Alex Jones's "Fall of the Republic"

[Dimentio]

I would like to see a revolutionary leftist analysis on Alex Jones's "Fall of the Republic". For those who do not know, Alex Jones is a right-wing "paleo-conservative" propaganda film maker who claims the United States is exposed to a conspiration by an international bank cartel.

His views have been becoming more popular in Europe as well during recent times. For example a Swedish community has been formed dedicated to conspiracy theories.

I want that this thread should be used to discuss strategies on how to challenge Jones's ideology, conspiratism.

I do not agree with Jones's views, but I think that since conspiratism is so widespread today we should try to analyse it as a growing ideology which could eat up potential progressives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU

[UndergroundConnexion]

you are fucking crazy if you spent two hours and 24 minutes on this shite.

And therefore I wont. People who "follow" this, usually are people with little political/economical education, who are finally happy to have a version of history presented to them which is easy for them to grasp. It's much easier to say that the US gvt. sent planes into towers instead wondering "why would a group of young man , hijack a plane and fly it into buildings?"

Conspiracy theories have been here since the beginning of times, that's just how it is.

[Spawn of Stalin]

If you ignore the crap about conspiracy theories, population control, the New World Order, and so on, you can actually learn a lot about modern capitalist economics from Alex Jones' films. He's still a tosser but they are worth watching, there's a lot of very good, and accurate information in them.

[jake williams]

I think the solution, and I insisted on nagging thusly every time the issue comes up, is basically this: sympathetic and honest engagement, including agreement and disagreement. I recently saw "The Obama Deception", and I thought it was the most accurate analysis of Obama that is in any way popular. There are major flaws that need to be countered, some of them more foundational and some of them more superficial, but to do that we need sympathy and honest respect for the people who believe the things we disagree with (and also believe a lot of important things we agree with). These tend to be people who who for various reasons are both really oppressed and really propagandized.

[The Idler]

Point out that there's no need for members of the Bilderberg group and Bohemian Grove to organise secretly and that the evidence suggests they organise in their own interests honestly and openly by lobbying, union-busting and redundancies. Likewise freemasons and the eye and pyramid (sorry don't know or care what its called).

Conspiracists are generally on the shakiest ground when asked what kind of society they would like to see and confronted with a socialism from below or anarchist perspective. Uninformed conspiracists will usually answer that they want what basically amounts to honest transparent capitalism or liberal parliamentary democracy, some might go as far as unexploitative capitalism which is an oxymoron.

[Dimentio]

They use to call what we call capitalism communism.

And they call their preferred system capitalism, while their preferred system is really some sort of rugged reactionary individualist self-sustaining federalism which they imagine the USA was in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

[Tatarin]

What I find funny with Alex Jones is that he is using the same "controlled media" to point out conspiracies that is supposed to be protected by them.

But I guess this is quite natural. What is one supposed to think when society is rounded up and surveiled? When the TV cries of how bad things were in the enclosed communist states when newer and bigger walls are set up right now? Or how two not-so-EU-friendly nations within a week agreed to sign the EU constitution?

But this is the early stages, a little bit like media is supposed to work; it makes people angry, and later makes them actually do something about it.

[RHIZOMES]

Conspiracy theories take away the focus from the ruling class and the capitalist system as a whole to sinister shadowy organizations pulling the strings behind everything wrong in the world. it is a view of the world completely void of any sort of materialist analysis. In fact, a lot of modern-day conspiracy theories can be traced back to the ruling class trying to shift attention away from themselves and their own crimes. Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a good example (pretty much one of the defining works in conspiracy theory literature), spread by the Tsarist secret police to shift the focus away from the aristocracy to Jews. Check out some of the passages in it:


The people under our guidance have annihilated the aristocracy, who were their one and only defence and foster-mother for the sake of their own advantage, which is inseparably bound up with the well-being of the people.
The aristocracy, which enjoyed by law the labour of the workers, was interested in seeing that the workers were well fed, healthy and strong. We are interested in just the opposite -- in the diminution, the killing off of the goyim.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Marxist analysis of Jones and his work? OK: he's either fucking insane, or deliberately stupid. How's that for Marxist analysis?


It's wholly unnecessary to even give this material the least bit of attention.

[thejambo1]

this is just more shite,should be lumped with NWO and zeitgeist. why is there so many threads on here about all this rubbish!:(

[Schrödinger's Cat]

If you ignore the crap about conspiracy theories, population control, the New World Order, and so on, you can actually learn a lot about modern capitalist economics from Alex Jones' films. He's still a tosser but they are worth watching, there's a lot of very good, and accurate information in them.

Sporadic knowledge isn't enough to justify having hours of conspiracies turn brain matter into mush.

[jake williams]

It's wholly unnecessary to even give this material the least bit of attention.
I think it's a really bad idea just to ignore these views, because in the general sense they're very representative of a VERY large and significant part of the US working class. If you don't care about the US working class, okay, but you have to realize that's what you're saying.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think it's a really bad idea just to ignore these views, because in the general sense they're very representative of a VERY large and significant part of the US working class.

How so?

[mykittyhasaboner]

Yes how so? In my experience I've met nobody who believes the kind of stuff Jones always rants about. Communism created by "the big banks"? Definetly not. 9'11 being an "inside job"? Sure, some do, but this has been dealth with more or less.

Obama being some kind of crypto-fascist? Maybe, but anti-Democrat sentiment is largely dominated by the tea baggers and conservatives like Glenn Beck or O'Reily. I certainly wouldn't say that a very large, let along signifigant, part of the working class in America is a conspiracy theorist. I would say most are apolitical, "conservative" or "liberal".

Even if we were to not ignore such tripe, it would be to wholly criticize it. We should be more concerned with actual dealings of the capitalist state and criticizing their system than wasting time by denouncing alex jones and taking apart his work piece by piece with materialist analysis. This is pretty much all I meant by it being worthless to even give his politics any kind of attention. It's just silly and not productive. We have to make it clear that his stuff is so inaccurate and stupid, that we don't even bother with giving it too much attention.

Alex Jones has his own radio show and internet lackeys; we don't need to give him/them any help.

edit: I forgot, I don't think many working people in the US believe in a "New World Order" or some "global government" or "one world currency" either.
I think for the most part, Jones is considered a crackpot by anyone who isn't a "believer" or hasn't been "awakened".

[RHIZOMES]

I think it's a really bad idea just to ignore these views, because in the general sense they're very representative of a VERY large and significant part of the US working class. If you don't care about the US working class, okay, but you have to realize that's what you're saying.

I always saw the "paleoconservative" Alex Jones/Loose Change/Truther "movement" as a mostly petty-bourgeois middle class crowd. The biggest idiots of that particular strata all congregating together.