Alex Jones' InfoWars is the epicenter of many a conspiracy theory movement. Generally speaking, most people either consider Jones to be completely nuts, or a misunderstood truth-teller who dares to call out the mainstream media. But now, according to Jones' attorney, both of those interpretations are entirely wrong. Essentially, Jones is now at least officially claiming to be a fraud. Or a fake. Or maybe a joke.
In a custody dispute with his ex-wife, Jones' legal team is now saying that he is a "performance artist" who is "playing a character." In other words, they're trying to argue that he basically is Stephen Colbert - not the Stephen Colbert who currently hosts The Late Show, but the "Stephen Colbert" who hosted The Colbert Report on the Comedy Central network for nearly a decade.
It should be noted that after this story originally broke, Jones posted a video completely contradicting his lawyer's statements - on the way to divorce court while he was allegedly under a gag order, which technically is not allowed. So which is it, Alex? Are you some sort of clown, or are you really as paranoid and messed up as you sound on your show?
A disturbing number of people in the occult community take Jones' nonsense seriously. One would like to think that sustained magical practice would lead to greater self-knowledge, which in turn would lead to better critical thinking. But much of the time, I have found that this is not the case. Maybe my error in thinking there is that I'm assuming anybody who claims to be a magical practitioner should at least be doing some work. But that's a whole other discussion.
Even as a performance artist, Jones is different than Colbert for one key reason - he's dangerous. I was a fan of The Colbert Report from day one, and one thing I never saw was "Stephen Colbert" inciting his fans to level threats and engage in actual violence against innocent people. Jones does this all the damn time. Frankly, if his whole show is a big joke, it's not a very funny one.
That's why, to my way of thinking, Jones deserves to lose this custody dispute, big time. Either he's lying in his statements to the court and really is nuts, or he's telling the truth and he's the sort of person who thinks that unleashing hundreds of fans to harass parents of the kids killed at Sandy Hook, or motivating an armed gunman to attack a pizza parlor full of children, is funny. Neither of those options says "good parent" to me.
UPDATE: On April 28th, Jones lost his custody case. My guess is that he would have been better off keeping his mouth shut and letting his lawyer push the "playing a character" argument. Then, he could have denied it on his show afterwards, rather than immediately releasing a video undermining his whole case. But nobody has ever tried to argue that the guy is smart.
In a custody dispute with his ex-wife, Jones' legal team is now saying that he is a "performance artist" who is "playing a character." In other words, they're trying to argue that he basically is Stephen Colbert - not the Stephen Colbert who currently hosts The Late Show, but the "Stephen Colbert" who hosted The Colbert Report on the Comedy Central network for nearly a decade.
InfoWars host Alex Jones may have built his media empire off of unhinged comments — from propagating innumerable conspiracy theories to using homophobic slurs and threatening violence against California Rep. Adam Schiff — but now his lawyer in a custody battle wants us to believe that this is all an act.
“He’s playing a character. He is a performance artist,” said Randall Wilhite, Jones’ lawyer in a custody dispute with Jones’ ex-wife Kelly Jones, according to a report by the Austin American-Statesman. By contrast, Kelly Jones insists that “he’s not a stable person. He says he wants to break Alec Baldwin’s neck. He wants J-Lo to get raped.”
She added, “I’m concerned that he is engaged in felonious behavior, threatening a member of Congress. He broadcasts from home. The children are there, watching him broadcast.” According to District Judge Orlina Naranjo, this case is going to be about Jones’ capacity to be a good parent to the three children he shares with Kelly Jones, not the content of his controversial show InfoWars.
It should be noted that after this story originally broke, Jones posted a video completely contradicting his lawyer's statements - on the way to divorce court while he was allegedly under a gag order, which technically is not allowed. So which is it, Alex? Are you some sort of clown, or are you really as paranoid and messed up as you sound on your show?
A disturbing number of people in the occult community take Jones' nonsense seriously. One would like to think that sustained magical practice would lead to greater self-knowledge, which in turn would lead to better critical thinking. But much of the time, I have found that this is not the case. Maybe my error in thinking there is that I'm assuming anybody who claims to be a magical practitioner should at least be doing some work. But that's a whole other discussion.
Even as a performance artist, Jones is different than Colbert for one key reason - he's dangerous. I was a fan of The Colbert Report from day one, and one thing I never saw was "Stephen Colbert" inciting his fans to level threats and engage in actual violence against innocent people. Jones does this all the damn time. Frankly, if his whole show is a big joke, it's not a very funny one.
That's why, to my way of thinking, Jones deserves to lose this custody dispute, big time. Either he's lying in his statements to the court and really is nuts, or he's telling the truth and he's the sort of person who thinks that unleashing hundreds of fans to harass parents of the kids killed at Sandy Hook, or motivating an armed gunman to attack a pizza parlor full of children, is funny. Neither of those options says "good parent" to me.
