Alex Jones: Brilliant At Pretending To Be An Idiot

This article has been stewing inside of me for a while, but the recent horrific events in Boston (and Alex Jones’ predictable yet shockingly tasteless reaction to it) finally convinced me that I needed to put it out there.

(Article by  Nick Nafpliotis, republished from http://www.ramblingbeachcat.com/2013/04/alex-jones-brilliant-at-pretending-to.html)
And yes, I am well aware that most of you with a functioning brain don’t take Alex Jones seriously. I’m also well aware that most of his of very large listener base will refuse to listen to reasonable arguments or have a logical debate about why Alex Jones is a about as good a source of information as graffiti on a rest area bathroom stall.

Now to be fair, I do think that he actually believes the core ideas from which everything he says comes from…and believe it or not, there is a little bit of truth to some of it. A cursory amount ofresearch and knowledge about the Federal Reserve is enough to make any conservative or liberal’s blood boil with populist outrage.

And let’s not forget that government conspiracies can and do happen once in a while. Operation Northwoods, Project MKUltra, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident constitute more than enough evidence to make any determined skeptic cast a wary eye towards official government narrative that sounds suspicious.

But most people seem to think that Alex Jones is simply a deranged idiot. With videos like the one embedded below, it’s not hard to see how they would come to that conclusion.

When Jones recently appeared on CNN with Piers Morgan and had what appeared to be a catastrophic shut down of all higher brain functions, many believed that they were watching someone who didn’t realize just how crazy (and bad) he was making himself look. On the contrary, his behavior was probably very carefully orchestrated and played perfectly to his large, disposable cash spending audience

Just like I’ve pointed out with Glenn Beck and Michael Moore, pundits on the extreme end of the political spectrum have an audience that tunes into them specifically to have their beliefs validated and enhanced, not to be challenged or to think critically.

If Alex Jones got on the air after the Boston Marathon Bombing and said “Hey guys, this wasn’t some elaborate plot; it was just a couple of angry, deranged/radical individuals,” then his listeners would tune out and find someone else who DOES think that every national tragedy is layered in cover ups and false flag operations.

As one commenter on a Fark.com thread said recently, many conspiracy theorists have an elaborate story pre-loaded in their heads for every time a dog farts. Alex Jones then swoops in to make sure that dog fart is backed up with an exhaustive amount of unrelated research, out of context mainstream media reporting, and a healthy dose of hyperbole and theatrics.

The man knows his audience and he knows how to keep them listening…all while turning a very healthy profit. Let’s take a look at Alex Jones and how he’s turned his brand of crazy from some deeply held (and bizarre) beliefs into a very profitable brand of crazy.

The New World Order: Playing the Long Game

Jones has been warning everyone who will listen about the imminent end of our world as we know itsince 1996 when he was just a crazy (but very popular) radio and cable access television show host in Austin, Texas.

Part of his theory about how things will go down is that the New World Order, a group of powerful people who run the world from behind the scenes, will somehow eliminate approximately 80% of the world’s population while the “elites” that are left will live forever thanks to the magic of technology.

While it shouldn’t be a shocking revelation to anyone over the age of 10 that people with large amounts of money and political power control how the world works, I’m not convinced that they all like to get together, put on robes, and sing the Stone Cutters Song.

If you listened to the first part, I think that even giving the most liberal benefit of the doubt to Jones would still leave you with the conclusion that he was not joking. Blatantly lying to garner ratings, maybe, but definitely not joking.

For a more recent example, one only needs to look at a recent statement he made while protesting a 2012 meeting of the Bildeberg Group.

For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a meeting private meeting for many of the world’s most powerful people in the world of politics, finance, entertainment, and commercial industries to discuss the state of world events and the global community (in other words, a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream).

At last year’s meeting, Alex Jones packed up his bullhorn and headed out to protest the event. One of things he shouted (which was caught on tape) was that the people meeting inside were having dead roasted babies wrapped in gold foil delivered for them to eat.

