The FT's Edward Luce: 'Muricans Need To Focus on the REAL Terrorists: Q Anon

"As awful and dangerous as Trump undeniably is, there may be something worse ahead for Republicans. That thing is called QAnon, the online phenomenon that has declared war on an international conspiracy of elitist pedophiles and cannibals, which, of course, doesn’t exist."  - Joe Conason, 'How A New Racist, Extremist Cult Is Eating A Debilitated GOP Alive'

The warning from the Financial Times' columnist  Edward Luce (Sept. 10,  'QAnon Cult Shows America Should Fear Enemy Within')  ought to be taken 1,000 times more seriously today than any mindrot blabber about "Islamic terrorists".   The reason, as Mr. Luce shows, is that QAnon and the Right's batshit crazy conspiracy hatchers are the real threat to our Republic - along with Trump the Traitor.   As Luce writes (ibid.):

"Mention terrorism and most Americans will instantly think of Islamist extremists.  In reality, America should nowadays be far more worried about far-right threats. Two-thirds of its terrorist incidents last year were carried out by homegrown extremists from the far-right. That rose to 90 per cent in the first five months of this year. Many of these were inspired directly or implicitly by QAnon, the extremist cult that is often downplayed as a fringe conspiracy group."

Luce is absolutely spot on correct. Worse, we have now beheld - as I noted in my Aug. 20 post-  at least one major media (CBS)  correspondent (Nancy Cordes)  comparing the real and serious JFK assassination conspiracy to the batshit nuts  QAnon claptrap.  

Cordes spouted:

"The QAnon conspiracy theories -  as nutty as they sound -  are not even that new.  Some of the theories resemble the plot of Oliver Stone's movie 'JFK' thirty years ago."

Adding that:

"polling finds that five to ten percent of Americans actually believe this stuff. That President Trump is this secret crusader working to take down a cannibalistic cabal within government"

But as I observed, Stone made no reference   to any "cannibalistic" cabal or conspiracy, i.e. which accuses one party of worshipping Satan,  eating babies and committing sex acts on children - as the loopy QAnon nuts believe.  So where is Cordes and her prof getting this baloney?   Clearly, she's just pulled it out of her ass like Trump has the conspiracy codswallop he peddles. 

Where I differ with Luce is when he writes:

"That label (fringe conspiracy group) should be kept for UFO spotters and people who think the British royal family killed Diana, Princess of Wales. As the FBI has concluded, QAnon bears all the ingredients of a “domestic terror threat”. 

Ok, hold strain!   I am a "UFO spotter", and make no apologies (or excuses)  for being one. This is given the object I observed (with about 50 others in 1962, in the parking lot of a Miami Gardens shopping center), was as real as a heart attack.  The full description of the event can be found in one of my first blog posts:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2007/12/perspective-on.html

The orange object - the size of the full Moon - darted overhead, hovered,  darted again then vanished within seconds.  No man-made craft could have imitated that velocity and at the relatively low altitude (est. 1,500 ft.) it was observed.  Indeed, Carl Sagan - we now know, See e.g.

https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=76926

is also in this company.  Further, we know scientific investigation of so-called UFOs is feasible, i.e.

Is Scientific UFO Inquiry Possible? - Brane Space

So, Luce here chose a bad analogy.  Worse, he made the error of mistaking a bogus conspiracy ideation for a real conspiracy (i.e. not a fringe threat) just because the bogus version itself poses a real threat.   But a conspiracy claim can be pure twaddle  and still be a genuine domestic threat, especially if backed up by a horde of crazies who need ECT.

The perfect treatment for most QAnon conspiracy spreaders would be ECT, as Dr. Pat Bannister used to order for paranoid schizophrenics in the 1970s.

Leaving aside Luce's unfortunate miscues and false analogies, he is spot on  when he writes:

 "QAnon has the sympathy of senior U.S. figures, including, implicitly, that of Donald Trump. Whether the president knows much about the group’s bizarre cult theology is beside the point. He retweets them and welcomes their support. 

Luce's point regarding QAnon's crazies "having the sympathies of senior U.S. figures" is no exaggeration.  Indeed, we learned only yesterday (Denver Post, p. 6A) that "Vice President Mike Pence and top officials from Donald Trump's campaign are slated to attend a Montana fundraiser next week hosted by a couple who express support for the main QAnon conspiracy theory."

Actually, main  QAnon "ideation" as I keep saying. Which would be that (ibid.):

"Trump is fighting entrenched enemies in the government and its deep state which involves satanism, cannibalism and child sex trafficking."

