Capriciousness in Contradictory Opinions or Blatant Racism?

I can barely stand to listen to hypocrisy of the magnitude of Alex Jones' regular rants about illegal immigration. Tonight he opened with a rant about population growth in which he furiously beat the drum that there is no need to control the snowballing global population and in the next breath his blood was boiling about immigration from Mexico.

You can't claim that there is plenty of space for population growth but then demand that there is no room where you live - that's NIBMYism x 10. Especially when the population density figures are considered:

Global average population density is 47 per square kilometre

United States population density 32 per square kilometre

Mexico population density 57 per square kilometre

Source: Wikipedia

So, the Mexican population density is 121% global average and the US population density is 68% of the global average yet there is no spare space in America!

You cannot have it both ways!

And let's not forget which population is actually indigenous to the continent.

Every time I hear your 'illegals' tirades, you sound even more of a racist.

Your pleas for listeners to wake up from the left vs right paradigm sound increasingly more pathetic when it becomes apparent just how right wing you are and that in fact what you are asking people to do is to regard your extreme right wing position as being somehow neutral.

Edit: An hour into the programme, I just heard Jones admit the very point made above, that it is the immigrant population which threatens him. I think that Alex Jones is really starting to sound like part of the self-fulfilling prophesy fundamentalist Christian Armageddon.

Alex in Sunder Land II - the InfoBlubber

As if to emphasise the point made in the previous post, that there is a vast disconnection - or at the very least a news lag - at InfoWars, the InfoPuppy, Paul Joseph Watson's latest dispatch (today, 30th October) concerns the a video of the attendance of US Border Guard at the Occupy Phoenix protest (first uploaded to YouTube on 18th October, see below).

Armed Citizen Militia Shows Up At Occupy Phoenix

The scoop-like language employed by Watson - more often seen in mediocre British tabloids - to cover this ancient (by internet standards) story is puffed up with a subplot that only Watson's spaghetti like mainframe could fail to notice actually exposes InfoWars for what it actually is, a reactionary right wing outfit purporting to have transcended the left/right paradigm.

For years, InfoWars have rallied in favour of the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution (which concerns the right to bear arms) and against illegal immigration. But when US Border Guard were then accused of neo-Nazi affiliations, the InfoPuppy seized on the opportunity to join the chorus and taking an oddly expedient opportunity to distance himself (a resident of Yorkshire, England) from the armed militia he dubbed, 'Minutemen on steroids' who organise armed patrols of the US border with Mexico.

Watson asks, insidiously, 'Is this a means of infiltrating the ‘Occupy’ movement, a minority fringe extremist group trying to attach itself to the protesters, or merely concerned citizens expressing their right to bear arms peaceably?'


There are plenty of efforts to split the Occupy movement, some by means of the co-opting of political organisations but others on grounds of political difference - whether left vs right, those who do and do not  understand the relevance of fractional reserve banking and those (like InfoWars) who wilfully confuse a belief in social co-operation with Nationalsozialistische ideology.

Because momentum in the Occupy movement is shifting towards a more popular and diverse demographic, the InfoWars collective are becoming more marginalised. Trying to create disharmony is a tactic used from top to bottom.

If you want to avoid painting yourself into a corner, Alex, you need to start looking into ways of engaging with people instead of attacking them. We have a common enemy. I spend as much time trying to encourage the cognitively dissonant who dismiss 'conspiracy theorists' to look at evidence as I do pointing out why it may be time for you to re-evaluate your approach - especially as the Occupy movement battle lines become more tangible.

Alex in Sunder Land - the InfoBubble

Tonight's Alex Jones show, 28th October, opened with Jones with, in his own words, an epiphany, speaking emotionally about a video he had seen the previous day of two children horrifically injured in Sirte, Libya. One had their lower jaw completely blow away, the other had most of one of their legs missing.

The video, not embedded because it is so graphically disturbing, but linked below was uploaded on 9th October - almost three weeks ago - and was shared by many, myself included.

