"Survival is the ultimate ideology."

So says The Well Manicured Man to Agent Fox Mulder, in the 1998 movie production of the X-Files, also known as Blackwood or by its tag line -- "fight the future." Played with consumate verve by the British character actor John Neville, The Well Manicured Man represents both the best and worst of the British aristocracy in the X-Files mythology. He possesses cool nerves and a cooler ruthlessness, and yet his cold heart is redeemed by a subtle and penetrating intellect, and in the pivotal scene of this movie, by a conscience which finally surfaces and displays a core of absolute righteousness. He does the right thing.

It is the Well Manicured Man who divulges the truth about the hidden group of powerful men, the men who have consistently blocked and frustrated Mulder's attempts to learn more about the aliens who are supposed to have visited our planet, from time to time. It is he who lays down a cold and calculated scenario, one which has not been abandoned as the X Files have progressed as a television series, but rather -- has been expanded upon!!

"Your aliens, Agent Mulder," says Neville's Man, "arrived here millions of years ago. Those who didn't leave have been lying dormant, underground, since the last Ice Age, in the form of an evolved pathogen. Waiting to be reconstituted ~ by the alien race ~ when it comes to colonize the planet. Using us, as hosts. Against this we have no defense. Nothing -- but a weak vaccine -- do you see why it was kept secret??"

Mulder is hardly convinced by the assertions of the Well Manicured Man, but then in a stunning moment of political violence, Neville's character assassinates the driver of the limosine in which they are riding and lets Fox Mulder walk away unscathed -- and in possession of a sample of the vaccine. And further, Mulder walks in possession of the coordinates in Antarctica where his partner -- Agent Dana Scully -- has been taken after being infected with the alien virus. The Well Manicured Man stresses to Mulder that it is necessary, or absolutely imperative, that the vaccine be administered within 96 hours. He says that he is doing it for his own children (and grandchildren). So, having let Mulder walk, The Well Manicured Man gets back into the limo' and, it promptly blows up, and then incinerates him. Neville's character dies with honor, giving his life in the righteous cause of a war against an alien species which is not just intent on enslaving humanity, but using each individual human as a food source for its own propagation!

Beyond the "retro-noir" look of the X-Files is this serious business of propaganda: the aliens are not just "interesting," they are threatening. And the way that their threat is elaborated and "grown" by the X-Files episodes which deal with a possible alien incursion, invasion, or colonization -- has grown increasingly sharp and detailed. It is an extremely subtle use of the medium of fiction for what is apparently a true propaganda goal -- to prepare humanity to unite in an all-out struggle against an alien species. And to prepare the American people for the necessity of purging their own government of humans who are alien-controlled parasites -- operatives who have "infested" certain key government agencies and bureaucracies -- and who are being manipulated by an organic implant of some kind. This was made clear in the episodes aired in April, where Mulder and the new character -- John Doggett -- discover a conspiracy within the Census bureau. And where, again, a key phrase that unlocks the information and data-base, is "fight the future."

"What is a virus, but a colonizing force that cannot be defeated?"

This rhetorical question is put to Agent Mulder (David Duchovny), by the Well Manicured Man. And what is colonization by an alien species, if not a war of extermination and genocide? And it is not just the United States which is the target of this genocide.

Sun Tzu, in defining the five cateogories of war, quotes the military expert or sage, Wu Tzu: "Those in which all propriety is discarded because of greed are wanton wars. Those who, when the state is in disorder and the people exhausted, stir up trouble and agitate the multitude, cause insurgent wars."

Clearly, if a person accepts the notion that all fictional movies and television shows of any consequence, produced in this country or Great Britain since 1930, are propaganda vehicles, then the X-Files is propagandizing about the true nature of the wanton war which is coming our way. Because of the alignment of the X-Files with the Fox Television Network and Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, it would seem obvious that this propaganda has its origins in the ranks of Faction Two. The representations which are made, again and again in the X-Files, implicate some part of the Central Intelligence Agency in co-operating with the aliens; but as in real life, the rosters of the factions are unclear.

