Since this movie was pushed by 9-11 Truth Groups at tea parties on Wednesday, and now is being advertised on both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck's radio programs I thought I would discuss the film.

First,understand that the tea party crowd may enjoy the title, but they're really not the target market for this nonsense. This film is really aimed at leftist supporters of Obama, trying to peel them away, as anybody can tell very quickly.

For example, one of the early messages Alex Jones pushes is that Obama is just like Bush; not a sentiment likely to win converts on the right. He notes that Obama keptGates as defense secretary; this of course is one of the things that conservatives would give Obama credit for.

The movie starts with KRS-One, apparently a famed rapper (dang, I knew I should have listened to that crap more). He gives a rather silly monologue about how Obama is the manager at Burger King. If you don't like your burger at Burger King, you can't just go to the cashier (which is the court system), you need to go above Obama the manager to the guy who actually owns the franchise. I'm thinking that the burger is the economy and thefranchise owner is the New World Order.

Next we go to a group discussion including those noted deep thinkers, Jesse Ventura and Willie Nelson. Jesse tells us that politics is like pro wrestling; theymay hate each other in front of the cameras but they're best buds when the red light goes off. This is relatively non-controversial; Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy apparently do get along famously in private life.But what Alex Jones is selling with this bit is that they're all secretly conspiring to do something nasty to us and just pretending to have political differences (which is completely untrue).

Now weget to the man that Jones is selling as his Obama expert: Webster Tarpley. Tarpley is a former Lyndon LaRouche follower; he wasLaRouche's main man in Europe for decades, before being purged with the rest of the Baby Boomers in the late 1990s as LaRouche focused his hucksterism on Generation X.

I love the bit about 6:10 in regarding the end of "Posse Commentatus"; that's been a staple of kooks since forever, but most of them pronounce it right.

And indeed,much of the film could have been done by the LaRouche people; LaRouche often railed about the Trilateral Commission and the Council on ForeignRelations, two organizatons that along with the Bilderbergers get prominent play in the movie. Tarpley is also the usual cited source forthe idiotic leftist claim that Prescott Bush was the banker to theNazis, a ridiculous misreading of the actual facts.

Tarpley tells us that Obama's working for Wall Street, another claim not likelyto win the Obama Deception believers on the right wing.

Then comes Joe Rogan. I mean seriously. So far we've had a rapper, awrestler, a country and western singer, a LaRouche cult member and nowwe get the former host of Fear Factor? Oh, but he's got so much credibility because he's a mixed martial arts announcer! One of theusual faults of conspiracy theories is the "Appeal to Authority," butin this case Alex seems to be going with "Appeal to Celebrity."

Jones'first words (his voice is distinctively gravelly) should likely causethe conservative tea partiers to pop open their DVD players and scalethe Obama Deception towards the garbage can.

"America in 2009 was desperate for change. The prior eight years had been a disaster."

Okay,seriously, is there any conservative that needs to hear more? But incase they do, I would like to point out that this video is produced by Alex Jones, who spent the last 7 years claiming that the terrorist attacks of 9-11 were a conspiracy planned and orchestrated by the Bush Administration. No matter how much you may hate Obama (and I see a fairamount of it), you don't like Alex Jones.

Some claims in the movie:

Obamatold workers he opposed NAFTA, but he later sent word to Canada that hewas just posturing. This is true, but hardly unusual for a politician.

Forthe most part, this movie is yet another recycling of Alex Jones'master conspiracy theory. Jones believes that the New World Order isupon us, that the upper classes are going to kill 80% of us, andenslave the rest. At least, that's what he sells to the idiots whosubscribe to his site. Let me put it this way; Jones is competing withthe nice gentleman in Nigeria who alerted you to that fortune the uncle you never heard of left behind in his bank before that unfortunate plane crash.

Jonesshould not appeal to sincere conservatives. Let me point out thatbecause his target market is mostly the kind of disaffectedtwenty-somethings wandering around in black tee-shirts, he routinelydisparages the police, talking about how they pick the dumb, evil onespurposely. Ditto with the military; Jones despises the US military. Oh,remember that guy who shot three cops in Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago?Big Alex Jones fan.

Observethe people that Jones cites as his experts; Webster Tarpley, a LyndonLaRouche 9-11 Truther who's such a jerk that fully 3/4 of the 9-11Truthers hate him. And what does Tarpley accuse Obama of? Not being asocialist or a communist. He's a freaking agent of finance capitalism,a creature of Wall Street.

Okay, the next conservative who thinks that Obama represents the capitalists on Wall Street can raise their middle hand.

Sowhy am I posting this now? Because we're now getting an incrediblesurge in traffic over the Obama Deception. We really try to benon-partisan around here, but it is no secret that I supported JohnMcCain for president in 2008, and I remain critical of Obama'sperformance, particularly on the spending side.

I will put upmore detailed pieces debunking the film, now that I see the receptionit is getting. But any conservative that wants to know what I think ofthe Obama Deception should know that it's a piece of crap, and relyingon it for anything is likely to make you look like a fool to anyonewith Google. Let me give a simple example. In the movie, we arepresented with the following quote from Abraham Lincoln:

Isee in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causesme to tremble for the safety of my country. The money power preys uponthe nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times ofadversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent thanautocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as publicenemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. Ihave two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me & thefinancial institutions at the rear, the latter is my greatest foe.Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in highplaces will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor toprolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people untilthe wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic isdestroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of mycountry than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that mysuspicions may prove groundless.

In fact, this is an old fraudulent quote. How old? It was debunked in an 1896 letter to the editor of the New York Times.

Toour liberal readers, forgive me the political intrusion in the abovepost. I am trying to debunk a ridiculously stupid movie about BarackObama that is apparently catching on with conservatives.

Update:Lotta gripes that I didn't debunk enough here; see that "Part I" partof header? This is just the broad brush. See Part II where I get into more specific debunking of claims in the movie.

Labels: Alex Jones, Barack Obama, The Obama Deception

I'mgoing to go into a little more depth at this point. The first eightminutes or so I have already covered in my initial post; Jones makesvery few claims here and mostly has dolts like Jesse Ventura and JoeRogan pushing his argument.

First unfair bit: About a minute in,they show somebody talking about "Where did you come up with the number$700 billion." The answer is indeed a little shameworthy:

"It'snot based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman toldForbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Butthe real shame is that the quote comes from September of last year,when the Bush Administration ran the show. So here we are a minute intothe movie and they're trying to blame Obama for things that the BushAdministration did and said? Ditto with the bit a few moments later,where the congressman mentions that there were claims that martial lawwould result if they didn't vote for the bailout package. This isinvalid because a) it happened under Bush and b) it wasn't a threat byany means, just typical political hyperbole about the reaction from the"people" if the stimulus bill wasn't passed.

Webster Tarpleyappears to make the claim that the New World Order (ooga booga!) issecretly a plot by the British Empire and the American Empire to unitethe globe, but by calling it the "New" World Order they make it soundlike it ain't the same as the old boss.

We meet Gerald Celente,a supposed "trends" forecaster, who says that all of American historyhas been about the people resisting the central banks. Who knew?

Well, Alex is about to inform us. We learn that:

Agentsof the Bank of England attempted to assassinate President AndrewJackson on multiple occasions because of his resistance against aprivate central bank.

Actually an unemployedEnglish housepainter attempted to assassinate Jackson on one occasionbut both his guns misfired and reportedly Jackson gave the man a goodthrashing with his cane. The Bank of England surely had betterassassins than that?

The part that is true of course is thatJackson was an opponent of the Bank of the United States and thehousepainter (apparently) a supporter. But it does leave one to wonderwhy it's the Bank of England that Jones thinks was behind it. Maybebecause the Bank of England is still around to get everybody to sayooga-booga? Also this ties in with Tarpley's former LaRoucheconnection; LaRouche was famous for thinking the Queen of England wasbehind the drug trade.

