Showing posts with label Before It's News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Before It's News. Show all posts

Saturday, August 12, 2023

Conspiracy Theories and Thought-Stopping Cliches

In March I was the keynote speaker at the Central New Jersey MENSA chapter’s annual convention, discussing misinformation and conspiracy theories, the reasons so many are obsessed with them more than ever today, the pernicious social impact of these belief systems and how to try and combat them. But we also discussed an aspect of conspiracism that is just as dangerous to society; the turning of the phrase “conspiracy theory” into a thought-stopping cliché deployed to shut down conversation, debate, and any and all questions aimed at institutions of power. In the months since the MENSA gathering, this problem only seems to be getting worse. Calling someone a “conspiracy theorist” is now the surest way to try and silence anyone who disagrees with you. 

 

As I had written before in my discussions of my work on the conspiracist phenomenon, its reflections in art and popular culture as well as my run-ins with members of this community—and as you can read in my dialogue with many of these people in this blog, especially the recent posts about the special edition magazines on vampires and Dungeons and Dragons—I think these belief systems have metastasized into something destabilizing and malignant in societies where they take root. And these theories have spread in numerous foreign countries as well, not just in the United States. Check out links here, here and here, for articles about conspiracy beliefs in Europe. Far from merely questioning authorities and being suspicious of bureaucracies and officialdom, the modern conspiracy movement has turned into a phantasmagorical alternate universe where no consensus reality exists, where people create their own reality at will. 

 

Conspiracism has created delusional subcultures of people who believe the Earth is flat, that reptilian aliens are running the world, the Moon landing is a hoax, and that the New World Order cabal used nuclear warheads and death rays from space to destroy the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. These are, of course, a very, very few examples of what goes on in conspiracy world. If you are an avid reader of conspiracy sites like "Before It’s News" and "State of the Nation" and any number of their ilk across cyberspace, you can be deluged by a daily tsunami of conspiracy theories about false flag attacks, predictive programming, crisis actors, the “true” origins of Covid, and rococo yarns spun about “Khazarian” plots to enslave the world that sound so illogical that even the most whimsical science fiction fan couldn’t suspend enough disbelief to accept them on the pages of low-rent pulp novels.

 

Conspiracism leads to a dangerous, unstable world of total relativism, a world where there is no consensus reality, a rejection of all proven expertise, and a place that rejects empirical, evidence-based logic. Although conspiracy world claims to be looking for the “truth” that is “out there,” truth actually does not exist in that world. Truth and reality are whatever you decide they are because they make you feel good. If someone attempts to interrogate your truth, to attempt to counter it with empirical facts, you dismiss that person by accusing them of being a part of the conspiracy. In conspiracy world, people will not only make up their own creative fantasies about human sacrifices and vampiric blood-drinking rites being carried out in tunnels under pizza parlors, but they might pick up a gun and storm pizza parlors on a rescue operation. In conspiracy world, people’s lives were put at risk after a fraudulent claim that the measles vaccine caused autism. Starting in 2020, thousands of people with compromised immune systems, in essence, committed suicide by refusing to take the Covid vaccines after choosing to believe their own personal truth about those vaccines carrying microchips made with alien technology in order to alter human DNA.

 

And conspiracy theories are dangerous because they make many more people automatically suspicious of charges of official misconduct, corruption, and coverup. If people read enough claims of Covid 19 having been caused by G5 cell towers as a part of a mind-control operation by the Illuminati, they tend to dismiss the very real forms of governmental overreach during the pandemic, dishonesty about the efficacy of the vaccines and the lockdown efforts to contain the virus, and the heavy-handed attempts to censor and limit questions and public discussion about the possible origins of the outbreak itself. This is how the term “conspiracy theorist” turns into a thought-stopping cliché, a cudgel to beat down any skeptic of official narratives and policy.

