Alex Jones - Two Stops Past Barking?

[andysays]

he's a racist piece of shit and they should be ashamed for giving him a platform.

Maybe we can settle this whole "how many stops past Barking" thing by pushing him off the platform at Barking in front of the next District Line train and see how far his mangled body gets before the trains stop for the night.

 

[CharlieChaplin]

Did he think it was funny to mock their accents?

 

[existentialist]

does anyone believe that someone being allowed to go on the bbc to be laughed at by people like david aaronovitch discredits them? do people believe really believe this?

existentialist i don't think that the kind of views that alex jones promotes can be defeated by "rational arguments" especially when the oppo are a bunch of sneering BBC personalities?

Nobody was trying to defeat him by rational arguments: I agree with you that that would have been pointless.

Nothing discredited Alex Jones except...Alex Jones. He had - and I can appreciate people's uncomfortableness with this - an opportunity to appear on mainstream TV and look credible. He spunked it up the wall by appearing on mainstream TV and looking like the kind of eyepopping loon that nobody - apart from some other eye-popping loon - could possibly take seriously.

 

[frogwoman]

Nobody was trying to defeat him by rational arguments: I agree with you that that would have been pointless.

Nothing discredited Alex Jones except...Alex Jones. He had - and I can appreciate people's uncomfortableness with his - an opportunity to appear on mainstream TV and look credible. He spunked it up the wall by appearing on mainstream TV and looking like the kind of eyepopping loon that nobody - apart from someone like Jazzz - could possibly take seriously.

He is more credible now BECAUSE he's been on mainstream TV.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Well, it was a revelation to me! I mean, I'd never bothered watching his stuff because of who generally recommended I did, but I hadn't fully realised how comprehensively he'd plumbed the depths of hatstanditude, and was - frankly - rather glad of the opportunity to find out without having to watch some fucking 1 hour YouTube video!

So you didn't support him before, you don't support him now and you wouldn't have supported him anyway? Doesn't really do him any damage, that.

 

[Buckaroo]

So all it did was give him a slightly higher profile and more exposure to people watching that godawful show who might be inclined in his direction.

Alex Jones is always this mad. It's not like he hides it.

His profile is already higher, that's why the dramatics.... Oh right. Apologies, just got your point.

 

[existentialist]

So you didn't support him before, you don't support him now and you wouldn't have supported him anyway? Doesn't really do him any damage, that.

Ah, but now I know why I don't support him

And, perhaps, more to the point, when less clued-up types start saying (as they are prone to do) "hey, have you seen this prisonplanet link about FEMA camps", I can say "Alex Jones? Here, have a look at this link" in the certain knowledge that my gullible but non-conspiraloon friends will never bother with a prisonplanet link again.

 

[existentialist]

He is more credible now BECAUSE he's been on mainstream TV.

I don't buy this. Unless I am substantially more cynical than the average TV watcher, I don't see how being on TV automatically confers credibility, especially not to the kind of person who watches Sunday morning political shows on BBC.

 

[frogwoman]

do you really think that having a bunch of middle class BBC presenters invite someone onto their show and take the piss for half an hour will mean that people like this will ridicule and discredit themselves and it will go away? for fucks sake a young lad was murdered last week because of fascist views. as someone who's experienced anti-semitism myself I don't like the idea of anti-semitic loons on radio and TV shows even if they are getting the piss taken out of them - by posh people, without any challenge to what they're saying politically just being like oh he's mad and taking the piss. Being given such a platform means that they are establishing themselves as someone with mainstream acceptance ffs. It means that more people are able to hear of them and not all of them will have the reactions to their views as you do.

Obviously most people will know they are full of shit but it's frankly a disgrace that a mainstream media outlet has chosen to give them a platform, and its not the point, the fact is they're helping them to get publicity, they're also helping people who already feel the same way to feel emboldened in coming out with things that they think anyway. I feel the same way about shops like Waterstones etc selling the filth books of conspiraloons as they have done for years.

