January 20, 2009

Guests:

• Mike Rivero: Host of What Really Happened with Mike Rivero. What Really Happened was another conspiracy-oriented radio show that was broadcast by Genesis Communications Network until sometime in 2010, when he left the network, according to him because he and Alex Jones did not see eye to eye on Israel. Mike is staunchly anti-Israel, and felt that Alex was becoming more and more pro-Israel as time went on. His statement about moving his show off network included the following: "GCN is a reflection of Alex Jones' views of the world, and more and more our points of view regarding Israel are diverging..I guess the breaking point was his rant in which he said that anyone who is a critic of Israel is a "weak-minded fool."
• Ron Paul: Ron Paul was a member of the House of Representatives from Texas from 1976-77, 1979-85, and 1997-2013. He has run for the republican presidential nomination a bunch of times, but never got it. He's only the second Libertarian to receive an electoral vote, but only because some dumbass faithless elector in Texas voted for him in the 2016 election, which he was not even in. His political ideas are absurd, he very clearly has a deep history of racism as well as homophobia, among other bigotries (check out the Oct. 1992 issue of his newsletter for tips on how to get away with murdering a black youth!), but most importantly, he was the first chairman of the Koch brothers' funded Citizens for A Sound Economy in 1984, which eventually split into Americans For Prosperity and FreedomWorks, two fronts with which the Kochs funded and manufactured the Tea Party, which idolized Ron Paul's dumb ideas. He pretends to be the outsider, when he's been in with the Kochs for at least 34 years.

Narratives:

This should have been Alex's best show ever, and in short, it was not.

Here it was, the day of Barack Obama's inauguration as President, this needed to be the day that Alex gives the performance of his life. He needed to be pulling out fake tears, he needed to have actual information at his disposal, he needed to create something real.

He didn't do any of that, but what he did do is completely fascinating and confusing to reflect on now:

1) Alex Spends A Lot Of Time On The Show Singing Along With Country Music

This is not even counting when he sings Folsom Prison Blues at the show's four hour mark, which bummed me out too much to cut out as a clip.

For someone deeply concerned about how a literal demon, who is the front-man for a Global syndicate that is out to destroy the world and enslave everyone, who may also be the literal Christian anti-Christ, is being made President of the United States, Alex seems fairly breezy, at least as long as those smooth country jams are kicking.

2) Alex Leaves His Own Show To Appear On Russia Today

I have been listening to Alex Jones episodes, taking notes on them, and researching his rhetoric every day for the last 18 months. In that time, I have listened to hundreds and hundreds of episodes of his show. In all of the episodes I have ever heard, I have not once heard him leave his own broadcast to do something else.

This turn of event is truly unbelievable.

Alex Jones presents himself, even in 2009, as the figurehead of some kind of movement of patriots. It is a movement against "Globalists" and "bankers" who the movement believes are pushing toward a depopulation agenda, and Barack Obama is the fake savior they've chosen to use to usher in the final stage of it, wherein all the patriots get killed and humanity is doomed. Alex believes that shit, and instead of do his own show on the day this guy is made the President, he dips out for a good half hour to talk to Russian state-owned media, handing them a nice little video they got to put out with the headline "People Are Going To Hate Obama."

It's a surreal thing, mostly because it is woefully transparent. Alex loves going on RT because they are the only network that will allow him on air and treat him like he's not a complete idiot. They love having Alex on because he says stupid shit that makes America look like the bad guys in every situation and his rhetoric fits perfectly into their world-view, where international cooperation is secretly evil. He's the perfect Russian propagandist, and they didn't even need to cultivate him as an asset, they just had to tell their anchors to resist the urge to tell him to shut up.

There may be more to the story here, but you cannot convince me that it is not meaningful that Alex Jones left his own show in complete disarray (the guest host filling in for him was calling in from Hawaii, and spent most of his time on air trying to sort out tech issues), on the day of his enemy's ascendance, because Russia wanted to talk to him. It's nuts.