 

The most egregious example of the weaponization of the term “conspiracy theory,” its use as a tool of censorship was in the case of Covid origins. The early hypothesis about the origins of Covid favored by the scientific establishment was that it originated in Wuhan in a wet market where animals like pangolins and racoon dogs were sold for food. Almost from the very beginning, however, any alternative hypotheses like the possibility that the virus could have escaped from a local laboratory where gain of function research—research on how to modify viruses to make them more deadly—was underway was derided as dangerous, “baseless” conspiracy theories. How the idea that a disease outbreak starting in the city where a laboratory was working on increasing the lethality of viruses could be regarded as “baseless” defies all sense and logic. The Chinese government not only denied these claims vociferously, but it hampered the world scientific community’s efforts to find the outbreak’s origins. But such would be expected from a genocidal dictatorship. One would not expect it, however, from many in the scientific establishment who immediately declared that any and all discussion of the lab leak theory should be suppressed immediately. Science, after all, is a method for seeing knowledge, seeking empirical, quantifiable facts. This process involves constantly questioning research findings themselves, double-checking, and constantly replicating previous claims to the truth to make sure that no mistakes had been made. However, in the Covid era's anti-conspiracy hysteria, not only was the idea that a lethal virus could escape from a research facility that was tasked with creating lethal viruses a “baseless conspiracy theory,” but that it was a racist conspiracy theory for good measure. Moreover, it is outrageous how American technology giants like Facebook banned all information suggesting the lab leak theory for nearly two years. 

 

As this article details, during its early days in power, the Biden administration had exerted so much pressure on Facebook that the tech giant was removing joke memes about the possibility of the Covid vaccines being dangerous. The government’s attempt to exert pressure on a private media company to influence its content is censorship in its purest, most reprehensible form. Critics of this policy today are labeled as, of course, “conspiracy theorists.

 

But who is mostly to blame for this weaponization of the term “conspiracy?” I would still argue that it’s the conspiracy culture itself. It’s still the clown world of QAnon and people who had never gotten the note that the eighties are over and there are no global Satanic cults running daycare centers—or pizza parlors—and performing blood-drinking rituals in tunnels deep under the earth. There is, however, the despicable evil of global sex-trafficking organized crime rings, organizations that engage in the trafficking of children as well as adults. They do exist and they constitute a $150 billion a year industry. The problem, however, is that warnings of the existence of these crime syndicates have now been tainted by conspiracism. It becomes harder for some to talk about global crime rings when the discussion raises the echoes of State of the Nation, QAnon, and the madness of their conspiracy theories.

 

Likewise, many had been perfectly comfortable with the censorship of any discussion and debate about the origins of Covid, the effectiveness of draconian lockdown measures, and the effectiveness of vaccines and boosters. As we now know, however, Covid most likely came from a Wuhan lab, the most restrictive of lockdown measures during the pandemic proved to be no more effective in stopping the spread of the virus than the most lax of the Covid policies, and many people who had been vaccinated and boosted still got sick from Covid and still spread the virus. But the madness of conspiracy world helped kill off any tolerance for debate, discussion, and the questioning of official narratives about the pandemic.

 

And that is the true danger of conspiracism.

Sunday, May 2, 2021

You don't become a successful conspiracy theorist like this...

So, my "anti-fan," Hank Wolfe, on the Before It's News conspiracy site is again claiming that I am up to more dastardly deeds and wickedness. So far he had accused me of being a part of a plot to brainwash my students using 5G technology during my online classes and to replace students who are critical of conspiracy theories with computer-generated "deep fake" doubles. He seems to imply that I either had advanced knowledge of the COVID-19 outbreak or I'm just taking advantage of a COVID hoax - his postings are not quite clear if COVID-19 was manufactured or it's a hoax and no virus actually exists - in order to enslave my students. Since he doesn't seem to be accusing me of being one of the creators of the pandemic (or hoax), I am actually a bit disappointed. I really would have liked to have been accused of something as grand as causing the entire outbreak, or maybe just sitting on the all-powerful Committee of Doom that had manufactured the pandemic.