Perhaps the fact that it has taken so long for this to get Jones' attention is an indication of the disconnect between Team InfoWars and the rest of the world. It's a perpetual gripe of Jones that it is impossible to get his message through to people - in fact he suggested using this very video as a vehicle for that purpose.

But, as this clearly demonstrates, it's a two way street. It doesn't seem to get through Jones that maybe there is something about him (and the style of InfoWars) which, though it may have been successful in raising his profile thus far, is now the obstacle which the people he seeks to reach cannot overcome. If it isn't Jones belligerent blunderbuss mouth, it's Paul Joseph Watson's sneering condescending Young Conservative attitude to anybody who may have so much as had their verruca treated on the NHS.

Time to change tack, boys, you are living in a media bubble disconnected from all but your fan base.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hobDCtmx0xo

From the coalmines of Kentucky...

I can't listen to the whole of the programme tonight - even someone who should get out more goes out sometimes.

But I listened to some. Tonight, Aaron Dykes, Alex Jones occasional understudy, played 'Me and Bobby McGee' sung by Janis Joplin - the lyrics are fairly self-justifying for a radio show of this nature but Dykes may or may not have been aware of the song's origins - especially given the frequency which flimsy links are drawn between people and circumstances to manufacture conspiracy by the InfoWars gang.

Jones often makes reference to the life and legacy of Cecil Rhodes who he frequently reminds his listeners had the ambition of a one world government. He bequeathed the bulk of his fortune to the establishment of a trust for scholarship funding of postgraduate study at Oxford University. The trust was initially administered by Nathan Rothschild - the significance of which would not be lost on any of Jones' listeners. Candidates are supposedly chosen on their suitability to help facilitate world government.

Rhodes Scholars include, James Woolsey, Wesley Clark, Bill Clinton, Richard Haas and Naomi Wolf (a frequent guest on InfoWars) - they seem to have a disproportionate tendency to prominence.

So, what has this to do with Me and Bobby McGee?

Well, although it was made famous by other people, including Roger Miller and Janis Joplin, the song was written by Kris Kristofferson, himself a Rhodes Scholar in 1958. This is not to discredit Kristofferson - he has an admirable track record opposing aggressive US foreign policy - but being a Rhodes Scholar is normally sufficient for Jones to spider a network of nefarious links.

InfoPuppy PWNed by Demos

In a half hour interview with Alex Jones, in which Jones repeatedly tried to stuff words into his mouth faster than he was allowed to respond, Jamie Bartlett of the UK think tank Demos demolished the InfoPuppy, Paul Joseph Watson's shoddy habit of drawing tenuous links between barely related people and organisation.

This is not to say that sometimes Watson writes interesting, factual and poignant articles but like the rest of Team Infowars, the fact that he can conjure up such easily refuted crap to be eagerly lapped up by the less than discriminating readership of InfoWars.com throws a very dubious light on information which is backed by solid, documented evidence.

The interview could have taken a far more constructive path had Jones not launched a tirade of random challenges at Bartlett and focussed on the awful report on BBC News 24 (see bottom video) which made a supposed evident link between a fictitious news item with conspiracy theories.

Duels such as this ought to be a valuable lesson for Jones, Watson et al but as their empire expands it seems that they need to fill up more and more space with insubstantial nonsense.

Whilst in no way wishing to condone any nefarious objectives Demos may or may not have (any move to promote reliance on the BBC Ministry of Truth for news and information is clearly concerning), Bartlett clearly trounced Jones by simply being unfazed by his brow beating bullhorn style but somehow Jones managed to spin the headline, ‘Critical Thinking’ Expert Can’t Think for Himself?

Jones on the Bullyshit: tax rates

Just a few minutes ago, Alex Jones used his subtle microphone technique to shout down and intimidate a caller who dared to disagree with him about something as seemingly incontrovertible as going to college. Clearly, this touched a nerve with Jones who couldn't even remember the caller's name and then used this as a club to beat the caller with.

