A Call For An Uprising?

Yeah, maybe it should be a call for an uprising by everyone offended by ignorance in the modern world and possibly the most absurd supernatural-conspiracy-theory channel on YouTube.

Recently I have been talking with some friends who asked me to compile some of the most insane, counterintuitive, and laughably illogical conspiracy theories circulating in cyberspace today. Perhaps they could be good tools to use in my Conspiracy Films class, they said. So I thought that would be an interesting exercise…

…and I found an extremely prolific conspiracy channel on YouTube that could make for an entire class on its own. 

So check out a channel called “A Call For An Uprising” right here. This is one of a growing genre of conspiracy-theory purveyors dedicated to arguing that every celebrity and almost every prominent person in the world is a Satanist and a member of the Illuminati. And yes, this sort of thing we can call an entire genre of conspiracism, since a there is a depressingly large number of them all functioning on the same narrow set of premises and arguments attempting to “prove” that a global Satanic conspiracy is running the world and about to usher in the end of days and the Antichrist. Scary stuff! I think I will need to work these YouTube channels and websites into my in-progress book about the Apocalypse in popular culture. 

But here is a quick overview of some the oft-repeated arguments “A Call For An Uprising” cranks out in its daily videos (yes, DAILY!! Someone in a basement somewhere is putting these things together seven days a week, with each episode running anywhere from about 10 minutes to almost a half an hour).

Every single celebrity – from actors to singers, models, and even WWE wrestlers – is a member of the Illuminati and made a deal with the devil himself for their fame and fortune. And yes, "A Call For An Uprising" takes “a deal with the devil” quite literally. The origin of that term, you know, is but a metaphor. It refers to compromising one’s principles for some kind of financial or material - most often superficial and short lasting – gain. According to “A Call For An Uprising,” celebrities literally made a pact with an actual supernatural creature for fame and fortune. I would like to see some kind of proof of this pact of course. Like, hmm…I don’t know…maybe a video? Can I see footage of the dark lord of hell rising from a pit or something? Can I see the signing ceremony? A copy of the contract, perhaps? And how are these contracts negotiated? Does the devil have a cadre of lawyers hammering out the deal, or is it just the devil himself? Is the deal brokered by the celebrities’ agents? Their lawyers? So many questions! So few answers!

These Satanic Illuminati celebrities are perhaps the worst conspirators in the history of evil global conspiracies since none of them can help but keep giving the details of their diabolical plans away. According to “A Call For An Uprising,” the signs are everywhere. Movies, music videos, advertisements, TV shows, cartoons, comic books are all – yup, you guessed it, just rife with clues to how the Antichrist will take over the world. So these evil conspirators, apparently, like to operate the same way the Riddler always did in the Batman comics; they must always drop clues to their next big criminal plot. Why they would do this I’m not sure, but “A Call For An Uprising” has a catch phrase it loves repeating over and over again:

“Predictive Programming.” So whoever manages “A Call For An Uprising” just LOVES the phrase “predictive programming.” I guess it sounds very clandestine and mysterious and cool. It’s basically the Riddler principle, that evildoers for some reason don’t plot their evil deeds in secret but first need to trumpet it to the whole world by putting signs and codes and hidden phrases in their movies and music and TV shows and so forth. It makes as much sense as you plotting to rob the local bank but first going about and casing the place in the most obvious way. Imagine being that bank robber and walking into the bank, staring at the security cameras in the most conspicuous way, and perhaps even as you’re wearing a T-shirt with a huge sign on it saying “Bank robbery being planned right now.” Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

“A Call For An Uprising” also seems to have an obsession with witches. Numerous videos are about witchcraft and how TV shows are promoting witchcraft by real life, practicing, spell-casting, supernaturally powered witches. The most demented of these videos claims that Brett Kavanaugh’s problems with sexual assault allegations stemmed from his falling victim to a witch’s curse. The video even offers "proof" of this curse! And what proof, you might ask? Well, the hearings were often attended by the actress Alyssa Milano, who played a witch in the “Charmed” TV show. Clear cut proof, isn’t it?