3) We Get An Update On Alex's Mission To Sell His Broken Bullhorn

It's always fun when self-professed alpha men complain about being the victim of super soft "crimes," which don't even really sound believable. There is no world wherein I am going to believe that someone called Alex and said, "you son of a bitch, there's no way I'm gonna let you sell that bullhorn." That just absolutely did not happen.

All of this is Alex's way of rationalizing to himself that he is about to do his second Moneybomb in as many years. He is presenting it as a thing where he's only doing a Moneybomb because these villains came and ruined his Broken Bullhorn Sale, so now his back is to the wall. The only problem with this, is that at this point, he'd been talking for weeks about how they were going to do a Moneybomb. This is not a new development.

4) Alex Reports That We Are Now In Martial Law

"Congress has been openly told they're under martial law."

This quote is a doozy, since Alex just throws it out there with no context, and no real way to get to the bottom of what he's talking about. He wants his audience to think that this is something that is happening right now, to give the appearance of immediacy, that Obama is moving fast. He's been in office 35 minutes and already Congress is under martial law?

In reality, this is just Alex rehashing one of his old narratives, from an article he posted on InfoWars on Sept. 28, 2008, which was actually just a complete copy-and-paste job from an article he lifted from Daily News Caster, a conspiracy theory blog that is no longer in operation.

That article, from three months prior, claims that Representative Michael Burgess (TX-R) gave a one minute speech in opposition to bailing out any of the banks, in which he said "Mr. Speaker I understand we are under Martial Law as declared by the speaker last night." It's true, he did say that. But, if you read the Congressional record from that day, and see the context in which he's speaking, it's pretty clear he doesn't mean the same thing by "martial law" that Alex does.

Alex Jones uses the term "martial law" to describe a state of tyranny, where the military is out in black helicopters and tanks, oppressing the people of America. "Martial law" to Alex Jones is when there are curfews and check-points, and the man has come and taken your guns so you can't fight back. He uses the term in a very specific way, and has for years.

When someone in the House uses the term, generally, they mean something completely different. It's like how when they talk about "the Nuclear Option," they aren't literally talking about dropping a Hydrogen Bomb on the Senate. Politicians can use metaphor too.

Alex either understands that these are different things, or he doesn't. If he doesn't, then he has no business reporting on the matter, and is unintentionally misleading people who understandably have a trained response to hearing Alex say the words "martial law." If he does know the difference, and he doesn't explain what he means to his listeners, he is being manipulative on a level that borders on criminally irresponsible.

Interestingly, "martial law" happens in Congress way more than you'd think, because all it means in the Congressional context is that one side knows they have the votes they need, or everyone wants to go on vacation, so they want to waive the rules where you have to wait three days after introducing a bill to vote on it. It's not even something that is considered all that severe; it's even in the Congressional rule book.

It happens a lot. For instance, consider this Politico article from July 27, 2017 where they discuss Republican politicians wanting to use the "martial law rule" so they could repeal Obamacare and still make it to their August vacations:

“House Republicans leaders are instructing lawmakers to hold off leaving for August recess this weekend in case the Senate passes Obamacare repeal legislation and the House comes under pressure to act.

In an email to lawmakers Thursday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), raised the possibility that they might need to take votes in the coming days if the Senate approves a health care bill. House Republicans are also gearing up to waive chamber rules mandating they wait three days after a bill is made public to vote on the legislation on the floor, what’s known as “martial law” in the House.”

Weirdly, Alex didn't seem to be all that interested in creating fear in his audience about "Congress being under martial law" when Trump was in office, and the bill they were trying to push through was something he supported. Super weird.

Also, just a fun aside about Rep. Michael Burgess, the source of this disingenuous martial law bullshit. He was one of the early adopters of the Tea Party, and in his election cycle in 2008, his #1 donor was, you guessed it, Koch Industries, with support to the tune of $20,000. Weird how they keep popping up.

Beyond that, the rest of this show is mostly bad call-ins from listeners that don't really merit discussion.

Just to make things entirely clear about Alex's views on Obama, on the day of his first inauguration, here is a pretty succinct synopsis: