The Adjustment Bureau Just Might Be True

The Adjustment Bureau Just Might Be True

By George Bailey
Oswald's Mother
Published: September 2, 2011

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them."

Philip K. Dick

“...we didn’t assume any answer, but investigated all possibilities and let the facts reveal the truth.”

Gerald R. Ford

Last Forward

The Warren Commission Report

Recently I saw the movie, The Adjustment Bureau based on the Philip K. Dick story. Simply, it’s a tale about a mysterious group of Gentlemen in suits and hats that go about tinkering with the thoughts and lives of individuals to change the course of history--both on a macro and micro level. The story takes off when the hero (Matt Damon) stumbles upon the Adjustment Bureau secretly at work and through them finds out that a woman he has recently met is not in the Plan and the Bureau is at work breaking up the relationship, supposedly, for the betterment of them both. Thus begins the classic narrative struggle, the lone man pitted against a powerful group. A story that commonly plays out in real life.

There is much to digest in this film and many mysteries abound. Such as, how does the Adjustment Bureau know enough about future events that their manipulations are going to get the end result? What is the true nature of a Free Will? In fact, Free Will is the main thread of the story.

There is a sense with the assassinations of the 1960’s that an Adjustment Bureau was at work in the deaths of those leaders. As if these men, The Kennedy's, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X–were going to bring about a future that a certain group of “others” did not desire. But then, how could they possibly know how the future would play out? Just because they feel it? One must assume they are not seers. Obviously the powerful never want to lose their position on the board so they make their moves. Apostle Paul defined faith as, “the evidence of things unseen...” Unseen maybe, but just as real or just as real as a threat. The perception of reality is a reoccurring theme in Philip K. Dick’s literary work.

Continued. . .