But Jones challenged the caller with the assertion that increasing the rate of taxation reduces the revenue. Unfortunately, the caller did not get the chance to respond properly but I wonder if he had, he might have argued that by extrapolating the argument, Jones was suggesting that reducing the rate of tax, the revenue would increase. This is clearly not a linear argument because if this was the case, by reducing the tax rate to nothing, the revenue would have increased to some imaginary incalculable level.

Jones cannot have much upstairs when it comes to maths or he would not have made such a stupid unqualified claim.

Foul-mouthed Alex Jones

Just another quick one.

I don't have any great problem with colourful language, I just have a problem with hypocrisy. A few days ago, I made a post which commented on the InfoPuppy, Paul Joseph Watson yapping about 'foul mouthed leftists' at the Occupy Wall Street protests, which can be seen here: First Amendment Ban?

I remembered that I had seen Alex Jones exercising his own foul mouth once but couldn't remember where - then yesterday, serendipitously a friend sent me a link to the video.



So, please, InfoPuppy, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Alex Jones' blood boils because co-opting isn't going his way

Team InfoWars have been working double shifts the last few days to ensure that the 'commie co-opting Occupy Wall Street' story is implanted in the redneck* subconscious.

Y'know, Alex, if you weren't so busy trying to co-opt the protests yourself, folk might be a little more credulous of the your issues. I know you like to portray yourself as Mr Activist - and you have a healthy track record. But I doubt if you have been on as many protest marches as I have. I'm not saying that as a boast but merely to point out that when independent people take to the streets, the last thing they want is a Socialist Workers Party placard shoved in their hands. And neither do they want some loudmouth browbeating them with what they should think.

Hopefully, the people who are out on the streets are smarter than you give them credit. But their intelligence notwithstanding, people actually do want to see wholesale reform if not outright revolution. Most people who recognise the unjust economic system will recognise that it is a structure designed for the benefit of an elite and that, as one protesters sign says, capitalism is a religion. How does that square with your professed Christian beliefs, Alex? The Bible is not short on anti-capitalist rhetoric. Should I compile it for you? Surely, you are well versed.

But the yelling will not enlighten anybody. It may programme people's thoughts subliminally but not those free thinkers who only hear the noise.

As the old truism goes, he who shouts loudest has most to hide.

* a little irony for our American cousins

First Amendment Ban?

It took a few days to really get my head around this. It is an issue which has equal an opposite arguments and can be used expediently and mischievously.

Where is the line between free speech and the intimidation of your opinions being recorded. The freedom to film everything and anything vs the right not to be filmed. Freedom of information vs data protection.

The fact that Paul Joseph Watson leapt on this like a pseudo-redneck vampire without weighing up the subtleties and ironies is fairly typical.

‘Occupy’ Agitators Attempt to Ban First Amendment



Nobody was trying to prevent Adam Kokesh from watching or listening to the discussion but I know, having been involved in similar meetings, that cameras are intimidating. Watson bleats about 'two foul mouthed leftists' as if his sensitive ears haven't left his house in Sheffield for twenty years and without any trace of discernment. Neither Watson nor Jones have ever sworn in their lives? Bollocks! And if somebody shoves a camera in one's face, there is no obligation to follow any broadcasting code vis-a-vis colourful vocabulary. Fuck you, Watson!

The InfoWars gang are not known for their willingness to or ability to look at the world outside their bubble. When it comes to sharing opinions, one generally imagines Alex Jones with a loudhailer exercising his First Amendment rights at the expense of others. Jones is the dictator in his domain and whilst he ostensibly supports the concept of democracy, he has no idea how popular consensus outside the corporate sponsored puppet pageant could work. Anybody trying anything remotely different is obviously a 'commie'.

