Alex Jones - Two Stops Past Barking?

[frogwoman]

Indeed it is. Which is itself a good point to be made against the way people like Alex Jones behave. If the festival organisers, instead of working co-operatively with the police and authorities, had chosen to belabour them with shouty invective about how they were tools of the New World Order, it's quite likely that the festival would not have got permission to go ahead. Of course, for the Alex Joneses of the world, that would have been a perfect outcome, because he could have used it to prove that his mythical NWO was determined to silence him because he was so right about everything.

Despite what I've heard on this thread about "no platform", that is why I feel it was good that he got an opportunity to demonstrate how he behaves when people aren't trying to silence him.

No it wouldn't, he gets to portray an image of himself as someone who it's acceptable to invite to a nice family festival. Even loons have to think about PR.

 

[existentialist]

No it wouldn't, he gets to portray an image of himself as someone who it's acceptable to invite to a nice family festival. Even loons have to think about PR.

We're just going to have to disagree on this one, frogwoman. I can see your point, and I appreciate your argument, but it sticks in my throat to play into the persecution complexes of these people by arbitrarily deciding that because their views cross some socially-determined line, they fall outside the protections of speech that we grant ourselves.

I know that's going to be an unpopular view, and I expect to reap the whirlwind, but I really don't see how we can insist on freedoms that we are then prepared to deny to others.

 

[frogwoman]

We're just going to have to disagree on this one, frogwoman. I can see your point, and I appreciate your argument, but it sticks in my throat to play into the persecution complexes of these people by arbitrarily deciding that because their views cross some socially-determined line, they fall outside the protections of speech that we grant ourselves.

I know that's going to be an unpopular view, and I expect to reap the whirlwind, but I really don't see how we can insist on freedoms that we are then prepared to deny to others.

no platform is nothing to do with denying people freedom, i specifically said that it's nothing to do with state bans, or censorship. it's to do with choosing not to allow people who have expressed these views a serious platform. Nothing to do with legislation by the state!

i'm not going to get on television to put my ideas across any time soon am I? so why should he?

 

[frogwoman]

we don't even have freedom of speech in this country.

 

[existentialist]

no platform is nothing to do with denying people freedom, i specifically said that it's nothing to do with state bans, or censorship. it's to do with choosing not to allow people who have expressed these views a serious platform. Nothing to do with legislation by the state!

I didn't say anything about legislation by the state. I simply feel that we weaken our own position in terms of our freedoms to speak if we show ourselves as prepared to deny others the same freedoms.

i'm not going to get on television to put my ideas across any time soon am I? so why should he?

See, this is another area where I am finding myself in disagreement with a substantial proportion of people: I don't think being on television automatically lends legitimacy, because I think that TV is no more than a circus. You can get on TV in a variety of ways, including having crazy loonspud ideas, or being bloody awful at singing - none of those things, in my view, confer legitimacy, except perhaps in the minds of people who can't tell the difference between soap actors and the characters they portray, and I doubt that many of them watch Sunday morning politics shows.

That show was itself a circus - I am sure that Neil and Aaronovitch knew exactly what they were getting into, and perhaps we can be critical of them for being "smug", or whatever. But what they did was what I wish was done more often (particularly with cabinet ministers) - instead of taking someone's views seriously and at face value, they challenged the assertions they were making - in Jones' case the idea that people get killed for speaking out about the New World Order - and allowed the people themselves to discredit their own position. Jones no doubt thought he was being clever - according to the Guardian's report, the ranting stopped the moment he knew he was off-air - but in doing that, I think he demonstrated his stupidity far more.

There will be people out there who may well be being "open minded" and prepared to give the notion of FEMA camps, HAARP, 9/11 conspiracy theories, etc. some amount of houseroom. Having seen one of the major proponents of those ideas behaving like a childish thug on a TV clip will give them pause for thought next time the idea comes up, because he couldn't possibly fail to appear as anything other than a complete nutcase to all but the true believers. And they're going to believe, whatever happens.

No, let him and his disgusting views be bleached by the oxygen of publicity.

 

[existentialist]

we don't even have freedom of speech in this country.

No, we don't. But it is something to be striven for. We don't just give up and knuckle under, surely?

 

[barney_pig]

Remember these are the people who can watch the videos of the murder of lee rigby, or the Boston marathon, or 9/11, and see holograms and false flags and owls.it doesn't matter if jones was handed his balls in a sack, what matters is that he was even entertained on a mainstream bbc programme, anything positive would be seized on whilst anything negative would be evidence of lizard mind control.
When the bnp were on the rise, toff liberals fell over themselves to invite griffin onto their shows 'to expose him' (just as other toffs idiots now take Yaxley Lennon out to dinner), Griffin usually proved himself too clever for them, but even if he was shown to be a right prat, what mattered for those who were attracted to his message was that he was being taken seriously.

