A Call for an Uprising...to find all those missing pets?

 

I recently spent a little time watching a YouTube video from Call for an Uprising since its fans have been responding so vigorously to my last post about the channel. Afterward I did some Googling for information about a sudden surge in animal disappearances and—no surprise here—couldn’t really find anything.

So why did I look for information about missing animals, you might ask. Well, one of their recent videos included a very surreal and disjointed rant about this past Friday the 13^thcoinciding with the Harvest Moon and how there is supposed to be Satanic activity at an all-time high when that happens. In a rather quick rant—sounding quite rushed, sloppy, and even more unhinged than the usual videos from this channel—the narrator unleashed a sort of stream of consciousness ramble about Satanic cults performing rituals during the Harvest Moon and on Friday 13^thand how on both of these occasions household pets go missing at a greater frequency than most other times. Again, since the 13^thand the Harvest Moon fell on the same date, pets were supposed to have been disappearing left and right.

So far I’ve found no evidence in the news—national or local—for any sort of an increase in pet disappearances this past Friday. The reason for this, Uprising fans will, I’m certain, soon point out, is that the mainstream media is keeping all of this hidden because they are under the control of the Illuminati Satanists. Instead of putting this massive media-machine cover-up to use, I’m not sure why the Satanists wouldn’t just go and buy some cats and dogs—or whatever else it is they need to sacrifice—from some animal shelters. Those animals are not that expensive and I’m sure it would be much less of a hassle to buy a cat or a dog than to try and steal it and then call their compatriots at the hidden Illuminati lair to squelch all police reports of mass animal disappearances. 

Plus, Uprising claims, these animal-sacrificing Satanists are all around us. They are normal-looking everyday people. They could be your next-door neighbor. You might even see them at church on Sunday because they claim to be good Christians. It’s only behind closed doors that their true evil nature is revealed! Pretty scary stuff, right? It could make for a really nifty horror movie late night on the SyFy channel, or a low-budget offering on Netflix. But I’m just wondering about the efficiency of all that animal-stealing. If these vicious blood-thirsty Satanists are the people next door, then wouldn’t they need to hold down day jobs? So when would they find the time to make the plans to steal the animals? Uprising makes it sound like the animal thefts are committed on Friday the 13^th, but I’m wondering why the Satanists couldn’t have stolen the animals earlier, just so everything is all set and ready to go for Friday night. Stealing your neighbor’s dog on Friday, after a long day of work, sounds rough and way too risky. I mean I must admit that on Friday afternoon, after a long day and a long week of work, I’m pretty beat. I’m not sure that I would have the stamina to go out and try and steal a cat or a dog, plus make it to my local coven’s shadowy headquarters for the Black Mass and the sacrifice.

But the rest of the episode is full of these kinds of logical inconsistencies. Just check it out for yourself for a few laughs. My second favorite howler of a claim is that the Satanic panic of the 1980s was actually manufactured by the world-wide Luciferian conspiracy. So that absurd moral panic was created by Satanists—arguing that there was a world-wide Luciferian conspiracy—in order to have the whole thing collapse, get debunked by everyone from local police agencies to the FBI (all part of the Satanic underground, I presume) so that they could keep on worshiping the Dark Lord of Hell in privacy and not be suspected by anyone. Hmm…interesting! So then why not just worship in private in the beginning and why bring the topic of Satan into the mainstream conversation. 

So the arguments in this video were so vague and completely lacking in one single iota, one scintilla, one shred of evidence that could prove any of its crazed, feverish rambling, that I just had to do a little investigating and look at the new Call for an Uprising web page. Maybe there would be some discussion of actual evidence to prove these claims. Maybe there was a hint of how the mysterious figure behind this channel uncovered the secrets of the Satanists and lived to tell the tale. But all I found was the requirement to pay $2.99 a month for a membership before being given access to the site. I declined to do that.

As it should be obvious to any intelligent person here, A Call for an Uprising is not merely the handiwork of an unconscionable con artist, but perhaps one of the most audacious con artists who ever plied his trade on gullible, impressionable victims.

It's a collusion between Big Yarn and Big Corkboard!

This satirical article is one of the funniest things I'd read in quite a while. Just check out a little bit of it as it uses the typical conspiratorial logic as a punching bag:

"A federal task force has determined that the recent rise in online conspiracy theories has in fact been a well-coordinated plot by several powerful corporations designed to increase sales of corkboards and  string.

"'You have no idea how high up this goes,' replied a member of the DC taskforce, speaking on deep background. The taskforce determined that powerful office supply consortiums had deliberately fabricated many popular online conspiracies, including Pizzagate, QAnon, and Marisa Tomei's 1992 Best Supporting Actress win, all in an effort to sell more corkboards and red string."