The channel also seems to have an obsessive hatred of formal schooling. Now the American educational system, from elementary schools all the way to the halls of higher education might have its fair share of problems, but “A Call For An Uprising” claims the real dangers of schools lie in the way they are indoctrinating students in…you guessed it, Satanic Illuminati ideologies. The real reason schools require kids to study geometry, “A Call For An Uprising” argues, is to expose them to Illuminati and Freemasonic symbolism. Calculating the areas or triangles and hexagons, I suppose, is somehow brainwashing kids into becoming followers of demonic secret societies.

Now reading this, one might be tempted to shrug the whole thing off as the rantings of an obviously very sick, very delusional mind, someone still stuck in the 1980s and its oddball Satanic conspiracy theories. That, I think, is very far from the truth. Whoever is running this ridiculous web page, I am certain, functions the same way that Alex Jones does. The person—or people—behind “A Call For An Uprising” probably know how laughably insane every moment of every single one of their videos is. However, they also know that the United States in the early 21^stcentury is full of enough of the disenfranchised, the unsophisticated, the ignorant and those sadly lacking in any kind of critical thinking abilities, people so alienated from a consensus reality, that they will swallow every word of every single video on this channel as some kind of a gospel truth. Just check out the channel and see how it has—as of this writing—353,000 subscribers. Then read the disjointed, paranoid ramblings of those offering feedback. 

Very sad, indeed.

My big reveal!!

So I need to take the opportunity on the public forum to finally reveal my true identity to the world. I am the Antichrist!

Yes! And that is why I took the role of a college professor when I came to Earth. This is the profession that gives me the greatest opportunity to corrupt the most minds. Young, innocent, impressionable minds!

OK, so I’m kidding. But this is actually part of my introduction to the Do It Yourself Conspiracy exercise in my Conspiracy Films class. Through the reverse scientific process, by cherry-picking facts, making spurious connections, anyone can “prove” that just about any event in the world is but a part of a massive conspiracy. Even the most ridiculous of the supernatural, Antichrist and Satanic conspiracy theories can be proven true through the deceptive presentation of actual facts. The exercise is designed to help students develop critical thinking skills and help them understand how unethical communicators can manipulate the into believing the most patently absurd claims. In the age of fake news spreading through the internet and YouTube channels claiming to prove that the Earth is flat and that all entertainers are Satanic Illuminati conspirators plotting to take over the world (completely nuts, isn’t it? The only Satanic Illuminati conspirators around are teaching on college campuses) through the use of chemtrails and tainted vaccines that cause autism, I do believe that this is one of the most important exercises I give any of my classes.

But here is the proof that Barna William Donovan is the Antichrist himself:

The name! “William Donovan” was the founder of the CIA, the organization behind the biggest conspiracies of the late twentieth century. Assassination – from JFK to RFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lennon, Tupac Shakur, Princess Diana, and Michael Jackson – coverups from the Moon landing to the Roswell crash. And 9/11 anyone? Who but the CIA could have pulled that off?

Take a look at my books! Doesn’t all that violent imagery make you wonder? Blood? Guns? Testosterone? “A thirst for violence?” Who but the Antichrist would write such things?

Look at my blog posts arguing that there is no connection between media violence and real world violence? Is that not part of the most vile of Satanic deceptions??

Check out all the positive references to Lucifer, Satanists, and Baphomet. The work of the great deceiver himself!

Then let’s check out the fact that I teach at a Jesuit university. The Jesuits have also been accused of some of the biggest conspiracies in history. Check out this link to Jesuit conspiracies.

And let us not forget that Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, was trained by…wait for it…the Jesuits!!

And how about the location where I teach? Saint Peter’s University is on John F. Kennedy boulevard in Jersey City.  So a link between the CIA, the Jesuits, and JFK? Coincidence, right? Well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn if you believe that!

And how about the Satanic numerology of Saint Peter’s University’s location. You, I’m sure, are familiar with the oft-proven Satanic symbolism of the number 13. So guess where Saint Peter’s University is located…?

2641, John F. Kennedy boulevard!

And 2641 adds up to…13!!!!

So can any of this really be a coincidence?

Of course it can. This is a simple parlor trick that can be used to prove anything anyone wants to prove. Some of my students have “proven” that they had relatives who took part in the JFK assassination. 

And hopefully they all walked away from the class wiser to the ways of all the deception spreading through the Internet and social media today like a malignant virus.

Yes, the threat is real! From conspiracy theorists!

