It doesn't take very long for the conspiracy mongers to start. Soon after any major news event, they rush in, ready to dress the event in whatever off-the-rack paranoia suits their ideology.
Yesterday's horrifying mass-murder in Tucson is a fresh and painful wound in the national psyche. What better time to explain it as the product of a broad conspiracy? According to the shock doctrine, the public is vulnerable after a disaster and more susceptible to extreme messages they would otherwise reject. That theory applies not only to governments, but to the political lunatic fringe as well.
Michael Rivero
@WRH_Mike_Rivero Oahu
Visual Effects, Webmaster, talk radio host
Case in point #1: Mike Rivero of the What Really Happened blog. Both on his blog and on Twitter, he writes that President Obama is behind the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He bases this lunacy on two facts. First, Mark Penn, the political consultant who led Hilary Clinton's 2008 primary campaign (and infamously botched that effort by misunderstanding California's Democratic primary procedure), stupidly said in an November, 2010 interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews that the best thing that could happen to President Obama would be another Oklahoma City massacre. Second, police in Arizona are searching for a possible accomplice in the Giffords shooting.
To a paranoid mind, those two facts provide motive and opportunity for a presidential conspiracy to assassinate a member of Congress. Speaking of the shock doctrine, that's what Rivero sees in the shooting, perhaps projecting his own motivation. Rivero sees in this what the truthers see in 9/11, the Clinton-haters saw in Waco and Oklahoma City, the JFK conspiracy people see in their fantasies, and what assorted isolationists and paleo-conservatives see in Pearl Harbor. Any disaster which requires a federal response of any kind is perceived by this type of mind as an inside job by a chief executive seeking to usurp unconstitutional powers.
from Twitter:
FLASHBACK - Obama Needs ‘Similar’ to Oklahoma City!http://bit.ly/a94UuL AND TODAY HE GOT IT! #Giffords#Jared #Loughner #shooting
from WHAT REALLY HAPPENED | The History The US Government HOPES You Never Learn!:
Authorities seek associate of Jared Loughner in Tucson shooting
Authorities are seeking help identifying a man who is believed to be associated with the suspect in the Tucson mass shooting, which left six people dead and injured 13 others, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department said investigators believe the man is associated with the suspected shooter, who has been identified through law enforcement sources as Jared Loughner, 22. The suspected shooter is in custody.
The man is described as a White male, approximately 40 to 50 years old, with dark hair. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department said investigators believe the man is associated with the suspected shooter, who has been identified through law enforcement sources as Jared Loughner, 22. The suspected shooter is in custody.
The man is described as a White male, approximately 40 to 50 years old, with dark hair. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket.
Anyone want to take bets this suspect just "goes away" like the Columbine third shooter or the RFK "Girl in the Polka Dot Dress?"
Case in point #2: Gordon Duff. Duff runs the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory blog with the innocuous name Veterans Today. He's pushing the line that Gifford's assassination attempt was a Manchurian Candidate style mind-control operation connected to some sort of nebulous Jewish conspiracy. He somehow finds intimations of all this in the YouTube ravings of Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter. Considering that Loughner's writings consist of intellectual disordered imitations of syllogisms ('If A, and B, thus C'), the fact that Duff sees unspecified proof of a Jewish conspiracy in this says more about his paranoid view of the world than it does about anything else.
Here's a quote to get a sense of where he's coming from:
With Israel backing both Gifford and financing those threatening her also, an avenue of possible investigation may need to be opened.
Gordon Duff is not claiming that he knows the answer to how the Jews are behind the Tucson shooting, he just wants to open an investigation to find out.
Here's some of what Duff and friends have to say in the column's comments:
Whoever wrote this is/was a victim of mind-control. The writer appears to be protesting the only way he/she knows how.
- Remember to look for the girl in the polka dot dress….
There are two other alternative possible explanations that I can see. Firstly that the vid was actually created by his mind control programmers to disguise the real reason for the hit(s). Secondly that Jared is actually a psychopath and was setting up his legal defense (insanity) in advance.
- 2 things….and they are connected….the shooter, had he been brown, bearded might have been killed today…but for some reason……he was not shot. He/his name was protected most all of today… interesting that in that place Arizona…..he was protected arrested and taken away….at a time when police retaliation…with so much carnage in that parking lot…so much death…..Then there is the question about how he came to that end….was he a stooge…was he put up to it….egged on…trained encouraged…? a dead Federal judge, along with 5 other dead victims and Rep gifford…Now that the news about her choosing to be jewish is out (Haaretz and JTA this evening) you have to wonder if this is going to be the justification Congress will use to silence verbal/written criticism of zionists/Israel etc as they have done (somewhat) in Europe. things perceived as being “anti semitic” are ‘crimes’ there. Buh bye free speech…whats left of it, that is…
- Miriam,I must say that thought crossed my mind when I did some checking on Ms. Giffords and saw that she was not only “Jewish” but a firm and loyal cohort of AIPAC.Nothing spells orchestrated sensationalist event for Pro-Zionist propaganda like an AIPAC stooge being placed in harm’s way.Just watch the “anti-Semitism” angle being increasingly spun across the networks in the days and weeks to come.Methinks this is also timed perfectly to draw attention away from escalating Israeli demolitions in the East Jerusalem and the AIPAC spying scandal of recent past months (as well as a raft of other likely nefarious aims of the new Congress nearing the boil).Anyone got a bead on what Goldman Sachs is up to lately?
- Jared is a very common Jewish name… As a matter of fact, strange that nobody at the scene drew a gun and shot the aggressor.Mind control or not, it seems to me that this new tragedy is the expression of a sick society producing weird citizens by truck loads, due to many factors and Hollywood is one the contributors to it.Of course, this sad incident will be used Lieberman-McCain and the likes to tighten the screw on citizens constitutional rights and introduce bills for more restriction of civil liberties.
Duff inexplicably illustrates his disjointed column with a bizarre photo of Sarah Palin which has been altered to depict her with fangs and holding in one hand a piece of raw meat and in the other a gun.
Illustration from the Veteran's Today coverage of the Giffords shooting.
