Episode #6: 2020 Conspiracy Theories

What may have felt like the worst and, simultaneously, the longest year that a lot of us lived through, is finally over. It’s 2021. But just because the Earth made another complete orbit around the sun and the number changed on the calendar, doesn’t mean that the shit we went through this past year just disappears and all the crap that came with it goes the way of the dodo…but things really aren’t going to change any time soon.  Join me in the Archives as I talk about all conspiracy theories from the last four years that have converged into the insanity that was 2020.

There's a content warning at the beginning of this episode! Please, heed it.

  The Occult Archives theme song by JunkFood2121, background music by Purple Planet Music (www.purple-planet.com)  

Transcript

I’m going to put a big ole content warning on this episode since these conspiracies involve talk around sex trafficking, mostly of children, and talk of police brutality and murder. This may be severely triggering for some, so if it is, please sit this one out and join me for the next episode. 

Also, I am a conspiracy nut, but only in the sense that I enjoy reading about them and playing with different scenarios. With that being said, these aren’t the types of conspiracies I enjoy and I think these in particular are harmful and dangerous. Because this episode and its content is a heated topic for me, there will most likely be a fair bit of colorful language and cussing on my part. My views are just that, mine, and they may cause me to lose listeners, but I’m not too concerned about that, I’m more concerned with the truth.

Storytime.

What may have felt like the worst and, simultaneously, the longest year that a lot of us lived through, is finally over. It’s 2021. But just because the Earth made another complete orbit around the sun and the number changed on the calendar, doesn’t mean that the shit we went through this past year just disappears and all the crap that came with it goes the way of the dodo…but things really aren’t going to change any time soon. We have to continue to work and dismantle all the outdated structures that continue to keep us pinned down, dumbed-down, and self-destructive. I know it seems like I’m starting off this episode on a bleak note, but I have my reasons. I may be stuck down here in the Archives, the ultimate social distancing if I might add, but I’m still human and watching the circus act that was this last four years, and especially this last year alone, has taught me so many things and lit a fire under my ass to try and do something more than what I was doing. Alas, like I said, I’m stuck here…so, I talk a lot from behind a computer screen because it’s the only way to communicate with the world at large from here. I have access to all sorts of information down here in the Archives that would blow your mind, but the internet is something that the original Archivists would have thrown a fit about. Not just because it is SO full of information right at your fingertips, but because of how much DIS-information humans have access to and then refuse to look at actual SCIENTIFIC or FACTUAL proof in favor of fake news and conspiracy theories.

         And 2020, and the several years prior, were at no shortage of crazy freaking conspiracy theories. I had no problem finding a buttload of crazy quote-un-quote “facts” that are nuttier than squirrel’s nest but don’t have a lick of proof to back them up. Yet, you turn on a television, hop on Facebook, or access YouTube and there’s a scary amount of people talking or posting about these supposed facts as if they were actual truth—and people actually believe and follow this crap as if it were gospel. Some of them are just crazy enough for us to laugh at and walk away, while others have infiltrated our very government and the people that hold office within it. These sorts of things are really no joke.

         Let’s take a ride on the way-back machine to four years ago, the year that Trump won the presidential election in the United States. A story cropped up during March of 2016 when the personal e-mail account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, was hacked in a phishing attack. WikiLeaks then published these e-mails in November of 2016. Somehow, certain people dug really, and I mean really, deep into the e-mails and claimed that there were coded messages connected with several high-ranking Democratic officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring.  Prior to the official leak, a Twitter account posting white-supremacist content, stated that it was run by a New York lawyer and falsely claimed that the NYPD had discovered a pedophilia ring that was supposedly linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner, a convicted sex offender’s, emails. Throughout October and into November of that year, Podesta’s emails were published publicly and proponents of the conspiracy theory who read the emails, claimed that they allegedly contained coded words for pedophilia and human-trafficking. I won’t go into all the code words that they are talking about, but you can easily look them up at your leisure. Somehow, a restaurant called Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C. got flagged as one of these sex-trafficking restaurants and the conspiracy surrounding it was spread all over the internet across 4Chan, 8Chan, and Twitter and eventually ended up on numerous conservative and pro-Trump websites and news outlets. This theory had now gone so far down the rabbit hole that claims were being made that meetings were held at Comic Ping Pong for “Satanic Ritual Abuse.”

