'The Great Awakening'? How Does A Piece Of Q-Anon Conspiracy Garbage Make It To No. 1 on Amazon?

Can any sane person really believe this Amazon ranking for this piece of trash?  People interested in conspiracies - REAL ones - are better served going to my book on the JFK assassination:

My book is the product of  35 years of research into the conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy, incorporating acoustic analyses, image analyses as well as exposing the sundry deficiencies of The Warren Report. In other words, it's grounded in reality,  not fantasy.

By contrast, 'The Great Awakening' was hatched by QAnon freaks,  likely on an all night bender of booze, bennies and  opioids, mixed with  MJ candy .  It is designed to appeal to the  indiscriminate Pizzagate conspiracy trolls and gullible gobblers,  the ones who believed (in 2016)  Hillary Clinton had a stable of child sex slaves.   I would say also  similar to  the wacko  delusions of Alex Jones of Info Wars fame, but even he has now admitted his false flag ideation about the Sandy Hook massacre was a result of severe mental illness.  What excuse do these latter dispensers of toxic mind rot have?

The Amazon book, which says it was written by a dozen “anonymous Q followers, decoders and citizen journalists known collectively as Where We Go One We Go All (WWG1WGA),” takes up where the Pizzagate rubbish left off. It claims that Democrats murder and eat children and that the government created AIDS, polio and Lyme disease. Then there’s the belief that the world is run by a Satanic cabal led by Hillary Clinton.

NBC News, which first reported on the book's placement on the Amazon charts, noted that the book received an algorithmic boost from product recommendations. The book, written by an anonymous author, averaged 4.5 stars and has been flooded with positive reviews.

Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy-theory expert, told NBC that the book is just another way for the QAnon movement to cash in on its gullible followers, calling it “a bold new step in the endless grift at the heart of Q.”

Nevertheless, the book keeps selling and racking up questionable glowing reviews, which Jason Kint, CEO of the trade association Digital Content Next, chalks up to manipulation and the lack of oversight on Amazon’s part.  As Kint explained to NBC:

“To be clear, they absolutely shouldn’t be censoring the availability of books like this. But the fact we’re left only with the publisher’s own description of the book and a clearly gamed set of 5-star reviews — how is the average shopper supposed to know this is toxic garbage?”

Uh, how about critical thinking? How about having an I.Q. that exceeds room temperature digits? 

Amazingly,  even Reddit now appears to be coming to its senses.  Last September it banned a forum dedicated to the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying users repeatedly violated its content policies.   This isn't difficult to parse because after Pizzagate nearly incited a tragedy (unhinged Trumpie entering D.C. Comet pizza parlor with loaded rifle to "liberate Hillary's child sex slaves")  there can be no issue these are dangerous loons.

Let's also get it very clear from the get go that the assorted nonsense being peddled does not qualify as conspiracy theories. They are conspiracy claptrap or refuse. In  previous blog posts I noted Barbadian psychologist Pat Bannister's categorization of those who invoke conspiracies and how she differentiated them. As part of her construction of a theory of mind, specifically showing the role of lying in young children, she also noted adeptness at detecting lies was linked to accurate detection of real conspiracies.

Dr. Bannister's classification was simple:

1- Conspiracy analysts

2- Conspiracy theorists

3- Conspiracy crackpots or cultists


At the top of the hierarchy were conspiracy analysts, such as Mark Lane, Peter Dale Scott, Harold Weisberg, Richard Charnin and others (like yours truly)).  These were serious people possessing some measure of intellect who brought their scientific, mathematical and other aptitudes to the investigation of multiple aspects of a putative real conspiracies like Iran-Contra and the JFK assassination.  These people put in real man hours and actually published their work in authoritative media (e.g. BOOKS - real books!) and respected forums as opposed to spreading bunkum through half-assed posts in the lowest dreg regions of the net, like 4chan and 8chan.  

By contrast, the 'conspiracy theorist' put forward conspiracy conjectures but didn't back them up with evidence. Or, if evidence was provided, it didn't meet elementary scientific standards for acceptance, such as consistent selection, coherent and accurate data assessment, and avoidance of confirmation bias.

