At the anti-LTN rally in Oxford, I picked up a copy of British conspiracy newspaper The Light, which brings together many of the beliefs to which many vulnerable people now subscribe. I read it so you don't have to. A thread! 🧵
Bearing the tagline "the uncensored truth", this issue of The Light runs to 28 pages and is mostly poorly written anti-vax screeds, such as this item about adverse reactions to the Pfizer jab.
Skipping onward: climate science denial! Ft. one of the most popular charts in the conspiracist community: satellite temperature records from the University of Alabama. This is a great example of cherrypicking to make people think climate denial has a scientific basis.
There's a lot of great work out there on why this specific bit of misinformation is just that. @hausfath himself has spent far more time than ought to be necessary debunking it:
These guys love talking about dystopias. Here's a piece on how AI will bring about dystopia - rather than, say, 13 years of austerity politics or Britain's offshore billionaire-owned press might.
A couple more anti-vax articles, and then this fun bit on how "innocent" schoolchildren in Wales will get to try insect protein. As opposed to, say, guilty schoolchildren.
Apparently, letting "unexpecting [sic] 4 to 11-year-olds" try insect protein is "another example of the lengths the climate change fanatics and globalists will do [sic] to pursue their dark ambitions."
Here's an anti-renewables piece, complete with the incredible claim that "as expensive renewables replace cheaper gas, so our bills inevitably continue to rise". A perfect inversion of reality, where record high electricity bills are wholly the result of the high price of gas.
There's then some extremely outdated stuff about subsidies, which the author apparently doesn't understand the function of, and no mention of the colossal tax breaks and multitude of financial benefits handed to the oil and gas majors as they announce record profits.
More anti vax stuff, and then this piece about Klaus Schwab complete with a cartoon. The globe-straddling octopus was a popular motif in Nazi propaganda depicting Jews as controlling the world. loc.gov/exhibits/churc…
Don't hate mainstream media journalists - feel sorry for them. Way ahead of ya, bud.
I can't believe I'm only halfway through this darned thing. But check it out, here's a centre spread on how the moon landings were faked. Might hang this one up, it's awesome.
I can't sugar coat it: this article claims sexually transmitted diseases are fake. In fact, it goes further than that, claiming "there is no evidence that any germ is the cause of any disease". Turns out the two people who wrote the article are trying to sell a book.
The next page claims virology is also fake - which I guess stands to reason if you believe germs are fake.
Skipping some pages as a nod to Self Care.
Advertising from companies who presumably gave money to this publication, including a clothing company that offers "high performance radiation protection", and services for "vaccine damaged" people.
And finally, feeling like I've been dragged down cobbled streets for two hours by a horse, I reach the final page. It's an ad for the latest book by that granddaddy of all conspiracy guys, David Icke, who claims lizard people rule the world.
Obviously there's lots to be said about all this, but I'm going to go for a little lie down.
Just realized that glowing blurb quote in the ad isn't attributed to anyone, so I'm going to have to assume that David wrote it.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The Sunday Times today published in its opinion pages what appears to be a variant of Great Replacement theory, the conspiracist fantasy that lies at the heart of several extreme right-wing ideologies🧵
In his piece, Matthew Syed seems to suggest that countries such as China, Iran and North Korea form an "autocratic axis" that "stoke conflict as a geopolitical weapon" in order to force people to flee to western Europe. The plan of these states, he says, is to "enfeeble us".
"I'm not saying that igniting refugee flows is the soul motive of these tyrants," Syed opines, "but I am saying that it is a factor, particularly in the calculus of President Xi, who regards asylum as the Achilles heel of the West."
🚨This constant framing of climate action as something that will hurt people is profoundly backward, disingenuous - and lethal. Some thoughts🧵 theguardian.com/politics/2023/…
Just and equitable policies are a *necessary condition* for a successful net zero transition. You would only seek to obscure this fact if you felt that you, personally, had something to lose by promoting that which is just and equitable.
If you, an incredibly wealthy man, have been brought up to believe that life is a zero sum game, and about getting ahead no matter the cost to others, you're only ever going to view actions that benefit others as being counter to your own interests.
It's unclear why The New Statesman chose to publish this low-rent, bad-faith nonsense from one of America's less-accomplished conservative pundits. But publish it they did.
For starters, if I wanted an informed take on the challenges facing working class Britons, I'd not consult a wealthy Yalie lawyer whose dad was the assistant attorney general for Texas. This is, at best, entry-level concern trolling and fantastically dishonest.
All the framing devices Lind uses come from a US context: he simply slaps them onto British cities he's heard of. "Bristol, Ipswich, London, Birmingham and Oxford are places ... now here's some irrelevant data from New York for some reason."
I'm live at the pro-traffic rally in Oxford city centre. Ostensibly a protest against LTNs, or low-traffic neighborhoods, it's an intoxicating mix of far-right conspiracy slogans, antisemitism and really terrible hip-hop.
There's a fairly hefty police presence, and turnout occupies about a third of Broad Street at its widest. There's about an equal contingent of confused tourists.
Some of the many inventive signs at the rally. There's a great deal of information about chemtrails, the WEF and the Rothschilds.