Let’s get something straight here. If you know ANYTHING about Satanists, especially The Satanic Temple, you know how they regularly speak out against abuse, especially child abuse since there are SO many allegations of it in the Catholic Church, a religion that is a total 180 from Satanism. They actively call these sorts of things out and will be quick to banish a member of the temple that may be involved in such allegations. They are advocates of the people, but look at the audience who eats this conspiracy up…not exactly people that are open to different religions, least of all one with the name Satan in it. Back to Comet Ping Pong. One Reddit user, mere days before the 2016 Presidential Election posted supposed Pizzagate, as it had been dubbed, “evidence” document that was removed from the website sometime between November 4th and 21. It alleged Comet Ping Pong’s involvement, stating:

Everyone associated with the business is making semi-overt, semi-tongue-in-cheek, and semi-sarcastic inferences towards sex with minors. The artists that work for the business also generate nothing but cultish imagery of disembodiment, blood, beheadings, sex, and of course…pizza.”

Of course this story was picked up by other fake news websites like space-cadet Alex Jones’s Info Wars, Planet Free Will, and The Vigilant Citizen and of course was promoted even further by a bunch of far-right activists who never really have any idea what they are talking about at this point. The misinformation and outright lies were smeared everywhere with more and more people jumping on the bandwagon.

 Not long after, Comet Ping Pong’s owner, James Alefantis, started receiving hundreds of death-threats from adherents to the conspiracy theory: he and his staff were being harassed continuously, threatened on social media, and even given negative Yelp reviews all because of this unfounded conspiracy. After numerous and continued threats, the restaurant decided to increase its security on the premises, just in case.

On December 4th, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch of Salisbury, North Carolina entered Comet Ping Pong with a semi-automatic rifle and fired three rounds inside the building, hitting a wall, a desk, and a door, before he was detained and arrested. Luckily, no one was injured. In addition to the rifle, the police also seized a Colt .38 caliber handgun, a shotgun, and a folding knife from Welch’s car and his person. Welch’s story to the police was that he planned to “self-investigate” the conspiracy theory hoping to be heralded a hero, a savor of children but was subsequently charged with assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a pistol without a license, unlawful discharge of a firearm, and carrying a rifle or shotgun outside the home or business. While in custody Welch later stated that he regretted how he handled the situation but did not dismiss the conspiracy theory and rejected the description of it as being “fake news”. The rumor surrounding the business was debunked by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and other sources such as the New Your Times and Snopes were among others to do the same. Welch was then sentenced on June 22nd of 2017 to four years in prison for his offenses.

And they weren’t the only restaurants to receive similar harassment including establishments in Brooklyn, Austin Texas, and even another restaurant local to Comet Ping Pong.

This didn’t seem to deter true believers, though. Andrew Bogut, a former Australian professional basketball player was among those that promoted this conspiracy theory and after recovering from a knee injury in December 30th of 2016, members of the subreddit “The Donald” promoted even another false theory that Bogut’s injury was somehow connected to his support of Pizzagate.  Please…

What’s even more fucked up is the fact that Jonathan Albright, an assistant professor of media analytics at Elon University in North Carolina said that a disproportionate number of tweets about Pizzagate came from the Czech Republic, Cyprus, and Vietnam and that some of the most frequent retweeters were actually…bots. Hm? Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Some Pizzagate proponents then took it a step further and evolved the conspiracy theory to involved the government, (I mean, it was a matter of time) and the name changed to “Pedogate”. According to this specific theory, a “satanic cabal of elites” of the New World Order operates international child sex trafficking rings. By June of 2020, this far-fetched theory found renewed popularity in TikTok, where users were tagging videos with #Pizzagate and reaching over 80 million views.

He conspiracy has been WIDELY discredited and debunked, yet there remains a ridiculous amount of people who can’t think for themselves or accept facts and evidence, or the lack there of. Numerous news outlets and newspapers have also proved the conspiracy theory to hold no merit including the Huffington Post, Fox News, CNN, and the Los Angeles Times. They’ve all declared it to be a work of fiction while thoroughly fact-checking and investigating.  Much of the purported evidence cited by these conspiracy theorists had been taken from entirely different sources and made to appear as if it supported the conspiracy. Basically, they Googled a bunch of shit, thought it fit their agenda, and then re-posted it as fact. Images of children of family and friends of the Comet Ping Pong were grabbed from social media sites and then recirculated, claiming to be photos of victims. 

