In order to better understand the mindset of politicians, one should watch Tim Robbin’s “tape speech” from Apple TV+ Silo’s Season 2 Episode 2.
Politicians will say anything to convince us.
They all lie. Everywhere in the world, all the time, now, then, and forever. They lie through their fucking teeth all of the time.
This speech you just watched should be mandatory curriculum for students learning their civics.
***SPOILER ALERT***
The Silo is a future underground world inhabited by 10,000 people, who for many generations have lived trapped inside. Nobody knows who, when, or why the Silo was built. All they know, going outside is a death sentence. The people are on the brink of a revolt threatening to become a revolution. At one inflection point, the Mayor (Tim Robbins) addresses the popular discontent on the cusp of turning into malcontention. He reiterates the same old lie but somehow puts a feel good spin on it and gives people Hope. The People’s mood changes from ungovernable to almost tame in the space of 180 seconds. The Judge seals the deal by giving everyone 5 extra credits to celebrate the good news.
Easy breezy, eh! Who would have thought that popular sentiment could turn on a dime, that people are so mercurial, that they could change from rabid dogs ready to tear out your flesh and consume it, to domesticated poodles ready to lick the master’s hand?! Who indeed?
Well, the answer is an easy one: tyrants, that’s who.
That is actually a page borrowed from the annals of History.
On 21 December 1989, Romania’s dictator Nicolae Ceausescu gave a speech that tried to nip the popular discontent in the bud. Luckily for our generation, it proved too little too late. Since his Securitate had already by then machine gunned 500 people in Timisoara.
Somehow, the 100,000 people listening in to his speech in the cold, started booing and heckling the tyrant. Disconcerted, Ceausescu tried to speak over the crowd, attempting to appease it. Running out of options and knowing that machine guns cannot put down 100,000 people on live TV and that the people watching from the balconies, and foreigners would soon spread the word if he did, he resorted to one last soft power subterfuge.
Ceausescu declared that the national monthly wages would go up by 100 lei.
It did not work. People starting shouting anti-Communist slogans. The cretinous fuck got scarred. He fled by helicopter. Got captured. Underwent a mock trial. The new political clique found him guilty of course. Sentenced him to death. The Army paratroopers shot him and his wife dead.
Sic Semper Tyrannis!
Götterdämmerung 