Stephen C. Webster
Rawstory
Any time a mass casualty event has happened in the U.S. at least since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, an instant conspiracy thunderstorm forms on the horizon and slowly floats across the Internet, flinging wildly inaccurate droplets of information across humanity’s social networks much to the frustration of journalists everywhere.
The tragic events in Boston on Monday are no different, and a whole crop of new conspiracy seedlings have sprung up in the storm’s passing. Here are a few of the oddest new specimens…
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5) North Korea definitely had something to do with it, maybe
What with North Korea spouting off lately, it’s natural that the U.S. military would be making preparations for a potential worst-case scenario. But if you get your news from conspiracy writer Steve Quayle, you might believe that the U.S. intelligence community knows something is coming, and it’s going to be connected to North Korea somehow.
Thanks to Twitter, that bit of unverifiable, unsubstantiated scaredropping is now connected to the Boston bombing, because Quayle said a “close associate” who knows stuff spoke to someone at Barksdale Air Force Base who said they’re beefing up security. “He then said that he heard ‘intelligence says there will be an attack on American soil.’” So, obviously… (Insert shocking event here.)
4) “Family Guy” creator Seth McFarlane is totally in on it
Plenty of folks are taking to Twitter now claiming that a recent episode of “Family Guy” is somehow “proof” the Boston bombings were a false flag attack. In the episode “Turban Cowboy,” which aired March 17, 2013, the bumbling dad character Peter befriends a Muslim man who involves Peter in a plot to blow up a bridge in the fictional town of Quahog, which he does by mistake at the end of the episode.
The episode has since been pulled offline and taken out of syndication. To make matters worse, the clip above, heavily cited by conspiracy-mill media, is a mash-up of two different episodes: “Turban Cowboy” and one in which Peter runs down a crowd of Boston marathoners with his car.
“The edited ‘Family Guy’ clip currently circulating is abhorrent,” MacFarlane said on Twitter. “The event was a crime and a tragedy, and my thoughts are with the victims.”
3) Boston police knew about the bombing in advance
Much like some of the earliest conspiracy theories about 9/11, this one is based on early media reports that were unclear or inaccurate. In the case of allegations that Boston police carried out “controlled explosions” near the marathon’s finish line, conspiracy talk show host Alex Jones misleadingly cited tweets by Boston.com and The Boston Globe staff reporting on police efforts to clear suspicious packages after the blasts, not before them.
For the record, police said that only two explosive devices were found, although a number of suspicious packages were safely rendered inert by explosives, which is standard procedure in the event of a suspected bomb. So too is the deployment of bomb-sniffing dogs and snipers ahead of a major event — which definitely isn’t stopping conspiracy promoters from wigging out over that too.
2) Gotta be the Muslims
Pat Robertson enunciated this one loud and clear Tuesday morning, going live with his prejudices against Muslims by describing the attacks, then muttering: “Don’t talk to me about religion of peace. No way.”
Robertson wasn’t the only one eager to find a Muslim to blame for the attack. Former Fox News conspiracy host Glenn Beck was similarly certain Tuesday that Muslims carried out the tax day bombing, explaining on his show that “no American citizen blows up random people; that’s a Middle Eastern scene, that’s not an American scene.” Of course, people like Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski, along with a long list of extremist, violent political groups, have operated in the U.S. throughout its entire history.
Taking it to an even more alarming extreme, frequent “Hannity” guest Erik Rush jumped on Twitter Monday night and sarcastically urged the government to “bring more Saudis in without screening them.” Confronted by a fellow Twitter user who expressed shock that Rush was already blaming Muslims, he replied: “Yes, they’re evil. Let’s kill them all.” Rush subsequently deleted that tweet.
No suspects have been named, and the motive for the attack is still unknown.
1) The tea party is being set up by the Federal Reserve to usher in a global currency
Rule #1 of American conspiracy culture is that (almost) all roads lead to the Federal Reserve, the grand poo-bah of conspiracy hatcheries. The Boston bombing is no different. With the price of gold plunging on Tuesday, former Fox News conspiracy host Glenn Beck was warning that now’s the time to get into shiny metals, lest the economy tank under the strain of so much fear in the market.
Of course, Beck specified that his comments about gold weren’t anything to do with the events in Boston, but fellow gold advertisement go-to-guy Alex Jones wasn’t afraid to fully occupy that space and flesh out the broader narrative. “You saw them stage Fast and Furious,” he said on his Internet show Monday. “Folks, they staged Aurora, they staged Sandy Hook. The evidence is just overwhelming. And that’s why I’m so desperate and freaked out. This is not fun, you know, getting up here and telling you this. Somebody’s got to tell you the truth.”
