So, the other day, I did the familiar modern decided-to-watch-a-film dance - scrolling through endless offerings, overwhelmed by infinite choice, trying to avoid anything about serial killers or missing children, which seems to account for around 97.8% of all Netflix fare - and finally settled on a film called ‘Anniversary‘.
Netflix presented the film with the description: “After meeting their son’s aloof, ambitious new girlfriend, a couple watches their family fall apart as her extreme political project sweeps the nation.”
Miri’s Massive Missives is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Might there be just a little bit of predictive programming there, we wonder?
Well, in characteristic English understatement: er, yes.
‘Anniversary‘ tells the story of an unfeasibly happy couple, Paul and Ellen (unfeasible because they are affluent leftist liberals in their first and only marriage celebrating 25 years of wedded bliss, which is about as realistic as Keir Starmer’s alleged declaration that he “loves to go to his local pub for a pint of alcohol”).
They are as madly in love as the day they met (in a suitably storybook fashion, as she gazed, enraptured, upon a painting, and he gazed, enraptured, upon her), and have arranged a celebration gathering to mark the milestone occasion.
In attendance are all four of their children: lesbian stand-up comic, Anna; environmental lawyer, Cynthia; aspiring scientist, Birdie, and then the only family disappointment, failed novelist, Josh.
However, on this occasion, Josh has some good news to present: his beautiful and accomplished new girlfriend, Liz ‘Nettles’ (and we all know what nettles do to us... Some predictive programming is more subtle than others).
Liz is introduced to Josh’s parents, informs them that she is a political writer, and - congratulating them on their lasting marriage - mentions that she is the angry child of a bitter divorce.
Josh’s parents are decidedly unsettled by the meeting, so we understand straight away that (as they are such aspirational moral beacons themselves), Liz is the villain of the piece.
It later emerges that Josh’s mother, Ellen, and Liz have had a previous encounter, eight years ago, when Liz was a student of political professor Ellen’s at the prestigious Georgetown university.
They clashed in epic style, with Liz’s more conservative ideas clashing jarringly with the liberal Ellen’s.
Indeed, the clash escalated to the extent that Liz felt she had to leave the university, and - the clear implication is - has never forgiven Ellen for this slight.
Then, back to the present day, in quick succession, Liz publishes a best-selling political treatise (’The Change’), marries Josh, and gives birth to identical twin boys.
Josh grows more and more conservative under Liz’s influence - we watch his appearance change, from check-shirted, tousle-haired liberal, to close-cropped, black-polo necked, epitome-of-evil authoritarian - and becomes more sly and snide in his personal demeanour.
Meanwhile, the febrile political climate of modern-day America has been revolutionised by Liz’s book, which - whilst we are intentionally kept in the dark about most of the details - calls for a one-party state in order to unite the country.
The American flag is altered to put the stars in the centre, rather to one side, and every adherent of this revolutionary new movement proudly displays the new flag outside their homes.
Our guiding lights of morality and truth, Paul and Ellen, do not, and neither do their three daughters, one of whom (the lesbian) goes missing after challenging the new regime in a comedy sketch, and another of whom has an abortion, which prompts her husband to leave her and become ”one of them”.
When Evil Liz offers the couple’s youngest daughter, Birdie, an internship at her company to kickstart her career, Ellen threatens Liz with a knife and says, “if you groom another one of my children, I’ll kill you”.
It is made explicit to the audience that - even though Ellen is making violent death threats and wielding a weapon, whilst all Liz has done is express her opinions - Liz is the villain of the piece and Ellen is the good guy.
The film ends when (spoiler alert) the entire family, excepting Liz, are kidnapped and/or killed by the ruthless secret police of the new regime.
The first obvious observation about this film is that it is extremely Handmaid’s Tale esque in its depiction of a despotic, authoritarian regime which does not accept any criticism or challenge. This comparison is intentional and explicit, as the persecuted lesbian comic in the film, Anna, is played by Madeline Brewer, best known for her role as Janine Lindo in the Handmaid’s Tale series (Brewer was nominated for an Emmy Award for her starring role in this series).
The Handmaid Tale depicts a scenario in modern-day America where a seemingly “moderate” populist right-wing faction sweeps to power, and then, when they have that power, reveal themselves as extremist tyrannical authoritarians who ruthlessly penalise any dissent with rape, torture, and death.
The captured denizens of the Handmaid’s Tale regime are desperate to escape to tolerant, liberal Canada, where they will be free from brutal discrimination and at liberty to live their lives.
Equally, our shining lights of liberty and liberalism, Paul and Ellen in Anniversary, are desperate to escape from the new brutal regime that surrounds them, but - policed by curfews and drones - they cannot.
The message of both offerings is clear: conservative ideas, and challenges to liberal orthodoxy, are so dangerous, that they cannot be permitted to exist. Evil, murderous authoritarians camouflage their true nature under the guise of ‘free speech’, but if we actually let them freely express their ideas - as Serena Joy does in the Handmaid’s Tale with her book, and as Liz Nettles does in Anniversary with hers - they inevitably lead to fascistic one-party states where all dissidents get killed.
So, to prevent this, we must stamp out conservative ideas - and the people who hold them - before they can be allowed to usher in this inevitable end stage of their nefarious thoughts.