 

[DotCommunist]

its the default position for shithouse liberals to assume that an airing on bbc2 or radio 4 will discourage forever those views. Some of us would rather shave chunks from our bellends than listen to radio 4 but guess what credit Jones now has on his CV? 'Spoke on BBC politics prog' and people take that seriously because the beeb has a good rep

 

[Dillinger4]

He is more credible now BECAUSE he's been on mainstream TV.

definitely

 

[SpineyNorman]

Full report here:



The interview starts at about 3.45. Anyone who thinks this is exposing him, showing his followers he's a fraud or anything positive really ought to look at it on youtube and read the comments.

 

[Belushi]

I'm with the frogster on this, anti-semitism is creeping back into the mainstream however it tries to dress itself up as just being against 'rothschild zionists' or whatever other dogwhistle they're using.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I don't think antisemitism ever really went away, it was always there in the post WW2 "white power" movements. From Colin Jordan, George Rockwell and Savitri Devi through to the Blood and Honor crowd.

What the post 911 conspiracy theory boom (and other factors more recently) have done though is surfaced a whole lot of the white power movement's people and ideas, including that one, and made arseholes like Alex Jones rich and famous in the process.

 

[frogwoman]

definitely

if you've been on that sort of show you look like a serious commentator. State broadcaster and that but a lot of people respect the BBC and think its commentary is more trustworthy than other channels.

 

[Casually Red]

it doesn't reform the nutters, but it probably makes the swing nutter/rationalist think 'actually, that guys a fruitcake', and not go any further down the road to weirdo-dom.

the EDL look to be doing alright these days, despite being zapped with those nasty Muslamic rayguns

 

[youngian]

So MEPs confirmed to Alex Jones that the EU is a Nazi/Bilderberg conspiracy! They of course include Farage and this lunatic, Gerald Batten talking to Jones here-


Batten represents London in the European Parliament ffs. Due to the media love-in with UKIP I doubt if he is going to have to justify any of this mad shit.

 

[DotCommunist]

I don't think anti-Semitism ever really went away, it was always there in the post WW2 "white power" movements.

What the post 911 conspiracy theory boom (and other factors more recently) have done though is surfaced a whole lot of the white power movement's people and ideas, including that one and made arseholes like Alex Jones rich and famous in the process.

it's been thoroughly shunned in mainstream discourse post ww2 though, allowed in only coded terms

Forget post war white power movements, they did not and cannot do shit about the Eternal Jew- hence finding a new Other like the muslims

 

[Delroy Booth]

Nothing discredited Alex Jones except...Alex Jones. He had - and I can appreciate people's uncomfortableness with this - an opportunity to appear on mainstream TV and look credible. He spunked it up the wall by appearing on mainstream TV and looking like the kind of eyepopping loon that nobody - apart from some other eye-popping loon - could possibly take seriously.

This isn't a man who's bothered about being "credible" in the sense you mean it, or being taken seriously either. His appeal is based on him being a ranting lone voice in the desert, right down to that stupid voice he uses. It's all totally choreographed and once the camera's are off he's normal again. It's a business - he sells surival kits and DVD's on his many subscription websites and makes a mint off it. It's peddling anti-semitic tropes to make money, it poisons the political discourse of the country like chemical effluent, it's all utterly cynical and by giving him a platform to rant the BBC are complicit in this circus and in letting this cycle go on. And for what? So two smug fuckers Andrew Neil and David Aaronovitch amusement? Jesus wept what a joke.

 

[Buckaroo]

if you've been on that sort of show you look like a serious commentator. State broadcaster and that but a lot of people respect the BBC and think its commentary is more trustworthy than other channels.

I think you're over-egging the pudding. The nutters have much more exposure than state broadcasters. Not having fruitcakes on says more I think. And having them on and make arses of themselves is a good thing no?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Ah, but now I know why I don't support him

And, perhaps, more to the point, when less clued-up types start saying (as they are prone to do) "hey, have you seen this prisonplanet link about FEMA camps", I can say "Alex Jones? Here, have a look at this link" in the certain knowledge that my gullible but non-conspiraloon friends will never bother with a prisonplanet link again.

