Caron, Antoine. The Massacre of the Triumvirate (1566)
Roman society under the terror witnessed the triumph of the dark passions of cruelty and revenge, of the ignoble vices of cupidity and treachery. The laws and constitution of Rome had been subverted. With them perished honour and security, family and friendship. Yet all was not unrelieved horror. History was to commemorate shining examples of courage or defiance, of loyal wives and faithful slaves; and tales of strange vicissitudes and miraculous escapes adorned the many volumes which this unprecedented wealth of material evoked…The Triumvirs were pitiless, logical and concordant. On the list of the proscriptions all told they set one hundred and thirty senators and a great number of Roman knights. Their victory was the victory of a party. Yet it was not their principal purpose to wipe out utterly both political adversaries and dissentient neutrals ; and the total of victims was probably never as high as was believed with horror at the time, or uncritically since, perpetuated in fiction and in history; and in later days, personal danger and loss of estates were no doubt invented or enhanced by many astute individuals who owed security, if not enrichment, to the Caesarian party.
Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution p. 190-191
Institutional Capture is not a new idea. The idea that cynical ideologues weaponize their ideology and political will within structures of social, political and cultural institutions in order to seize total and complete control of the STATE seems to be the norm rather than the exception.
In Ancient Rome during the aftermath of the assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BCE), Octavian (the future emperor Augustus), Marc Anthony, and Lepidus posted “proscriptions,” or a list of Roman citizens who were condemned to death for political reasons. While some notable Romans escaped their STATE sanctioned murder, many Romans were killed and their property confiscated. Syme captures the outcome of the proscriptions perfectly, and for all intents and purposes the Institutional Capture of the Roman state was complete:
The Republic had been abolished. Whatever the outcome of the armed struggle, it could never be restored. Despotism ruled, supported by violence and confiscation. The best men were dead or proscribed. The Senate was packed with ruffians, the consulate, once the reward of civic virtue, now became the recompense of craft or crime. (201)
Institutional Capture often coalesces around autocratic and populist regimes or during periods of rapid ideological despotism as for instance under the corrosive agenda of D(iversity), I(nclusion), and E(quity) programs, which are simply code for an underlying Marxist agenda. For those of us in University we see the institutional capture on a daily basis. In fact, this sort of slithering, tentacle-like, structural reprogramming is in the process of capturing nearly all institutions in North America.
Institutional Capture too has been part and parcel of the pharmaceutical industry for a long time now. As Light et al. state:
Over the past 35 years, patients have suffered from a largely hidden epidemic of side effects from drugs that usually have few offsetting benefits. The pharmaceutical industry has corrupted the practice of medicine through its influence over what drugs are developed, how they are tested, and how medical knowledge is created. Since 1906, heavy commercial influence has compromised congressional legislation to protect the public from unsafe drugs. The authorization of user fees in 1992 has turned drug companies into the FDA's prime clients, deepening the regulatory and cultural capture of the agency. Industry has demanded shorter average review times and, with less time to thoroughly review evidence, increased hospitalizations and deaths have resulted. Meeting the needs of the drug companies has taken priority over meeting the needs of patients. Unless this corruption of regulatory intent is reversed, the situation will continue to deteriorate.
There is no good form of institutional capture. Ultimately, the capture itself—both the ideology and those who employ the ideology (whatever that ideology may be)—results in institutional corruption. And as our institutions become more and more corrupted they become less and less adept at solving real problems and concerns. They shadow box the mental perturbations constructed by the ideological phantoms of their minds. Their entire raison d’ être is the promotion of the ideology or political or social programming within an institution, as though capturing the institution IS the solution of the problem per se.
The last two years of COVID-hysterics has cast in stark and deep relief the ubiquity of institutional capture at every level of society. Governments, Media, International Organizations, Schools and Universities, $cience, the Judicial System, Corporations and the Medical Industry are wholly captured. They are not captured in all the same way or to the same degree, but they have all coalesced around a singular narrative and discourse.
Those who call into question this narrative and discourse undergo a social proscription: they are banned from social media, demonized by legacy media, fired from their jobs or put on leave (just ask the unvaxxed), occluded from civil society (vaccine passports), some are beaten into submission by an autocrat, others must attend reeducation training and workshops, or undergo Maoist struggle sessions.
What begins as institutional capture becomes psychological capture.
We used to call this a cult.
The WHO is here to save you…
The World Health Organization is one of a number of international organizations that has played a significant role in the global form of institutional capture we have experienced over the last two years. There are those reading this who will applaud the WHO. Have at it. Be aware that you are applauding an organization who played a significant role in advancing the greatest policy disaster in human history. Clap away.
The only solution ever for COVID-19 was mass, global vaccination. Once this fact is accepted the entire COVID policy of the last two years snaps into focus. It was for this reason as well that the policy decision of Sweden needed to be demonized. The success of Sweden would expose the policy error of a vaccination only policy (there is obviously a role for vaccination). In time it will be understood that we were forced to participate collectively in the hubris and arrogance of “Scientism”. At some point one must accept the Natural Harm of a disease cannot be mitigated by enacting Policy Harms.