No, you cannot make this B.S. up.  The top officials of our government are actually in neck deep to monumental conspiracy horse shit and a mind virus that could well bring this country down if it spreads much further.

The great danger to the U.S. will come if Mr. Trump loses in November as opinion polls indicate is likely. In QAnon theology, that will be the equivalent of the infidels occupying the Holy Land. QAnon’s world view is literally predicated on Mr Trump as their only hope of defeating the satanic forces that control America’s deep state. Many Americans do not take the threat seriously. This is despite the fact that QAnon-inspired gunmen have carried out or attempted several recent attacks."

But there is no danger if we are aware of this, and what these crackpots might do if the Dotard loses. So we then have National Guard troops as well as SWAT teams ready across all 50 states, and we order them to act as they would be trained to do in response to any terrorist outbursts.  You break the law with violence, you pay the price.   What we cannot do is allow ourselves to be intimidated by QAnon or any other domestic, Reich extremist terrorists.   In particular Luce's words below are apt and need to be taken seriously:

"Americans are used to screening out white perpetrators as lone wolves or people with mental health problems. They should listen more closely to the FBI, which says QAnon has the crucial markers of a terrorist group. QAnon thinks we are in a Manichean fight between the forces of dark and light. ...  QAnon claims that George Soros, the Rothschilds and other well-worn Jewish culprits are behind the plot. "

Adding:

"That one wraps itself in Islam and the other Christianity is beside the point. Nor are technological differences salient. Al-Qaeda exploited the early internet. QAnon is the spawn of social media and the dark web. What binds them is a violently apocalyptic world view."

These are critical insights that Luce has offered, and even more remarkable given how he blew it in regard to the "UFO spotters" balderdash and QAnon being a "real" conspiracy because its believers pose a threat.    Indeed, QAnon, as my Psych post doc (now tenure track) niece Shayl observes is "composed of sociopaths who have too little going on in their lives so discharge their skewed energies by investing in irrational beliefs that provoke violent reactions."

But left unsaid is how many "normal' citizens are still lured into the nutso loop of QAnon by investing or attending to seemingly ordinary coalitions or organizations. As Luce informs us:

"Barely a day goes by in the U.S. when groups of parents do not hold a “#SaveOurChildren” protest. Some are witless recruits to what sounds like an obvious cause. Others believe that “dark hats” in Washington protect a subterranean cabal that literally snatches children off the streets."

Luce (above) is referring to how this past year QAnon's minons, in an effort to grab some kind of normalcy, tried to co-opt the group.  This led to a temporary blocking of the hashtag on Facebook.  What thinking Americans need to process here is that all the most pathological mind virus-seeded belief systems seek to harness legitimate cover for themselves, to dupe the unwary into becoming unwitting allies.   Hence, it is essential to always have one's "spidey" radar up and working. That includes having that radar full on when one enters a social media domain. As Luce writes (ibid.):

"Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube bear huge responsibility for directing users towards such derangement. It took until June — almost three years after QAnon emerged — for Facebook to start taking down the group’s posts. "

Which is an absolute travesty and shows the extent to which Facebook -  in its lax approach to "free speech" -   bears enormous responsibility for helping to spread this mind virus. But it is also wise to know WHO are the most virulent spreaders of this pathogen of the mind. Mr. Luce takes pains to point out one,  Marjorie Taylor  Greene,  who  "describes Mr Trump as a righteous sword against evil."

In effect, Greene confers on the orange maggot pestilence fouling the White House and the nation a preternatural nobility or sanctity.  Presumably against the "left wing hordes" and "deep state"  these cranks believe are poised to take over the country under Biden.   This leads Luce to arrive at his somber conclusion:

"Common sense suggests the biggest terrorist threat would thus come in the aftermath of his defeat, which would trigger QAnon thoughts of apocalypse. The group’s theories existed before the arrival of “Q”, an anonymous poster who claims to be inside the deep state. Its first attack came a month after Mr Trump was elected when a man named Edgar Welch broke into a Washington pizza parlour with a semi-automatic weapon. He believed the parlour was run by Hillary Clinton and kept child sex slaves in its basement. “The intel on this wasn’t 100 per cent,” Welch later admitted in what ought to be the motto of our age."

Indeed.  And in the wake of a Biden landslide, now being predicted by more and more pundits, we need to have ready the full array of lawful authorities and state military deployments (e.g. National Guard) if need be.