I dare say that if you had been confronted with people quoting Jones without this programme, you would have googled him, seen his rants about Mexicans, Jews and the NWO, and said the same thing.

 

[Casually Red]

it doesn't reform the nutters, but it probably makes the swing nutter/rationalist think 'actually, that guys a fruitcake', and not go any further down the road to weirdo-dom.

Id respectfully disagree . While Ive no doubt it confirms what people who cant stand him already know or makes him look nuts to the disinterested, to many who think he might have a point putting him on mainstream tv in a serious politics show simply makes him look like a political contender by adding to the gravitas..surely he wouldnt be on a mainstream show if he wasnt important. It gives his profile a boost that it shouldnt be getting .
Piers Morgan tried the same shit and half the united states were roaring jones on Im quite sure . Even I nearly was and I hate the fecker .

 

[Dillinger4]

if you've been on that sort of show you look like a serious commentator. State broadcaster and that but a lot of people respect the BBC and think its commentary is more trustworthy than other channels.

Well. I wouldn't say serious.It is mostly C list politicians and unimportant political journalists. We know that appearing on those shows only really confirms your status as irrelevant. We know that the Daily Politics is just a pointless Westminster echo chamber.

They invited him on so could simultaneously look PC by having a guest with different views from theirs whilst also mocking those views as idiotic because they are not the views shared by Westminster village.

It plays differently in America though. With the transparently dishonest and co-opted nature of their own media, the BBC looks like a beacon of truth.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Seriously, in what world would anybody ever say "I would have gone with that Alex Jones before, but now David Aaronovitch has raised an eyebrow at him on the BBC, I'm definitely not going to now"?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

it's been thoroughly shunned in mainstream discourse post ww2 though, allowed in only coded terms

Forget post war white power movements, they did not and cannot do shit about the Eternal Jew- hence finding a new Other like the muslims

Breivik is interesting in that context. He shares many of the ideas of the anti-semitic 'white power' right, but he's explicitly pro-Israel and also gets ideas from people like Pamela Gellar.

However, the thing about letting someone like Alex Jones who crawled out of the swamp of US 'white power' shite come and bellow his nonsense all over the BBC though, substantively unchallenged by the two smirking twerps on the show with him, is that it's a potential step on the way to letting those 'white power' views become part of the mainstream.

 

[DotCommunist]

yes, giving him airtime on a broadcaster like auntie is well off

 

[DotCommunist]

and thats not to oil up the beebs shaft, but people take it as credible and so he gets the reflected glory/respectablness

 

[frogwoman]

well the fact is this is a man who promotes racist "birthers" ideas about Obama not being a citizen of the united states and not being entitled to be the president because he is black and has some Muslim members of his family, he also promotes hatred against Mexican immigrants and other ideas from the tea-party as well as anti-semitic bullshit about "zionists" and "bankers". They should be fucking ashamed of themselves inviting him onto the programme to sneer at him. Maybe I am being paranoid but the fact is I had someone at work talk about the jews ruling their country at work the other day, plus a load of other recent examples of people talking about conspiracy theories that they've heard about on youtube. and as i know the history of those ideas and their results i am a bit sensitive about it. And lets face it sneering at the EDL for having missing teeth etc and posting screen shots of them on facebook didn't exactly help stop them, this sort of apolitical anti-fascism can hardly be called anti-fascism at all can it.
"Oh lets laugh at these people and their views will be exposed in the cold light of day, what ho, another martini"

 

[Dillinger4]

they all get their cake and eat it too:

beeb / daily politics / Andrew Neil get to look PC (by their logic) by airing the views of a controversial guest whilst simultaneously not listening and shutting them off

Alex Jones gets credibility by 1) being on the BBC and 2) not being taken seriously by British establishment insiders.

Its all a bit perfect for everyone involved, and not very good for the rest of us.

 

[frogwoman]

I think you're over-egging the pudding. The nutters have much more exposure than state broadcasters. Not having fruitcakes on says more I think. And having them on and make arses of themselves is a good thing no?

Rightly or wrongly (i would say wrongly tbh) the bbc has a reputation for reasonable biased coverage, and to a large extent this is reflected internationally as well.