Back to the WHO Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response Plan. Rather than offer my own exegesis of the document, or mediate the information for you, I will instead gesture to the Word Clouds generated chapter by chapter. It is worth spending some time perusing the words highlighted and thinking about notable absences.
Foreword from the General Director
Part 1: Overview and Objectives
Part 2: Ending the Acute Phase of the COVID Pandemic
Part 3: COVID-19 and the future of pandemic preparedness and response
Get Fat and Get vaxxed
Note the broad movement of the document as we shift from COVID to Health.
How is health achieved?
Health is used a total of 180 times in the document. The overwhelming majority of usages of Health includes a modifier such as Public Health, Health Systems, Health Workers, Health Care Facilities, Mental Health…you get the idea.
The idea of “health” not once focuses on one’s individual health.
Obesity is not mentioned once.
Physical Exercise is not mentioned once.
Diet is not mentioned once.
Comorbidity is not mentioned once.
Elderly is not mentioned once
Under the guise of “health” The WHO is promoting its own institutional power. Health is really “public health.” When it comes to Public Health the WHO plays a significant role in influencing policy decisions at the global, national and local levels.
Yet, the WHO omits the profound impact of “Individual Health” on COVID outcomes. As we are all now well aware the average age of death from/with COVID-19 is 82 (give or take depending on the country) with around 4 comorbidities on average, the most common of which is obesity. There is a very real debate whether COVID is a pandemic of viral spread or a pandemic of poor health choices over time.
It boggles the mind that the WHO would wholly ignore the role of obesity, lack of exercise, poor diet, comorbidities and age as primary drivers of severe COVID outcomes.
Vaccines are, however, proving less effective than hoped at reducing infection and transmission. Depending on age, schedule, and derivation of immunity, vaccines do have a modest impact on infection against the current dominant variant, Omicron. Despite this, and despite the high proportion of the global populations with infection-induced immunity, the 70% vaccination target remains relevant...
The COVID inoculation is the first Post-Modern Vaccine, as the very nomenclature that defines it requires constant redefinition and the reframing of discourse to accommodate it.
But this redefinition, or the WHO’s framing of solutions for the pandemic (which is simply to continue its original vaccination model while establishing a more robust and totalizing Public Health apparatus) is part and parcel of the Institutional Capture we are experiencing.
No Mistakes, only Misinformation
The WHO never once acknowledges mistakes (the word is never used). While the WHO is incapable of recognizing its own mistakes (like I said, COVID policy was the greatest policy disaster in human history), it does gesture to “misinformation” (used five times):
The first goal of infodemic management for COVID-19 is to understand the nature of the public conversation about the disease and the measures designed to protect against it. For this, robust social listening systems are needed that can accommodate diverse datasets that facilitate rapid integrated analysis to produce insights that can be rapidly acted on to improve the emergency response and immunization programme strategies. Infodemic interventions can include helping people discern between accurate vaccine information and misinformation, promoting peer-to-peer approaches to address questions and concerns, building resilience in the public by quickly pre-emptively debunking and refuting misinformation before it is amplified, leveraging networks of trusted messengers such as health care workers and community leaders, and partnering with factchecking and civil society organizations.
So we need “social listening systems” in order to monitor social media activity. We then need infodemic interventions to debunk those crazy conspiracy theorists who said that:
COVID will be employed to create authoritarian Biomedical States (we are looking at you Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the EU and China)…
Vaccine mandates will be imposed…
COVID policy will result in inflation, supply chain stresses, mental health crises, and a whole slew of other negative outcomes.
The only mistake the WHO implicitly acknowledges is the idea that the WHO and institutions like it do not have MORE control over information, information streams, and communication.
Institutional Capture authorizes only a single narrative.
No other narratives can exist.
All dissenting voices must be silenced.
Alternative view points or interpretations of data must be ignored.
Lots of astute points and observations here. If they didn't mention obesity or exercise even once, then that's a sure sign it's not an honest effort.
I was wondering about this, "What begins as institutional capture becomes psychological capture." My experience of creeping corruption over the past decade or so is that it's a complex interaction between the institutional and the psychological. Some true believers with nothing to do but lobby for their priorities, along with some administrators looking to grow their constituency and climb the ladder. Put those together and it's a potent combination for corrupting the institution, slowly at first, then all at once.
Lots of astute points and observations here. If they didn't mention obesity or exercise even once, then that's a sure sign it's not an honest effort.
I was wondering about this, "What begins as institutional capture becomes psychological capture." My experience of creeping corruption over the past decade or so is that it's a complex interaction between the institutional and the psychological. Some true believers with nothing to do but lobby for their priorities, along with some administrators looking to grow their constituency and climb the ladder. Put those together and it's a potent combination for corrupting the institution, slowly at first, then all at once.