OK, so the time I had to devote to posting on this blog might have been limited over the last couple of weeks, but the recent feedback I have been getting keeps proving the point I have been making and the point in my new novel. And yes, I have been keeping an eye on the constant, downward-spiraling insanity that is the current phase of conspiracy theorizing in America.

And please, go ahead and scroll through the feedback my last couple of posts have been receiving to understand what I am talking about. Please look at the astonishingly repulsive, asinine, and cruel comments about the Catherine Oxenberg book in the previous post.  

I don’t delete any comments from this blog, even if I don’t have the time to always reply and even if I don’t agree with what they have to say. But I will criticize as loudly as I can.

Conspiracy theories are among the biggest threats this culture is facing today. It is time for intellectuals, for academics, for the sciences to start pushing back. The conspiracy community today are NOT alternative thinkers who dare to be critical. They are not offering legitimate challenges to the status quo. They are malignant, dangerous threat to rationality, the downward slide of society into the new dark ages where superstition and unprovable claims demand (and often get) as much credence as empirical facts. 

As an educator in communication and media studies, I am able to do my part in combating this by teaching skills in the true critical analysis of media messages. Are the claims being made in the mass media, in the alternative media like the various social media and Internet forums, provable beyond a shadow of a doubt or not? If they are not, they are true fake news.

Plus, when I teach my course on conspiracy theories and entertainment, I do my damnedest to make sure that no one leaves that class ever again thinking that Alex Jones is a reliable source of information, that the Illuminati might be working on setting up a new world order, that lizard aliens are running the world and keeping everyone asleep with chemtrails spread by Devil-worshipping airline pilots flying out of Denver International Airport.

In a world where people still argue that the world is flat and put children’s lives at risk by refusing to vaccinate, it might be the most important thing I am doing.

And hey, here’s a bit of not so hidden knowledge…the Illuminati, this oh-so dangerous secret society our conspiracy-obsessed subculture of paranoia is so frightened of believed in such threatening ideas as the separation of church and state, representative government, equal rights for women, and the primacy of reason and rationality in life. 

That sounds pretty good to me!

Seriously! I think I’d like to join the Illuminati if they really exist. Where I can get a get a hold of the application paperwork? Can I download it from a website?

Seriously! If the Illuminati admissions department is reading this, let’s talk…

I can totally keep any secrets about where Hitler’s cloned brain is hidden in the Bohemian Grove! For reals!!!

Cults, conspiracies, and freedom.

“Oh, my God, my child’s thinking is not based in reality!” 

This is a line out of one of the most compelling and harrowing books I’ve read in quite a while. What makes it all the more unsettling is that the book is nonfiction and reading it left me asking some very uncomfortable questions about human nature.

The book is Captive: A Mother’s Crusade to Save Her Daughter from a Terrifying Cult, by the actress Catherine Oxenberg (Dynasty). It details how Oxenberg’s daughter, India, was sucked into the NXIVM sex cult. Run by Keith Raniere, perhaps one of the most repugnant figures in the history cult crimes, the group kept an inner circle of female member as sex slaves, forced them onto starvation diets, and branded them with a hot iron.

NXIVM has been garnering a fair share of media attention over the last year or so because of the utterly bizarre and revolting details of how these women were treated, along with the celebrity connections. Aside from Catherine Oxenberg’s fight to get her daughter out of the cult, another strange twist in the NXIVM story is that Raniere’s second-in-command is alleged to have been Allison Mack, a former actress and one of the leads in the SmallvilleTV show. There were also reports of the cult desperately attempting to recruit Emma Watson into the fold, along with as many other celebrities as they could get their hands on. As Oxenberg details in the book, the actor Callum Blue had attended several NXIVM meetings (and found the group and its tenets absurd), director Mark Vicente had been an active member, as was Emiliano Salinas, son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. NXIVM, apparently, took a page out of the Scientology playbook in its aggressive pursuit of the rich and famous.

I started reading this book soon I after I saw the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country about the cult run by the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the 1980s and their plot to try and take over an Oregon county. Had the story of the Rajneeshes been made up for a fictional movie or a novel, it probably would be deemed too strange for the suspension of disbelief. Do check out the documentary (I binge-watched all of its 6 episodes over two days, it was so compelling) for all the details, but the long and short of it is that the Bhagwan’s followers carried out the first and still biggest bioterror attacks on American soil when they spread salmonella in the salad bars of a number of restaurants in the county. They were hoping to sway the county elections and get a majority of their own people elected to the board by keeping all of the anti-Rajneesh voters at home by way of the salmonella. Some 700 people were infected and sickened. 

