You know, every time one of these ghey ops comes around and it's soooo lame, there are always people that claim, "Of course! They're mocking us!" Maybe that's true to some extent, but I think there are more important observations to be made.

One is that They clearly don't need to make it more convincing. It achieves the desired effect, as we see, with little effort. But the more important observation based on that observation is that the vast majority of the population could detect it as phony, but it never enters their minds to begin such process. It is real to them because they have been told it is real, and all else must submit to that conclusion

Further, I would claim there's something even more diabolical and pernicious at work. That is, I believe humans judge the truth and falsity of events on a subconscious level, unavoidably, like a reflex. This is then put together with other factors in a longer process, but that T/F judgement is there.

So I came to conclude that, yes, They deliberately leave these phony enough for the subconscious to detect. We see that not many carry that forward, so the vast majority is left in another state, which then works in to something described by a guy named Theodore Dalrymple in a much different context:

In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of.probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

See how most people end up in this state of DoubleThink? That must be terribly stressful and corrosive, and I believe that's the point.

As to Masonry, what's funny about everything you said is that I believe Masons somehow lack the capacity to notice any of it. I mean, they are as a rule terribly reluctant to comment about Masonry in the first place. What kind of club are you in when you aren't excited to talk about it?

But with any and all the things you mentioned (and so much more), have you ever heard any Mason say something like, "Yeah, that really does seem weird. Can't say I know what's up with it, but it's very odd." Nope, just never seems to occur to them... lol