The crisis of Shattered Trust and the End of “Business-as-Usual” Public Relations
Calvin Mulligan, Futurescapes2C © June 3, 2022, All rights reserved
“Yeah that’s how you solve Ukraine’s Nazi problem. A logo change.” — Caitlin Johnston
Nine years ago, I was working as resident futurist for a federal commercial crown corporation. My job was identifying relevant trends and developments taking shape on the horizon. Then it was a matter of teasing out the implication of those macro trends for our sector and our business future. The final step was, as an organization, developing appropriate responses or strategies. One of the most troubling trends to emerge at the time was a growing disregard for truth and truth-telling across society. I recall listening to an American analyst comment that truth was being used by some political operatives in election campaigns as merely one ingredient in larger mix of message content. To me, this was both unconscionable and incomprehensible.
My thought experiment began with the premise that truth and trust are inextricably intertwined and foundational to our society. They are precious, intangible assets factoring into every relationship and interaction. Trust is integral to business-customer relationships and government-citizen relationships. A distancing of both customers and constituents due to growing cynicism and distrust would, at a minimum, imply increased communications costs and increased transaction costs. Operational efficiency would decline as bureaucratic friction between the moving parts and parties in business interactions would increase. (See Stephen Covey’s 2006 book, The Speed of Trust: The one thing that changes everything)
Eroding public and shareholder trust would imply a corresponding decline in reputational capital and share value. And that’s not even touching on the interpersonal impacts. So, even if it were a slow decline — a figurative death of a thousand cuts over a period of years, declining trust would inevitably translate into negative outcomes for our society. And yet, at the time, in my professional circles at least, no one seemed to sense a problem or care. Ironically, perhaps the least concerned were the members of the PR profession who continued merrily about their business. If ignorance is bliss, denial must run a close second.
So, here we are almost a decade later amid the devastation of the Covaxx propaganda war. Truth is banned, truth-tellers are persecuted and public trust in corporations, government and other key institutions and their leadership has fallen to catastrophic lows. Among members and adherents of the freedom movement it is a stone cold “zero.” To fully appreciate the scope of the trust crisis, I took a quick personal inventory of my relationships starting with my family. The members of my immediate family no long trust me or at least my perception of reality. Three of them recommended that I seek mental health counselling upon hearing that I planned to share the results of my investigation into the Covid fraud with others. It follows that they no longer trust any information or advice I have shared or may yet share with them on the subject of the vaxx-a-demic. Interestingly, they do trust others, strangers actually, more than me. This includes international and Canadian health agencies like the WHO and CDC, Ontario Health and Health Canada. Perversely, these are the very entities have lied to them daily for more than two years.
The truth-trust divide runs both ways and expands outward from there. I no longer have confidence in the judgment of my family members regarding the credence they give the Covid narrative and related control measures. Consequently, I wonder if they will protect or surrender my grandkids to further abuse at the hands of medical fascists. There’s a long list of others whose professional advice and practices I must approach with skepticism. In general, it includes: the above-named international, national and local health authorities, the mainstream media, my family physician, hospitals pharmacists, and others serving Big Pharma.
Default skepticism is the rule of the day. As things stand today, the list of those I can no longer wholly trust includes: my local church; the mayor of Ottawa and every other city who played the pandemic game; complicit teachers, school principals and school boards; the RCMP, Ottawa Police service and especially its Chief; mainstream media; woke universities and colleges; technocrats who violated their oaths and commitments to clients, complicit colleagues in the public service; “bought” celebrities; Hollywood and social media influencers; transnational corporations on the Covid train; Canadian banks; the PM, the Government of Canada and every province; establishment aligned politicians at every level of politics who promoted or by their silence was complicit in the Great Covid Deception; international public figures like Bill Gates, George Soros, Klaus Schwab and their allies; the US government; security agencies and most of the governments of Western nations.
As many as 25% – 30% or more of my fellow Canadians may feel the same way. And 20% or so on the other side of the divide distrust if not loathe fellow citizens who merely exercised their right to say “no” to an often injurious and deadly injection. The remaining 50% or so, may be somewhere between unquestioning confidence and out and out distrust. This are the rough dimensions of our nation’s trust crisis. Figuratively speaking, the thread in the fabric of our society is badly frayed and there are a lot of holes.
Judgment Day for the dark ones that brought us to this sorry state, the elite Powers-that-Be, along with those who have violated oaths of office and abused the trust of patients, children, customers, constituents, clients and supporters, has yet to arrive. But be assured that it’s coming. 2023 has been described in freedom seeker circles as the Year of the Whistleblower. Recent disclosures and court decisions in Europe, the US and Canada offer some hope that the long arch of justice is slowly bending in the right direction. Undoubtedly, some of the culprits and their minions see the proverbial writing on the wall.
Some of those complicit in the diabolical schemes playing out are likely to opt for suicide, while others will pre-emptively resign in order to, according to their press releases and official spokespersons, “spend more time with his/her family”. And some leaders and organizations will try to head off expected reputational and financial disasters with early attempts at reconciliation. So, in order to repair the trust bridges they themselves bombed short months ago, they will turn to the masters of manufactured sincerity and good will, their trusted public relations (PR) consultants.
Ironically, it was weaponized PR (formerly known as propaganda) that was used to drive and sustain the frenetic injection campaign and more than three years of medical fascism. The result was the wholesale destruction of precious reserves of public trust in all sectors of our society. The PR industry will only discredit itself further if it tries to paper over what objective observers now describe as “biowarfare” and “crimes against humanity”. PR may have its own image problem. It’s time the industry took a hard look at its members and their respective track records. How many of its big league members have turned down lucrative contracts because it would mean dressing up an evil dictator or crafting a war-igniting or war-fuelling narrative? Any? How many hired gun agencies were permanently expelled from their professional associations after doing so (thinking of you, Hill and Knowlton…or is it Whore and Knowlton?)
