Offering a live national show and followed by a documentary presentation, Alex Jones brought the Info Wars to Orlando. Not familiar with the works or words of Alex Jones, I partnered with objectivity, which does not always make for a good bedfellow.
Was this another episode of all talk and no action? You tell me.
In 1976 Howard Beale made movie history by feeding off the emotional, cultural, and economic hardships of the times. For those too young to have taken part, below is a piece from “Network.”
“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth, banks are going bust, and shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it… All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!’ So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’… Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”
Sound familiar? I remember the movie, the times, and the feeding frenzy. This was a time of discontent and of a nation still rocked by the Vietnam era, by deception, and by cultural/social destruction. Pushing time by a few years (1984) we learn little has changed. Political and cultural rebellion was vocalized by Dee Snyder and Twisted Sister. Playing on social chord, rage externalized from the opening lyric:
“Oh we’re not gonna take it
No, we ain’t gonna take it
Oh we’re not gonna take it anymore
We’ve got the right to choose it
There ain’t no way we’ll lost it
This is our life, this is our song”
Though the medium and method between Network’s 1976 production to Twisted Sister’s song in 1984 was not consistent, the message remained the same. Close to 30 years later and with this as a backdrop, pressing, Alex Jones proceeded to carry the torch of social and political discontent to a personal and professional extreme:
“This country is turning into a fascist state.”
“Liberty is popular and we have right on our side.”
“Battle is now. The war is now.”
Riding proudly atop an agenda focused to dismantling the “New World Order,” Alex immediately took advantage of a sparse audience. Beginning at 5:00 pm, spectators were encouraged to push the noise level on queue, giving radio listeners the impression of a standing-room only auditorium. Throughout the radio broadcast, Mr. Jones inferred the auditorium was overextended, whereas in truth, for the first 100 minutes of the evening, there were more empty seats than covered seats. In his favor, by the end of the radio broadcast (the beginning of part two), there was standing room only.
“Death to the New World Order” filled the airways, nearing the point of absurdity. From my view, when the crowd began to wane, Alex instantly made use of an old-time tested tool used to gain attention, he screamed. I’m not saying screaming should never be used, only modified to a non-scripted level.
Carrying an uncensored wave and inferior stadium acoustics, Alex Jones carried the spirit of exposing the government and political deceit to a logical conclusion… we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore! The clan-like atmosphere swallowed each word with eyes closed and mouth open.
Taking advantage of a growling gruff and fueling an audience tired of status quo, Alex dominated the evening by force-feeding fear in the name of freedom and liberty. Topics were accentuated by the idea of eugenics, the applied science or the bio-social movement advocating the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population… in essence, Darwinism on steroids whereas survival would be influenced by New World Order Policy.
According to Alex Jones’ infowars.com site, “Since 1913 two World Wars have raged over the earth, leaving a pile of dead in their wake. Eugenics became a thing of the state. In Nazi-Germany, eugenics was the norm, in Europe and the United States it became a more or less covert enterprise. Finally, the UN was constructed to make sure that the ancient Eugenic ideal would be preserved and passed on into the 21st century on a global scale.”
Has the concept and power elite implementation of eugenics grown throughout the United States and the New World Order? According to Alex Jones, a definitive and resounding yes… and the beginning is in wide distribution. With the government wishing to control and eliminate populations, correlating evidence can be found right here in the United States as we have the highest rate of cancer; inferring that the United States government is introducing chemicals in our food supply as a tool to control the population.
Kindling topics used for fuel were not limited to the New World Order, though it seemingly threaded each segment of discussion. Alex Jones went on to review how The World Bank is looking to control the high seas, how the Iran war (not officially by name but by practice) is alive and kicking, how the TSA is threatening to go into his and his families pants, and how the Nanny State—the enslavement state—is arresting parents of children throughout the US, England, and Canada for drawing images of guns.
Breaking the evening down, Alex Jones controlled the auditorium by way of fear, anger, and radical rhetoric. Taking data out of context, his message of freedom advocating polarization leads only to a place where balance will never be achieved.
True enough, promoting a war growl with the crowd chanting in unison, “Death to the New World Order” will make for headlines but will not echo beyond interior walls unless there is a viable option proposed. Perhaps, as Alex Jones advocates, there is an incredible awakening and the world can be a better place. Then again, haven’t we heard this all before?
From the dawn of time conflict has progressed civilizations into what we have become today. And from the dawn of time, fear has become the gravitational force suffocating compromise by the stem. Think about it, where has fear not controlled action? After all, we witness the power throughout all walks of life, in religion, in politics, in culture, and onto our dying breath… fear fuels change.
A sophist stems from the fifth century B.C. and was characterized by Plato as superficial manipulators of rhetoric and dialectic. Coat-tail rider is not new either and is defined by an individual jumping onto an established movement, perhaps adding his or her twist. Leaving the Alex Jones performance, I departed with plenty of self-serving insight but with little by way of transparency and call to real action.
With irony sitting passenger, I turned the ignition, pushed the clutch, and began to head home. To my delight, The Undisputed Truth’s song began strummed an otherwise moment of silence with “Smiling Faces Sometimes”:
Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend
Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don’t tell the truth uh
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof
Your enemy won’t do you no harm
Cause you’ll know where he’s coming from
Don’t let the handshake and the smile fool ya
Take my advice I’m only try’ to school ya
In the end, does thought without action really matter? Take time NOW to fight for your cause; simply chanting “Death to the New World Order” is meaningless unless you make it meaningful. Perhaps Alex Jones was right on track and his fear tactic is what is required for us to wake up. Then again, I would have liked more than unbridled strategic growling. I would have liked a real plan with real options.
Just saying…
Danny Huffman, MA, CEIP, CPRW, CPCC
Got Twitter? Shadow me @dannyatecs
Hey Danny, interesting that your article does not attack Alex Jones with the usual slanders, although you do throw some funny words around like “clan-like”. Were there any people wearing clan hoods? Anyway, if you want solutions, in a democracy, the idea is to get the majority to wake up and be INFORMED. Then, by trial and error, solutions will be found. The source of our problems is that the majority of people are MISINFORMED by the media. Personally, I think Lyndon Larouche’s organization has an excellent agenda with solutions, and Alex Jones has interviewed many people specializing in various areas offering ideas and solutions for specific problems (e.g. the vulnerability of the electric grid to solar storms). This is a great country with many smart people with solutions. The problem is that no-one listens to them. Maybe a wakey-wakey call is the first step.
Your comments are well taken and valued. Like you, I am an advocate of being informed and, like you, recognize the level of misinformation to be excessive. We all need a wake-up call, the problem is society has been hitting the snooze button for way too many years. Perhaps we need a leader with solutions and not hot air… just a thought.
It disturbs me that Alex Jones is labeled as a Libertarian. Ron Paul is a libertarian who, by the way, speaks with out “hot air”. Alex Jones is a right-wing conservative with some ideas that leans towards extremism.
It’s true that America needs a wake up call. Instead, however, I suggest listening to the words of Ron Paul. The American economy is in shambles, the dollar is worth quite less than it used to be, and America is more divided than it has been since the Civil war. These are things Dr. Paul predicted would happen in the 90s.
In other words, the message is correct but the speaker is not.