UPDATE: On April 28th, Jones lost his custody case. My guess is that he would have been better off keeping his mouth shut and letting his lawyer push the "playing a character" argument. Then, he could have denied it on his show afterwards, rather than immediately releasing a video undermining his whole case. But nobody has ever tried to argue that the guy is smart.
You need to quit repeating mainstream media talking points. That stuff will rot your brain.
ReplyDeleteGo ahead. Laugh! Ridicule! Demonise Alex Jones the same way that mainstream media does.
ReplyDeleteInfowars.com is in a fight for its life right now. They are under attack by Google for their ad revenue, and under attack all across mainatream media. No amount of demonization from Deep State lackey blogs like this one will keep the truth from coming out though.
So go ahead and laugh, because it is Alex Jones the one they are trying to close down today.
Just don't complain when it is your turn and it is YOUR free speech they are coming for.
Grow up, Scott. Please get out of your alt-left ghetto and get informed before sticking your foot in your mouth like this again.
Here I thought I was regular-left. But okay, whatever. I probably have lost track of what the different sides call each other these days. And I'm of the opinion that taking Alex Jones seriously will rot your brain way faster than anything the mainstream media can spit out. But of course, you're always free to disagree.
ReplyDeleteAs a point, I said nothing in this article about restricting Jones' right to broadcast his program. I do think some of the stories he puts out are dangerous, but what I would much rather see is people using their critical thinking skills to work that out for themselves, and I'm opposed to censorship in all its forms. Ridicule, on the other hand, not so much - when I feel it's warranted.
And frankly, this is kind of a silly story. Is Jones some sort of satirist, or isn't he? His lawyer says he is, then he says he isn't, and so on and so on. It would be silly if he were a left-wing conspiracist, too, and I expect I would probably make fun of that as well.
Hi Scott,
ReplyDeleteYou publish so much great stuff on this blog that I hesitate to call you out on it when you write something really, really dumb.
Sometimes you publish stuff so dumb that it just can't be ignored though. This is one of those times.
What are your sources about InfoWars and Alex Jones - I mean other that CNN and the Daily Kos.
How about this? I dare you to take the InfoWars challenge. Here is the deal:
Quit listening to what the CIA controlled media says about InfoWars and watch it YOURSELF for just 7 days free
at :
www.InfoWars.com/show
Then lets have this discussion again once you actually KNOW what you are talking about - instead of just repeating the talking points you picked up from the dinosaur media.
As you know, I was attacked, defamed, and misrepresented on the net for 20 years the way Alex Jones is being today, so I am intimately familiar with the ridiculisation tactics MSM is presently using against Jones.
Why do they REALLY hate AJ so much? Because his audience keeps growing and growing while theirs shrinks. Why? Because InfoWars is tellling the TRUTH instead of just putting out CIA propaganda talking points.
Why is MSM attacking InfoWars with ridicule? They are terrified you will watch it for yourself!
They are terrified that they are losing control of the American people because of FREE media like InfoWars that they can't control.
This is why they started the whole "fake news" canard. This is why Google Adsense just kicked InfoWars off as "fake news"
This is why advertisers recently got into the censorship business.
Not only infowars was affected by the recent Google/YouTube advertiser content censorship move.
Many other content producers were as well. They were collateral damage in the censorship wars that are raging in American right now behind the scenes.
You are usually spot on - but you are on the wrong side of this issue, because this is not a ridicule issue but indeed a free speech issue.
If we let Google and Facebook censor InfoWars now - What makes you think Thelema and your blog wont be next?
Free speech is either free speech for everyone - or for no one!
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
- Martin Niemöller
I sincerely hope you take the challenge, Scott. If InfoWars is as riducuous as you falsely claim it is, then what do you have to lose by actually watching it for a week so you know what you are talking about.
Who knows, you might even learn something by getting out of the Alt-left media echo chamber for a week!
- David
Oh, feel free to challenge away. As I said, I oppose censorship, and I think everybody has the right to speak their mind.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be of the opinion that I am in favor of censoring InfoWars. I am not. If the government moves to shut them down, believe it or not, I'll be sure to come out opposing that. And as a point, I'm not completely ignorant of Alex Jones and his show. Sometimes he does make a good point - but then he stretches it so far as to defy all reasonable evidence. So is that when he's being a "satirist?" It's pretty easy to spout a bunch of information, some true and some false, and then when one of the false points starts proving problematic say "just joking!"
Here's the thing, though, regarding censorship. Google and Facebook aren't the government, they're private companies. They have the right to do whatever they want with their ads, and it's entirely legal for them to do so. Are you proposing that social media platforms should be regulated as utilities? Because that would be the only way to do it, and Trump sure as heck isn't going to touch it with a ten-foot pole. He doesn't even support net neutrality.
You know that something like that would have been much more likely to pass under a Clinton administration, right? I mean, I know you hate the Clintons and all - I can't say that I'm a fan of Clintonian neoliberalism either - but if you think this sort of "corporate censorship" is something that should be banned, Hillary would have been a better option. Of course, I realize that all politics is messy and I don't think anybody should be a single-issue voter, but still.