 

[existentialist]

I think Jones' appearance on TV is irrelevant as far as the True Believers are concerned, barney_pig. They are going to believe, whatever, and whatever happens, they will find a way of constructing it in a way that supports their cherished belief systems.

The people who matter here are the unconvinced. And if the likes of Jones are hidden away, or able to use their own platforms to peddle their line with no challenge, the unconvinced are at more risk from them - in my view, at least - than if they are held up in a mainstream context, where their ranting and paranoia shows itself in such stark contrast to the comparative normality of those around them (in this case, Mr Aaronovitch).

But I appreciate that these are arguments that can never be conclusive - we can't really get two Alex Joneses, put on on TV, and hide the other one away, and compare the outcomes. So it all comes down to opinion.

 

[frogwoman]

i don't like anti-semites getting on television, unchallenged, except for sneering posh twats who use it as an opportunity to take the piss and epitomise everything that it is wrong with the BBC establishment, it worries the shit out of me, i'll be honest. because perhaps you live in a world where you have never exprienced this outside of "loons" on the internet but im sorry to tell you their views, like the edl, are getting a growing amount of legitimacy. perhaps you have never heard it in real life or outside of the internet? for christ's sake its not just about their views, its about actions that take place in the real world. i am sure loads of people took the piss out of Golden Dawn in greece (and probably still do) for looking "mental" and whatever, and look what's happened there.

All the times people laughed at the EDL and took the piss, it might have made them feel good for half an hour and feel like they're all superior and that, but we live in a society where those ideas are becoming more and more acceptable and every time they appear on TV or are granted mainstream respectability it means they are more and more so, it also pushes public discourse to the right, it also means that it appears that people like Alex Jones are an alternative to the mainstream views and here he is giving it the bigun to the mainstream "pro-NWO" "MSM" media, he's challenging them and saying things that a lot of people would probably find they agreed with, even if he is a loon. i mean shit i would have probably agreed with some of it if i didn't know who he was.

and sharing a platform with this guy implies that his views aren't that bad.

 

[frogwoman]

Remember these are the people who can watch the videos of the murder of lee rigby, or the Boston marathon, or 9/11, and see holograms and false flags and owls.it doesn't matter if jones was handed his balls in a sack, what matters is that he was even entertained on a mainstream bbc programme, anything positive would be seized on whilst anything negative would be evidence of lizard mind control.
When the bnp were on the rise, toff liberals fell over themselves to invite griffin onto their shows 'to expose him' (just as other toffs idiots now take Yaxley Lennon out to dinner), Griffin usually proved himself too clever for them, but even if he was shown to be a right prat, what mattered for those who were attracted to his message was that he was being taken seriously.

great post

 

[89 Til Infinity]

I was under the impression that his message was basically
"Quickly children the illuminati are trying to enslave us and are causing the banking collapse. You should buy up gold from our co-owned business Midas Resources"

Not crazy at all. Just a con artist

 

[existentialist]

i don't like anti-semites getting on television, unchallenged, except for sneering posh twats who use it as an opportunity to take the piss and epitomise everything that it is wrong with the BBC establishment, it worries the shit out of me, i'll be honest. because perhaps you live in a world where you have never exprienced this outside of "loons" on the internet but im sorry to tell you their views, like the edl, are getting a growing amount of legitimacy. perhaps you have never heard it in real life or outside of the internet? for christ's sake its not just about their views, its about actions that take place in the real world. i am sure loads of people took the piss out of Golden Dawn in greece (and probably still do) for looking "mental" and whatever, and look what's happened there.

I don't "like" it, either.

But I've been around the block enough times to know that not liking that something happens isn't in itself a good enough reason for it not to be allowed to happen.

I don't think that the legitimacy of the views of outfits like EDL has anything to do with their exposure on public platforms, though: it might increase the availability of their views, but it doesn't automatically legitimise them. The rise of EDL, Golden Dawn, etc., has a lot more to do with prevailing circumstances than whether or not they've appeared on TV, and there comes a point where suppressing them actually hands them legitimacy as victims - "see, we must be right - The System is afraid to let us speak". And, if we had a System which truly was able to prevent the people it deemed as unworthy to speak from doing so, I think we would be setting a far more dangerous precedent than allowing people with unpopular or just plain nasty views from doing so.

