The holy parchment of all that is honest and true commonly known as The Guardian just dropped its latest opinion piece written by regular contributor and hero of the far left, Owen Jones.
I've not really covered Jones much, but from what I've read of his work in the past, this latest smorgasbord of opinion is typical of the mop-topped, baby faced one.
Owen Jones appears incapable of expressing his opinion in any other way that makes him not look like he just graduated University (the guys pushing 40). As he bludgeons his way through yet another essay, light on facts and oblivious to what's going on outside the Left Wing bubble he's surrounded himself in.
In short. All Owen Jones articles appear to be recycled paragraphs from previous Owen Jones articles, smushed together and presented as "the latest thing"
His latest is not about "extreme" websites peddling misinformation, of which he has spoken about often, but of how to tackle "mainstream" websites peddling misinformation. But having already read the article (I'm like that) the problem Jones has is with one mainstream website and one mainstream website only The Spectator. He even takes a swipe at Douglas Murray, which will be highly amusing to see Murrays reaction.
Behold! Some guff I cobbled together.
So his first paragraph is informing us of a bunch of wild conspiracy claims, then he goes on to claim that new polling suggests that it is true, now some of the "facts" in his opening claim are a little difficult to track down, but this is not what I want to concentrate on.
Today lets have a look at not what the polling data says, even Jones himself admits that data can very easily be manipulated, or at the very best, its simply a case of the wrong questions being asked.
Although Jones boldly claims that 6 million people believe violence is fair response to some alleged conspiracy theories, the question itself is not a very good one. After all, not all conspiracy theories are wrong. But it is a prime example of a bad question. Let me give you an example.
The government announce that the country is in lockdown because of a chronic outbreak of dandruff (they never asked this question in their polling) but if the government were to do this, I think many would be inclined to say violence "could" be justified.
This is not the fault of the pollsters, I have written previously about the company who undertook the polling and they are very good, It's just extremely difficult to get the exact right question, especially if its a quick poll and you don't want to overwhelm people with multiple scenario's. But moving on.
He then casts doubt over the Biden administrations claims that the Covid pandemic was the result of a lab leak in Wuhan.
Why Jones believes this is a conspiracy theory is beyond me, there is a far higher chance of it coming from the lab, than there is in it coming from a wet market.
Now Jones moves on to the "Great replacement theory" claims that have been made in plenty of right wing media outlets, yet also the Spectator, which is centre right. But people aren't only swayed by media outlets, they're also swayed by what they see with their own eyes. Who could forget far left communist Ash Sarkar claim that "we're winning lads" of course, she backtracks, but the damage is already done.
Here's Ash in her usual mocking tone saying if you took her comment seriously then its because you're a racist, which is the usual trick the far left use in order to shut down debate.
But couple that with other low grade activists like Shola
And who can forget the academically challenged Gopal (she who must be obeyed)
You could at least be forgiven for answering in the affirmative if you believe in the great replacement theory.
This is of course without including the monumental mountains of data in the latest census results.
Of course, one can easily brush all this off. Activist academics very often speak in a language the normal man on the street wouldn't be able to understand (principally because he has probably not read the same books they have), which does leave me wondering why they do it in the first place.
But maybe the hundreds and thousands of migrants alighting these shores every year (mostly documented but many thousands who aren't) could persuade someone into thinking the great replacement is happening, not least of all because the sheer amount of evidence that proves that it is.
So how would they fight this "misinformation"? How does one go about allaying fear among the public?
You post this on the London Underground.
That ought to work.
Then we move onto conspiracy theories surrounding the London underground attacks from way back in 2005, and the Manchester Arena bombing. But these aren't really right wing media conspiracy theories and Jones seems a little obsessed with concentrating solely on the right wing, so I will as well.
Next we have 15 minute cities. The problem with 15 minute Cities and the left wing is they seem unable to see how a government could abuse its authority over a 15 minute City. First of all, who gets to decide what your 15 min City comprises of, the general public have a nasty habit of wanting many different things out of life. What if a member of the public transgresses the rules that appear to have changed quite significantly to what they remembered how much freer they felt only 5 years ago?
Government over-reach should always be at the forefront of peoples minds.
Speaking of restricting people going about their lives, at the very beginning of the article Jones mentions CBDC's (central bank digital currencies) He doesn't explore this any further because he believes that people are just too dumb to understand what they are (unlike him)
To put it simply, CBCD's mark the beginning of the move away from fiat (paper) money to digital money. This should be very concerning because if control of your own money is completely digital, then there may come a time when a government decides to simply freeze your bank accounts. With no paper money, it hardly needs explaining how dangerous this could be. Imagine a society where every single transaction you make is recorded? I know what you're thinking, don't be silly Dean, that's just a conspiracy theory...Except
History is littered with proof that if you allow a government to take away your freedoms, they're extremely difficult to get back.
Ironically Jones finishes his article by mentioning the BBC, but he limits himself to railing against Auntie Beeb for not putting The Spectator under more scrutiny.
Talking of the BBC. Lets have a look at those guys.
BBC have recently launched BBC Verify, already it has come under fire, in its previous guise it woefully under-reported and outright smeared the anti-lockdown protests
Then we had the official launch of BBC Verify, headed by the (rather aptly named) Dis-information expert Marianna Spring.
In the short video, Spring breathlessly tells the viewer all about this exciting launch. Arms gesticulating towards large screens that tell us not only where they are, what they intend to do and how they intend to do it. Most importantly, the elf-like Spring excitedly tells us WHO they are going to do it against!
That could be anyone right? Left-wing nutters like hope-not-hate would be a great place to start. or Just-stop-oil? Or what about the recent bullying and intimidation tactics employed against women by the Black Pampers themselves Antifa?
Well, no, exclusively, it will be right wing groups and how they are funded. Because its not like we don't have enough coverage of those guys.
BBC Verify hasn't got off to the best of starts, the comically named "Marianna in Conspiracyland" has already had holes punched through it the size of Zeppelins over the claims against Former UKIP candidate and owner of The Lotus Eaters website Carl Benjamin, and this is the very first episode of 10 (groan)
Here's Benjamins response
And Springs twitter response, block everyone who disagrees with her and claim she is being trolled.
I'm not one for saying people are out of their depth very often, but Spring is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic and the life raft is sinking.
And this is Jones (and Springs) biggest problem, if you constantly go after the right wing in spite of all the fingers pointing toward the left wing hypocrisy, people are going to keep asking uncomfortable questions and confidence in the mainstream media will continue to plummet.
If you only go after one wing of the political spectrum, you aren't journalists, you're propagandists.
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