This is to deal with any sore loser QAnon types who believe Trump's (rightful) clobbering represents some nefarious plot to destroy the nation.  In fact, it will be Biden and the 'good guys' who deliver a return to normality, decency, honesty and civility - totally absent during the past 4 years of Trump's malevolent reign. 

See Also:

How a New Extremist Racist Cult Is Eating a Debilitated GOP Alive

by Joe Conason |

And:

Conservatives and the Right

The Making of a Right-Wing Armed Insurgency: Homegrown Terrorists, Armed, Dangerous and Confronting Social Justice Demonstrators

by Bill Berkowitz | September 11, 2020 - 5:57am | permalink

AND:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel

Let's Get This Straight: QAnon Are Conspiracy Crackpots and Crazies - Not Theorists

The perfect treatment for most QAnon conspiracy spreaders would be ECT, as Dr. Pat Bannister used to order for paranoid schizophrenics in the 1970s.

The existence of the QAnon screwballs and crackpots came to light in Trump's Tampa rally last night, when images caught many holding signs reading "Q" and "QANON".   In one shot on Fox News, DoTurd was partially obscured by a sign in the crowd reading “We Are Q.” In another shot during the Traitor's speech, a sign promoting the debunked Seth Rich conspiracy theory, with the hashtag #Qanon, came into focus in the center of the screen. Some attendees wore T-shirts with a blocky Q. Others held up signs with the letter.  What gives with these mental misfits, most of whom belong in rubber rooms attached to ECT machines? According to Rational Wiki:

"The Storm (also known as Calm Before The Storm) is a conspiracy  meme, and right wing fantasy that originated in a series of incoherent posts on 4chan in 2017 by someone calling themselves QAnon. Following on the heels of similar bullshit such as Pizzagate, it advances a fantastic web of deceit that wraps up Trumpism, deep state fearmongering, evil, satanic pedophilia rings controlled by the Democratic Party, investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, the Las Vegas shooting, and New World Order paranoia into a package easily and wholeheartedly promoted by internet cesspools and Alex Jones.   The term "The Storm" was apparently inspired by a non sequitur mumbled by Trump to the press during a routine photo-op with senior military leaders in October 2017.

TRUMP: “You guys know what this represents? ... Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”
REPORTER: "What storm, Mr. President?"
TRUMP: "You'll find out."

Because he was surrounded by high-ranking military officers at the time, believers have interpreted his bizarre remarks to mean he was recruited by military intelligence to lead a "quiet coup" to restore "integrity" to the US government; hence, he will impose martial law and unleash a "storm" of retribution against satanic Clintonites, Democratic evil-doers, Deep State dirtbags, and RINO cucks."

That very well sums up the noxious, deranged effluent erupting in the brain embolisms of these losers.   Brains which appear to have been hijacked en masse, and likely germinated in a memetic transfer by whackdoodles like Alex Jones, e.g.




Let's also get it very clear from the get go that the assorted horse shit being peddled by these ignoramuses 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 (usually) didn't  advance adequate evidence or documents to  support them. Or, if such were advanced, they too often didn't meet didn't meet scientific standards for acceptance, including consistent data selection. For example, the nincompoops who claimed no men actually landed on the Moon and it was all filmed on a Hollywood lot.

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 kids weren't really slain, 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 claims - probably in a haze of LSD and MJ candies, that he's watched "films over and over and just seen those kids walking in circles".

Another example of swill generated by conspiracy crackpots is "Pizzagate".   This insipid bunkum first came to light in 2016  after a brain-jacked lunatic - Edgar Welch- drove 9 hours from North Carolina to try to "free" child sex slaves at a D.C. restaurant called Comet Ping Pong . Evidently, this pathological mind virus had been circulating on the web since the end of October, 2016. It was traced to a lunatic named Michael G. Flynn, the son of Michael T. Flynn .

As one writer on The UK Guardian put it:

"In any other year a story like 'Pizzagate'  would get you laughed out of a room. The conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was part of a sex-trafficking ring run out of a pizza shop is bizarre and disturbing from start to finish.  But in 2016, a year when nothing makes any sense any more, it can be cited as a motive for a crime".