Intensive social engineering is currently underway, in both the UK and USA and other countries around the world, to “prove” the veracity of this notion: that conservative ideas are too dangerous to exist, and only a state-enforced liberal uni-climate can save us (blueprint: John Lennon’s Imagine).
This is why alleged “far-right” political movements and people, like Donald Trump and JD Vance in the USA, and Nigel Farage and Reform in the UK, are being propelled to such influence and power, with Reform currently set to win a landslide victory at the country’s next General Election.
What is then meant to happen (and this has been spelled out very explicitly in the frighteningly revelatory BBC series, Years and Years) is that all the worst extremes of conservative authoritarianism, that liberal intellectuals have warned about for decades, are realised, ultimately leading to the fall of conservatism, here and around the world, which then results in a global “never again” declaration and state-enforced liberalism everywhere.
We can already see how eerily life is imitating art in this regard, with the “flag wars”. In Anniversary, the central symbol of dangerous political extremism and intolerance of dissent is the new American flag, flown menacingly at exactly the same height outside every supporter’s home.
When I drove through the town of Oldham yesterday, which has been ground zero for political clashes and riots in the past, I saw something almost identical: the UK flag flown, at exactly the same height, up and down many streets.
Just as the American flag is supposed to symbolise evil, dangerous conservatism in the USA, the Union Jack is now supposed to symbolise that here. Flags are constantly being weaponised and used as red rags in the political wars - Palestine flags, Israel flags, Ukraine flags, etc.
This is all intentional social engineering used to “prove” that political differences - and especially national differences - between people are too dangerous and cause too much discord, so we have to eliminate them (no countries and no religions, as John Lennon prophetically sang).
The Anniversary film is just the latest piece of propaganda in a heavy and well-organised artillery of such things, to win the mass mind round to the idea that free speech and political plurality are simply too dangerous to exist, because look what happens when we have them.
All the extremist rhetoric being carefully sown into the high-profile political wars at the moment (such as making a martyr out of a grotesque caricature “right-winger” who called for immigrants to be torched to death, rather than someone plausible who has critiqued immigration intelligently and insightfully) is specifically about driving us towards this conclusion: that conservative ideas are just too dangerous to exist. They are only held by violent, murderous, thugs (bad, bad people)...
Good people are liberal. Good people have successful lesbian daughters and failed straight sons. Good people threaten to kill family members who express different political views to their own (because if you don’t, they’ll kill you - this is something many paranoid, oppressive regimes teach to their children, as to why it’s justified to hate and kill different kinds of people, just for being different).
We are being led in this direction by the same subversive social engineers who have been directing humanity’s fate for a very long time, but never before have they had such an all-encompassing arsenal of weaponry, whereby they can constantly attempt to mould our minds (and consequently our behaviour) with military-grade mind-control techniques.
They can submerge us in highly sophisticated propaganda posing as ‘entertainment’, as they do with streaming services like Netflix (co-founded by masters of mental manipulation, the Freud-Bernays dynasty). They can deluge us with wall-to-wall fear mongering with 24-hour news services. And, of course, they can keep us constantly riled up and on the precipice of rioting via promoted and amplified social media accounts, claiming they’ve been “arrested for a Tweet” criticising immigration (or transgenders or veganism or whatever).
The important thing is to recognise propaganda when we see it (and it is everywhere) and not react to it as “they” desire. As always, they need our cooperation to manifest the reality they’re desperately trying to create: they need us to perform in their dark pantomime and “prove” how dangerous political plurality is, so of course, we must not give that to them.
They want to present conservatives, anti-vaxxers, and lockdown sceptics as akin to Handmaid’s Tale authoritarians and uncouth thugs, while fawning over liberals as the kind, evolved, humane future. Watch the bait and switch as more and more high-profile “moderate conservatives” who said all the right things during lockdown, now come out with more and more extremist and regressive positions, setting intentional traps to see if they can get their audience to back them out of loyalty and therefore “prove” how evil conservatives are (Alistair Williams talked insightfully about this in this short video).
This will start happening on steroids once Reform is in government and if - as I and others predict - Trump doesn’t fulfil his full term and JD Vance prematurely comes to power.
But none of this is a foregone conclusion. It’s merely what “they” want, and we determine whether or not they get it (remember ‘monkeypox’, and how we roundly laughed that out of existence).
It’s vital to always remind ourselves that, just because the subversive social sorcerers want to conjure something into existence, doesn’t mean they can.
As always, the power to determine what becomes reality and what doesn’t, resides entirely with us.
Thanks for reading! This article was originally published at miriaf.co.uk, which is entirely reader-supported, with no paywalls, adverts, or wealthy corporate backers, meaning your support is what powers this site to keep going. If you enjoyed this article, and would like to read more in the future, please consider…
1. Subscribing monthly at Substack or Patreon (where paid subscribers can comment on posts)
3. Contributing in either way via bank transfer to Nat West, account number 30835984, sort code 54-10-27, account name FINCH MA (please use your email address as a reference if you’d like me to acknowledge receipt).
Your support is what allows these articles to keep being created and is enormously appreciated. Thank you.
Miri’s Massive Missives is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
“…trying to avoid anything about serial killers or missing children, which seems to account for around 97.8% of all Netflix fare …”
And the other 2.2% are Harlan Coben.
I'm tempted to watch this just to get to the scene where the lesbian comic goes missing.