                              freedigitalphotos.net

“Please hurry and sign for this so

that I can go cry myself to sleep.”

Jones didn’t just say this in passing, either (although to be fair, talking about dead and roasted babies in gold foil is hard to just slip into a statement). He used his usual qualifier of “you can’t make this stuff up,” emphatically reiterated that he wasn’t joking, and even got angry at one of the security guards who dared to laugh at him about his claim.He went on to bet the guard $10,000 that what he was saying was true…although if it was, I’m not sure how they would go about proving things for the sake of the bet without causing quite a scene.A video of Jones saying all of this is embedded below for your viewing pleasure/disgust.

Luckily for Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, who is one of his writers at InfoWars.com came to his defense. He explained that Alex was simply “engaging in a piece of dark satire” while also expressing shock and dismay that people seemed to be keying in on that one statement from the websites’ hours of Bildeberg Group coverage.First of all, Mr. Watson, a claim that people are cooking and eating babies is probably going to stand out quite a bit more than anything else you had hoped to expose during your “coverage.” Secondly, is “dark satire” something Alex Jones engages in frequently? Because if it is, than we might need a bit of clarification about some of these:Predictably Wrong Predictions

 

One thing that many of Alex Jones’ listeners love to cling to is their claim that their messiah figure predicted 9/11 before it happened. The problem with that line of thinking is that he didn’t. Jones made some very vague claims that a false flag attack on the United States was going to happen…just like he had been doing for the last decade.If I predict every year that the Cubs will win the World Series, then I don’t get to call myself a prophet when/if that finally comes to pass.theguardian

You win this round, Bartman…

He also was never able to put a specific date/location on his prediction, something that Jones has actually been particularly smart about for the most part. Most of his prophecies are said in a way that they could happen tomorrow or a million years from now.He’s also usually pretty good about creatively back peddling. During the swine flu outbreak in 2009, Jones claimed that the government had created the swine flu and that it was killing off far more people than anyone realized.

Later, when swine flu turned out to not be the giant world ending epidemic that he had predicted, Jones explained website explained that it was simply a “beta test” for government population control…and an excuse to take our DNA.

But every once in a while, he gets a little too bold and attaches a finite timetable or definite result to what he claims will surely come to pass. Embedded below is a list of a few of those, though to be fair some were predictions made by his guests or that don’t give a definitive time frame in which they will occur.

After the video, a list of the failed prophecies that did give a (failed) due date has been compiled for your amusement and more efficient mockery.

–June 15, 2008: US Dollar will be devalued 90% over the next two years.

–February, 2008: Hillary Clinton has been chosen by the “elites” to be president.

–February 1, 2009: Obama to stage an attack in 2-4 months.

–February 4, 2009: Inaugural bombings to be staged by US government in 6-7 months.

–February 26, 2009: Staged terror attack to occur before the end of 2009.

–May 17, 2009: 16-year-olds in training to be part of youth corps to help implement martial law in 2-3 years

–June 22, 2009: Obama to stage terror attack in 60-90 days.

–August 24, 2009: Bernie Madoff will soon die of cancer.

–September 17, 2009: Internet will be shut down in 2 years.

–February 28, 2010: Within 16 months, at least 15 European nations will collapse.

–March 3, 2010: Staged terror attacks coming April 15 or 19 of 2010.

–March 29, 2010: Massive staged terror attacks coming in the+ next month.

–May 23, 2010: US Dollar will be devalued 50% in next two years.

–December 15, 2010: All pension funds will be gone in a couple of months.

All these dire predictions makes one wonder where Alex Jones gets his information…which brings up another point…Suspect sources and sourcing

If you spend any time at all listening to Alex Jones or reading the material produced for his websites, you’ll notice a large amount of disdain for the mainstream media. This is a bit hard to reconcile with the fact he also tends to cite all of them (often times completely out of context) whenever he goes through the news of the day, but I digress…One thing that happens quite a bit on his website is obsessive linking to sources, something that I myself am often guilty of. The difference is that when I link to a source, I try to make sure that it goes to information that actually supports my statement.Info Wars and Prison Planet, however, don’t seem to have the same ‘A to B’ standard. Below is a screenshot of this article by Paul Joseph Watson and Kurt Nimmo of InfoWars.com. In it you’ll notice a an eyebrow raising claim from the New York Times that the “vast majority of domestic terror plots in recent years were “facilitated by the FBI.”