Celente returns to give a bogus quote from Abraham Lincoln:

Isee in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causesme to tremble for the safety of my country. The money power preys uponthe nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times ofadversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent thanautocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as publicenemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. Ihave two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me & thefinancial institutions at the rear, the latter is my greatest foe.Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in highplaces will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor toprolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people untilthe wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic isdestroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of mycountry than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that mysuspicions may prove groundless.

Ooga-booga, the evil banks. Except that Lincoln never said this; it was debunked in an 1896 letter to the New York Times. Snopes also deals with the second half of the quote here. Note as well that Celente claims that this was why Lincoln was really killed.

Tarpley claims that Obama's inner circle is made up entirely of Wall Street insiders:

"Nobodyfrom heavy industry, nobody from the auto sector, nobody from SiliconValley, nobody from big oil, nobody from defense, no labor, no women,no retirees, no small businessmen, nothing. It's pure Wall Street."

Ofcourse, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is from Silicon Valley, andHillary Clinton is allegedly of the female persuasion. So is Hilda L.Solis of Labor, nominee Kathleen Sebelius of HHS, and Janet Napolitanoof DHS. If anything Obama's cabinet (like most presidential cabinets)is made up of politicians not Wall Streeters; Sebilius, Arne Duncan,Gary Locke and Napolitano are former governors while Clinton and KenSalazar are former Senators. Solis was formerly in the House ofRepresentatives.

Jones reports that before he died Woodrow Wilson regretted instituting the Fed. Jones does not give the full quote, but Salon debunked this awhile ago:

JohnM. Cooper, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, andthe author of several books on Woodrow Wilson, writes:

"I cantell you categorically that this is not a statement of regret forhaving created the Federal Reserve. Wilson never had any regrets forhaving done that. It was an accomplishment in which he took greatpride."

Tarpley returns to talk about how Kennedywas supposed to be a puppet but because of his "personal suffering" hestarted standing up to his masters and was going to (insert fantasyhere) so they had to kill him.

Jones claims that Executive Order #11110,signed by Kennedy, started the process of dismantling the Fed.Wikipedia notes this is a common conspiracy theory claim about thatorder, which actually had to do with issuing silver certificates:

Silvercertificates were printed without interest. The Order was for theTreasury to issue silver certificates against all silver held by thegovernment which did not already have certificates against it. TheOrder was needed due to the passage of Public Law 88-36 which repealedthe Silver Purchase Act and other related monetary measures. One resultwas that after the repeals, only the President could issue new silvercertificates.

Update: See also here for a more thorough discussion of EO 11110. Kudos to commenter Ktesibios for pointing this out.

Jonesalso claims that Kennedy "had begun the process of pulling the troopsout of Vietnam". This is a fantasy that was popular on the fringe leftback in the 1960s and 1970s; somehow they managed to convincethemselves that Kennedy, a hardline anti-communist, would not havegotten bogged down in Vietnam like Johnson.

Jones claims thatthe media are all using the term New World Order; this is actuallytrue, although of course the media use it in the generally benign senseof a transfer of power from the GOP to the Democrats. He says thatsuddenly the Wall Street Journal is talking positively about a NorthAmerican currency.

That stems from this single column by a Marketwatch reporter named Todd Harrison, who appears to be an Alex Jones fan from his column:

TheNew World Order is upon us, full of hope, promise and a fair amount offear. In our recent discussion regarding the direction of our country,we noted the risks of catering to conventional wisdom and theimplications for the U.S. dollar.

A columnist forthe Financial Times called for a World Government! Ooga-booga! RahmEmanuel admitted that they don't want to let the crisis go to waste.Kissinger mentioned the New World Order! Oooooga-booooooga!

Youknow of course how this goes. Take some idiotic mumbo-jumbo thatpoliticians like to use a lot, and translate it to mean something evil."Bipartisan support" from now on means that they want to turn us allinto flesh-eating ghouls. So the next time you see Ted Kennedy talkingabout bipartisan support for his next bill, get your shotgun loadedbecause the zombies are going to be popping out of their graves at anymoment. Oooga-boooga!

We are now about 20 minutes into the movie, and that seems to be a good time for a break.