Yes, it all looks a little weird. But before I even investigated the consensus process which can be seen in the above video I was aware of the advantages of silent applause. But it occurred to me that the echoing of short statements eliminates rhetoric and that theoretically the group public address system could only be as loud as the level of agreement, i.e. you only repeat what you feel comfortable saying. I'm sure this could easily be proven by adding your name to the stack and when you get your chance to speak, call for the re-introduction of slavery or something equally abhorrent. The group PA would suddenly fall silent, I am certain.

Alex Jones would do well to watch the video below which explains how consensus works. If he cannot engage in discussion without yelling and constantly interrupting, ('sorry, caller, go ahead' is almost a catch phrase), it is doubtful that he could surrender his bullying and aggressive approach to discourse but unless he adopts a less tyrannical approach to sharing one's opinion, there is no way that anybody outside his flock is likely to listen to what he has to say.

Money shot

Just a quick bit of trivia regarding Alex Jones' interview with Alessio Rastani.

Jones stated that Bonnie and Clyde said that they robbed banks because 'that's where the money is'.

The quote has often been wrongly attributed to John Dillinger, once America's 'public enemy number one'. But even though he claimed that he never actually said it, it was reportedly said by Willie Sutton resulting in the coining of two maxims, Sutton's Law in medicine and Willie Sutton Rule in accounting.

How not to make friends and influence people

Please read the following statement carefully, it makes a very important point:

Alex Jones, you are a fucking idiot!

Are you still reading? If you are, do you think I am likely to be able to persuade Alex Jones to listen to what I have to say? It's very unlikely, eh!

Yet, this is the way Alex Jones approaches anybody who he considers to be wrong. Todays radio rant contained the usual 'moron' and 'idiot' insults sprinkled liberally within his now trademark mantra about the left/right paradigm and accusations that anybody who does not view the world through Alex Jones' sunglasses is a communist.

That doesn't sound to me like a false left/right paradigm at all - it sounds like a very real, tangible paradigm which is alive and ticking in the time bomb mind of Alex Jones. It would be interesting to count just how many times Jones yells the word 'communist' during a three hour broadcast.

If the Occupy Wall Street protesters are communists, according to the left/right paradox, which in the mind of Alex Jones, like Schrödinger's cat, exists and does not exist simultaneously, Alex Jones is, ipso facto, a fascist.

But what's this? Today, I witnessed Jones say, 'they label the Occupy Wall Street a bunch of Communists so that people think that if you protest Wall Street you are a communist'. (see video below).

They? Is that right, did I hear him say, 'they'? Now, I have been following the Occupy Wall Street protests for the last few weeks and the only time I have heard them described as 'communists' has been on Alex Jones radio programme, mainly by Alex Jones himself.

Jones is pretty handy when it comes to name calling and, as already mentioned, he is pretty sensitive to the way that he himself is labelled a conspiracy theorist. If you are really serious about trying to share information with people, Alex, hurling insults is not the way to go.

From arch enemy to hero - John Major and the aristocrat

Anybody who has been following the plot since 9/11 will know the role played by the Carlyle Group and the connections to the 9/11 attacks by virtue of the bin Laden family connections. Former British Prime Minister John Major was the Carlyle Group chairman from 2001 to 2004. Consequently, the names Carlyle Group and John Major have never been far from the lips of Alex Jones, citing their questionable business practices and associations.

Strange, then, that when John Major is believed to have made a statement supporting the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, his opinion is a useful source material for Alex Jones. Neither, it seems,  does it seem in the slightest bit hypocritical for Jones to petition the opinion of an hereditary peer of the realm when it suits him - Lord Christopher Monckton is a regular guest on his show these days.

This is what might be considered a pick'n'mix approach to political ethics and does nothing to allay any thoughts that Jones' may be a little flaky - if not downright inconsistent - in his preaching.

Aldous Huxley

Along with George Orwell's 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', one other notable piece of literature is regarded as a dystopian prophesy, 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley. That is, regarded as such by everybody apart from Alex Jones who, like Nineteen Eighty-Four, suggests that the author was somehow responsible for consciously forwarding a totalitarian agenda.