That blue underlined text on the words ‘New York Times reported’ really adds in air of authenticity…except for the fact that the article it links to doesn’t say that at all. It’s actually a piece about FBI sting operations that are used to catch terrorists.

Just because you attach a hyperlink to a statement doesn’t mean that it goes to a source that confirms it. For example, I could claim to have verified/sourced information about Alex Jones being sexually attracted to ostriches, but that’s not what I linked to.

Unfortunately, some people won’t bother to click on the link and watch a funny ostrich peck around someones car. Instead, they’ll see the highlighted text standing out from everything else, assume that it’s true, and use their own confirmation bias to cement it as a fact in their minds.

“And make some of us have to disclose our

relationships before we wanted to ya jerk.”

So why is he doing all this?

If you spend some time searching the interwebs for Alex Jones meltdowns, you are in for what could potentially be hours of entertainment. One of my favorite ones is embedded below. In it, Jones yells at…well…whoever is behind all the conspiracies and claims that they have “ruined his life.”

 

 

I guess if all the claims he’s made about everything being one giant, population exterminating conspiracy (that is taking a REALLY long time to happen) were true, I could understand his frustration.But that desperate, ranting lunatic you saw in the video above doesn’t really jibe with man profiled inthis Rolling Stone interview he did with Alexander Zaitchik. What we see outside of the studio is a jovial, happy, and surprisingly soft spoken man who takes his family to church on Sunday, has long phone conversations with his grandmother, and likes to joke around with his staff members.Heck, he even refers to what he considers his “boring and conventional life” as a “love letter to humanity.” That doesn’t sound at all like the keeper of such a heavy burden as how the world will end for almost the entire human population.

Jones also seems to have no problem making sure he lives comfortably off of the DVD/merchandise sales and ad revenue that his media empire generates.

Why go to the grocery when you can

buy a 1 month supply of food at the InfoWars.com shop!

The most current property records that I could find (listed under E. Jones–Alex’s middle name is Emerick) show Jones, his wife (who is also listed on the property deed with her maiden name), and three children living in a beautiful 4,036 square foot home (estimated to be worth about $850,000) that is located in a very nice looking gated community.

You’d figure a guy with his belief system would be holed up in a bunker somewhere, but instead he seems to be living the typical upper middle class life (when he’s not ranting and raving on the airwaves)….which still doesn’t stop him from asking his listeners to send in their money to keep his media empire going.

 

So What Can We Do About This Guy?

 

Well, you could try to debate him and his followers seriously, which will garner the same results that you would obtain by hitting your head repeatedly against a wall……or you can do what Howard Stern did and make Jones and his followers look like complete idiots.In February of 2013, Stern brought Jones onto his show and started things out by making Alex feel as though he was talking to someone that was on his side. This should have raised some red flags in Jones’ highly attuned mind due to the fact that Stern doesn’t really subscribe to Jones’ way of thinking.

From there, Stern and his crew work their usual magic of getting people to talk about things they really shouldn’t out loud and to an audience of millions. Audio of the entire interiew is embedded below, but you should be wary of a couple things:1. It’s Howard Stern, so it’s a bit NSFW.
2. At one point, Alex Jones begins talking about government-caused shrimp suicides. It gets much crazier from there.

So the next time someone comes up to you and tries to preach the gospel of A.J., here are a couple of ideas to help you get through it.

1. Point them towards the Howard Stern interview.

2. Share this article with them (I won’t mind the extra page views; I promise).

3. Just start laughing.

It’s what he’s doing all the way to the bank.

Read more at http://www.ramblingbeachcat.com/2013/04/alex-jones-brilliant-at-pretending-to.html