The bottom feeders of the classification scheme were conspiracy crackpots or clowns, like Alex Jones.   Jones is most famous for his off the wall bunkum that the Sandy Hook/Newtown massacre was a federal "false flag" operation. Those slain  kids weren't really dead, they were merely actors- as well as the teachers- in an elaborate script to befuddle the public and make them demand gun confiscation across the land.  Jones claimed he'd watched "films over and over and just seen those kids walking in circles".  At least now he's admitted to being mentally unbalanced.  We now await the authors of The Great Awakening to do likewise.

How would Dr. Bannister, if she were alive today, describe a convoluted, paranoid -infused mental mosh pit like "The Great Awakening"?   Basically, she'd probably call it a psychotic's phantasmagoria and schizoid ideation attempting to make sense of disparate, suspicious elements in the contemporary U.S. - driven by social media. 

 She'd also make note that such fever dreams don't need a whole lot of external memetic fuel to get started: a coincidence here, a loaded word from Trump there, an obscure reference to "deep state" there- oh  and some "genius" who first puts it all together in his mother's basement and posts it on 4chan. Whereupon a susceptible brain will be infected and spread it on to other gullible souls, searching for meaning in their vacuous lives. Well, to be sure, it's probably a bit better than using opioids!

 It would be great if we could just ignore these looneytunes-  or dispatch them to an asylum for general ECT and lithium therapy. But alas, their fevered baloney can have real world consequences and act outs - especially when a virulently infected zombie gets activated - like the guy who fired a round into the D.C. pizza parlor looking for child sex slaves. Or the other screwball who tried to block traffic headed for the Hoover Dam.

These people desperately need help, but it seems there are just too few professionals around now to get the job done.   Where is Dr. Bannister when we need her?

Be Still my Heart! O'Reilly Does a JFK Assassination Book!

Left: Rear shot depiction from The Warren Commission report, the fairy story which Bill O’Reilly believes. (The yellow coded track is the WC version). But anatomical placement by the Parkland surgeons referencing the actual back wound places it much lower! Along the blue track! Note that this was not the kill shot.

"How do we know that our own rational rejections of conspiracy theories are not themselves infected with beliefs so strong that they are, in effect, conspiracy theories too?"  - Matt Ridley in 'Maybe We're All Conspiracy Theorists', The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10-11, 2011

So FAUX News’ Bill O’Reilly has written a Kennedy Assassination book! Entitled ‘Killing Kennedy” – the same title as a genuine investigative book on the assassination by H.E. Livingstone, it purports to leave no stone unturned in exposing the truth behind the crime of the century. In his interview in the recent AARP Magazine (Oct.-Nov., p. 40), O’Reilly even brags that an earlier book (‘Killing Lincoln’) has been circulated throughout schools in the US of A ..


Well, let’s hope to hell his latest work isn’t, or if it is - it’s only happening in the backward states that want to secede! Like Tex-ass, which already holds the lead in approving textbooks that reject evolution in favor of Intelligent Design, and reject the view that the North triumphed in the Civil War – over the one that the North killed a “hero” (Jefferson Davis)

He makes much ado over his contacts with FBI agents in the interview, e.g ibid.:

“Co-author Martin Dugard and I got access to four FBI agents whom J. Edgar Hoover had sent to Dallas right after JFK’s assassination with orders to find evidence for a conspiracy.”

But anyone with a brain not confined to his or her butt would immediately see that this is bollocks. Hoover, as I have noted before, was no friend of Kennedy’s and indeed even when he turned up evidence in late 1962 that the New Orleans mob and Carlos Marcello had plans to off Kennedy, he never informed the president. By any other word, this is known as treason. (See, e.g.: Mark North: 1991, Act of Treason: The Role of J. Edgar Hoover in the Assassination of President Kennedy ,Carroll & Graf Publishers).