On December 10th, 2016, The New York Times published an article that analyzed the theory’s claims. They emphasized that:

·      Theorists linked the conspiracy to Comet Ping Pong through similarities between company logos and symbols related to Satanism and Pedophilia. However, The Times noted similarities were also found in the logos of a number of unrelated companies, such as AOL, Time Warner, and MSN.

·      Theorists claimed an underground network beneath Comet Ping Pong; the restaurant has no basement, however, and the picture used to support this claim was taken in another facility.

·      Theorists claimed to have a picture of restaurant owner Alefantis wearing a T-shirt endorsing pedophilia. However, the image was of another person, and the shirt, which read “J' ❤ L'Enfant”, was actually a reference to the L’Enfant Café-Bar in DC, whose owner was pictured in the image, and which itself is named after Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the designer of much of the layout of Washington, D.C.

·      Theorists claimed John and Tony Podesta kidnapped Madeleine McCann, a little girl kidnapped from her bed while on holiday in Portugal (a whole episode in itself), using police sketches that were, in fact, two sketches of the same suspect taken from the descriptions of two eye-witnesses.

There have been NO alleged victims that have come forward and absolutely no physical evidence that couldn’t be debunked as fake. Despite the conspiracy theory being debunked, it continues to spread on social media, with over one million posts using 3Pizzagate on Twitter since November of 2016. That figure is from Wikipedia, so it could be higher now, especially after the way 2020 went. An individual named Stefanie MacWilliams wrote an article promoting the conspiracy that was subsequently reported by the Toronto Star where she says, “I really have no regrets and it’s honestly really grown our audience.” Pizzagate, she said, is “two worlds clashing. People don’t trust the mainstream media anymore, but it’s true that people shouldn’t take the alternative media as truth, either.”

Don’t listen to them when they tell you the Kool-Aid is poisonous, but also don’t drink TOO much of Kool-Aid and you’ll be fine. Sound advice. 

The rampant misinformation and actual fake news on the situation was so bad that even Hillary Clinton responded to the conspiracy theory on December 8th 2016, speaking about the dangers of fake news websites that continue to spread such blatant lies and conspiracy theories. She said, “The epidemic of malicious fake news and fake propaganda that flooded social media over the past year, it’s now clear that so-called fake news can have real-world consequences.”

She had no idea how true these words would become…

Fast forward a bit to the immergence of QAnon and the SaveOurChildren Hashtag that followed the death of Jeffrey Epstein.  We all know who Epstein is especially if you are active on social media and love memes, but we’re going look at him for just a bit so all this insanity makes sense. Epstein was arrested in New York on July 6th of 2019 on multiple charges including sex trafficking and placed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. Of course he pleaded not guilty, but in 2008 he was brought up in similar charges in Florida, but was able to escape federal charges because of a plea deal and, let’s be honest, he had a fuck ton of money. Under the provisions of this plea deal, he actually pleaded guilty to two state felony charges, paid restitution to three dozen victims identified by the FBI, and then had to register as a sex offender in Florida AND New York. That was it. That was his ONLY punishment for THREE DOZEN VICTIMS.  Thankfully, Epstein was denied bail on the most recent charges, even after offering $600,000 to be able to wear an ankle tracker at his New York City townhouse.  He was deemed as a flight risk due to his TWENTY international flights in the prior 18 months. I guess, the police learned their lesson about releasing scum like Epstein into the world, but that is neither here nor there right now. Epstein tried to appeal this bail denial decision, but appeal was still pending at the time of his death.

On August 10th of 2019, Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell at the correctional center. Prison guards attempted to perform CPR, but he was transported in cardiac arrest to the New York Downtown Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 6:39 A.M. The medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death as suicide by hanging, even though his lawyers challenged this finding and opened up their own investigation using pathologist Michael Baden.

Now, your average person would look at the coroner’s findings and think, “Yeah, that sounds legit. He was a disgusting pedophile and he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to bargain his way out of this one. The only way out for him would be death.” 

Of course, as a result of Epstein’s death, all charges against him were dismissed and ongoing sex-trafficking investigations shifted attention to his alleged associates, most notably purported madam, Ghislaine Maxwell who was eventually arrested in July of 2020.

But Attorney General William Barr expressed suspicion surrounding his death, describing it as “a perfect storm of screw-ups.” Both the FBI and Department of Justice’s Inspector General began an investigation into Epstein’s death and later charged the guards on duty that night with multiple counts of conspiracy and record falsification. Due to violations of normal jail procedures on that night, the alleged malfunction of two separate cameras in front of his cell, and Epstein’s claims of having compromising information about powerful figures, the death began to generate speculation and of course, conspiracy theories, about the possibility that Epstein hadn’t in fact committed suicide, but had actually been murdered. But the conspiracy theories didn’t stop there. Some unfounded claims say that Epstein’s death was actually feigned. This led to the “Epstein didn’t kill himself” meme and according to a public opinion poll; a majority of Americans believe that Epstein was in fact murdered. 

