Friday, January 22, 2010

Alex Jones; A Skewed World View

Alex Jones is the best there is at what he does. Not since Mae Brussell has someone emerged capable of digesting so much information and then present it a recognisable and logical form that can be understood. Unlike Mae however, I take issue with some of Jones' conclusions. It seems like the Global Warming scientists, he massages the data to produce the desired outcome. But unlike those scientists, he also gives you all the raw data to figure it out for yourself. Jones always encourages his audience to look up everything themselves and come to their own conclusions. So there is no attempt to decieve with Jones, he just has a Worldview that he firmly believes in and it is nice to find someone in Alex Jones position with a value system still intact.

We live in dangerous times. Starting with the end of the Clinton Presidency, the bankers were turned loose to rape and pillage with the help of the Federal Reserve and Congressional Banking and Financial Committees; throw in the American Dream Commitment, Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and suddenly we were threatened with Martial Law unless we pay the bankers $700 billion (some say a lot more). We have the United Nations and our President pushing for World Government and redistribution of wealth, masquerading as science. The American people are angry and stunned to see a Congress, seemingly wanting to commit political suicide rather than kill a healthcare bill that 65% of the country doesn't want. All this and we still have Islamic terrorist waging a world wide war against democracy and capitalism. And more than anything else, there is Eugenics, the plan to remove the useless eaters from the planet. But, Mae Brussell once warned of Mark Lane, conspiracy theorist and attorney for Jim Jones, calling him a clearing house for conspiracy theories and that seems to be what Alex Jones has become. He mixes in-depth and legitimate investigations and guests with the improbable lunacy that is the 911 Truth conspiracy. Here he has had to lie, tell half truths and edit out contrary evidence. Alex Jones rambles on about how Global Warming doubters are always passed off as being in collusion with "Big Oil", then brands anyone who is vocal about their disbelief that 911 was an inside job, as stooges of the new world order. I have seen all the tapes and read all the books and the 911 conspiracy makes no sense at all. In this case Alex Jones seems involved in the bank robbery gone bad, but has no choice but follow-up through with it to the end (his analogy). This is not to say that Glenn Beck is always accurate. The other day he presented in mock disbelief that the Federal Reserve made $45 billion profit in 2009, more than the combined totals of all private banks in the US. What he didn't tell you is all profit by the Federal reserve goes into the US Treasury. The majority of this profit was from The Federal Reserve buying up discounted agency bonds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; turns out these assets were worth much more than anticipated My test of a conspiracy is this, if it takes thousands of people to stay quiet or lie, if no one can give you a cohesive time line, and the conspiracy is of such immense complexity, that it is unimaginable, and no one ever does come forward to explain it (like the Manhattan Project), than it is likely a fraud.

I am a retired Police Officer after 27 years and an Assistant Scout Master with my sons Boy Scouts Troop. Alex Jones views this as an abomination. When it comes to public safety, Jones is simply an anarchist. Jones saves his most passionate and visceral hate rants for the police. Jones antipathy for authority is a central part of his personality (hatred of authority this extreme usually has it's roots in ones upbringing (but it is not my intent to psychoanalyze Jones). Still, videos of Jones being arrested, shows him being loud and obnoxious prior to is arrest and then meek and compliant once he's out of ear shoot of the cameras. This is not to say there are not abuses by the police, but especially in a crowd control situation, the police are usually far outnumbered and can only hope to control these situations by intimidation; without the fear instilled by the appearance of "Jack Booted thuggery" the police would quickly loose control. While Alex Jones may think his megaphone rants and DVD's are the savior of the Republic, the truth is (and always has been), it is Law Enforcements adherence to the Constitution that protects the citizenry from tyranny. For, if the police do not respect civil rights of the citizenry, then by definition, there are no civil rights. Our founding fathers were very clear about the need of, and enforcement of, the rule of law; something Jones just doesn't get. The police are often called upon to keep the peace in unpopular situations and can be left looking like the bad guy; but that's their job, and no cop ever took an oath to public safety to win a popularity contest. But, as usual, when his ranting and raving is over and he has been victimized, Jones will turn to police for help as every citizen does.

When it comes to members of the Armed Services, Alex Jones is at the height of his hypocrisy. When Janet Napolitano released the Homeland Security Bulletin, Jones rightfully had a field day with her identifying returning veterans as prone to radicalization. But Jones only uses this indignity when it suits his current rant. The truth is Jones is much more prone to make our armed service members the focus of an ugly viseral rant, branding them a willing arm of the New World Order. Jones has even proclaimed that he has more courage utilizing his free speech, then those willingly in harms way to protect that right. Apparently he views lower ratings a greater sacrifice than the blood of the true freedom fighter, the American soldier.