The common thread between the Rajneesh cult and NXIVM that has me so fascinated was their membership roll of wealthy, well-educated, and successful people. Wild Wild Country excerpts some of the 80s news stories on the Bhagwan’s fleet of 90 Rolls Royces. It also discusses the sprawling compound—almost literally a small city—the Rajneeshes started building in the Oregon wilderness. The price tag for all those Rolls Royces and the construction must obviously have been astronomical, but since their members were among the cream of society (a very large percentage of these people were from the U.S., but some also from Europe, the upper classes of India, and Australia), and they had to sign away all of their bank accounts and assets to the cult, there was no problem for the Bhagwan in making the purchases. Moreover, the members who had been so business-savvy in their former lives also brought their skills to the management of the cult’s financial affairs and they were quite canny in the ongoing investment of all the money. We also see the Bhagwan’s appeal making its way to Hollywood, gaining several members from the entertainment industry. In fact, the Rajneesh movement would gather quite a roster of followers from a wide spectrum of the arts, business, and politics over the years, recruiting adherents who might not necessarily commit to fully immersing themselves in the group, giving up their assets, or moving into the compound. In the 1970s, while its headquarters—or “ashram”—was in India, the actor Terence Stamp (General Zod in the Christopher Reeve Superman films) had been a member. In the early 1980s Arianna Huffington had also been a member.

The reason all of this information troubles me so much, has shaken me to the core of my libertarian being, is that I have such a hard time wrapping my mind around people who willingly give up their individuality, their personal liberties. Where the world has for so long been so full of dictatorial, autocratic regimes—whether the product of political ideologies or religious dogmas—that millions have sought to escape, had risked their lives and the lives of their families to escape, what compels people in some of the most free societies in the world to willingly put themselves under the thumb of a controlling, exploitive cult leader, some guru or what have you? Why have controlling, manipulative cults been so successful in the U.S., a country whose very Constitution was based on libertarian principles? Moreover, how come some of the wealthy, people who are given the added freedom that money can buy, would choose to join something like NXIVM or the Rajneeshes, or any number of other such controlling, coercive organizations? 

Could there be something comforting in the control of the authoritarian state? There are, after all, people old enough to have lived in the former communist-block countries, others who had lived in the former U.S.S.R., who look back fondly upon the days of Stalinist dictatorships. Sure, you might have been watched all the time, told what to say, what to read, what to listen to, what to think, but at least you had someone—no matter how malevolent—watch over you. You didn’t need to worry too much about supporting yourself or managing complex finances since the state gave you everything. You got free schooling, free health care, free daycare, free housing and you might not have needed to worry about going hungry on the street...you just needed to stand in a bread line for five hours to get enough food to sustain you. But hey, at least you got food to sustain you, right? Everyone was equal you see…even if they were equally miserable. But still, not having to think too much and having everything handed out to you if you chose to be a lazy parasite who wants to live off the state has its appeal, doesn’t it?

The more I read of Captive and as I watched Wild Wild Country, the more I also thought of the conspiracy-theory culture. I had often felt that conspiratorial belief systems were a lot like religion. Conspiracy beliefs also seek to explain how unseen forces control everything in the world, how there is some hidden connection between all the random—and often unpleasant and painful—events in the world. Whereas religion attributes causality to an invisible deity, conspiracy theories replace that deity with the Masons, the Illuminati, the “international bankers,” and the New World Order. But conspiracy communities can also behave exactly like cults and all others authoritarian systems. Check out this disturbing, eye-opening account of a German woman’s time inside the world of the conspiracy culture if you don’t believe me. Like cults, like extremist, controlling ideological movements, in the conspiracy culture there is only one way or the highway. Tangible, testable, empirical proof of wild claims is not necessary—no proof is proof enough for the committed conspiracy theorist, since “They,” “Forces,” “The System,” or the “New World Order” has suppressed proof—and dissent within the movement leads to vicious browbeating, harassment, intimidation, and excommunication. 

