Down the Rabbit Hole
My head is spinning over what is and what isn’t and I can’t decide if it’s today or it’s green.
“Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if only I knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. — Chapter 1, Down the Rabbit-Hole, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
There used to be only a few places to go for news and the competition among the media led to the best and most credible stories. Not no more. Now you can believe what you want to believe but don’t expect to confront the wizard because “Nobody Gets In To See The Wizard — Not Nobody Not Nohow!”
The rabbit hole welcomes all but, caveat emptor, you may never find your way out. Many people willingly enter and grow quite comfortable with the fairy tales they find and believe to have a kernel of truth or believability.
The rabbit hole is populated mostly by far right sources.
QAnon seems to be the most organized of the crazies. QAnon believers tag their social media posts with the hashtag #WWG1WGA, signifying the motto “Where We Go One, We Go All.” I have no idea what that means as you need a glossary to understand the lingo.
Somebody is making some big money with QAnon, including that free market icon, Amazon.
According to Amazon, “This ‘QAnon WWG1WGA Q Anon’ design is a perfect stocking stuffer gift for people who love Freedom, draining swamps, Trump, GEOTUS, POTUS, United States of America & MAGA USA Flag apparel.”
There are QAnon T-shirts and hoodies, in grey, Navy blue, royal blue and white and for men and women. Remember to machine wash cold with like colors and dry low heat.
To protect from the hoax of COVID 19, QAnon dust scarf face bandanas, with M-shaped nose clips come equipped with two replaceable activated carbon filters, for just $15.99 and $7.99 to cover shipping.
There are mugs and books, games and popsockets. Some are emblazoned with “Q Anon Great Awakening” and some with MAGA (you know what that stands for and it’s not Monkeys Aligned with the Great Avitars).
For a primer on QAnon, Amazon sells “QAnon: An Invitation to The Great Awakening,” by WWG1WGA. I suppose using names is gauche in the rabbit hole of QAnon.
And someone named Pat Quincy, who is nowhere to be found in Google, has written, “Questions Answered: An Introduction to QAnon and the Great Awakening” for just $14.99 paperback.
And don’t miss a rap song with the same name as QAnon’s motto, “The storm/the Great Awakening” by someone called Pa Perry. Last checked, it had 2.46 million views on YouTube, starting with a commercial from Joe Biden. Go figure.
So what exactly is QAnon?
Wikipedia defines QAnon as a far-right conspiracy theory that centers on a secret plot by an alleged “deep state” against President Trump and his supporters.
QAnon began with a 2017 post on the anonymous imageboard 4chan by someone using the name “Q” who claimed to have access to classified information involving the Trump administration and its opponents in the United States.
QAnon has smeared liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking officials, claiming they are part of an international child sex trafficking ring. It also has claimed that Donald Trump feigned collusion with Russians in order to enlist Robert Mueller to join him in exposing the ring and preventing a coup d’état by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros.
“It was all very well to say ‘Drink me’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not.” — Chapter 1, Down the Rabbit-Hole, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
Then there is something call vdare.com, a website mostly dedicated to keeping America white for Americans.
“America is not a melting pot, or a tossed salad or any other fashionable dietary metaphor that strips our nation of its rightful identity,” says the vdare.com site. “We founded a country unique to history that has its own philosophies, values, social structure, attitudes, festivals, foods and aesthetic. VDARE.com strives to preserve and celebrate the distinctive culture of America.
“Human differences are not social constructs. It is only with an honest consideration of race and ethnicity, the foundations of human grouping, that human differences can be explained and their social consequences understood, whether those differences are philosophical, cultural or biological.”
When you get past the rhetorical word games (can anyone say racist and xenophobe?) there are “news stories” on the Vdare website.
VDare writer Nicholas Stix recently wrote “What Lunatic is Running This Floyd Hoax Madhouse? My Bet: The DNC.”
Among other points ,the story notes that the “riots” in Minneapolis and Charlottesville were the work of the Antifa, a shadowy organization of leftists who have been involved in violent protests.
Stix writes that a relative of his “really believes that Antifa is a fiction, that ‘Trump made it up’ and that the riots are not the work of Antifa and its Black Lives Matter allies, but instead are a ‘white-supremacist’ false-flag operation.”
“That’s the exactly the narrative the mainstream media has been blaring,” Stix writes. “But who came up with the script?”
He writes that his relative has “no proof these men were anything other than white Leftists.”
In my opinion Stix’s relative is right.
“What about the riots, arson, looting, and vandalism since then? Are ‘far-right provocateurs’ responsible for those, too. For toppled statues? Murdered cops? Blocking highways and trying to murder motorists?” Stix writes.
Moving right along, Michelle Malkin penned “The White Supremacist Lynching Hoax.”
“Social media activists supporting the Black Lives Matter movement have spread a terrifying story: Evil racists are hanging black men from trees across the country,” Malkin writes. “In the wake of the George Floyd incident in Minnesota and three weeks of riots, America is in the grips of a purported epidemic of white supremacist violence that harkens back to the Jim Crow era with noose-wielding Klansman lurking on every corner.”
“Except that it’s all a big fat lie,” she writes.
There’s another story by that darling of the far right, Patrick J. Buchanan, who writes “Cancel the White Men — And What’s Left?”
Buchanan was an assistant and special consultant to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN’s Crossfire.
“In the aftermath of today’s protests and riots after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, we hear similar calls. President Donald Trump must ‘reach out; and ‘unify the nation,’” Buchanan writes. “But how? Many of these calls for unity come from the same elites who are all-in on tearing us apart by pulling down statues of the famous men of American history whom they most detest. A second war on the Confederacy is underway, to disgrace and dishonor all who fought for Southern independence in the war of 1861–65. A second Reconstruction is being readied.”
“Liberals will fight for the right of Marxist radicals to burn the American flag to show their hatred of it but cannot tolerate working folks flying the battle flag of the Confederacy to show their love of it,” Buchanan writes.
Vdare and QAnon make Breitbart News Network look almost middle of the road. Breitbart is a far-right syndicated news, opinion and commentary website founded in mid-2007. Steve Bannon, a Trump confidante and leading supporter, was previously Breitbart’s executive chairman.
Breitbart feeds on intentionally misleading stories, conspiracy theories and stories considered to be misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by liberals.
Among its more bloodsucking creations, Breitbart sank its teeth into the Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, a Nancy Pelosi/Miley Cyrus ad campaign and the always-present, conspiracy theories about President Obama and Hillary Clinton. And don’t forget the false story about a Muslim mob in Germany, climate change denial and a false story about Northern California wildfires.
Which brings us back to the rabbit hole.
“When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!” — Chapter 4, The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
“Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” — Chapter 6, Pig and Pepper, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.