Jones is convinced that the shootings in Tucson, Newtown and Aurora are somehow linked to banking elites that may be involved in the LIBOR scandal. He explained on his show Monday that he’s almost certain the Boston bombing has something to do with their plans as well, although Jones produced no evidence. The whole thing somehow plugs into this master conspiracy that the Federal Reserve, operating on behalf of a shadowy group of global banking elite, is preparing to use the tea party and patriot movement as a scapegoat to initiate mass gun confiscations, collapse the U.S. economy, and ultimately usher in a global currency and one-world government. And North Korea is also involved in this, somehow.
That rant culminated with InfoWars fan correspondent Dan Bidondi — who’s also an amateur wrestler, as it turns out — asking Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) whether the bombing was a “false flag” designed to erode civil liberties within the U.S.
“No,” Patrick replied. “Next question.”
Stephen C Webster, the author, is a DUMBASS. I JUST got around to this story. I’m glad I’m getting to it now so I can see how freaking WRONG he was. It’s LAUGHABLE. As it turns out it WAS a terrorist plot by MUSLIMS! Hey Webster, how come you didn’t include the allegation from the mainstream media talking heads that it was definitely “rednecks” and “right wing extremists”, those damn violent CHRISTIANS! Yeah! That’s it! THEY’RE BEHIND IT! Remember that Webster?! We can see where YOUR loyalty lies!
Beck turns out to be RIGHT.
Hannity turns out to be RIGHT
Robertson was RIGHT
Family Guy, in that episode does SHOW 2 clips with Peter’s friends warning him about who his “new friend” is and Peter says “NO he’s not a bad guy! See, he even gave me this phone! Let me call him! (He proceeds to dial the number and you hear an explosion off frame, down the street.) Woops! Looks like I got a wrong number! Let me try again….” (Again BOOM!- People start screaming and crying. Scene cuts).
The other is when he’s sky diving and he does a flashback considering that the rush of skydiving could only be compared to when he won the Boston Marathon. (This only a moth before it.) Cuts to an interview with a sportscaster interviewing him after the win. Asking him how he did it. Said “Anybody that got in my way I just KILLED THEM! HE EH Eh” and it cuts again to Peter plowing through the runners with his car as he crosses the finish line.
OH! AND? To top it all off in the search for a couple bombers they shut down the ENTIRE CITY OF BOSTON AND SURROUNDING BURROUGHS. For HOW MANY DAYS WAS IT? Police State anyone? Was the 4th Amendment observed? No. The military and police went hose to house without warrant forcing the people out while they searched (Several times) and they were ordered to stay in the rest of the time.
In any other country they’d call that Marshal Law. But in Boston it was “necessary so it was ok”. Can you say Stockholm Syndrome?
Hey, I love the LEOs too. Bang up job. You put your asses on the line most every day. But I don’t support the tactics that were used. This was a military style take down. Good old fashioned POLICE WORK could have gotten the same job done without the total shutdown of the city.
It was Muslims.
McVeigh targeted a government building full of innocent people. The government got the message. The Unabomber targeted certain scientists for a reason. This is not the same as blowing up a crowd of people at a sporting event, and let’s point out the crowd was mostly white-skinned people.
The cartoon-makers of America should take responsibility for de-sensitizing children to violence, if not for putting diabolical ideas in the heads of innocent people.
TRUTHFULLY MANY OF THESE CONSPIRACY THEORIES SOUND REASONABLE!
Pat Robertson blames Muslims before anyone knows the facts about “who did it?” But the Old Senile Codger never Blames Zionists for their role in world Terrorism, WAR and Destruction. That’s right…The “Chosen People” can do no wrong. Nobody witnessed “Dancing Israelis” on a rooftop during the Boston Bombing like they did during the 9-11 attacks.
Thanks to Twitter, that bit of unverifiable, unsubstantiated scaredropping is now connected to the Boston bombing, because Quayle said a “close associate” who knows stuff spoke to someone at Barksdale Air Force Base who said they’re beefing up security. “He then said that he heard ‘intelligence says there will be an attack on American soil.’” So, obviously… (Insert shocking event here.) ……… Wasn’t this a Pakalert Press article less than a week ago? So, who the F**k do we believe?
Something is happening. Something changed overnight as well. Maybe a secret concession. Or a threat that worked. But there is a new facebook page popped up as a “memorial and fund raising effort” for the 30k+ victims of a nuclear event in LA that hasn’t happened yet. Says the 28th. Dude claims to be a time traveler or remote viewer. Even successfully predicted the 2011 eq in Japan. To the magnitude. Four years prior. Might be bad info, might be horse crap. But what is interesting is a UFO crash/zombie attack full scale scenario is happening on APRIL 27th, a DAY before the “big event”. Seems wherever FEMA goes disaster follows. Though the drill is going to be in Idaho and the page says it’s going to happen in LA.