As with Nineteen Eighty-Four, it is difficult to draw this conclusion without metaphorically entering the mind of Alex Jones who spins information like magnets on a fridge door to make words create the sense he wants them to.

There is an historical literary rivalry between the 1931 novel Brave New World by Huxley (pub 1932) and the 1948 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by Orwell (pub 1949). But it is clear as the year 1984 vanishes from our rear view mirror, that the real near future is an horrific fusion of both nightmare visions. Huxley wrote to Orwell of his novel:

'Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.'

Does comparing the tools of obedience, clubs and prisons, to passive servility suggest that Huxley was in favour of totalitarian power? Or is he agreeing with Orwell about the inevitable outcome - and that technology and science will be the tools of totalitarian control?

Like Orwell, he presents the reader with something of a choice - or perhaps dilemma. Which side of the security fence would one want to be born? His parable is as much an investigation into the concept of the noble savage as it is the pseudo-utopian pain-free world of in vitro reproduction and preconditioning. I have not discussed Brave New World with anybody who has expressed a desire to find themselves in the antiseptic world of hatcheries and conditioning centres. And if any doubt persists, the final words of the novel out to make it clear that the central character, John, finding himself in this brave new world, chooses death.

Just as Bill Hicks said of the Judas Priest trial where two fans had committed suicide, what band wants their fans dead? What proponent of a brave new world would have the central character commit suicide in the last sentence rather than live in the nightmare world.

For many years I have recommended that people read one of Huxley's lesser known works, from decades later. Almost without exception, whenever I mention it, people interrupt before I have reached the end of the title. And I am certain that even if Alex Jones has heard of it, he has not read it.

In 1959, Huxley wrote a reflective series of essays on Brave New World called 'Brave New World Revisited' in which he stated that Brave New World was a 'reasonable guess' at how the world may proceed and that it had done so much faster than he thought. The last chapter of the book proposes actions which could be taken to prevent the totalitarianism which was portrayed in the novel.

Huxley's last novel, Island, was presented as an antidote to the dystopia of Brave New World. Of it Huxley wrote the following:

If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the Utopian and primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity... In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque co-operative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive knowledge of immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle – the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: "How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man's Final End?"


Of course, this will not be good enough for Alex Jones. He will cite that Huxley's brother, Julian, was a eugenicist and a proponent of Charles Darwin. Though one ought not be hanged for the crimes of one's brother, perhaps here lies a clue to Jones' antagonism. Evolution and its contradiction to Old Testament dogma.

George Orwell

Terms coined in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four are the main vocabulary of anybody with any grasp of the evolving global political situation. The year 1984 is quite arbitrary, it is said that George Orwell simply reversed the last two numbers of the year he wrote it, 1948.

Alex Jones has said repeatedly that Eric Arthur Blair, who used the nom de plume George Orwell, was variously a member of MI5, a Communist and various other ad hoc nefarious affiliations, depending on Jones' mood, stating that the claims are 'documented' or that it has been 'admitted' though no evidence is ever presented. Any attempt at verifying these claims simply refers back to InfoWars or one of its clones or pages on sites which are not by any stretch of the imagination, reliable sources.

Maybe at the heart of this problem is the universally accepted truism that Americans don't get irony. It has to be explained in pictures on a case by case basis. Given that irony is an integral part of satire, it is easy to understand why Orwell's work could easily be misunderstood by somebody from Texas.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was part of the English Literature syllabus for many years, I don't think that anybody who read it at the age of 14 or 15 had any doubt that it was a cautionary dystopian novel which extrapolated the contemporaneous conditions of the period it was written to project a disturbing vision of the future. Orwell's life experience was a rich seem of material from which to mine and many key aspects of the novel were based on specific chapters in his own life, most notably perhaps, the Ministry of Truth which was a representation of the BBC.