The FBI is itself honeycombed with unsavory characters. Yet, if one accepts that the countervailing powers which have known of the New World Order for a long time, and which have mobilized many excellent propaganda attacks against it, are aligned with Faction Two, then the X-Files resides in the same category as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)." In both fictions, the key and heroic character is a physician. Dr. Miles Bennell, as played by Kevin McCarthy is the prototype of scientific modern man, while Dr. Dana Scully is the '90s version of heroic -- a confident and lovely young woman with a penetrating intellect of her own, a quick wit, and a doubting philosophy. She is transformed again and again in the X-Files, but she never loses her lustrous presence or her appeal to youngster and teen-age girls. Dr. Bennell is the '50s Man, fast-witted and handsome, confident, a cigarette smoker; Scully is the '90s Woman, rational, suspicious, arrogant, a non-smoker; each presents a model or a template which a target audience can latch on to, and relate to, and become instantly comfortable with.

Sun Tzu also explains each of the five types of war: their defintions are given at the bottom of this page ***.

Sun Tzu further describes the way to deal with each kind of war, noting that "righteous war must be forestalled by proper government;" and that "enraged war" is countered by reason.

But, Sun Tzu adds this comment most curiously -- "a wanton war" must be dealt with "by deception and treachery." That is the nature of the X-Files, as a fiction, as a modern mythology. It is all about deception, trickery, and treachery.

Finally, Sun Tzu elaborates on what conditions will provide the basis for victory, when a Prince or a King or a sovereign State must go to war: "When the people know that the sovereign loves their lives and sorrows at their deaths to such an extent that he will face crisis together with them, the officers will consider it glorious to advance and die and shameful to save their lives by retreat."

Additionally Sun Tzu, drawing from the writings of Wu Tzu, notes that an army which is out of harmony with its components cannot win a decisive victory, that when the army is disorganized in the field, it cannot move to the offensive, and that if there is great discord within the army, it cannot even take the field. Most importantly, when "there is discord within the country the army cannot be mobilized." Thus, the propaganda created by the X-Files production team, under the generalship of Chris Carter, has inserted clear and unmistakable messages concerning the uses of discord and domestic violence, and has implicated Faction One as being the true author of all that turmoil and tumult.

These things were not presented in such a blatant manner early on in the development of the shows -- but they have become increasingly pointed as the years have gone by, and the X-Files has developed a stronger and larger following -- and these subtle cues or messages must now be analyzed within the context of this time, this new year of a new century, when so much that was hidden for so long ... is being revealed. Sun Tzu says that righteous war is waged "to suppress violence and quell disorder," but that "wanton war" is the most dangerous because in that condition, there are no longer any rules, even so-called Rules of Engagement. The message of the X-Files movie from 1998 is that simple: the aliens -- if they really exist -- are not coming to attack the human race because they are enraged or worried about the disorderly conduct of humanity, but to conquer, subdue, and then exterminate mankind, piecemeal at first, but in toto at the last. The prospect of war with the aliens is clearly identified as being wanton war and that there is no middle ground for the human race to occupy -- it is victory or extermination.

But before the armies of a united humanity can take the field against an advanced alien species ... as suggested in the X-Files and many other fictions ... the parasites and secret agents who have been inserted in our government, to work against us for our enslavement and extermination, must be rooted out and judged.

That, too, is not just a possibility for future action -- as Sun Tzu indicated so many thousands of years ago, "Righteousness" is that by which merit is established and the affairs of State conducted. Meanwhile the sage leader (and his general staff) holds to the highest principles, and governs the people with proper ritual and humanity. The great leader lifts up the level of moral discourse in both art and fiction, music and fashion, and he does not tolerate fraud nor let the rituals of his people descend into the gutter. Who will accomplish this for the United States and for those who love freedom and who hate the New World Order -- this has yet to be established.

*** Definitions of war by Sun Tzu, after Wu Tzu:

Aggressive war -- depends solely on the use of "force"

Enraged war -- happens "because rulers are actuated by anger"

Insurgent war -- caused by those "who, when the state is in disorder and the people exhausted, stir up trouble and agitate the multitude"

Righteous war -- "to suppress violence and quell disorder"

Wanton war -- happens when "all propriety is discarded because of greed".