Life in both cults or the conspiracy culture is one that is ultimate not based on reality. 

How come no one has killed Alex Jones yet?

I ask this after a recent discussion I had with a friend of mine who insisted that conspiracy theories like the ones about the JFK assassination and 9/11 are somewhat plausible - he "doesn't exactly" believe them, but could imagine that powers within the government would be willing to attempt such plots - and they could be successful because dissenters within the conspiracy could just be killed off. He - as JFK conspiracists often do - pointed to a series of "suspicious" deaths of people connected to the Kennedy assassination.

First of all, let's just clear the air about these deaths. There is nothing suspicious about them and these people who might have "known too much" died years apart and years after the Kennedy murder. For a superb examination and discussion of this, please take the time to read (and it will take you a little while since it's over 1000 pages) the late Vincent Bugliosi's book Reclaiming History about the assassination.

But conspiracy believers are generally big on assassinations. They believe no tangible evidence exists to prove their massive, complicated accusations because whistleblowers have either been killed off or they have been intimidated into silence through death threats.

So how come some conspiracists don't stop for a second and consider why these assassins from the New World Order haven't yet eliminated people like Alex Jones and the rest of his ilk? Why haven't they offed Jones years ago and made it look like an accident (but plant secret clues to the evil deeds the way criminal masterminds do in murder mysteries or in comic books the way the Riddler always does?).

The reason, of course, is because 9/11 conspiracies, "crisis actors," or Qanon conspiracies are exactly like comic books. They're fantasies!

Unfortunate, but not surprising...

I ran across this fascinating article from National Geographic about Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Not to be too self-serving, but my immediate reaction was that it's a real-world example of the theme I was trying to deal with in my new novel, CONFIRMATION. People will believe what they want to believe, what is the most convenient to maintain their preexisting belief systems so as never to have to admit they might have been wrong or that they need to change their world views. And they will keep believing no matter what they see right in front of their faces. This phenomenon, of course, has been demonstrated over and over again in decades' wroth of research in psychology as well as in media studies and analyses of people's reactions to persuasive messages.

These unfortunate folks on Tangier Island are watching their home slowly being claimed by the ocean. Some day, perhaps within the next 50 years, the island will no longer exist due to the rising ocean levels and the global climate change that's behind it. Nonetheless, they still cling to the belief that climate change is a hoax and believe in Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about climate science being fraudulent and the handiwork of the Chinese. These people will, no doubt, stick to their belief that climate change is not real until the moment the last of them will be evacuating the island. Then they will probably claim that the rising tides were a punishment from God because of the gays.

So when we scratch out heads at how people can so adamantly believe that the Earth is flat, that we never went to the Moon, that Bush family members blew up the Twin Towers, that crisis actors pretended to get shot in Las Vegas and Parkland, or any number of utterly implausible conspiracy theories, let's take a look at the people of Tangier Island.

Belief, no matter how it might fly in the face of tangible, empirical evidence, is a mighty powerful thing. And it can be incredibly destructive when manipulated by the opportunistic and unscrupulous.

Marco Rubio is THE MAN!!

This is fantastic! Florida Senator Marco Rubio - and fellow University of Miami alumnus - threatened to lay the smackdown on a heckling Alex Jones. Check out the article right here!

Apparently Jones did what he often liked to do in the past, namely go off in public bellowing tantrums and heckling. You know, to warn the American people about what's really going on and how the Illuminati are turning the world into a fascist state. Now, ironically enough, the kerfuffle began because Jones was upset at Rubio criticizing totalitarian states' attempts at censoring the Internet. So Jones started heckling Rubio during a press conference, accusing him of turning a blind eye to the Democrats' crackdown on the Internet. The Democrats? Hmm...right! And Jones apparently has no problems with Donald Trump's recent threats against Google?

Well, but that's just Alex Jones for you...

Anyhow, Jones' harangues eventually prompted Rubio to say, "I'll take care of you myself."

But do check out Jones' whining reply in the article, beseeching the press nearby to see how he has been threatened. Because, you know, the system is trying to silence him so he can't tell the American people what's really going on.

I recently commented that it was a mistake for tech companies like Facebook to ban Jones because they're turning him into the kind of martyr he wants to become. But still, a threat of a good ass-beating by a senator is just too awesome.

Go Canes!