But do read the entire piece because it's very funny. And, more importantly, it points out the logical fallacy at the core of so many conspiracy theories, argument that for someone to have profited from an event automatically means that they must have orchestrated the event.

The real world, unlike the one in movies, TV shows, and spy novels, is full of coincidences.

One of the best YouTube channels out there!

If you were to subscribe to just one YouTube channel devoted to debunking the depressing glut of conspiracy theories polluting the internet, I would urge you to make the Sci Man Dan channel the one. Check out a sample video right here. Not only does this channel devote almost all of its time to dismantling Flat Earth theories, it does so with a wonderfully droll British wit. Not only do you get to see science at work, but presented in a very funny way.

I had been recommending Sci Man Dan to several students recently and they asked what the point was in putting this much energy into dealing with fringe kooks like the Flat Earth believers. The energy must  be put into dealing with Flat Earth believers, into exposing the absurdity, the sheer ignorance of their claims, because they are out there. People like this exist in the twenty first century and they must not. 

This is exactly the reason I am blogging and teaching about the dangers of conspiracism and the threat posed by the shameless, reprehensible charlatans behind this movement. While we should be living in a time where science, rationality, and reason should be ordering our belief systems, we are instead descending into a new Dark Age of willful, aggressive ignorance. This can not stand. The 9/11 “truthers,” the false-flag crisis actor conspiracy theorists, and the rest of their sleazy ilk exist in our time, and they simply must not.

Conspiracy vs. Incompetence

After a shocking event or a calamity of some sort dominates the news cycle suddenly, no one’s a happier camper than the average conspiracy theorist. The event becomes a Rorschach test onto which conspiracy theorists can fasten their tentacles and hang on for days, weeks, or months even. The most unscrupulous conspiracy theorists—and these days I can’t really think of any other type in the “alternate news” or “truther community”—are probably the happiest when the event claims a large number of lives, as we had seen in the obscene spectacle of the “false flag” theorizing that followed the latest mass shootings. So the way the Jeffrey Epstein case is being milked for everything it’s worth by conspiracy sites like State of the Nation and their ilk is no surprise. Yet looking closely at the rhetoric and logic behind the coverage of the Epstein case gives a glimpse into the utterly erroneous and naïve thought process of conspiracy believers.

“It’s inconceivable that Epstein could have killed himself since he was such a high-profile prisoner,” says the core argument upon which the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of Epstein conspiracy theories are based. “It’s too far-fetched. He would be watched day and night.”

But he wasn’t because of sheer bureaucratic incompetence.

I bring this up as we are just about two and a half weeks away from the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. That tragedy birthed a new era of conspiracy theorizing that is more deranged and morally bankrupt than any other previous conspiracy craze in history, more so than the various Freemason moral panics, the Kennedy assassination fantasies, or the nonsense about “secret” policy organizations like the Council on Foreign relations or the Trilateral Commission plotting to rule the world. The 9/11 conspiracies are also founded on the same fallacy of perfect governmental organizations that couldn’t possibly have been so off guard as they were in 2001. Rather than recognizing ineptitude, convoluted and inefficient bureaucracies, missed signals, and just plain stupid mistakes—the kinds that have plagued complex organizations since groups of people have ever attempted to collaborate on any large-scale endeavor—the conspiratorial mindset starts inventing massive, labyrinthine plots and the work of evil cabals.

Such is now the case with Epstein’s death. Despite the fact that investigations of the Manhattan Metropolitan Correctional Center—as discussed in this article—have demonstrated a long record of inept management of the institution, that history of gross mismanagement is now the fuel for ever more absurd Epstein conspiracy theories. Epstein was killed by Trump, some argue. Epstein was killed by the Clintons, others counter. Epstein was killed by Satanists. Epstein was killed by the Illuminati. There’s probably a blog or Facebook page or web page out there arguing that Epstein was killed either by aliens or NASA because he was either about to blow the whistle on what really crashed in Roswell or give conclusive proof that the Earth is flat.

The amusing part of all of the Epstein theories is the fact that it proves how die-hard conspiracists might be the most optimistic human beings on the face of the Earth. If they are to be believed, this world would be a perfect Nirvana on its own and every problem and calamity is caused on purpose by the hidden hand of some shadowy cabal.

Ah…the wonderful, childlike naivete of simple minds.

The satisfying horror of a good shark film.

A fan of aquatic suspense? So am I! There is an inherent terror in the wide open seas, the unknown depths, and everything that lurks beneath. That’s why well-crafted thrillers about sharks have provided some of the finest examples of terror on the movie screen for decades. So check out this article about shark movies in the New York Observer where I weigh in on the appeal of movies like Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, The Shallow, The Meg, and47 Meters Down.