Ok, this aspect of the conspiracy theory isn’t so far-fetched. Just like the coroner’s findings of suicide, murder wouldn’t necessarily be off the table if Epstein indeed had proof of other high profile people being involved in international sex-trafficking and planned on releasing it to hopefully get himself another plea deal. Those people probably wouldn’t mind I he was dead. Add the guards and their charges and we potentially have a vigilante murder where the police in a sense took matters into their own hands. Both theories are theoretically plausible. Epstein feigning his own death is a little more involved and dramatic, making it less feasible, though an unnamed source claims that Epstein actually staged the incident in order to be transferred, potentially due to a prior incident. There is testimony from Epstein’s lawyer regarding this first time “suicide attempt”, that Epstein told him that he had been assaulted by his cellmate who was a multiple murderer and drug conspiracy suspect, Tartaglione, who was questioned by prison officials but denied harming Epstein, saying that he actually tried to save him instead. Regardless, after this incident, Epstein believed it was an attack on his life and that there was a high probability that he would be murdered in prison. The result of this incident initially got him placed on suicide watch. He was put in an observation cell, surrounded by windows, where the lights were left on and any devices that he could use to kill himself were not permitted. After only six days, psych staff dismissed Epstein from suicide watch following a psychiatric examination after he claimed that it was Taraglione who “roughed him up” not an actual suicide attempt. Epstein was then returned to the special housing unit where he was supposed to have a cellmate and be checked on every 30 minutes. He was also reportedly depositing funds into other prisoners’ accounts as a way to gain favor or buy protection. A paper note was also found in his cell after his death where in it, he complained about large bugs crawling on his body, guard Tova Noel giving him burnt food, and another guard intentionally locking him in a shower cell without clothes for an hour. He’s lucky that’s the LEAST he had to deal with considering who he was and why he was in there. 

Epstein’s death was the first ruled a suicide at the MCC in over 14 years. Michael Baden questioned whether or not Epstein, who was almost six feet and weighed 185 lbs. could even have been able to hang himself from the lower bunk like he did. Photos taken after death at the scene showed bottles and medicine standing upright in the top bunk and one of the inmates in the prison described the sheets there as “paper level not strong enough” to support someone’s body that way. Baden also questioned why Epstein didn’t use other materials available to him that were stronger, such as the wires and tubes from a sleep apnea machine nearby. The autopsy reported that Epstein’s hyoid bone was broken in his neck, which can occur in suicide of the elderly, but is generally seen in victims of homicide by strangulation.

To be honest, there is actually pretty decent evidence for murder in this case, and I for one wouldn’t be at all surprised if more solid evidence was uncovered that supported this theory.

         “But Epstein died in 2019, what does that have to do with the fuckery of 2020?” Well, I’m going to tell you. 

         Remember when I mentioned QAnon and the SaveOurChildren Hashtag? Well…this didn’t start in 2020 either, but I am building up to things.

         Not long after the Pizzagate shit reared its factless head, the QAnon conspiracy began in October of 2017 with a post on the anonymous imageboard 4chan by “Q”, who was presumably an American, though has most likely become a group of people acting under the same name. Q claimed to be a high level government official with Q clearance (DOE security clearance required to access all sorts of top secret and restricted data and information) and had access to information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the United States. NBC reported that three idiots took this original Q post and spread it far and wide across the land of media platforms to build an internet following for profit. 

         Here is where a well-rounded, intelligent individual goes, “Ope, there it is!” But never mind us…

         The following is made up mainly of Trump supporters who refer to the Storm and The Great awakening. QAnon’s vocabulary and ideologies are closely related to the religious concepts of millenarianism, which is a belief in a coming fundamental transformation of society, after which “all things will be changed” and apocalypticism, which is a religious belief that there will be an apocalypse and the end of the world is imminent. This leads the group to be sometimes construed as an emerging religious movement where its adherents, while seeing Trump as a flawed Christian, also view him as a messiah sent by God.

         More like Anti-Christ, but I digress.

