RWW's Paranoia-Rama takes a look at five of the week’s most absurd conspiracy theories from the Right.
This week, we learn that women are to blame for sexual assaults and sex trafficking, take a new look at the Civil Rights Movement, and announce some new medical discoveries.
5. TSA Electric Shock Bracelets, Brain Microchips & High-Speed Rail Leading to Government Control
Buzzfeed this week dug up the website for Founder’s Truth, a group formerly led by Greg Brannon, who is now a Republican candidate for Senate from North Carolina.
It turns out that Brannon’s group’s website was chock full of conspiracy theories, most revolving around various sorts of technology leading to government control. Blog posts on the site alleged that the Aurora movie theater massacre was an inside job orchestrated by “psyop pros” in order to tighten the government’s grasp on the population; that the TSA might force people to wear bracelets that would “deliver an electric shock if they got out of line”; that corporations are scheming to plant microchips in our brains; that light rail systems in American cities are part of a nefarious United Nations plot; that the fluoridation of water is “unethical and criminal” and something about a “secret police murder and cover-up.”
We are looking forward to Senate hearings on these issues once Brannon is elected.
4. Martin Luther King, Jr, Didn’t Actually Favor Civil Rights
In a Martin Luther King, Jr Day interview with Steve Deace, the Institute on the Constitution’s Michael Peroutka presented the novel theory that the renowned civil rights leader never actually supported civil rights . Instead, Peroutka argued, King’s modern-day followers have “perverted” his legacy to suggest that King was fighting for rights from the government. He also asserted that King – who famously supported robust federal aid to low-income people – would definitely not have supported federal aid to low-income people.
Peroutka’s shaky understanding of the Civil Rights Movement shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise – after all, he is a proud member of the neo-confederate group League of the South.
Peroutka’s MLK Day revisionism is part of a larger trend among the Right to pretend that the Civil Rights Movement’s goals have been achieved and that it is now white people who are facing discrimination. This week, the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios, claimed that, “for the most part, the American Anglo-Saxon crew really has moved past racism, they did it quite a long time ago…But it seems to be raging, racism seems to be raging in the black community.” For his part, columnist Erik Rush claimed that President Obama is actually “enslaving and oppressing” white people.
3. President Obama and Sandra Fluke To Blame For Sexual Assaults on Campus
Family Research Council president Tony Perkins smelled a rat in President Obama’s push to combat sexual assaults on college campuses. In an email to FRC’s members yesterday, Perkins contended that it was President Obama himself who had led to an epidemic of sexual assaults on campuses…by requiring insurance companies to cover contraception, admitting to smoking pot as a kid, and once mentioning a happy hour.
In a radio commentary later in the day, Perkins extended the blame to Sandra Fluke, the former Georgetown law student who faced vicious attacks from the Right for her advocacy in favor of contraception coverage.
2. Gay People Cause Autism
Susanne Atanus, a Republican candidate for U.S. House in Illinois, told the Chicago Daily Herald that autism and dementia, along with extreme weather like tornadoes, are God’s punishments for marriage equality and abortion .
“God is angry,” she said. “We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions. Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS. If it’s in our military it will weaken our military. We need to respect God.”
Atanus previously claimed that the stock market crash of 1929 didn’t actually happen.
1. Beyoncé Leading Women Into Sex Trafficking
Christian Post columnist Larry Tomczak took issue this week with First Lady Michelle Obama’s description of Beyoncé as “a true role model for children.”
The pop star, Tomczak contends, has squandered her “gifts from almighty God in song and dance” and “chose to develop her persona as a sexy, seductive singer.” Tomczak warns that Beyonce’s example could “lead naive young girls on a dangerous path that could lead some even into sex trafficking”…and from there, to “abuse, abortions and abasement-sometimes death.”