Let’s also recall, or process( for those not as familiar with the details of the assassination as I am, after 38 years of investigation, basically summarized in my recent book: ‘The JFK Assassination: The Final Analysis’) that LBJ’s original plan was to set up an exclusive “Texas Commission” confined to his state, excluding any “outsiders” other than J. Edgar Hoover. This is emphasized by Noel Twyman in his superb book, ‘Bloody Treason’. Twyman remarks that when eyebrows were raised and not a few tongues, Johnson changed tactics and instead (ibid.):

“..ordered that the entire investigation be conducted by the FBI under the supervision of J. Edgar Hoover. Furthermore, he ordered all other investigations under federal government or local government to be stopped. This placed Johnson in virtual control of the investigation through J. Edgar Hoover, who detested the Kennedys and had everything to gain by John Kennedy’s death, and everything to lose if Kennedy lived.”


So WHY on earth would O’Reilly expect us to trust those who likely actually had a hand in suppressing evidence, including removing a section of one of the curbs near the Triple Underpass where one witness (James Tague)  was sprayed with richocheting bullet fire, pointing out the curb. Researcher Harold Weisberg - 'Never Again!'-  has pointed out that within a short time FBI agents were dispatched and removed the segment for "analysis" in D.C.  Subsequently, it disappeared (like JFK’s brain) somewhere in Hoover's hive.


My point is that O’Reilly trusting these guys is a clear warning for the rest of us not do likewise, or trusting O'Reilly given HE trusts them! I mean, hell, if Jim Jones were to still be around and offer you purple kool aid would you take it? If Billy boy were to invite you into his "No Spin" zone would you oblige? Can we then agree that his Kennedy book is but an extension of his 'No-Spin zone' or as Bill Maher put it, "The O'Reilly Bubble"?

As for the Warren Commission, this farce is what O’Reilly claims to rely on for his "facts." But as I already showed in detail - see: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/10/stephen-kings-new-scifi-tale-fun-but.html

the Warren Report really needs to be renamed to the “Warren Whitewash Report”. That was the entire aim of it, and Johnson’s objective in replacing his planned bogus “Texas Commission” – with a federal level political whitewash that would permanently remove any suspicions that LBJ had a thing to with events (despite having the limo dismantled and dispatched to Ohio, and getting rid of JFK's bullet-ridden suitcoat), and further, enable the spurious believers, spinners and promoters (e.g. Gerald Posner, in ‘Case Closed’, Vince Bugliosi in ‘Reclaiming History”, now O’Reilly in ‘Killing Kennedy’) to try to spin that the case is “solved” ….and oh yes, it’s been done with “facts”.

Yet none of those facts upon critical inspection has stood the test of time, hence each time one of these efforts is knocked for six, another stooge has to try his hand. It’s kind of like playing ‘whack-a-mole’.

Perhaps the most insightful take of all is from an actual O'Reilly fan, a Larry Mullins, who observes in his review of the book that O'Reilly doesn't even commence discussion of the assassination until page 245. Then, according to Mr. Mullins:

"O'Reilly and his coauthor played it safe and wrote a book that pretends the research and investigations between 1964 and 2012 simply never happened. Beyond this, what they did write about is rife with all the errors, assumptions, and grievously incompetent conclusions of the Warren Commission Report. If Mr. O'Reilly's book had been submitted to a publisher by a non-celebrity, it would have been tossed in five minutes. "Killing Kennedy" is a colossal disappointment. Worse, it endangers the truth by assisting its submergence into fabricated history. "Killing Kennedy" is a disservice to the "folks" Mr. O'Reilly is supposed to be looking out for. Save your money. Or invest it in one of the more acclaimed books on the Kennedy assassination, such as The Last Investigation by Gaeton Fonzi"

Then there is the take from Harrison Livingstone in his serious book (alas by the same name, but don't be deterred from getting it), Killing Kennedy.  Regarding Gerald Posner’s effort (p. 282) he writes:

"It is a biased lawyer's brief and not a balanced work of historical research- part of a well-orchestrated program by major elements of the media to 'close the case'."

 
I'd warrant that pretty well the same thing could be said concerning O'Reilly's effort. My advice? Save your money! If you're at all interested in the case then get Gaeton Fonzi's superbly researched book - alternatively referenced by reviewer Larry Mullins, or get the OTHER Killing Kennedy by Harrison Livingstone, or purchase my own effort. (Just Google the title!)

 One thing we don't need to do is add more fodder to O'Reilly's unreal world made ever more clear after the recent election. Professing history? Hell, more like comics!