         According to Travis View, who has studied QAnon and written about it extensively for the Washington Post, the essence of the conspiracy theory is that:

         “There is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who rue the world, essentially, control everything. They control politicians, and they control the media. They control Hollywood, and they cover up their existence, essentially And they would have continued ruling the world, were it not for the election of President Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump in this conspiracy theory knows all about this evil cabal’s wrongdoings. But one of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected was to put an end to them, basically. And now we would be ignorant of this behind-the-scenes battle of Donald Trump and the U.S. military—that everyone backs him and the evil cabal—were it not for “Q”. And what “Q” is is basically a poster on 4Chan, who later moved to 8Chan, who reveals details about this secret behind-the-scenes battle, and also secrets about what the cabal is doing and also the mass sort of upcoming arrest events through these posts.”

         Followers of QAnon also believe that there is an imminent event known as “The Storm”, as I mentioned, when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested and possibly sent to Guantanamo Bay prison or face military tribunals, and then the U.S. military will brutally take over the country…the result being salvation and utopia on Earth…

         Ok, this is a lot to unpack and I hate unpacking, especially when it leaves me feeling like I’ve somehow lost important brain-cells doing so. Yet again, we have the involvement of your average right-wing conservative, more allegations and rumors about satanic child sex traffickers, 4chan, 8chan…and Donald Trump. All of this shit started around the time of his election. I can’t fall too deep down this rabbit hole because ya’ll don’t want listen to me talk that long and I really don’t want to talk that long. But Q kind of presents itself as a Nostradamus of the New Age with all sorts of predictions surrounding politics and the United States, their first prediction being that Hillary Clinton was about to be arrested and would attempt to flee the country. Of course this prediction failed, just like a slew of others that Q has made, including:

1.    The “Storm” would take place on November 3, 2017. There was no notable events in US politics on that day.

2.    A major event involving the Department of Defense would take place on February 1st, 2018. 

3.    People targeted by the president would commit suicide en masse on February 10th 2018. No prominent people committed suicide that day. 

4.    There would be a car bombing in London around February 16th 2018. There was no bombing.

5.    The Trump military parade would “never be forgotten”. The parade was cancelled. (We definitely won’t forget that)

6.    The Five Eyes, an international intelligence alliance, “won’t be around much longer.” It has not been terminated. 

7.    Something major would happen in Chongqing, China on April 10th 2018. Nothing notable happened in Chongqing that day.

8.    There would be a “bombshell” revelation about North Korea in May 2018. There were no notable developments. 

9.    A “smoking gun” video of Hillary Clinton would emerge in March 2018. No video appeared.

10.                   Multiple failed predictions that John McCain would resign from the US Senate. McCain did not resign.

11.                   Multiple failed predictions that Mark Zuckerberg would leave Facebook and flee the United States. Zuckerberg remains the CEO of Facebook.

12.                   Multiple failed predictions that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey would be forced to resign. Dorsey remains the CEO of Twitter.

And lastly,

13.                   Multiple failed predictions that “something big” would happen or the truth would emerge “next week”.

And that’s just their failed predictions. There are also NUMEROUS baseless claims that have been made by QAnon and this is where it starts to get real—I dunno. Too weird for me, which is saying something considering.  Buckle up, buttercups because these claims are going to make you question humanity’s future…

    Q claimed that the CIA installed North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un as a puppet ruler, that U.S. representative, Former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz supposedly hired Salvadoran gang MS-13 to murder DNC staffer Seth Rich, whose death was actually suspected to be the result of attempted robbery by unknown perpetrators. There was also an apparent suggestion that German chancellor Angela Merkel is actually Adolph Hitler’s granddaughter! Q falsely claimed that “each mass shooting is a false-flag attack organized by the cabal” and that Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and others are planning a coup against Trump and are involved in an international child sex-trafficking ring that also has links to Epstein and his island. Supposedly, the Mueller investigation was actually a counter-coup led by Trump, who pretended to conspire with Russian in order to hire Mueller to secretly investigate the Democrats. Oh, and certain Hollywood stars are pedophiles, and that the Rothschild family leads a satanic cult. This isn’t the first time political allegations such as these have circulated since the 1970’s, but the big difference was that the narrative then painted the Republicans as the villains, not the “elite democrats.”