The satirical comment by journalist Caitlin Johnstone at the top of the page hints at the distain some of us have for the glib, sleight of hand fixes that too often characterize PR “solutions.” The profession’s enduring principle of sizzle over substance, and in this case, logo change over Nazi philosophy and conduct is simultaneously cringe-worthy and cartoon-worthy. Will those ensconced inside their professional bubble see the problem or does “Elephant Blindness” impair them?
It’s useful to look ahead in anticipation of a coming day of accountability for Covid-vaxxidemic atrocities. Be warned, business-as-usual PR gestures at that point will only serve to enrage victims of one of the world’s biggest crimes. I’m talking about the day the world pauses long enough to listen to the heart-wrenching testimonies from maimed individuals and bereaved families — stories of sudden deaths and debilitating injuries and diseases claiming perfectly healthy family members, friends and colleagues. The latest estimate as of August 2023 is 20 million deaths and 2.2 billion vaxx-linked injuries worldwide, courtesy of the “safe and effective” lie. As we mourn those losses, our society will perhaps subconsciously be grieving the broken societal trust that once defined Western Society. We will be haunted by lingering questions about the collapse of logic in the face of lies, the abandonment of moral leadership and integrity in high places, the abrogation of responsibility by complicit public officials and the pervasiveness of corruption across multiple sectors of society.
I must caution my former colleagues in the profession now that anything resembling the old PR bromide “Mistakes were made” would be perceived as simply more gas lighting. The current formulaic, “we take (genocide?) very seriously” would only add to the frustration felt by victims of the Biggest Lie and what may approach the Biggest Crime in human history. The Bank of Nova Scotia recently extended an apology for freezing some protestors bank accounts at the climax of the PM/Mayor’s war against the trucker protest. You can decide how much credence it warrants. Keep in mind that the most fundamental element of the banker-depositor relationship (the security of depositors’ assets) was violated.
I also have a caution for those who have been discriminated against, ostracized and demonized, stripped of their jobs, and denied services, travel and basic freedoms, It’s simply this: Do not be in a hurry to kiss and make up at the sight of the first PR gesture. First, it would distract from the gravity of the crimes and prosecution of the guilty. I say this fully expecting the scale of the Covid-vaxx crimes and medical malfeasance to be historic — off the charts. So once the investigations are complete and the perpetrators tried and sentenced, it will be time to turn our attention to other matters. This includes the need to comfort the grieving, heal the wokeness-generated divides and reverse the damaging effects of the vaxx. It will also be time to consider how to ensure such a horrendous mass mind control operation and political-medical assault on humanity can never be repeated in the future.
Second, premature reconciliation with the establishment would short- change the resolve of freedom seekers to build anew on uncorrupted foundations with principles aligned with the best interests of humanity. The need extends to the realms of public health, education, government, media, finance, law and beyond. The gospel of wokeness is toxic and must be purged. No amount of PR nice-making should precede the rethinking of our relationships with those who govern and purport to serve us. Much of the past and its dependency- fostering institutions must be abandoned. There’s no point trying to repair or reconcile with the old given the promises of integrity and transparency have been completely violated. There are societal scars with good reason.
Consider medicine and health care. One isn’t going to suddenly say “we’re good” to doctors who violated their oath en masse and blithely tell us they are sorry, it won’t happen again. We’re are going to need to know the old model of medical care has been abandoned and the era of Big pharma captivity has ended. We will need to know the demons have been exorcised and the era of the gods-in-white coats-know-best is over. And to the schools issuing standard mea culpas, many will simply say, “It’s not enough.” Parents will need to know that a shift in the balance of power has been embedded in a new covenant giving priority to parental rights and responsibilities. We must embark on a new journey confident that UN dictats have no standing and media monopolies are completely smashed.
Fundamental change in other sectors will also be critical. This includes dismantling the current political system and system of governance. The balance of power must be shifted toward a decentralized humanity-and-God-centric model. The very roots of the current totalitarian globalist model must be torn out. Until key relationships within the existing pyramid of global power are reoriented and re-conceptualized and transhumanism repudiated, trust isn’t even a remote possibility. After a debilitating Age of Deception, there’s a rising premium on trustworthiness, transparency and truth, the antidote to the malaise of cultural Marxism and woke politics.
I’ve attempted to explain why the collapse of trust means that it’s the end of “business-as-usual” PR. As a matter of habit, many leaders and mangers are likely nonetheless, to call in their consultants to develop PR patches. These are likely to fail when subjected to new stressors because they will merely serve to mask flaws in the premises or structure of key societal relationships. As illustrated earlier, this can be a matter of power imbalances between the two parties or corrupting influences like Big Pharma’s dominance in medicine and health care. Management will discover that as in the case of Humpty Dumpty’s fall, all the kings horses and all the kings PR magicians won’t be able to put many of those former relationships back together again. And in that lies the seeds of the PR profession’s very own crisis and a rethinking of its place, its ethic and guiding principles.
Endnotes:
Empire solves Ukraine’s Nazi problem with logo change: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/05/31/empire-solves-ukraines-nazi-problem-with-a-logo-change/
What the destruction of the Hippocratic Oath means for society: https://pauloosterhuis.substack.com/p/what-the-destruction-of-the-hippocratic?s=r