But I realise that this is a fundamental point of disagreement between us, and it doesn't look as if either of us is likely to be persuaded by the arguments of the other, so maybe we have to just leave it there?

 

[frogwoman]

but as i said it's not about the system preventing anyone from speaking, it's about actively inviting someone onto the show for a sneer fest?

 

[butchersapron]

Aye pal. We are all too glakit for clever TV. Bring on the Jeremy Kyle and McDonalds burgers.




Cunt.

I love it when big brains go wrong

This seems quite straightforward to me. Did AJ being on this show give an extra or added social weight to the loons-world view? Yes it did by normalising it and making it appear to be a bottom up response to and against the smug elite represented by Neil and the slug Arronovitch (lots of taxpayer money to sit there doing this shite). This happened because the people who draw up the guest lists and produce the program are not concerned with and aren't involved in anti-austerity or other political activities that are being tainted by these goons. There is a real gap there. At least in griffin's case it was a gap filled with a million votes. No comparable mandate here. So to argue on the basis of this program being a fair example of our shared collective political space, a place where we can debate and de-legitimise and so on, is to mistake a war-zone for a desert. Which is all the pompous long winded let them speak bollocks comes down to, it's not faith in people capabilities to see though fakers- it's falling for one of the biggest fakes yourself and demanding that others get the chance to as well.

 

[butchersapron]

Aye pal. We are all too glakit for clever TV. Bring on the Jeremy Kyle and McDonalds burgers.




Cunt.

Look, he's even doing urban demotic to sound authentic

 

[frogwoman]

nice one butchers you put it better than i did

 

[butchersapron]

nice one butchers you put it better than i did

Even though i fucked up the tacitus quote?

 

[poului]

I really think it's worth petitioning the BBC to divulge who among their ranks was responsible for booking this man on their show. He/she's the one who deserves a lot of direct criticism at the moment.

 

[frogwoman]

Even though i fucked up the tacitus quote?

i didn't even notice to be honest

 

[butchersapron]

I really think it's worth petitioning the BBC to divulge who among their ranks was responsible for booking this man on their show. He/she's the one who deserves a lot of direct criticism at the moment.

Andrew Neill probaby has his own tax-avoiding production company.

 

[Streathamite]

Can we get rid of the idea that somebody having the piss taken out of them by two of the smuggest people of all time actually "discredits" them to anyone who would have believed them in the first place? All it is is publicity and increased acceptance as somebody serious.

good point, actually

 

[butchersapron]

Where did this fantastic woody go? Why did he leave us with the shit one?

 

[sihhi]

Andrew Neil is chair of Middle East / West Asia based publishing firm ITP Magazines which he half mentions it in this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2009/apr/05/my-week-andrew-neil

To Dubai for the weekend to chair a board meeting of ITP, the biggest magazine publisher in the Gulf.

Long Live Dubai

I'm in no doubt Dubai will rebound when the recession is over (probably quicker than Britain). It is an increasingly broad-based economy - a major port, airport and aerospace hub, tourism destination, financial centre and media city all rolled into one - and its oil-rich big brother up the road, Abu Dhabi, will see it through the bad times (it recently scooped up all of a £10bn Dubai bond issue to help meet its debts).

bad media attacking expat tax-reducers

There's nothing like a touch of schadenfreude laced with British snobbery to get our newspapers' envy juices going. The thought of a bunch of ordinary expats living the high life under a tax-free sun seems to drive them mad

Andrew Neil's exposure of Jones means nothing. Neil is regarded by Jones and followers as 'the elite' anyway, breaking through onto BBC matters as a psychological boost for Jones types.
His greater confidence in infecting the anti-austerity side (in Britain not just the US) is the only (admittedly small) upshot of this.

Score it yet another BBC interview that bigs up the dangerous and anti-immigrant close to anti-semitic elements of the anti-government voices, and ignores the normal ordinary ones.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I thought the Alex Jones / UKIP love-fest linked a few pages back was interesting in this context. I wonder how many other UKIP'rs subscribe to all that stuff?

Jones style conspiracy theory has its roots primarily in the John Birch Society (within a wider far-right conspiracy theorist milieu that also contained people like Willis Carto and assorted 'white power' militia types)

It seems though that there's more resonance between what Jones stands for and UKIP than simple parallels between 'get the US out of the UN' and 'get the UK out of the EU' on the strength of that clip at least.

They both serve a similar sort of function. Providing a vehicle for growing popular unrest against elites, that prescribes (once you cut through the bullshit about conspiracies and immigrants) even harsher forms of capitalism as an alternative.

