Usually, it would be best to
ignore conspiracy-mongers such as Alex Jones and not reward him and his
angry gaggle of paranoiac followers with any sort of attention. But, in a
week when thoughts of the dead and maimed victims of the Boston
Marathon bombings weigh heavy on the hearts and minds of most Americans,
it is worth pointing out what a worthless waste of skin and bones Jones
and his minions happen to be.
Nearly as soon as I heard about the bombings on Monday, I
was certain that somewhere in the nutty right-wing blogosphere someone
was already concocting a storyline that would blame the crime on
President Obama and the federal government. Alex Jones came through with impressive rapidity.
Jones runs a radio show from Austin, Texas. He describes himself as a
libertarian and an “aggressive constitutionalist.” The Southern Poverty
Law Center says he has stirred up racial animus “to appeal to the fears
of the antigovernment Patriot movement.” He certainly appeals to fear.
Jones asserts that both the
Oklahoma City
bombing and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated by the U.S.
government as part of a scheme to promote a New World Order through
“exploitable hysteria.”
So it is no surprise that he
is now pushing the idea that the Boston bombings were the nefarious
handiwork of federal agents. At Massachusetts Gov.
Deval Patrick’s
press briefing just a few hours after the explosions, one of Jones’
minions, Dan Biondi, was on hand to ask the governor if this was
a "staged attack to take our civil liberties and promote homeland
security while sticking their hands down our pants on the streets?"
"No," Patrick replied tersely. "Next question."
Meanwhile, Jones was on the air, on Twitter and on the Internet pushing his claim that the
FBI engineered the bombings under the “false flag” of a terrorist group as a pretense for expanding the power of the
Department of Homeland Security and the
Transportation Security Administration. He warned of TSA groping teams at sporting events “coming soon.”
Jones is asking Americans to believe that their own government is
responsible for all of the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s
history and that the motivation for the latest one is a desire to grope
sports fans. All of this is, of course, total ping-pong-balls-for-brains
nonsense. It would be laughable if it were not for the fact that this
conspiracy kook claims 2 million radio listeners and more online
followers than
Glenn Beck and
Rush Limbaugh combined.
Jones is a purveyor of the neo-Confederate brand of “patriotism” that
has gained currency on the far starboard side of American politics. I
do not think he should shut up or be shut down; he has the same 1st
Amendment rights as I do. But he deserves to be exposed for what he is: a
delusional, self-promoting bully who is slandering the very people who
are right now doing the truly patriotic work of bringing the Boston
bombers to justice.
What's frightening is how many folks believe this shit and think this is an example of critical thinking let alone rational or sane thought.
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