Interestingly, the Pizzagate mind virus - like the current 'Storm" codswallop-  was assembled from a host of disparate incidents, events subsequently patched into whole cloth rubbish by febrile brains. These included photos of NYPD officers hauling supposed bags with email evidence out of a residence, speculation about Anthony Weiner and his sexting propensity and the presence of some Hillary emails left on his computer, by wife (and HRC aide) Huma Abedin. Supposedly all this in tandem with a paranoid schizophrenic's claim about Hillary's "predilection for underage children" spawned the original brain fart..  Add in the phenomenon of stupid repetition and 'Voila!' - millions of idiots gobbled this fake news like it was the real thing.  

How would Dr. Bannister, if she were alive today, describe a convoluted, paranoid mental mosh pit like "the Storm"?   Basically, she'd probably call it a phantasmagoria and quasi psychotic 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!

Another example of this I gave about a year ago, noting some right wing nitwit  (Michael Weiss) who found a video or image of Russkie lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, e.g.

Sitting at a hearing (from June 14, 2016) behind then Ambassador Michael McFaul. Weiss - who I designated as "Dolt Zero", yapped in a "Eureka!"- style tweet:

"Hey, look what I found. Veselnitskaya sitting behind @McFaul at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Russia, June 14, 2014"

As if it was some huge discovery of a nefarious link, as opposed to simple seating coincidence. But this is the nature of egregious conspiracy claptrap ideation : it grabs isolated events and imagery and tries to stitch these disparate spots into a coherent whole - using all manner of irrational backflips, non sequiturs and hasty conclusions to arrive at  half-cocked rubbish, like Mike Flynn's 'Pizzagate' refuse.

Sure enough, as with all mind virus infections, Weiss' garbage was then picked up by Gateway Pundit - which we shall designate "Dolt Zero + 1".    These morons handled a website often known for inaccurate information.   Once again, following the playbook of conspiracy crackpots - notorious for jumping to conclusions with zero substantiation - the image was presented as evidence of a connection between Veselnitskaya and the Obama administration.

This was based on the fictitious claim Veselnitskaya was "sitting with" McFaul, despite the fact she was doing no such thing. She was seated BEHIND him. BEHIND him is NOT seated with him.  If I attend a concert with wifey and our rabid right wing congress critter Doug Lamborn is seated behind us, that doesn't mean we are "seated with" him! 

The spread of the mind virus then leapt again to "Dolt ZERO + 2" in the guise of the guttersnipes known as the Sludge ....errrr..... "Drudge Report".  WikiLeaks, losing any semblance of temperance or intelligence, then further spread this nonsense, re-tweeting the image with this:

Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at hearing on Russia left of Obama's @McFaul eight days after @donaldjtrumpjr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJkgSPSb0o …

 This fantasy conspiracy then jumped the shark - infecting  the usual stable of half-assed, right wing media personalities (e.g. Hannity, Limburger etc.) who then regurgitated this offal.

I submit the Storm bunkum pretty well fits the same model and modus operandi of spreading.

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?

See also:

• Worse than Pizzagate conspiracy theory is gaining force among Trump supporters

Crackpot "Pizzagate" Tale Promoted By Michael G. Flynn Almost Led To D.C. Tragedy

"Doh! I  duz know Pizzagate true 'cuz a real general did tweet it!"

I want to begin by knocking out the crappola bilge that off the wall, wild claims qualify as "conspiracy theories". No, they do not. They are pure unadulterated bullshit that no rational mind ought to entertain.. That includes the "Jade Helm" nonsense about the military taking over TX, as well as assorted other claptrap - including that the feds are "buying up all the ammo" to deny 2nd amendment rights, and especially the noxious waste "Pizzagate" - which reared its ugly head again over the weekend.    All of these are what I refer to as debased mind viruses or mental infections. The origin of mind viruses can be traced specifically to the chapter, 'The Kingdom and the Darkness' in the book, Chance and Necessity' by Biochemist Jacques Monod (Collins Books, UK, 1970)

Monod portrayed the spread of inherently primitive, anti-human and perverse ideas, to a kind of mind-to -mind infection. Hence the later coined term, "mind virus".  That is what "Pizzagate" is, not a conspiracy theory and certainly not even a conspiracy hypothesis.

I had no idea, zero, what "Pizzagate" was until watching yesterday evening's lead news story about a brain-jacked lunatic - Edgar Welch- who drove 9 hours from North Carolina to try to "free" child sex slaves at a D.C. restaurant called Comet Ping Pong . Evidently, this insane, insipid mind virus has been circulating on the web since the end of October. It has been traced to a lunatic named Michael G. Flynn, the son of Michael T. Flynn - actually tipped to be Donald Dump's national security advisor - if you can believe it.