I'm talking "Easy Rider" on the CineVerse podcast

Check out the CineVerse podcast for discussions of classic films on their major anniversaries. I was the special guest on their latest episode for the 50th anniversary of "Easy Rider." So sit back, chill, drop out, tune in, smoke a doobie if that's your thing, and have the ultimate trip as host Erik Martin and I talk about "Easy Rider."

Sandy Hook "truther" James Fetzer loses libel suit. Good!

All words have consequences and now the conspiracy community is learning it the hard way – finally – in court, according to this story. A Wisconsin judge just found conspiracy theorist James Fetzer guilty of libeling Leonard Pozner, the father of one of the children murdered in the Sandy Hook mass shooting of 2012.

The details of this case are so repugnant that it’s impossible, I think, to have any kind of a measured, civil discussion of who James Fetzer is and what he was sued for. As the NY Times story outlines, Fetzer wrote a book arguing that the Sandy Hook massacre was a “false flag” attack, a hoax perpetrated by some government cabal to use as a pretense for cracking down on gun-ownership rights. By that account, of course, all of the grieving families, friends, and coworkers of the children and staff members who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School were liars and “crisis actors,” coconspirators of the shadowy evil cabal. Thus Fetzer got hit with a well-deserved libel suit and now he has, thankfully, lost the case.

The only evil perpetrated in this case, of course, was the one by Fetzer, his co-author, and his publisher. First, arguing that no shooting took place at Sandy Hook is mind-boggling in its sheer callousness. Not only does what they describe – or any of the arguments made by all the other “truther” bottom-feeders like the State of the Nation web page, Alex Jones, the Millennium Report, or the rest of their slimy ilk – defy all logic and common sense, but it’s virtually unfathomable how insensitive it is to the pain of these families. Faking a mass shooting at a school in the middle of a community like Newtown, Connecticut, is impossible. Period! It is just as impossible as the 9/11 conspiracy theories, the vaccination conspiracy theories, and the flat Earth conspiracy theories an ever-growing subculture of the alienated, mentally unstable, psychotic, and pathologically unstable believe in these days. But the fact that Fetzer would use the death of children to make money off of, that he would continually encourage the harassment of people like Leonard Pozner, is an act of inhuman depravity that could only be born of the mind of a sociopath. 

But a quick review of Fetzer’s background reveals that none of what he did with the Sandy Hook tragedy should be of surprise. He is, after all, one of the stars of the 9/11 conspiracy movement. A quick Google of his name will provide a wealth of information about his background, including his founding of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth organization in 2005. The fascinating thing about Scholars for 9/11 Truth is that by 2006 the group saw a schism, where a sizable faction of its members – and no, most of them are not scholars, and the few that are have mostly scholarly credentials like an expertise in horticulture, art, or literary analysis – decided to break away and start their own group, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. Their problem with Fetzer, they said, was that he wanted to keep an open mind to and include such lunatic theories like the World Trade Center towers being destroyed by lasers from space or mini nuclear weapons.

Again, sorry for the incivility, but you can see what happened to Fetzer, right? He was deemed too batshit-crazy for even the average 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Since then, Fetzer has never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like. Aside from the 9/11 derangement, he has endorsed the Moon-landing hoax theory, various harebrained JFK conspiracy theories, and has been friendly to various Holocaust-denier and world-Jewish-conspiracy theories. A true, class act, right?

Also it’s worth remarking about something unfortunate concerning Fetzer. From the 1970s until the 1990s, he actually had a legitimate academic career. He is today a professor emeritus of the philosophy of science at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Cranks, fringe kooks, and the utterly unscrupulous, do turn up in academia as well from time to time. Intelligence, unfortunately, does not always rule out a lack of morals and conscience…or sometimes just plain mental illness. The Fetzers of academia, thankfully, however, are kept to a minimum by the nature of that business. And Fetzer’s descent into conspiracy theorist batshit-craziness only started after his retirement as a full-time faculty member. With age, one can suppose, the body is not always the first to go. Or maybe he just needed a little extra retirement income and he realized there was an a big enough audience out there to pay for books and videos about 9/11 and crisis actor conspiracy theories, no matter how ludicrous these theories may be.

But aside from celebrating Leonard Pozner's victory, we must also laud his other activism against this predatory, destructive conspiracy culture that is pushing American society ever closer to a new dark age of irrationality and mindless paranoia. Pozner also founded the HONR Network, dedicated to fighting back against online harassment and challenging the malicious lies of conspiracy theorists. As Pozner argues so correctly, conspiracy theories can’t be ignored because they will not fade away on their own. These theories are kept alive by the Internet and they spread like a vicious cancer until they erase real history. 

Do check out the HONR Network’s web page right here and support its mission.

It’s time that the tide began to turn against the terrorists of the conspiracy theory community and the people who should start living in fear – in fear of the exposure of their unconscionable lies – are the Fetzers of this world and the rest of their kind in the “truther” community.