    These claims and predictions that never came to fruition are explained away by Q saying that these false claims and incorrect predictions are deliberate, claiming that “disinformation is necessary.” This has led an Australian psychologist, Stephan Lewandowsky to emphasize the “self-sealing” quality of the conspiracy theory, highlighting its anonymous purveyor’s use of plausible deniability and noting that evidence against it “can become evidence of its validity in the minds of believers” Meaning that more you try to disprove the nonsense, the more its believers adhere to it because they think disprovers just want to cover it all up! But I mean, of course they would considering that a lot of these QAnon theorists have touted drinking an industrial bleach known as MMS, or Miracle Mineral Solution, as a “miracle cure” for COVID-19…

    I—I don’t know…maybe it’s more effective for them than a UV light up the bum. Honestly, surprised there was no turpentine involved…maybe a little urine in the bloodstream—ok, I’m getting off topic and this isn’t about Anti-Vaxxer lunacy though I suspect some intersection between those groups, QAnon, and the conservatives.

    Now, all of these narratives finally crossed paths in 2020 and honestly, created some sort of super conspiracy of mindless proportions: Pizzagate, Epstein’s charges and subsequent death, and the emergence of QAnon. All of these conspiracies involve children that are being abducted in large numbers to supply a child sex trafficking ring.

    Before I go further, let me say that while I think these conspiracies are absurd and laughable, sex-trafficking, especially that of children, is a real actual problem that we are dealing with and there are many forces at play to find these rings and liberate victims. There is actual facts and proof in these situations, though.

    By 2020, some followers of QAnon began using the hashtag SaveTheChildren, which was actually the trademarked name for the child welfare organization Save The Children, which led to an August 7th statement by Save The Children on the unauthorized use of its name in campaigns.  Of course QAnon conspirators weren’t using the hashtag in the same way, they were using to draw attention to their fake news and ridiculous theories of Democratic Satanic cabals and their Hollywood elite friends trafficking children and performing blood rituals to harvest Adrenochrome. What is Adrenochrome, you ask? Well, according the conspiracy theories, it’s some mystical magical psychedelic drug that is favored by the global elites, like the Democrats and Hollywood icons, that they use in their drug-mad Satanic rituals. It is supposedly derived from torturing children to harvest their oxidized hormonal fear, sort of like a bastardized version of Monsters Inc. But, QAnon has even said that Monsters Inc. is Hollywood just telling on itself…

    What Adrenochrome really is? It’s a chemical compound produced by the oxidation of adrenaline, aka epinephrine. There were several small-scale studies conducted in the ‘50s and ‘60s of its effects on the brain and it was reported to trigger psychotic reactions such as thought disorder and derealization.  Researchers claimed that adrenochrome is a neurotoxic, psychotomimetic substance and may play a role in schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. But QAnon was focusing on its fictional aspects like in the Sisters of Mercy song, Some Girls Wander by Mistake. And apparently they have a lot to say about that because there is another conspiracy by the name of Frazzledrip (another reference in that particular song) that took place in 2018 and involved the Google CEO Sundar Pichai who was questioned by the House Judiciary Committee over the conspiracy. This wonderfully ludicrous theory involved a non-existent video that was supposedly hidden on Anthony Weiner’s laptop that showed Hillary Clinton and her one-time aide, Huma Abedin performing what they call a satanic sacrifice in which they drank children’s blood while wearing masks carved from the skin of their victim’s faces. Obviously, no such video exists as far as anyone knows, but I’d say they’ll never find anything because it is purely fabrication. The video was code-named “Frazzledrip” and was supposed to depict what they call an Adrenochrome “harvest.” Now the “drug” is a fairly common reference in conspiracies involving the far-right…and anyone who doesn’t know how to Google or fact-check. And there are an unnerving amount of these conspiracy theories that involve the drug and all you have to do is hop on Reddit if you want to check it out. But don’t. My point there was that Redditt seems to attract these sorts of people, just like 4Chan and 8Chan, places where they can hide and spew false facts without being kicked from their platform. Other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have been actively fact-checking things, especially in 2020, and were removing posts that went against their guidelines, adding disclaimers, and even botting people from the platforms. Even when they changed the SaveTheChildren hashtag to SaveOURChildren, it was still dealt with similarly. This just made the conspiracy nuts feel more vindicated, however, as these companies were most likely involved in Pizzagate and the cabal and were just trying to cover up anything that could expose them. Sure…whatever you say. 

    If you are thinking, “Wow, what the fuck?” It gets better…or worse, really.