Now in a post from December 23, which I just noticed on Hank's Before It's News page, he does accuse me of being the mastermind behind the 2020 metal monolith mystery. My novel, CONFIRMATION, Hank argues, is but a bit of "predictive programming," or a part of some greater global plot. I need to reread his post since I can't quite recall his muddled line of "reasoning." Or you can check his posts about me and monoliths here and in right here.

It's true that I joked around about the monolith connection to CONFIRMATION on this blog, but it was, you know...A JOKE!!!

Now it's easy - and oh, so enjoyable - to make fun of a second-rate fantasist like Hank Wolfe. He makes broad declarations of grand conspiracy theories without offering a shred of proof for any of them. In fact, he does not even try his hand at the sort of conspiracist illusion of proof where he provides links to other conspiracy sites making their own unsubstantiated claims. 

That sort of citation, for example, is the stock in trade of State of the Nation, where each of their unhinged claims of COVID hoaxes, alien space weapons, and false flag operations reference a large number of other sources. Those sources, of course, are conspiracy theorists or just previous State of the Nation articles. This sort of circular method of self-referentiality is so amusing that I think I might use it as a teaching tool in my research methods class this fall. Study State of the Nation very carefully, I will explain, to learn how not to present research.

But Hank Wolfe does not bother to try and reference his shocking claims with even the sort of inept approximation of the scholarly citation system. Hank, actually, appears to be somewhat of a lazy conspiracy theorist, posting claims of far-reaching evil plots sometimes weeks, or even months apart.

What Hank does do on occasion is offer links to some news stories he attempts to use as proof that some immense conspiracy can no longer be kept secret. For example, check out this post where his headline screams that the January 6 Capitol riot was so obviously a false flag attack that even The New York Times says as much. Except the Times does no such thing.

And then we have Hank's latest postings about several stories in the Saint Peter's student newspaper, The Tribune. He argues that these two stories - check them out here and here - just about admit that my grand scheme of controlling students' minds are in full swing. The first story, about marijuana legalization in New Jersey is really an admission of an MKULTRA-style mind-control experiment, or so says Hank. The the story about students and faculty starting their COVID vaccinations, Hank writes, is a glimpse into the university's forced vaccination policy. If anyone reads these stories, they will immediately see that Hank is either spectacularly delusional, can't read, or that he thinks his fans are as lazy as he is and would never check his sources.

Hank Wolfe really could benefit from taking my class on conspiracy theories. The Do It Yourself Conspiracy exercise could help him come up with a much more convincing fake conspiracy theory than the kind of lame material he posts on his Before It's News page.

But I guess we can thank Hank for his ineptitude. In a way he helps shine a light on this bizarre cultural phenomenon that has gone so far off the deep end that at its core is but a collection of fabricated stories by sad, desperate losers and opportunists dreaming of becoming next Alex Jones. Hank's nonsense about 5G mind control technology and online learning come through in much fewer articles that say the constant deluge of rancid sewer sludge on the Sate of the Nation or Millennium Report sites. Although Hank sometimes proclaims in very matter of fact tones that the COVID pandemic is a hoax, his focus still seems to be on the more exotic realms of MKULTRA-like brainwashing conspiracies. His work is both scattered and inept. It is not in the league of the shear, cold-blooded, opportunistic evil of a conspiracy site like State of the Nation that repeatedly implores its readers not to get vaccinated, not to wear masks if one is not vaccinated and in the company of strangers, and to avoid all safety precautions that might stop the spread of COVID-19. Hank Wolfe is but a sad, inept clown, a wannabe in a crowded field of aspiring conspiracy influencers. His competition, like State of the Nation, on the other hand, spreads information that's as close as one could get to attempted murder.

