It’s not common, but I often will see ‘communists’ defend Alex Jones. They say he has done work ‘exposing global elites’. I have a feeling many of these types are patsocs.

What are your thoughts on this? Personally, I think encouraging your rabid fan base to harass parents of murdered children is unforgivable and should get the wall.

    • @i_must_destroy@lemmygrad.mlOP
      19•2 years ago

      I just got into Aaron’s podcast, American Exception. I want to read his book ASAP. I was introduced to him by the fantastic Ben Norton.

      This is a good point. I remember Aaron mentioning this now. Painting the truth as a lunatic fringe conspiracy benefits the status quo.

      We’re seeing this with Ukraine now. The MSM covered how it was Nazi infested up until recently. Now you are perceived as a nut if you mention this.

      One thing that is particularly insidious about Jones and his ilk is that they’ve appropriated valid terms/concepts like the deep state and MSM from the left. I saw some MAGA types talking about color revolutions recently 🤦

        • @xxcvzvcxx@lemmygrad.ml
          9•2 years ago

          but they don’t have the media literacy to avoid the reactionary traps… like jewish conspiracies.

          Israel having exceptionally massive propaganda and lobbying arms that literally do try to help hide the truth doesn’t really help.

      • @KommandoGZD@lemmygrad.ml
        7•2 years ago

        I saw some MAGA types talking about color revolutions recently

        Yep, there’s a section of the right atm that’s criticizing neocons, neoliberals, the US empire, the MIC, warm up to NK and think Taiwan is part of China. It’s incredible how close some of them are to getting it and how their analysis is somewhat materialist and dialetical in some regards, but then they also think Covid’s a hoax, climate change and LGBT struggles are empire propaganda, they still want to be patriotic and so on.

    • Anarcho-Bolshevik
      16•2 years ago

      Honestly? Sometimes I have wondered if these stereotypical conspiracy theorists are deliberately muddying the waters to make it more embarrassing to question the official narrative. It sounds like a satirical joke because of how meta it is, so I’ve never suggested it to anybody. From what I’ve heard from Robbie Martin, many people did find something particularly strange about 9/11 at the time of its occurrence, but the infamy of the clumsiest and crudest conspiracy theorists has generated guilt by association.

      • @xxcvzvcxx@lemmygrad.ml
        9•2 years ago

        The term conspiracy theory itself was literally popularized by NYT:

        In his 2013 book Conspiracy Theory in America, political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith suggested that the term entered everyday language in the United States after 1964, the year in which the Warren Commission published its findings on the Kennedy assassination, with The New York Times running five stories that year using the term.

        Wikipedia has to be “neutral” and therefore they call this a conspiracy theory because, and I quote:

        Michael Butter, a Professor of American Literary and Cultural History at the University of Tübingen, on the grounds that a CIA document which deHaven-Smith referenced, Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report, which was publicly released in 1976 after a Freedom of Information Act request, does not contain the phrase “conspiracy theory” in the singular, and only mentions “conspiracy theories”

        So there you have it folk. CIA said it in plural therefore it’s a conspiracy theory to claim the term conspiracy theory was popularized by CIA and NYT deliberately to discredit their critics.