QAnon & the #Pizzagates of Hell


Book Description

Most of the rational world is currently asking, “What is wrong with these Qanon people?” My book, #Pizzagates of Hell: Unreal Stories of Occult Child Abuse by the CIA, asks, “What is right with them?”Sure, Qanon is an unhinged, mostly right-wing group of individuals that believe the world is run by a left-wing cabal of satanic pedophiles. But, by the time of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, their numbers were growing. And not just in the United States. There have been contingents in the U.K., Germany and Australia. 89 Qanon supporters in the U.S. ran for Congress, suggesting that Qanon has come to represent a minor political constituency. My book doesn't ask what sort of deranged media and cultural environment gave rise to Qanon. Instead, it asks what it is about their ideology that has caught fire. More specifically, it asks: is there something in the supposedly delusional ravings of this new political movement that might actually be accurate? •Pedo cabal? Check. Notorious pedophile and spook Jeffrey Epstein had ties to two U.S. presidents, the king of Saudi Arabia, two Israeli prime ministers, and the British Royal Family. •Occultism? Check. British intelligence relied on Aleister Crowley, the disputed grandfather of satanism, as a spy from World War One and beyond. U.S. intelligence agent Lt. Col. Michael Aquino was an open satanist accused of ritual sexual abuse of children at multiple daycare centers across the U.S. and possibly abroad. •The Illuminati? Check. The Illuminati may not exist, per se, but numerous secret societies do exert undue influence on global affairs, from the Freemasons and Skull and Bones to Bilderberg and Le Cercle. It's hard not to argue that we are ruled by a secret elite. •Turning Us All into Sex Slaves? Question mark. Though the long-rumored Monarch Program is feasible when one examines the history of the CIA's MK ULTRA, there is, so far, no proof of its existence.Once we've asked what Qanon has gotten right,




Pizzagate


Book Description

In early 2016, WikiLeaks released thousands of hacked emails from Clinton 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta. When online sleuths discovered a handful of emails containing incomprehensible cheese pizza references, floodgates opened as observers realized that in dark web pedophile communities, "cheese pizza" functions as shorthand for "child porn." Before long, a global phenomenon erupted that would cause a frenzy in media outlets, drawing scrutiny from politicians and journalists worldwide. But publishing on Aceloewgold.com, a little-known finance and alt-news opinion blog, an obscure blogger calling themselves Ace of Swords wasn't ready to dismiss it all as fake news. Equally, Ace rejected the fanatical and conspiratorial Alex Jonesian approach to processing the phenomenon. From 4Chan to the New York Times, all the way to a real-life shooting at a pizza joint in Washington, D.C. that became the dramatic climax of the controversy, this is Ace's report. Read it and draw your own conclusions. Whatever you believe, one thing is for sure: the intersection of politics, journalism, conspiracy theory culture, and the world wide web just doesn't get any stranger than Pizzagate. Whether it was a conservative fake news hoax, an example of how conspiracy theories can harm real people, or a genuine case of ritual child abuse in the highest centers of power, you'll see how it unfolded and what it--and the reaction to it--reveals about the 21st-century cultural zeitgeist.




Creating Conspiracy Beliefs


Book Description

Drawing on psychology, political science, communication, and information sciences, this book explores the birth of conspiracy theories.




They Knew


Book Description

FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE “Every sentence delivered. The pathos of truth-seeking left me thinking of Herman Melville." —Timothy Snyder, #1 New York Times bestselling author of On Tyranny NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author Sarah Kendzior delves into the difference between conspiracy and conspiracy theory, "deftly separat[ing] fact from fiction in a conspiracy-addled nation" (VANITY FAIR). Conspiracy theories are on the rise because officials refuse to enforce accountability for real conspiracies. Uncritical faith in broken institutions is as dangerous as false narratives peddled by propagandists. The truth may hurt—but the lies will kill us. They Knew discusses conspiracy culture in a rapidly declining United States struggling with corruption, climate change, and other crises. As the actions of the powerful remain shrouded in mystery—“From Norman Baker to Jeffrey Epstein, Iran-Contra to January 6" (VF)—it is unsurprising that people turn to conspiracy theories to fill the informational void. They Knew exposes the tactics these powerful actors use to placate an inquisitive public. Here, for the first time, Kendzior blends her signature whip-smart prose and eviscerating arguments with lyrical and intimate examinations of the times and places that haunt American history. "America is a ghost story," writes Kendzior, as she unearths decades of buried history, providing an essential and critical look at how to rebuild our democracy by confronting the political lies and crimes that have shaped us.