Monday, February 22, 2021

Imagine the creeps who would laugh at others' misfortune



Taking a deep dive into the conspiracy subculture for a project I am working on, I've been seeing the largely expected effort to keep current with the times, or explain that yet another major news event is not as it appears to be. Websites like Alex Jones' Info Wars, Before It's News, State of the Nation, and other such serial fabulists are very predictable arguing that the deep freeze that has been devastating Texas is either not real (Texas has been covered by white plastic-like goo and not snow, some conspiracists argue) or that the storms are a result of a weather-manipulation technology.

Wow!

And while the weather-manipulation technology is the more interesting of the two theories, the identity of the mastermind behind this fiendish plot to freeze the world in Texas is none other than...Bill Gates!

Gates, that overachiever of diabolical New World Order supervillains, must have had some free time on his hands after creating the COVID-19 virus and the microchips inside the vaccines, so he whipped up a quick storm to batter Texas.

The proof of this conspiracy, as usual, is nothing but a long list of links to other conspiracy sites. Or, as in the case of the State of the Nation - turning these days into perhaps the laziest of conspiracy mongers - the links to the evidence lead to yet other SOTN articles.

While the claims of these so-called "Texasgate" and "Stormgate" conspiracy theories are hardly worthy of examining and wasting one's time in refuting, their true repugnant nature emerges if one only spends a few minutes skimming their texts. These "theories" look like the handiwork of gleefully sadistic sociopaths who enjoy mocking others' pain and suffering. Why not take death, destruction, financial ruin, and illness, these people must ask themselves, and exploit them in these ludicrous exercises of cherry-picking facts, misquoting sources, and presenting information wildly out of context all for the entertainment of a collection of ghouls who like to use others misfortunes for entertainment?

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Not surprising in a world with no consensus reality



So I've been away from the blog for a while, as the holidays and numerous writing projects have been taking up my time, but found myself shaking my head in dismay at a month's worth of insanity every time I glanced at trending stories in news apps or turned on the TV. Even though I study the social phenomenon of conspiracy theories, the events of the past month leave me stunned. Although I guess they shouldn't. The logical end result of the conspiratorial mentality, as we have seen so plainly on January 6, is anarchy violence, and destruction. 

This shameful end of the road to the QAnon conspiracy and its adherents should, again, not be a surprise. In 2019 an unpublished FBI memo warned that QAnon and similar conspiratorial subcultures should be viewed as a potential terrorist threat as we would approach to 2020 elections and its aftermath.  And now the memo was proven right.

But even before January 6, the depth of the depravity to which conspiracy fantasies could be goaded into has been obvious. What could be more repugnant than the harassment of the families of Sandy Hook victims by conspiracy theorists? Or anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists taunting and mocking the parents of children who had needlessly died of the measles because they haven't been given life-saving vaccines? Does it surprise anyone that people who could sink as low as the harassment of the Sandy Hook families would be capable of rioting in the Capitol building?

And the worst part of this conspiratorial madness is the fact that the disaffected, a disillusioned collection of unfortunate souls out there, people somehow so disconnected from a consensus reality as to actually entertain the irrational tenets of QAnon, have been goaded on in their beliefs. They have been pushed and egged on, their gullibility, anger, fear, and disillusionment with the world exploited by opportunistic con artists. Their fears have been fed by people like Alex Jones and his imitators all across the Internet - from the State of the Nation to the Millennium Report, Before It's News and Zero Hedge - egging on the unstable toward the inevitable violence.

And the most frustrating and shameful of this exploitation of a disaffected subculture of America was Donald Trump's own tacit endorsement of the QAnon movement from its very inception in 2017. Turning a blind eye to the sort of extremism growing on the fringes of the conservative right by the President of the United States is outrageous. His claims that he knew nothing of QAnon's off-the-wall Satanic child-trafficking conspiracy theory is completely unbelievable. 

