expressed concern over a radical sexual education program being introduced to their kids at the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District. In general, children with IDD tend to be very visual learners and have difficulty understanding some common human interactions. Introducing these topics to IDD students is likely to encourage inappropriate behavior by an IDD student in public, leading to an incident that involves law enforcement, leading to the removal of the child from their parent’s care, and ending with institutionalization, isolation, and possibly prison. It is a manufactured crisis waiting to happen, and could be used to further stigmatize and isolate developmentally disabled people in general.
Donny Mooney, a local resident, spoke about these connections during the June 27, 2023, Ottawa County Board of Commissioner Meeting. (5:37:14) “People want to come in here and complain about mental health, but fail to realize the connection between sexualizing little children and mental health. Maybe we wouldn't have so many adults abusing little children if we weren't pushing sex, sex, sex, towards children and everybody else.” She continued, suggesting that holding people who commit gun crimes accountable could reduce gun violence. “Maybe politicians who have agendas to remove guns, who are purposely not prosecuting, contributes to the amount of violence.”
The COVID pandemic was another crisis that led to numerous societal changes. Government actions to close “non-essential” small businesses enabled big box stores and restaurants with drive-thru services to increase profits through reduced competition. Masking children and closing schools during COVID created speech problems, health problems, and resulted in poor quality education. Fear of the virus led to:
Changes in election laws which made election tampering easier.
People refraining from shaking hands and standing six feet apart, bans on visiting loved ones in hospitals and assisted-living facilities, and closing of churches all led to increased rates of anxiety and depression.
People cancelling and delaying medical appointments, resulting in medical conditions worsening.
Employer vaccine mandates which transferred control of one’s body to their employer. Refusal to take the experimental gene therapies led to loss of employment at some businesses.
Division throughout society.
Now businesses, non-profits, and government entities claim to have invented solutions to many of the problems listed above. School district leaders claim tutors and online curriculums will improve the deficits in learning brought about by masking and closing schools. In addition, they are receiving government grants to implement those solutions. Government and big pharma claimed the shots would prevent COVID, eliminating the fear caused by the virus, but this was obviously a reach as many people suffered multiple bouts of COVID infection despite vaccination. Just like 9/11, under the pretense of keeping us safe, many Americans were willing to trade a piece of freedom for the promise of security. The COVID crisis was used by lawmakers to enact unconstitutional mandates, violating bodily autonomy and setting the stage for future heavy-handed overreach when the next pandemic arises.
The philosophy of never letting a “good” crisis (natural or manufactured) go to waste in order to sway public opinion in favor of supporting leadership’s questionable legislative, political, or societal goals is unfortunately with us to stay. It can be difficult for citizens to draw connections between the crises and the resulting outcomes that become visible months or even years later, but there is indeed a connection. It is important for voters to understand how these events are connected, what really is driving change, and what might be the long-term repercussions of knee-jerk solutions to crises.