 

[cesare]

I love it when big brains go wrong

This seems quite straightforward to me. Did AJ being on this show give an extra or added social weight to the loons-world view? Yes it did by normalising it and making it appear to be a bottom up response to and against the smug elite represented by Neil and the slug Arronovitch (lots of taxpayer money to sit there doing this shite). This happened because the people who draw up the guest lists and produce the program are not concerned with and aren't involved in anti-austerity or other political activities that are being tainted by these goons. There is a real gap there. At least in griffin's case it was a gap filled with a million votes. No comparable mandate here. So to argue on the basis of this program being a fair example of our shared collective political space, a place where we can debate and de-legitimise and so on, is to mistake a war-zone for a desert. Which is all the pompous long winded let them speak bollocks comes down to, it's not faith in people capabilities to see though fakers- it's falling for one of the biggest fakes yourself and demanding that others get the chance to as well.

Absolutely. It's giving them the oxygen of publicity and normalisation; and active encouragement to consider these views as mainstream.

On a separate, tangential, point - it also annoys me to see these views framed in terms of mental health problems which (a) perpetuates the stigma of MH; and (b) is dismissive of the anti-Semitic etc content as though only those with MH illness could seriously entertain such views.

 

[editor]

It might have been a better idea if Jones had been put in a booth and his mic only turned on when he was asked to answer a specific point.

 

[existentialist]

It might have been a better idea if Jones had been put in a booth and his mic only turned on when he was asked to answer a specific point.

Yes, that might have been useful. And maybe made it a bit less easy for people to have seen his presence on the programme as merely to be sneered at

I think it would also have been very helpful/interesting to have challenged him on some of his nastier racist views, but I wouldn't hold out much hope that they'd have got any sense out of him - nonetheless, it would have served to highlight the part that those views have to play in his conspiranoid agenda.

I really am not surprised that Jazzz has tried, albeit very weakly for him, to justify the Jones situation, and it would have been interesting to see how he might have responded differently if the antisemitism had been on the agenda, too.

 

[butchersapron]

was Aaronovitch on as a conspiracy theory debunker? I know his book was meant to be critical, though I could give a fuck what he thinks about anything

First time i saw Alex Jones was on Channel 4 who showed his documentary on him sneaking into Bohemian Grove and getting footage of the Massive Owl and the hooded crowds involved in the sacrificing of "dull care" ceremony. Which was interesting and genuine journalism of a sort. That was probably before I had internet access...

C4 showed Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove? Are you quite sure?

 

[frogwoman]

i find the mental health / loon thing really insulting to be honest. i don't think anti-semitism is something that only the mentally ill believe in or something that can just be dismissed as a result of mental ill-health, it's something that has affected me and other people i know, it has real consequences. if it is, lots of other cuntish behaviour can just be dismissed as a result of mental illness as well.

i have mental health problems and thinking that these views are a result of people being mentally ill is just going to mean that there's more of a stigma around mental health and there's already quite a big problem with shoddy media reporting about "psychosis" and the like.

 

[existentialist]

i find the mental health / loon thing really insulting to be honest. i don't think anti-semitism is something that only the mentally ill believe in or something that can just be dismissed as a result of mental ill-health, it's something that has affected me and other people i know, it has real consequences. if it is, lots of other cuntish behaviour can just be dismissed as a result of mental illness as well.

i have mental health problems and thinking that these views are a result of people being mentally ill is just going to mean that there's more of a stigma around mental health and there's already quite a big problem with shoddy media reporting about "psychosis" and the like.

I don't think anyone (I certainly am not) is seriously equating conspiracy theory fandom with specific mental health issues, and when I use the term "conspiraloon" (for example), it's just a shorthand way of describing what I see as the irrationality of the belief systems of those who follow the likes of Alex Jones.

I would have thought that was pretty much implicit in what I write about it, and I haven't seen too much - I might have missed something, though - from others to suggest that they are equating mental illness with conspiracy theory followers, either.

I have several good reasons to be particularly sensitive to issues around stigmatisation of mental illness, but I also think that we don't need to completely hobble ourselves by feeling obliged to sanitise our language when talking about people who, in a lay kind of way, we see as having crazily irrational beliefs to the extent that the whole thing becomes endlessly hedged about with carefully phrased non-judgemental expressions.

All that said, I am professionally aware that there is a tendency amongst people who do have some kinds of mental health problems to be suckered into a conspiracy theory agenda which serves to help them normalise their perceptions of the world. As such, this is one of the things I find most offensive about conspiraloonery: the extent to which it is prepared to co-opt and manipulate vulnerable people who can't always expect to know any better. Pussyfooting around the issue doesn't help those people - far from it.