People as angry and volatile as the ones who stormed the Capitol are still out there and all over the country. Dealing with this madness, the ultimate madness of a world where there is no consensus reality, is perhaps the biggest existential challenge this culture has to deal with in a long time...perhaps a threat it has never faced before in its history.

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Believe Me, We Did You a Favor!

So, I’m feeling quite impressed that more than three weeks after our “From 9/11 to COVID-19” conference, conspiracy theorists are still worked up about it. Some guy named Hank Wolfe on the Before It’s News conspiracy site is conducting an “investigation” of “Donovangate” and my masterminding of a nation-wide plot to replace students in online classes with deep-fake avatars. Seriously!

 

You can check out the “ongoing investigation” right here.

 

And, by the way, Hank Wolfe is also fixated on the Satanic significance of the October 13 date of the event. 

 

An article in the Saint Peter’s student newspaper about the event is still bombarded by unhinged comments and rants about how an audience of “truth seekers” were silenced in the Zoom chat room and we refused to answer any of their questions. 

 

The State of the Nation ran a couple of stories on the event, warning their readers about the “anti-truth” event and sharing a hysterical, whiny email from someone who claims to have logged into the event but couldn’t get any questions answered. You can check out the SOTN article here. The first story, by the way, also warns of a dark and dangerous Jesuit conspiracy to deceive America’s youth.

 

Now the student newspaper, as I understand it, contacted SOTN for comments about their dangerous Jesuit conspiracy but got no response other than a list of links to other conspiracy theorists. 

 

But were there questions from outsiders screened out during the conference? Yes, there were. This event was intended for an SPU audience, so imagine our surprise when we notice scores of people logging in who were not affiliated with the school. While we thought we were only sharing the login information with our colleagues and students, apparently someone must have shared that information with who knows how many other friends and they in turn shared it again and so on and so forth. Then it wound up in the conspiracy community.

 

Does the easy escape of the login information make you think of anything interesting, though? Do you notice how hard it really is to keep anything secret? Makes you wonder about those rococo conspiracy theories SOTN loves to spin seemingly 24/7.

 

But to get back to the issue of whether or not we tried to avoid answering the questions of the outsiders, let me just say this: we probably should have. We should have let them ask their Holocaust-denial questions and ask about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like Jews seen celebrating the attacks of 9/11. They would easily have been exposed as the vile hatemongers they are. The best defense against the worst, most hateful people in this world who trade in discord and prejudice is to shine a light on them and have the world see them for what they are. That, by the way, is why I don’t remove any reader comments from this blog, no matter how ridiculous or even hateful they may be. Stupidity should be shown off in all its slow-witted, demented glory. So not listening to and acknowledging these people’s comments during the conference probably did them a great big favor. 

 

It is also for this reason, to shine the light on American culture’s ugly, deranged underbelly the conspiracy culture represents, that I teach my class on conspiracy theories. People like whatever anonymous collection of charlatans is behind State of the Nation is a constant staple in the class. They are a perfect teaching tool when it comes to demonstrating every underhanded, unethical, dishonest, and manipulative form of communication today. For the major final assignment of the semester, the Do It Yourself Conspiracy assignment, I repeatedly send my students to the SOTN page to have them see conspiracist sleaze at its very worst…or is that sleaze at its very best?

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Teachergate and Gay Frogs



This fall semester I am teaching my class on the history of conspiracy theories and conspiracy entertainment again, and this time we’re busier than ever. As I post supplemental materials on the course Blackboard shell, it becomes harder and harder to keep ahead of the students. They’re often able to top me finding the most outlandish conspiratorial claims in the shortest amount of time. It’s especially gratifying—or is that disturbing?—to see them find older theories that somehow still finds some adherents.

 

For example, when one of my students found Alex Jones’ rants about the New World Order introducing chemicals into the water supply that turn frogs gay, lots of laughs were had in class. Check out this YouTube clip where someone edited Jones’ histrionics into a music video. While the clip was posted three years ago, there are still Jones fans out there worried about those homosexuality-causing chemicals in the drinking water.