             Because this nonsense that Q is spewing, these nutty stories from Pizzagate to SaveOurChildren, isn’t anything new, per say. We’ve seen this before as humans because Q’s conspiracies have roots in previously established conspiracy theories, some on the newer side, others hundreds of years old. Pizzagate seems to be where this really started, but QAnon evolved out of it with many of the same tropes and characters, only the bigger picture behind it has roots in much, much older anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. The whole New World Order, all-powerful, world-ruling cabal is ripped straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is another fake document that purports to expose a secret Jewish plot to control and rule the world that was pretty much used throughout the 20th-century to justify the hatred for Jews. The extraction of Adrenochrome from the blood of their child victims and the subsequent ingestions of it to extend their lives is a more modernized version of the age-old antiemetic blood libel, which is another atrocious accusation that the Jewish people used the blood of Christians in religious rituals, especially in preparation of Passover bread that cropped up some time in the Middle Ages and hasn’t fucking disappeared. 

    And considering all the white-supremacist Nazi bastards involved in this conspiracy movements, it really isn’t a surprise. This isn’t anything new, it’s just a reboot of the same old racist song and dance, except by now, we should fucking know better. 

             Now we know the origins of the bullshit, but how did it affect 2020? Honestly, I’m more inclined to think that our timeline went awry more than I would subscribe to these crackpot theories, but they are a big part of the reason we are HAVING these issues and they’ve got Donald Trump wrapped around their little fingers. 

             2020 started with the discovery of the Coronavirus and its ensuing fast spread all over the world in just a few short months. Initially, our Idiot in Chief tried to devise a conspiracy theory of his own by saying that the pandemic was a “democratic hoax” and really, that was the start right there in my humble opinion. That’s all his MAGA followers needed to question the motives of EVERYTHING that was to come in the election year. 

         When it came time for mass-testing, people claimed that there were those who received automatic positives and expressed concern over the accuracy of their tests because there were stories circulating that people leaving the test site before their test was even administered were receiving positive test results anyway. They believed that numbers were being padded to make it look like the virus was far more contagious than it actually was. Of course it was fact-checked and proven to be false, but it didn’t matter.  

Eventually, after a lot of trial and error and going back and forth with safety precautions, and the lack of necessary medical equipment for those in dire need, we landed on mask-wearing as a simple, safe way to ease the spread of COVID-19 so that people could still go to work and leave the house safely when it warranted it. Mask-up and wash your hands thoroughly when you’re don, use hand sanitizer in between, don’t touch your face, keep six feet apart and WEAR YOUR MASK. Simple, right? Not inconvenient really, right? Except apparently it was and it started with supposed security concerns revolving around mask-wearing, especially for small children. Masks make it easier for children to get kidnapped? I’m not really sure how that is considering you should probably keep your kids at home as much as it can be helped…but the BIGGEST concern to mask wearing was that it was somehow harmful to your health, it made it harder to breathe, people’s rights were being taken away because they were being FORCED to wear masks and that it was leading to government control The government wanted to control all of us by forcing us into masks, masks that actually help slow the spread of a highly contagious, sometimes deadly, virus. When in reality it is the fact that most people don’t want to be inconvenienced in any way, even if it means protecting and helping others. Even now, we see people spouting the same nonsense and it has even escalated to violence as shown by numerous videos on the internet.

         As if this wasn’t enough to deal with, everyone was already on edge when George Floyd was killed by police while in custody on May 25th.  Officer Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis PD kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for at least EIGHT MINUTES AND FIFTEEN SECONDS, in which time Mr. Floyd repeatedly gasped for air, after complaining that he was unable to breathe before being put on the ground, where he expressed the fear that he was going to die and called out for his mother. Prior to that on March 13th, 26 year old Breonna Taylor was killed by Louisville police after serving a no-knock warrant to her apartment where they forced entry and were met by Breonna’s then boyfriend. He fired a warning shot, thinking they were intruders, and was met with a hale storm of bullets, several of which struck Breonna Taylor, killing her. 

         In both these instances, the police were at fault. If you look at the evidence in the cases and what we know now, it is apparent that the police were the guilty party here, but that’s not how they looked at it, and it’s not how supporters of the thin blue line looked at it either. But those of us with at least half a brain and compassion and empathy for our fellow man, did not. The BLM movement made a huge resurgence and protests began to form as a result of these murders. Of course with protesting comes marching and with marching comes lots of people all crowded together in the middle of a pandemic, but most of them masked up and tried to do their part while still casting light on the fact that people of color are STILL being murdered by police at an enormous rate. And with protests of these nature, there are usually counter-protestors, in this case a bunch of white, racist, MAGA gobbling twits and their dick extenders—I mean guns. Lots of armed “citizens”. Because of this, some of these protests turned into riots, ATINFA was brought into the picture by the far-right and then came the theories that protestors were being PAID by the likes of George Soros and other rich democrats. Even fake Craigslist ads popped up where ANTIFA was supposedly willing to pay protestors to fuck stuff up at different protests. But here’s the thing: ANTIFA isn’t some company that thrives chaos and bedlam, it’s an ideology and literally means ANTI-FASCIST, the fear mongering of violent protests in certain areas never happened, and when it did turn violent, it wasn’t usually started by those that were there to peacefully protest. 