Another problem I see with Jones is his tendency to extrapolate trends from isolated incidents, especially when it has to do with Law Enforcement (I know, you're shocked).

Police officers are stopping and shaking down motorist.Yes, but this occurred only in a small town in Texas (Tenaha), near the Louisiana state line. There the police where obviously violating the 5th amendment and abusing asset seizure laws. This is a town with a population of about 1000; it is hardly a national trend;

Cities only hire police officers with low IQ's, less than 100. Again, Yes; but this only happened in one small town in Connecticut. My experience is there is a dumbing down of the of the testing and vetting process, which might give the same result, but comes from a completely different direction.

The police routinely ignore the crimes of Hispanic Illegal Aliens. Jones says this happens in Austin, TX. I have a close friend who works fro Austin PD, and while the city is a Sanctuary City, and INS is not routinely called when Mexican Nationals are arrested, the idea that the police ignore crimes committed by Mexican Nationals is ludicrous. At most, there is a lack of tenacity in properly identifying Mexican National arrestees. If properly done, a majority of these illegal aliens would be held held (incarcerated) for the the most minor offense, due to their in-ability to properly identify themselves. However, there is no authority to do this, with mandatory cite and release statuses. Jones latest rant, was illegal aliens are only fined one dollar for DUI. Since this would violate 14th amendment, equal protection statutes, I suspect it is more of a "blood from a turnip" case; and since you can't imprison someone for their inability to pay a fine, they are simply setup on a low monthly payment;

When illegal aliens are turned over to ICE they are routinely given a green card and a job. This one seems to be from 2006 where a fence building company was fined for using illegal aliens to build fences, including the Mexican Border fence. He then apparently made up the ICE/green card part to make it sound like a conspiracy;

Boy Scouts are being trained by Homeland Security to carry out anti-terrorists raids; again let me again qualify this by admitting to be an Assistant Scoutmaster. Yes, this one has some truth. But that is a very qualified “yes”. The scouts in question are not the rank and file Boyscouts; they are a small sub-section called Explorer Scouts. There are about 4 million Boyscouts, of which 148,000 are Explorer Scouts. The age requirements of Boy Scouts is 10-17 years old; the age requirements for Explorer scouts is 14-20. The stated purpose of the Explorer Scouts is to expose them to career related programs, including aviation, medicine, science and law enforcement. Of the 148,000 Explorer Scouts, about 35,000 choose law enforcement and it is these scouts that are exposed to all aspects of law enforcement, including Homeland Security branches and anti-terrorism techniques;

The police are being federalized. 7.5 years LASD, with the Los Angeles Sheriff, 19 yrs with Santa Cruz Police. I have worked with SWAT, other police agencies, county and state attorneys and have seen no sign of the feds; heck the FBI doesn't even investigate non-violent bank robberies anymore. There were only two signs of possible federal intrusion. The first was a presentation about the NRF (National Response Framework) teaching a standardized method for response and documentation of Incident Management, known as the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The other was another presentation on the NSA/CSS and the matrix used for the National Intelligence Agencies in the United States. The idea that Homeland Security can come in on a training day and turned us into Federal Agents after watching a few videos is just ridiculous;

The story of the 10 YO girl arrested for a plastic knife; this seems to be combination a 10 YO girl who was arrested for bring a steak knife to school in Ocala, FL, (to cut her steak lunch; still way stupid of the school) and a 1 YO who kept a plastic knife from lunch and brought it into his class room in Youngstown, OH (this one had a better ending as school dropped all charges after the parents said they would sue the school for supplying their child with a deadly weapon);

The Bush Administration, through the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act and TARP, actually paid off the banks to the tune of $23.7 trillion. Well no, that's not what happened. The figure was based on testimony by Neil Barofsky who is the head of the TARP oversite agency (SIGTARP). The Wall Street Journal reported on this; "Mr. Barofsky also estimated the government's potential exposure to programs aimed at fixing the financial crisis at $23.7 trillion. To get to that figure, Mr. Barofsky combined direct spending with all the government guarantees and programs and assumed the "gross exposure" the government could face if all the programs were tapped to their fullest potential. "These numbers may have some overlap, and have not been evaluated to provide an estimate of likely net costs to the taxpayer," his report noted". So the report says the $23.7 trillion figure is not an estimate of likely cost to the taxpayer, only possible exposure. Still a horrifying amount, but not a government payout to the Banks.

There is probably no person who cares more than his country than Alex Jones. He talks about the many sleepless nights he spends worrying about "us"; the citizens of this republic. I too am a Constitutionalists (it comes with the job) and know we must have an educated electorate to survive. One does not have to be a 911 Truther, to know we live in dangerous times and we have more to fear from our government than any foreign source. I know Alex Jones does not expect anyone to just blindly believe everything he says, but you do have to wade through a very skewed world view to get there.

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