 

The frog theory and video, aside from being hilarious, were also quite useful for our discussion of the fluoride-in-the-water conspiracy theory of the 1950s and 60s. That was a theory Stanley Kubrick had already lampooned in his 1964 classic, Dr. Strangelove. Yet fluoridated-water theory still has its staunch believers to this day.

 

The students’ final project will be the Do It Yourself Conspiracy exercise, where they will have to create their own conspiracy theory using the typical conspiracist’s tricks of the trade: cherry-picking facts to support preconceived ideas, quoting people out of context, making spurious connections between unrelated variables. Usually in the past I had seen some remarkable creations of conspiracy fiction that rival the professional charlatans like Jones or the people at the State of the Nation and the Millennium report sites. This year, however, I’m not sure how the students’ work will stack up against the unadulterated madness of the pros.

 

I mean QAnon? Really people? A vast cabal of human-sacrificing Satanists led by Tom Hanks congregating in tunnels deep underground to drink human blood? Take a look at this Time article to see how committed the QAnon followers are to their cause.

 

And then I noticed a series of posts on the Before It’s News site that quite impressed me. No major news event is left unexploited by the truly committed conspiracists. School closings, apparently, are suspect for a writer named Hank Wolfe, with online education being just a part of a vast 5G mind-control plot he calls "Teachergate." In his posts, Wolfe draws a line between school closings, 5G towers, the New World Order, brainwashing, and all the way to Elon Musk’s neuralink microchip and teachers being replaced by perfectly realistic artificial intelligence simulations on the screens of millions of students across the country.

 

Wolfe’s complete thesis can be read across the following four postings:

 

https://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2020/07/online-education-and-5g-mind-control-exposed-2517291.html

 

https://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2020/08/teachergate-school-cancellation-agenda-exposed-2517416.html

 

https://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2020/08/elon-musk-brain-implants-and-nwo-mind-control-2517431.html

 

https://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2020/09/musk-5g-and-the-school-shut-down-scam-2517449.html

 

The one disappointing thing about Wolfe’s posts is the way he didn’t weave Satan, the Antichrist, or blood-drinking, devil-worshipping celebrities into his yarn. Perhaps it’s because A Call for an Uprising is working that side of the street. Or maybe Wolfe just didn’t get around to it yet. Perhaps that will be his next major revelation.

 

But with theories like Wolfe’s out there, my students will be challenged to reach deep inside their creative core and really work extra hard to top harebrained craziness. 

Saturday, March 14, 2020

Unconscionable Monsters...

That’s the only phrase I could use in a recent reply I wrote to a comment on my October 29, 2018 post about the Call for and Uprising YouTube channel that has recently shifted from its laughably ridiculous obsession with Satanists in the entertainment industry to its jumping on a series of repugnant, morally bankrupt Coronavirus conspiracy theories. The worse of these theories—to be found all over the online conspiracy community—all amount to attempting to convince people to ignore the scientific and medical establishment’s guidelines on avoiding the COVID-19 virus. People who actively try to convince others to ignore the safety warnings about this disease can hardly be classified as human. Can there be no clearer example of true evil in this world today than someone who willfully attempts to deceive others into endangering their lives and health? Such behavior is on par with attempted murder.

Among some of the most repellent examples of these theories, found all across web pages like State of the Nation, The Millennium Report, Before It’s News, or Alex Jones’ Infowars, include claims that the virus just simply does not exist, that the illnesses are caused by 5G cell towers, that the entire outbreak was engineered by some mysterious “they” to depopulate the Earth, or that the virus is real but it had been created to then compel people to take vaccines that will kill them. 

Alex Jones, the most high-profile and prolific of these professional scumbags, has also just been warned by the New York State attorney general’s office to stop peddling a “natural” remedy he claims will cure COVID-19. Check out an article about it right here. Jones, of course, knows full well that tens of thousands of his readers and listeners hang on his every word every day. And he knows that there is no cure yet for the virus. Attempting to sell his listeners this modern day version of snake oil (a concoction called colloidal silver that has absolutely no scientifically proven medicinal properties) is the act of one of the most brazen, the most audacious sociopaths in the conspiracy world.

There indeed are a couple of horrible diseases spreading the world right now. The Coronavirus is just one of them. The other one is the conspiracy theory.

Saturday, January 25, 2020

Yes, fear peddled by conspiracy theorists sells


There are conspiracy theories spreading on the Internet about the Wuhan coronavirus! Shocked! Shocked I am! 

If one looks around online, curious perhaps about who might have spread the virus and for what purpose, one will find exactly the sort of nonsense anyone even remotely familiar today’s subculture of disaffected paranoids would expect to find. There are the rather stale old standards about the New World Order, the Globalists, the Freemasons, and the Illuminati creating this virus to rule the world, to create a one-world government, prepare the way for an alien takeover, or reduce the human population. This stuff has already turned up on Before It’s News, the Millennium Report, and State of the Nation among others, as quickly as one would expect. And these theories about the coronavirus are stale and unimaginative, I suppose, because the pressure must be high to crank out a new paranoid fantasy the moment a new story hits the headlines. Inventing a new conspiracy theory virtually overnight is not easy, so sometimes the folks behind these websites have to just slum it a little bit and blame the same bogeymen of the NWO and the Illuminati for the same old reasons. Very disappointing, guys, very disappointing!

But then check out this whole new theory about the coronavirus having been created by “Big Pharma” simply in order to then supply a vaccine for it and make money. The brains behind the theory appears to be a particularly opportunistic little jackal named Jordan Sather (in the picture above), a social-media conspiracy theory figure. A college dropout and apparent self-published author of a 35-page pamphlet about the importance of standing upright and keeping a good posture (I’m not making this up, check it out on Amazon), Sather nevertheless appears to be running a successful racket—ahem…online enterprise—exposing the “truth” about vaccines, holistic medicine, and still endorsing the delusional rantings of QAnon. 

As the article I linked to above explains, Sather’s theory—spreading across social media like wildfire—claims that the coronavirus already had an antidote created for it by the diabolical Big Pharma and the Gates Foundation, back in 2015. So Big Pharma will now unleash their virus, wait for it to kill enough people to make the world panic, and then offer up their solution in the 2015 vaccine and make a handsome profit.

Anti-vaxxers and QAnon fans are, naturally, agreeing with Sather’s theory.

The one problem with the theory is that the coronavirus vaccine from 2015 he refers to (and yes, a certain vaccine exists) is for the avian coronavirus. It’s not the coronavirus making the headlines right now. You see, people who are not college dropouts and understand the importance of expert sources on scientific information will know that “coronavirus” refers to a whole family of viruses. It’s just that the current one that has been spreading through China is not the same virus the vaccine was created for in 2015.

Thus, the moral of the story here is the importance of education and critical thinking. The kind of education one gets in an accredited institution of higher learning and not YouTube videos and social media pages run by college dropouts.

The most ironic part of the whole Jordan Sather story is when he warns his readers that a lot of money can be made from selling fear. Sather, you will find if you visit his web page, propagates many, many videos and documents “proving” other shocking conspiracy theories. For the price of a subscription, of course.

So Jordan might not have finished college, but he knows enough how to be an effective swindler.

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

I'm not sure which one is worse...


On the one hand we had a gang of murdering animals like ISIS on a bombing spree in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, killing over 300 people.

And less than 24-hours-later - literally, almost on the very same day - we see the bloodsuckers exploiting it for attention and money on the internet.