As one writer on The UK Guardian put it:

"In any other year a story like 'Pizzagate'  would get you laughed out of a room. The conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was part of a sex-trafficking ring run out of a pizza shop is bizarre and disturbing from start to finish.  But in 2016, a year when nothing makes any sense any more, it can be cited as a motive for a crime".

Before viewing the news segment, I got a heads up on the cockamamey BS circulated online by the American Right after reading an op-ed by Richard Thieme in The Milwaukee Journal -Sentinel in which Thieme wrote:

"I was asked to submit a bio to a local group as a possible speaker. My topics were misunderstood, distorted by the framework through which the contact for the group read them, and he sent an email defining the speech he hoped I could produce:

' ... it would be fantastic to have a ‘dream speaker’ that could link the topics of the Power-Elite, Occult ritual, who’s teaching them how to do this, why they are doing it, pedophilia, bohemian grove, Eyes Wide Shut parties, the Clintons, technocratic globalism, child trafficking, mainstream media, mainstream entertainers/Hollywood, Alien/UFO government mythology, Lolita Island, War, Alister Crowley followers, state-sponsored assassinations, CIA, FBI and much much more. ... a speaker who can skillfully link all of these dark connections in an eloquent, matter-of-fact way.'

The email provided a link to a video in which three men discussed all this and more in sensational unsupported terms and added satanic ritual, cannibalism, and child rape to the antics of the power elite, crimes that are unreported by “the media” because publishers are at those parties, participating in rape and human sacrifice, hence unwilling to tell the truth about them.

That group is a mainstream group. That video has more than half a million hits. That absurd narrative collects unthinking people into a homogeneous group, which by repetition reinforces the credibility of their assertions. In a similar vein, I am sometimes asked after speeches if I believe we went to the moon or have rovers on Mars."

I then did a follow-up Google search after watching the news yesterday evening and learned "Pizzagate" is a whackadoodle patch of nonsense  launched by Michael G. Flynn as well his crackpot  old man. . I am not going to dignify this pile of horse shit by repeating it in any detail, only to say it was confected by morons with too much time on their hands  - with the same reptile brain features as conspiracy lunatic Alex Jones, e.g.


It basically was assembled from a host of disparate incidents, events including photos of NYPD officers hauling supposed bags with email evidence out of a residence, speculation about Anthony Weiner and his sexting propensity and the presence of some Hillary emails left on his computer, by wife and HRC aide Huma Abedin. Supposedly all this in tandem with a paranoid schizophrenic's claim about :Hillary's "predilection for underage children".  Add in the phenomenon of stupid repetition and 'Voila!' - millions of idiots gobble this fake news like it's the real thing.

As one skeptic website (inverse.com) already noted, the Comet pizza place where all the horrific acts were supposedly taking place didn't even have a freaking basement!

Never mind, the hijacked brains invested in this bullshit are 100 percent convinced  they are really global citizens conducting a "worldwide citizen investigation" to rout the evil motherfuckers and elites behind it. Puh-leeze, get a life already, Sparky!   The kicker in all this is Michael G. Flynn's assertion in one tweet that:

"Until Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain a story."

Uh no, laddie. See you have it ass-backwards. It is logically impossible, indeed futile - to prove a negative. Tell me that 6 inch Martians are building tiny canals on Mars right now and it is my job to "disprove it" - and I will refer you to the nearest psych ward that offers ECT. That's not the way proof and disproof work - at least for those of us in touch with reality. (And as one who likely now faces metastatic prostate cancer - based on results from a new genetic test-  that's as grounded in reality as it gets. I don't have the time to indulge in half -assed bullshit circulated by clueless  screwballs).

No, the way it works is you proffer the claim and then you cite the evidence to support the claim. If you can't outright prove your contention you are at least charged with providing high QA support by way of documents, evidence. Oh, and that doesn't include photo-shopped images or edited videos that are a farce.

Daddy (Michael T.) Flynn isn't much better, tweeting 6 days before the election:

"U decide. NYPD Blows Whistle on New Hillary Emails. Money Laundering. Sex Crimes w. Children etc."

In fact, the FBI blew no such "whistle" instead admitting they had nothing, nada and basically jumped the gun in trying to tie the emails found on Anthony Weiner's computer to any nefarious deeds.  The real question, of what "U ought to decide" - is whether an unstable crackpot lunatic like this belongs anywhere near the seat of executive power. If he can make up bullshit like this what sort of bunkum might he confect - involving the Chinese- say to try to get Donald Dump to launch a missile attack on the Spratly Islands?  You tell me. Personally, I wouldn't trust this deranged imp or his son to even take the nuclear football to an NSA meeting.

When one speaks of a "theory" he at least means something with a residue of rationality, consistent explication and sense, even if later proven wrong. But these noxious tweets spouted by the Flynns and their supporters are straight out of Kook-land. The email cited by Richard Thieme (blue highlighted) above. "Power elite occult rituals"? "Eyes wide shut parties?" "Lolita Island"? These are the stuff of seriously disturbed paranoid fantasies which no one of any intelligence, mental stability or common sense ought to be feeding his neurons. 

A warning ought to be attached: "This balderdash is harmful to your mental health".  As it certainly turned out to be for the sorry Edgar Welch, who now faces an insecure physical future too after firing a round from his AR-15 into the Comet Ping Pong floor after realizing the fake news of "Pizzagate" had mind- fucked him. But too late! He'd driven nine hours to make a point that ended up being empty with him holding the bag....errr....gun....thanks to buying into the Pizzagate crap.

As I noted in my October 28 post ('Separating Paranoid Balderdash from Rational Conspiracy Thinking'), "Pizzagate" and other cockeyed nonsense like Alex Jones' claim that Newtown was a "false flag" are the stuff of an irrational, indiscriminate, paranoid culture not a serious conspiracy research community (such as one finds with most who investigate the JFK assassination-  supported by actual physics).  

In the same post I cited Barbadian psychologist Pat Bannister who envisaged the latter as the province of mature, rational, educated adults. The former, on the other hand,  constituted  the realm of the semi-literate or poorly educated who fancied themselves adults but really weren't.   They were more like overgrown children playing elaborate paranoid games. Irrationalists like the indiscriminate conspiracy monger, Alex Jones and yes, his lunatics. in arms, Michael G. and Michael T. Flynn.

Will the Pizzagate insanity stop now that Welch himself has essentially verified it's horse shit? Not bloody likely, because - as my spiritually inclined sister-in-law Krimhilde has aptly put it - some people will always feed their minds with the basest material.  As she told me when I last spoke with her in May of this year:

"Attraction of so many to porn, debased stories, gossip and lies is the outcome when we accept only the animal level mind and refuse to rise above it. Our politicians and leaders must seek to rise above this degraded low vibration mind and listen more to the higher Voice within, The still, small voice that beseeches each of us to embrace truth, to follow it....not lies"

While I don't necessarily agree with all her spiritual analogies and turns of phrase, I do think she is on to something. That also means that wretched and debased muck like Pizzagate will continue making the rounds on the net until people become  "the sentinels at watch at the front gates of their minds" - to use my late father-in-law's phrasing. (From Science of Mind)  In other words, people have to take ownership for what they themselves put into their minds, recognizing  "garbage in, garbage out".  We can blame the sources themselves up to a point but ultimately we choose what we will accept and reject. If we accept tawdry, unsupported and degraded filth then that is what our minds will reflect. And sadly, that filth will eventually resonate in our very personality and being - limiting and defining all future perceptions, choices.

Richard Thieme's ending words also ring out:

"The inability to discriminate between plausible and crazy plus the impossibility of knowing what’s real in this perpetual fog of information warfare causes anxiety and fear, which people counter with narratives to comfort the afflicted soul. Then it’s called “truth.” When we feel helpless and lacking control over our lives, we project impossible narratives onto fragmented data and comfort ourselves with theories which, if examined closely, would be seen to be foolish"

And to quote from the Uk Guardian author:

"Pizzagate is a lie but what it says about our society is real"

Sadly, the Trump voters have foisted upon us a cabal with only the most degenerate and degraded notions to offer up for consumption. A toxic mental cocktail of perverse ideation that has created an alternative degenerate mind virus "reality".  Since two realities cannot co-exist and lead to a stable union - say for a  nation - it means we are all for the high jump now unless these purveyors of lies are finally shut out of their efforts to seize power. That means we need dozens of state electors - mainly in Trump taken states- to turn the tables on December 19th and choose to be faithless electors.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/11/yes-there-is-non-violent-way-to-prevent.html

And:

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/06/michael-flynns-conspiracy-minded-son-who-tweeted-about-the-pizzagate-theory-is-on-donald-trumps-transition-team/

And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/70159/in-like-flynn-blowback-for-filth-peddling-fascists