I don't want to leave out the duped Democrats who are being duped by centrist and right wing Democrats. The biggest duping there revolves around Russia. And the number one Russia hoax perpetrator is Rachel Maddow. The Democratic leadership went down the Russia rabbit hole massively. And they took me with them for a while, to some extent. Thank goodness for Ray McGovern and Consortium News for keeping my head straight. I make this confession because it shows that it's easy to be duped nowadays.
Duping seems to be a major part of our times. It is also happening to right wingers. On July 4th a lot of rednecks and bikers and gun-toters showed up at Gettysburg to defend against a purported Antifa plan to get children to burn flags. Problem is, they were all duped, as this article reports. Militias flocked to Gettysburg to foil a supposed antifa flag burning, an apparent hoax created on social media
And I want to get into conspiracy theory a bit more. Philip Giraldi writes, in his article, Some Conspiracy Theories are for Real, in UnzReview about a few of the topics:
Given the multiple crises currently being experienced in the United States it is perhaps inevitable that speculation about conspiracies is at its highest level ever. To the average American it is incomprehensible how the country has become so screwed up because the political and economic elite is fundamentally incompetent, so the search for a scapegoat must go on.There are a number of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus currently making the rounds. Those libertarians and contrarians who choose to believe that the virus is actually a flu being exploited to strip them of their liberties are convinced that many in the government and media have conspired to sell what is essentially a fraud. One such snake oil salesman persists in using an analogy, that since more Americans are killed in automobile accidents than by the coronavirus it would be more appropriate to ban cars than to require the wearing of face masks.
Another theory making the rounds accuses Microsoft multi-billionaire Bill Gates of trying to take over the world's healthcare system through the introduction of a vaccine to control the coronavirus, which he presumably created in the first place. The fallacy in many of the virus "conspiracies" that relate to a totalitarian regime or a crazy billionaire using a faux disease to generate fear so as to gain control of the citizenry is that it gives far too much credit to any government's or individual's ability to pull off a fraud of that magnitude. It would require people a whole lot smarter than the tag team of Trump-Pompeo or even Gates to convince the world and thousands of doctors and scientists that they should lock down entire countries over something completely phony.
Other coronavirus theories include that the virus was developed in the U.S., was exported to China by a traitorous American scientist, weaponized in Wuhan and then unleashed on the West as part of a communist plot to destroy capitalism and democracy. That would mean that we are already at war with China, or at least we should be. Then there is the largely accepted theory that the virus was created in Wuhan and escaped from the lab. Since that time Beijing has been engaging in a cover-up, which is the conspiracy. It is a theme favored by the White House, which has not yet decided what to do about it beyond assigning funny "Yellow Peril" names to the disease so everyone in MAGA hats will have something to chuckle about leading up to the November election.
That's a lot of debunking of conspiracy theories on a site that often supports them. But then Giraldi goes on to talk about George Soros, citing Soros' repeated. making of statements about Russia that are unsupported. But he's using that propensity of Soros to suggest that maybe there's something:
"...the role of George Soros and the so-called Open Society Foundations that he controls and funds in the unrest that is sweeping across the United States. The allegations against Soros are admittedly thin on evidence, but conspiracy mongers would point out that that is the mark of a really well-planned conspiracy, similar to what the 89 year-old Hungarian Jewish billionaire has been engaging in for a long time."
Yes. The allegations are very thin on evidence. Yet Giraldi points out "The current round of claims about Open Society and Soros have generated as many as 500,000 tweets a day as well as nearly 70,000 Facebook posts per month, mostly from political conservatives." That's massive. We're talking about 15 million tweets, over two million Facebook posts a month.
Here's my take on Soros. When someone attributes anything happening in the US to Soros I assume the person is a right wing dupe who reads too much conspiracy stuff- and I assume that there will a mention of Antifa coming on its heels.
Does this apply to you? I'll say it again. I'm not saying you are a right winger. I am saying you are being duped and used. If that pisses you off, it should not be me you are pissed at.
These are challenging times. Truth can be hard to find. Lives are at risk. All I can do is try to do my best to balance truth and safety. The least I can do is prevent people from putting out right-wing originated messaging that already has a history of leading to decisions that kill people.
Update:
After reading this article on grayzone.com, Why the Bill Gates global health empire promises more empire and less public health, I'm getting a much clearer feeling for the problem people have with Bill Gates. It's a long read but very powerful. The thing is, I'm not sure Gates is evil as many suggest. He's a victim of Top-down derangement syndrome, which I'll be posting an article about soon.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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