TMR 283 : Dr Piers Robinson : Cock-up or Conspiracy? Understanding COVID-19 as a "Structural Deep Event"

"The stakes could not be higher, and it has never been more essential to seriously engage with uncomfortable possibilities – even if that means interrogating explanations that move beyond reducing what we are all experiencing to blunder and incompetence."—Dr Piers Robinson We welcome to the programme Dr Piers Robinson—co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies—for an in-depth interview on his recent article: "Cock-up or Conspiracy? Understanding COVID-19 as a ‘Structural Deep Event’ ". As debate over "The Science" has intensified, increasing numbers of people are coming to question the Covid-19 Event. What best explains the often bizarre, and sometimes frightening, responses by authorities over the last two and a half years? Irrational panic by well-intentioned but incompetent politicians and health experts? Profiteering and power seeking by corporate and political vested interests? Or might we be looking at something more—a "structural deep event"—in which globally powerful actors might have harnessed (or even instigated) the Covid-19 Event in order to drive deep structural changes in society? Arguing that all possible explanations need to remain firmly on the table, Dr Robinson appeals to all thinking people to ask such difficult and uncomfortable questions, because to understand the past and the present is to guard the future and "the stakes could not be higher". Dr Piers Robinson is a co-director of the Organisation for Propaganda Studies and was Chair/Professor in Politics, Society and Political Journalism, University of Sheffield, 2016-2019, Senior Lecturer in International Politics (University of Manchester 2010-2016) and Lecturer in Political Communication (University of Liverpool, 1999-2005). He researches and writes on propaganda, media, international politics and conflict. [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]