When Art Speaks True: SPECTRE

I held off seeing SPECTRE until I could go with my folks as our Thanksgiving holiday thing. That we did earlier today, and I have something to say about it. Blah, blah, blah spoilers- like that matters here.

First, the obvious: It delivered. Go see it. There, movie opinion sorted.

Now, the thing.

SPECTRE, aside from being the work of a competent master of the form in collaboration with other competent masters of their art or craft, is one of those films that demonstrates how competent art speaks the truth to the audience using multiple avenues simultaneously. Specifically, what SPECTRE does is speak the truth of how the world as it is now (a) came to pass and (b) intends to build towards a future that is deleterious to ALL of us.

I've written quite a bit about Narrative Warfare. What SPECTRE shows, in roughly the fashion that is actually used in real life, is how this entire method works and to what ends. (Since I'm watching Skyfall again, much said of SPECTRE applies here also.)

• The fictional SPECTRE (as with the front group Quantum) represents the so-called "Deep State", while it embeds itself into multi-national corporations/NGOs and (inter-)governmental agencies--especially the intelligence and security agencies--is itself not loyal to ANY government or ANY corporation. It is a quiet, often secret, organization who relies on personal ties between its members far more than formal chains of command; it is the idealized syndicate. In real life we have the network of bodies that we see and hear from a lot in the conspiracy world, such as the Bilderberg Group and the Round Table groups' sub-network where familiar names keep popping up.
  
• SPECTRE operates by creating front groups (e.g. Quantum), often in the form of controlled opposition groups, in advance of a proposal that another front--one with acceptability in the targeted population--whose true effect is to increment the theft of said targets' wealth and freedom by another degree towards its goal of total control over all resources- including human resources. ISIS and many NGOs are examples in the real world.
  
• SPECTRE's friendly front uses the criminal acts of its villainous front to give political cover to the friendly front's actions, creating (by way of human sacrifice, disguised as terrorism these days) the illusion of reality (verisimlitude) with the aid of a compliant media.
  
• Connections formed early in life ("C" and the Home Secretary are old-time schoolboy pals in SPECTRE, which is how U.K. power networks really happen- something that is also true in the U.S., Canada, all of continental Europe, and so on.) are the basis for the Deep State's usage of personal ties for its organization. Skull & Bones in the US, and counterpart groups elsewhere, are real-life examples.
  
• The organization, as a whole (Iron Law of Bureaucracy in action), matters; the individuals comprising it are expendable, disposable, and fungible- an attitude projected upon the populations that the organization afflicts and preys upon. It's a crystal-clear tell. Until all parts of the organization, human and otherwise, are destroyed the organization persists and will regenerate. In real life, it is the network itself and not any named group that is the organization.
  
• SPECTRE's aim is total control, superior to all other possible rival powers. By control of all resources--information, finance, and natural resources being foremost amongst them--they want to put the population into a "Bend the knee or starve to death." situation, where they know that most will bend the knee to stay alive while being quite happy to let the rest starve. We are nothing more than cattle to them, to be herded or culled as they will.
  
• There are true believers, and cynics who nontheless won't go along with such a group, in all these infiltrated agencies and corporations. Sometimes called "white hats", while asleep they give cover to the Deep State actors withing their organizations, but once awake become best able to clear out the entryists and lock down their org from return infiltration.
  

And yes, this shit is for real.


Paris was only the latest in a long--over a century, by some reckoning--of this scam in action.

This is getting very long. I'll break up and continue tomorrow, where I'll go into how this film--as a work of art--is the next layer where it speaks truth.