Commentary
Mouths gaping, conspiracy theorists rise up against… something
The mass delusion of QAnon, elite pedophile rings and the ‘health dictatorship’ has spread from a small corner of the American internet to the streets of European capitals.
You might not have heard the news: we’re living in a decisive moment in the history of mankind, in which a gang of Satanist-pedophiles who form the Deep State — a “state within the state” — want to kill us all. And they have apparently decided to start exterminating us starting from the weakest link, the children. For instance, Bill Gates is part of the cabal and is working for our extinction with his climate change theory.
Of course, the villains include Soros, who is also Jewish (and we all know what that means). And Hillary Clinton, one of the most evil of all, as well as the boogeyman Obama. In this transnational plot aimed at subverting the world order, the health dictatorship is only the latest step, which wants to keep us masked and barricaded at home without freedom.
Fortunately, however, we are blessed with Trump, the only one who will be able to save us and who is secretly fighting an invisible war that only the enlightened can see if they squint enough in the turbulent waters of history. Trump (who recently claimed that the Deep State was undermining “his” vaccine) is the common element that ties together several local movements: in Italy, for example, the story is not quite as awful as in the U.S., where children are said to be murdered and raped by the globalist elite in underground caves; here, the scare story is that they will be compulsorily vaccinated.
“Hands off our children!” was the first slogan heard in the “anti-mask” march that gathered in Rome on Saturday, full of references to Trump and the great conspiracy of Soros and Co. and demanding to regain the freedom that they say the health dictatorship is permanently eroding. The thousands of people who met at the Mouth of Truth in Rome were immediately branded by the “news peddlers” (whom the conspiracists call “criminals”) as “deniers.” However, the many speeches showed that it is impossible to collect this popular sentiment under this simple label.
Some rejected the label, some embraced it, and some said, “No, we are simply the people!” There was nothing particularly subtle about the message that rallied “the people”: “We are against lockdown, muzzles/masks, social distancing. We are the Italy that rises up and fights against mass vaccination.”
It continued: “We are the parents who will not have their children vaccinated. We are the ones against the 5G antennas, against the interests of the WHO, Gates, Soros and the international powers.” The link with the QAnon American conspiracy theory, already present in many European protests, quickly emerged. “We’re letting these goddamn Chinese set up 5G networks,” said one of the speakers. We need “a light” in the darkness, and, of course, there is a solution: Trump must come in and help deliver us from evil. Anybody who stands opposed must go away, “must resign.”
Some lines we heard: “When we left the Administrative Court in 2017 and called for the arrest of Mattarella …,” “Let’s rip apart that rag of a flag with the stars,” “Lock up Lorenzin,” “We live in a sad age dominated by criminals enslaving children,” “Ministers paid by criminals.”
In the midst of many faithful believers in conspiracy theories, there were also those who are cynically profiting off them, but either way it’s much of the same.
For example, Giuliano Castellino from Forza Nuova, one of the organizations that put together the protest together with “People of Mothers,” railed against the “health dictatorship” (since he’s a literal fascist, we must remain somewhat skeptical). Of course, he had a good reason, of a more personal nature: in July 2018, he was arrested for defrauding the National Health System out of 1.3 million euros: he was receiving reimbursements for products for celiac disease sufferers that were something else entirely.
But they are not fascists, Castellino said, defying the “news peddlers” (also “criminals”): “My people and some I won’t name [comrades, of course], we won’t give you this satisfaction.”
But we all knew that this protest that some might call “no vax, no mask, no 5G” would be populated mostly by scattered confusion, by the self-explanatory elegance of conspiracies capable of explaining everything, if you add a pinch of imagination, and by calls for “freedom.” It is the offspring of an age in which what feels true counts more than actual reality, the offspring of a political culture that—regardless of Di Maio’s barbs against the demonstration—developed within a heady political mix that made anti-ideology its litmus test, as well as hatred for the experts, for the “egghead professors,” when, after all, “common sense” is enough for everything.
What about COVID? Well, why should a doctor be the one to decide, common sense is enough (like when flying a plane, or building a house, or ruling the nation). And contrary to what is often thought—and despite the fact that most of the spread of this movement happened across a labyrinth of websites in which it’s easy to get lost—the fuel for this cultural dumpster fire was poured on by the mainstream news media. Otherwise nobody would be talking about the “goddamn Chinese,” or about the virus being “just a cold” (Saturday’s data reported an increase in hospitalized people with symptoms (1,620, +13) and people in isolation at home (29,453, + 1,181); there was also a 1,695 increase in positive cases and 16 deaths), or shouting “They want to take our children!” and “Bibbiano!” (after the child abuse ring discovered in the town of the same name).
To put it simply: if the media fails to counter and showcase the falsehoods and frauds, they will simply remain there and begin to take root. And we are not talking about things that are only supported by crazy people or cultural rejects—believing that would be a serious error. Apart from the “politicians” and those who are trying to make money from this grand international show, this weekend’s protest was attended by our neighbors on the bus, in the lines at the post office, at the hospital, close by in restaurants, on trains, on planes. They are among us, and one would do well not to underestimate this fact.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/a-bocca-aperta-i-complottisti-uniti-gettano-la-mascherina/ on 2020-09-06