I had written before about how almost immediately after some tragedy - from the Boston marathon bombing to the various mass shootings - we see the grave robbers, the bottom-feeders of the conspiracy culture posting their demented alternate theories about "false flag" attacks and "crisis actors." Except in the case of the Sri Lanka attacks, these "alternate news" sleaze bags like State of the Nation and the Millennium Report posted their theories about false flag attacks within a few hours of the news breaking from Sri Lanka.

Check out this link to State of the Nation about the Sri Lanka false flag theory and note how it links to the Millennium Report. The two sites are virtually identical, with State of the Nation regurgitating almost everything that appears on Millennium Report, from its anti-vaxxer nonsense to its plethora of delusional stories about prophecies and Pizzagate and massive deep-state conspiracy theories.

And yes, I admit that this is not any sort of measured, civil piece of discourse on an important issue of the day. But how much civility is warranted when we have a grimy little cottage industry of paranoia thriving on the internet today? How much civility do we owe people like State of the Nation, and Alex Jones, and Millennium report, Before it's News, and Sheila Zilinsky and their ilk who capitalize on death and suffering, who exploit grief so they can make money off their web pages, podcasts, and YouTube channels. Can you not see each of these lowlives jumping with glee, with absolute pleasure every time we have another story of mass destruction, mass murder? The higher the bodycount, the more opportunity there is to make a quick buck of the gullible, the paranoid, and the alienated.

Looking at the sickening handiwork of killers...or looking at the people who cash in on the murders by spreading even more fear, even more paranoia through their conspiratorial BS. I'm really not sure any more which of the two sides is actually worse.

By the most basic definition of the word, they are both "terrorists."

Friday, March 22, 2019

The sad "State of the Nation"


So how does that saying go that if you have enemies it means you’ve stood up for something some time in your life? 

A few days ago the State of the Nation website ran this little insult piece about me, claiming that not only am I the “torchbearer” of the anti-conspiracy movement, but that my “torch went out.” To illustrate that my torch went out, they provided several examples of the typical “proof” that is in the tool box of all conspiracy theorists worth their salt: links to unsubstantiated claims made by other conspiracy theorists and articles and quotes taken out of context. Do check out their links and see for yourself. They are quite amusing, especially the link that supposedly blows the lid off the Sandy Hook false flag conspiracy…posted by someone called “Dr. Eowyn” from the Millennium Report web page. It’s fascinating to see that much of the content on the State of the Nation page is just material reposted from the Millennium Report. Although the Millennium Report doesn’t appear to be reposting stuff from State of the Nation. Or at least they didn’t run the article about me. I’m somewhat disappointed.

Now am I upset about the State of the Nation’s article? Not in the least. As you will see when you visit their page, these are the people who argue that the California fires were started by lasers from space! How upset can you be if people like this criticize you? Plus, if you scroll down to my anti-vaccine post below, someone criticizing me put up their own link to the State of the Nation article. That person also thought that I would remove their comments and give them the comfort of feeling like the martyr for the “truth” they crave for. As I wrote here before, I won’t remove any criticism of me, and I certainly do not need to remove any State of the Nation fan’s conspiracist rants. Illogical, absurd foolishness will be recognized as such by the normal people that make up the majority of the population. The tinfoil garbage of State of the Nation, Millennium Report, Alex Jones, the Before It’s News website, the anti-vaxxer movement, and the rest of their ilk will be laughed at and dismissed by most individuals whose IQs are larger than their belt size.

And the State of the Nation piece also reminds me of the work I also need to do as a writer and educator. The sad fact is that we do have a number of unfortunate lost souls out there who, for whatever reason, are so alienated from mainstream society and all sources of expertise and consensus reality that they choose to believe in fantasies about the Illuminati, the New World Order, Satanic secret societies running the world, and autism-causing vaccines being given to children on purpose. The paranoia of these people is then being fed by unscrupulous charlatans like Alex Jones, the State of the Nation, Before It's News, or A Call for an Uprising-type YouTube channels. It’s only education that has a chance of standing up to this new rising Dark Age of irrationality.