Nobody's Victim


Book Description

Nobody's Victim is an unflinching look at a hidden world most people don’t know exists—one of stalking, blackmail, and sexual violence, online and off—and the incredible story of how one lawyer, determined to fight back, turned her own hell into a revolution. “We are all a moment away from having our life overtaken by somebody hell-bent on our destruction.” That grim reality—gleaned from personal experience and twenty years of trauma work—is a fundamental principle of Carrie Goldberg’s cutting-edge victims’ rights law firm. Riveting and an essential timely conversation-starter, Nobody's Victim invites readers to join Carrie on the front lines of the war against sexual violence and privacy violations as she fights for revenge porn and sextortion laws, uncovers major Title IX violations, and sues the hell out of tech companies, schools, and powerful sexual predators. Her battleground is the courtroom; her crusade is to transform clients from victims into warriors. In gripping detail, Carrie shares the diabolical ways her clients are attacked and how she, through her unique combination of advocacy, badass relentlessness, risk-taking, and client-empowerment, pursues justice for them all. There are stories about a woman whose ex-boyfriend made fake bomb threats in her name and caused a national panic; a fifteen-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted on school grounds and then suspended when she reported the attack; and a man whose ex-boyfriend used a dating app to send more than 1,200 men to ex's home and work for sex. With breathtaking honesty, Carrie also shares her own shattering story about why she began her work and the uphill battle of building a business. While her clients are a diverse group—from every gender, sexual orientation, age, class, race, religion, occupation, and background—the offenders are not. They are highly predictable. In this book, Carrie offers a taxonomy of the four types of offenders she encounters most often at her firm: assholes, psychos, pervs, and trolls. “If we recognize the patterns of these perpetrators,” she explains, “we know how to fight back.” Deeply personal yet achingly universal, Nobody's Victim is a bold and much-needed analysis of victim protection in the era of the Internet. This book is an urgent warning of a coming crisis, a predictor of imminent danger, and a weapon to take back control and protect ourselves—both online and off.




The Big Black Book of Government Conspiracies


Book Description

This is a compilation of Government Conspiracies from the U.S. and the World.




Social Media and the Post-Truth World Order


Book Description

This book discusses post-truth not merely as a Western issue, but as a problematic political and cultural condition with global ramifications. By locating the roots of the phenomenon in the trust crisis suffered by liberal democracy and its institutions, the book argues that post-truth serves as a space for ideological conflicts and geopolitical power struggles that are reshaping the world order. The era of post-truth politics is thus here to stay, and its reach is increasingly global: Russian trolls organizing events on social media attended by thousands of unaware American citizens; Turkish pro-government activists amplifying on Twitter conspiracy theories concocted via Internet imageboards by online subcultures in the United States; American and European social media users spreading fictional political narratives in support of the Syrian regime; and Facebook offering a platform for a harassment campaign by Buddhist ultra-nationalists in Myanmar that led to the killing of thousands of Muslims. These are just some of the examples that demonstrate the dangerous effects of the Internet-driven global diffusion of disinformation and misinformation. Grounded on a theoretical framework yet written in an engaging and accessible way, this timely book is a valuable resource for students, researchers, policymakers and citizens concerned with the impact of social media on politics.




Fake News in America


Book Description

The term 'fake news' became a buzzword during Donald Trump's presidency, yet it is a term that means very different things to different people. This pioneering book provides a comprehensive examination of what Americans mean when they talk about fake news in contemporary politics, mass media, and societal discourse, and explores the various factors that contribute to this, such as the power of language, political parties, ideology, media, and socialization. By analysing a range of case studies across war, political corruption, climate change, conspiracy theories, electoral politics, and the Covid-19 pandemic, it demonstrates how fake news is a fundamentally contested phenomenon, and how its meaning varies depending on the person using the term, and the political context. It provides readers with tools to identify, talk about, and resist fake news, and emphasizes a need for education reform with an eye toward promoting critical thinking and information literacy.




Alt-Right


Book Description

This book is a vital guide to understanding the racist, misogynist, far-right movement that rose to prominence during Donald Trump’s successful election campaign. To some, the movement appears to have burst out of nowhere, but journalist Mike Wendling has been tracking the Alt-Right for years. He reveals the role of technological utopians, reactionary philosophers, the notorious 4chan bulletin boards, and a range of bloggers, vloggers and tweeters, and the extreme ideas they attempt to popularize. Analyzing what the Alt-Right stands for, based upon interviews with movement leaders and foot soldiers, Wendling provides evidence linking extremists with terror attacks and hate crimes. Ultimately the book argues that, despite its high profile support, the movement’s contradictory tendencies will lead to its downfall.




Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization


Book Description

The fifteen chapters in this volume of Sociology of Crime, Law, and Deviance discuss a number of issues researchers in the fields of sociology, criminology, and criminal justice theorize, conceptualize, and measure racialization and counter-radicalization.