To suggest that Orwell was forwarding his nightmare vision as a template is not only ridiculous but an insult to the work itself. It could not be clearer and, indeed, it has been for decades held as a warning beacon by those campaigning against totalitarian power. Jones himself leans heavily on imagery from Nineteen Eighty-Four. What evidence is there to support the claim that is, as Jones suggests, a manifesto?

Jones has also been heard claiming that Orwell was a British Intelligence Officer and a member of the Communist Party with the usual Jones stamp of 'documented'. On what basis does he make these spurious claims? It is documented that Special Branch, a British Intelligence agency, held files on Orwell stating that he had 'advanced communist views' and that he was seen at communist party meetings but MI5 stated that from analysis of his work, 'The Lion and the Unicorn', 'It is evident that he does not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him'. In fact, his opposition to the Communist Party was the cause of numerous personal disagreements. To study or even attend meetings of any person or group is not evidence of supporting them, how else is one supposed form an opinion of something without understand it?

It has also been said by Jones that Orwell was paid by the Communists in the Spanish Civil War. Has Jones ever read 'Homage to Catalonia'? Any payment Orwell received was in bread and tobacco. He was there fighting with the republicans against the Fascist Regime as part of the International Brigade. Jones says he has studied British and European history but he seems to be ignorant about one of the most significant periods of the twentieth century.

Jones passes judgement on Orwell having read one or two (if he has also read Animal Farm) books. He makes himself look like an ignoramus. Much of what is discussed on InfoWars is evidently true and is backed by mountains of evidence. Hearing him spouting such errant nonsense is a prime reason why I do not refer friends to his site or broadcasts because it seriously undermines his credibility and acts as a deterrent for people to even consider the compelling and real evidence of 9/11, the New World Order etc.

The false left/right paradigm

It has been evident of late that Alex Jones has been trying to play down his right wing credentials and he has tried to expose the false left/right paradigm. This is nothing new to me, over thirty years ago I conceived of the circular left/right vs freedom/tyranny diagram that he has been exhibiting as his own discovery - and by that I am not claiming any proprietorial rights to it, I am sure that there were people far brighter than me who recognised this decades before I did. But I remember drawing the diagram for somebody specific - which dates it pretty accurately to a time when Alex Jones was about six years old.

I've heard countless Alex Jones diatribes about this over the years but since the Occupy Wall Street protests began, he has ignited with rage. Term such as liberal, left wing, lefty, socialist, communist and commie are sprinkled into his rants whilst he claims to be exposing the false left/right paradigm. He also seems to have trained his British puppy Paul Joseph Watson to spout the same terms - there is something quite irritating about somebody who has benefited from free health care by virtue of the National Health Service attacking anything which is remotely socialist.

Not only does this illustrate that he is still caged within the left/right paradigm but that he is also prepared to use the terms as epithets to discredit anybody who does not share his beliefs. This behaviour is sheer hypocrisy because he himself has been subjected to and complained of the use of the term conspiracy theorist as an epithet. Furthermore, his tirades are punctuated by right wing rhetoric and, quite frequently, explicit right wing ideology.

So, what should be made of this? Is Alex Jones stuck in the cold war paranoia which gripped America beginning over two decades before he was born?

Just as most left leaning peace activists refuse to even look at 9/11 or any other evidence of government conspiracy - despite there being clear and accepted evidence that the US and UK governments conspired to fabricate a case to wage war on Iraq - so Alex Jones refuses to look at issues such as the Miami Five (or Cuban Five) because that would threaten his world view.

It was particularly curious that he seemed to have major concerns about Roseanne Barr's belief that there is no justification for personal wealth of more than $100,000,000. Why? Whilst there is quite an InfoWars industry, I am very doubtful that Alex Jones' wealth even approaches eight figures, let alone nine. Perhaps the very whiff of real social economic justice is enough to scare the bejesus out of somebody who is so dug in.