         QAnon and ANTIFA adherents clashed and with good reason. One side wants fascists to go fuck themselves and for people to have equity and not be killed for the color of their skin, where the other side just makes up stories about the left to stir the part and start a war. It was the prime time for it too considering this was an election year and a lot of QAnon kooks are also MAGA kooks and they could feel the power of a racist white misogynist wannabe dictator being taken away from them, yet they think the Democrats are wannabe communists and that’s far worse. But they continue to screw the pooch on their end, especially when it came down to campaigning and readying themselves for the election in November. 

         While people are crying to end lockdown and let them go back to restaurants and getting their hair done, the president and his administration campaigned, continuing to spread misinformation about anything and everything, and tried their damndest to sway things in their favor with fake ballot boxes, screwing around with the postal service so that mail-in ballots were harder to receive, and convincing their own constituents to not vote by mail in, but show up in person. It became a shit show of whiny baby tantrum proportions and when it came down to it, everything that Trump tried to do to ensure he got elected again backfired on his ass when Joe Biden won the election. Then the voter fraud claims started because no one in the Trump administration or the Republican Party has any idea how our government works. Meanwhile, the conspiracy theories are still flowing and more and more ignorant people are climbing on board the crazy train and they are turning VIOLENT because of it. The whole election was a sham! Recount! Recount again! Georgia can’t be blue! They threw out ballots! Trump won! 

Blah, blah, blah shut the fuck up. You lost. Accept it.

But they won’t. And because they won’t, things have gotten far more troublesome. Trump is pardoning heinous people left and right, Mitch McConnell is fucking us with $600 stimulus checks while pocketing all that he can and lining the pockets of his rich conservative friends, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was replaced by Amy Coney Barrett who is a nightmare straight out of Handmaid’s Tale, and we now have a QAnon supporter, Marjorie Taylor Greene, in congress! 

         These unfounded conspiracy theories have infiltrated every part of our government and the country’s citizens, though a lot of us know bullshit when we see it, but what do we do about it. We have a tendency to turn a blind eye to such things thinking “That doesn’t affect me” but is that really true? You have the privilege to think that, but look at all the harm and violence it has created. It has allowed people like Trump, McConnell, Purdue, and Loeffler to continue screwing over the people of this country while getting richer with their 1% buds. It perpetuates violence in the form of racism, hate crimes, destruction of property, physical assault, and even murder. Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of this among others, where he decided to take the law into his own hands and crossed state lines to stick his nose into a protest over police brutality where he killed two people and severely injured another Why? Because Trump and the conspiracies he allows to go unchecked and even ADHERES to, himself.  People are struggling, starving, and dying, but all this country can do is point fingers at other people and cry about the terrible things being done to them that don’t even exist but were borne from the minds of fucked up individuals that only want to divide and conquer.

         And I’m sure 2021 won’t be short of more bullshit conspiracy theories. I, myself, LOVE a good conspiracy theory, but not one that actively hurts other people. I really hope that evidence of aliens is actually true and they come get those of us who have had it with the stupidity on this planet, but I know that’s wishful thinking. Our work is not yet finished and we have to band together to actively try and squash these harmful theories and rhetoric before it’s too late and we’re all so ignorant to what is actually going on that we kill ourselves so that the government doesn’t have to. 

         But I think this is where I end things for tonight. I could talk about this till I was red in the face and spitting nails over how angry the state of the world makes me, but I don’t want to do that to  myself, OR you. Instead I will leave you with a little bit of advice:

Be good to one another, love your fellow human. Use your head. Read, Research, and Resist. And for Gods’ sake, never go quiet. Be loud and obnoxious so that the people can hear you. Don’t stay silent in the face of injustice;  just make sure you’ve got the facts first so you can shut them down like John Ossoff continues to shut down Purdue and Fox News. Let’s hope there are enough of us that voted blue so we can actually see positive, intelligent change.