Having followed Jones, his show, and his exploits on and off for the last ten years - and, by the way, not just coverage from a couple of liberal news sites - I've seen nothing recent to convince me that what he's doing now is anything but more of the same. So I won't be taking your "challenge." If that makes me dumb, so be it. I suppose we're all dumb about something, after all.
...And I was totally just going to leave it there, but I'm sorry, I have to ask.
Do you seriously believe that the Sandy Hook shooting was staged, no children were really killed, and all the parents who say they lost children there are lying about it? Do you think that it's reasonable for Jones' fans to harass those parents every time their names come up in a news story? Because I don't. The whole idea is flat-out ridiculous, and as a father I can imagine few things worse than losing a child, and then being barraged by a bunch of wackos telling me my kid never existed.
Understand, too, that I say this as one of those oddball lefty-independents who supports gun rights, and I'm well aware that the shooting was exploited by the pro-gun control crowd to push the revised "assault weapons ban" (which was an awful enough piece of legislation the first time around). But the idea that it never happened in the first place is flat-out crazy, and as far as I know Jones has never apologized for pushing that notion. Or did I miss that episode?
https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-breaks-down-why-the-elite-fear-him/
ReplyDeleteAs far as Sandy Hook, your are repeating MSM disinfo
ReplyDeleteattributing to Jones what those he interviewed on his show said to him
as well as editing his words beyond recognition when he used to still do interviews.
Better to let Jones explain the massive disinfo and censorship campaign against him infowars today.
He does a good job of it here:
https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-breaks-down-why-the-elite-fear-him/
This month's massive attacks on InfoWars and "fake news" are not just a question of censorship,
but underneath a question of rogue CIA propaganda and disinformation psy-op.
This is not a question of left or right.
It is a question of a free and independent media vs.
a CIA psy-op that continues to be waged by the Deep State
against the American people across the mainstream media echo chamber.
I see that you are somewhat awake to what is going on.
Most people still are not - even in the esoteric community.
Ridiculizing the few true free media sources we have
plays right into the hands of the Deep State and their
agenda.
Go after Pat Robertson all you like but quit ridiculing InfoWars.
InfoWars is not Alex Jones. If you don't like Alex, watch David Knight instead.
You may not always agree with David Knight's positions, but they are always well reasoned,
clearly presented, and George Soros and rogue CIA propaganda free.
So you are not going to answer my question? If your answer is no, why not just say so? It's really not that complicated.
ReplyDeleteIt is reasonable to point out that this is something that people other than Alex Jones said on his show, but any responsible host would denounce guests who are putting forth such ridiculous nonsense right away, especially when his audience is harassing innocent people.
Or did he denounce them? You didn't answer that, either. If you can point to an episode where he has apologized for giving the "Sandy Hook truthers" a platform and explicitly told his fans not harass those poor parents, then I'm wrong and I'll freely admit it. But if he hasn't, and I don't think he has, that speaks volumes.
I'm fully aware that neoliberal globalists control much of the world's wealth. Up to that point, Jones is right on. BTW, I'm also aware the Donald Trump is one of them, so Jones' support of him is a little mystifying. But at any rate, I attended Breck School here in Minnesota, which means I went to high school with their kids.
My family was well off enough to send me there, but not really rich enough to be one of them. I know from personal experience that those kids are just people, like everyone else. They just happen to be really rich, and their perspectives are correspondingly warped.
Sp you accuse me of demonization, when in fact Jones does that all the time. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Examples:
(1) For the most part, members of this global elite are not occultists. Jones knows absolutely nothing about occultism, and his ignorance of the subject is embarrassing to listen to. Seriously, maybe you should go on his show and teach him something about real ritual - and no, I'm not being sarcastic here. You should. He needs to learn a thing or two. It would make a lot of that stuff more tolerable.
(2) For the most part, members of this global elite are not pedophiles, nor do they run "pedophile rings" out of, say, pizza parlors. Statistically speaking, about one person in a hundred is a pedophile, which might or might not make them rarer than occultists. A pedophile with money has the resources to cover it up, this is true, but there are hardly any of them, not nearly enough to support a "pizza parlor ring."
And those are just a couple examples pulled from recent events. There are plenty more where these came from. In fact, I probably won't come back to making fun of Jones any time soon unless something pretty "out there" happens. The whole "I'm really playing a character" bit was really funny, especially when he and his lawyers started dueling over what it meant.
It's honestly so obvious that he wants to have his cake and eat it too that it's hard for me to stop laughing about it. But his show, most of the time? Not nearly interesting enough to warrant a mention on Augoeides unless he says something else drop-dead stupid about the occult.
I can't say I've heard of David Knight. Maybe I'll check him out. But if by well-reasoned you mean "totally logical as long as you accept this series of bizarre and unlikely premises," I probably will find him about as tiresome as I generally find InfoWars. Just saying...