There is no doubt that there is an ownership issue with Occupy Wall Street just as every anti-war protest in the UK was riddled with Socialist Workers Party propaganda, many groups are vying to take control. Perhaps as the movement widens out, Alex Jones sees his role threatened and his status of a big fish in a small pond diminishing as the pond evolves into an ocean. His rants sometimes sound like the tantrums of children in supermarkets who are denied the tooth-rotting sweets they crave.

As a footnote, I became aware a few years ago of a phenomenon which may be apocryphal, that of the self-fulfilling fundamental Christian Armageddon. That certain Christians in the US regard it as their duty to destroy the planet in order to facilitate the second coming of Christ. Alex Jones is quite openly a Christian.

Alex and me, a little history...

Before I embark on my analysis of Alex Jones and InfoWars, I think I should make a few things clear. I am not out to attack Alex Jones - nor do I disagree with much of what he stands for. I think Alex deserves an enormous amount of credit for his tireless work over many years.

I first became aware of Alex Jones in May 2001 through the Channel Four (UK) series, 'Secret Rulers of the World' in which journalist Jon Ronson explored the fringe of political activism, meeting many colourful figures which were regarded by many as conspiracy theorists, a term which merits its own discussion and to which I will return.

I began listening to Alex Jones radio show via a very slow dial-up internet connection the same night that I saw his infiltration into Bohemian Grove. I began listening every night and distinctly remember him warning that a terrorist attack on the US was imminent and specifically that it would be an inside job.

After 9/11 I ordered a VHS copy of '911: The Road To Tyranny' from infowars.com, the first of many documentaries to made about September 11th. It took over three months to arrive. Frustrated, I phoned several times and spoke to Violet once or twice who I assume was Alex Jones' future wife. When it did in March 2002, I remember watching it within minutes of it hitting my doormat. I wasn't even dressed and sat huddled up for three hours in my unheated flat unable to tear my eyes from the screen long enough to get dressed or even wrap a blanket around myself.

I borrowed a friend's video recorder a few days later and began making copies as prolifically as humanly possible - it took over three hours to make each copy and I think I made about twenty before I ran out of tapes. I was possibly the first person in the UK to distribute Alex Jones work on any scale.

When, after attempts to stop the war on Afghanistan failed, the Stop The War Campaign began focussing on the inevitable war on Iraq, I became quite active in my local group. I was responsible for all the printed material and the group's website. At meetings I would raise the issue of 9/11 and how the evidence highlighted holes in the official account. I would be countered by comments that this was just a right wing conspiracy theory. There were links on the website to a number of other sites which I considered to be valid to the purposes of the Stop The War Campaign - I still have a local copy of the site. As well as the national STWC website, some local links and means to contact one's MP, there were links to the following:

Michael Moore Website

www.michaelmoore.com

John Pilger Website
www.johnpilger.com

Info Wars Website
www.infowars.com

The chairman of the group was incensed by the inclusion of the InfoWars link complaining that Alex Jones was a well known right wing extremist - even though I pointed out that if this was true, it would be more than balanced by the links to the Michael Moore and John Pilger sites.

Consequently, though I was probably one of the most active campaigners, I was always regarded with suspicion. I still listened to Alex Jones regularly and tried to overlook the right wing tendencies he exhibited. Being thoroughly conversant with issues raised by Alex Jones and trying to enlighten the antiwar, anti-globalist and environmental activists with whom I campaigned without being accused of being a right wing sympathiser has always been a thorn in my side.

I have often toyed with the idea of getting on Skype and calling into his radio show but the thought of queueing to get in the ring with somebody who uses his bullhorn voice as a weapon to silence anyone with whom he disagrees is not appealing. The only people he does not attack in this way are those who have comparable media power. In that sense, there is no difference between him and Bill O'Reilly. He may not tell people to 'shut up' but cutting them off is equivalent.

It is my opinion that Alex Jones', inadvertently or otherwise, is a divisive influence. We are, it seems, entering the critical stages of the current chapter in world history. The road ahead forks. The overthrow of the banking oligarchy and its mercenary puppet regimes or the total enslavement of the human underclass.

United we stand, divided we fall...