Written by I just watched the trailer for HBO’s “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” and I have some decidedly complex feelings about that entire situation.
When I first got active in politics in 2009, I quickly was exposed to Alex Jones. I had similarly mixed feelings then. It was 100% clear to me from my earliest exposure that Jones was not particularly concerned with the veracity of his assertions. He was clearly a showman first, and there may be some legitimate debate about the hierarchy of his subsequent priorities. Salesman. Activist. Subversive, maybe? Intelligence operation? Tough to say.
It is absolutely impossible to imagine a scenario where Alex Jones was not in contact with intelligence agencies, or that he was entirely unaware of this fact. How much awareness he had, of this we can only speculate.
It would be positively negligent on the part of US and foreign intelligence agencies not to have people acting on their behalf try to obtain jobs within the InfoWars company. I wasn’t able to get very detailed audience size information quickly, and Jones’s myriad social media bans complicate the process. During the Sandy Hook defamation trial, it came out that there was a period of time Jones was making as much as $800,000 per day. So, it’s fair to say Jones has millions of people listening to what he says in the United States. Plenty more people around the world as well. Some of those people are so terrified by the things they hear Alex Jones say that they would resort to violence. It has already happened more than once, and it is the obligation of intelligence agencies to either thwart or utilize that potential.
I’ve not reviewed the transcripts, but to the best of my knowledge, government involvement at InfoWars never came up during the Sandy Hook defamation trial. Seems to me that would have been newsworthy had it been mentioned. Even had the Judge ruled that such evidence was inadmissible, this would have transpired in pre-trial public filings, and I have a hard time believing the Daily Beast would have let that go unnoticed, even if only to mock the prospect. Given the reputation of Mr. Jones, it is difficult to understand why such implications would not be made, even on the thinnest of grounds, even disingenuously, just to muddy the waters.
To this we cannot attribute the competence or integrity of Jones’s attorney. During the Sandy Hook trial, Mark Bankston, an attorney for the Plaintiffs, notified the court that “12 days ago, his [Jones’] attorneys messed up and sent me a digital copy of every text” and email from Jones’ phone. Those messages contradicted some of Jones’s statements under oath, and this caused no shortage of trouble for the defendant.
In my mind, the only plausible explanation for government involvement not being mentioned is government involvement. The conspicuous absence of any mention of this says to me that it was scrubbed. I’ve not had a chance to review the leaked messages, and I’m not sure anyone besides the lawyers in the case have, but whether Jones is a liar or not, it is completely implausible that his private messages did not contain references to government involvement, and with all the hype around the case and malfeasance from his own lawyers, it is very difficult to imagine a scenario where that was the one part they managed to keep out of the headlines.
In the end, Jones was ordered to pay $965,000,000 to the Plaintiffs. That’s a lot of Super Male Vitality…
And speaking of Super Male Vitality, I’m a guy who knows a thing or two about dietary supplements. I thought about jumping into the business right around the time I was getting ready to go to Virginia in 2017. This is an industry that is absolutely mired in deception, lunacy, and unclear dealings. While reputable people do deal in supplements, they are often at a disadvantage against less scrupulous competitors.
There are regulations regarding what you can and cannot say when pedaling these products. When you learn to spot the pattern, you can tell that statements have been crafted with the help of lawyers. You cannot say that an herb will cure cancer, but you can say that “This cancer patient started taking this herb and six months later such and such a result happened” so long as you do not make a direct causal statement. If a model starts taking Super Male Vitality, and anabolic steroids at the same time, six months later you can show his before and after photos and say “Look at the difference while taking Super Male Vitality” without mentioning the steroids. Doubtless you’ve all heard the disclaimer “These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease”. This is lawyerspeak.
InfoWars goes a step further, with this disclaimer, in BIG BOLD PRINT FONT on the Super Male Vitality product page, and presumably all the others;
Supplement & Food Product Disclaimer: Infowars thanks you for your support of the operation. As always, we offer what we have researched and believe to be the highest quality selection of products for you and your family that have been developed along with the advisory of top doctors and experts. It is important to do your own research and consult with a qualified healthcare provider or doctor to decide what is best for you. We also know that everyone’s bodies are different, and it is essential to consult with a qualified health care professional before taking products offered on this website. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a doctor or qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. And by purchasing any item from this store, you agree to these terms and conditions as well as understand that by using these products you are agreeing to abide by this contract. Infowars Life is not held responsible for the irresponsible use of this product.
So long as there is not a “new dietary ingredient” in the supplement, the marketing language is basically the only regulatory hurdle. You can sell them as easily as you can sell tomatoes. If you cannot pass it off as an existing dietary ingredient, and the chemical is not banned, you can still sell it as a “research chemical” though typically with some language that says “not for human consumption”. What counts as a “new dietary ingredient” is a subject of some controversy. Various chemicals are sold as extracts from plants, even though they are synthesized chemicals. For example “geranium oil” or “geranium extract” typically refers to a synthetic chemical known as methylhexanamine, 1,3-dimethylamylamine, or DMAA. Nobody is extracting this chemical from geraniums. It is synthesized in a lab. The geranium stuff is just an excuse to market the product without filing an NDI form with the FDA. Supplements like Oxy Elite Pro and Jack3D from USPLabs ended up in legal wranglings with the FDA for their use of the stimulant. Due to those legal wrangling, some chemists replaced the amyl group with a butyl group to synthesize 1, 3 Dimethylbutylamine, or DMBA, marketed as AMP Citrate, claiming this was a “Pouchong Tea Extract”. No DMBA has ever been extracted from all the Tea in China.
I don’t know if Alex Jones was selling the chemicals above, but it’s an industry controversy I am familiar with because I became very fond of DMAA for awhile and wanted to sell it, but concluded this would be unwise.
Around the same time I began looking at some of the things Jones was selling. Super Male Vitality among them. The potion is sold in a 60ml bottle currently on sale for the bargain price of $52.45, 25% off the regular $69.95 for a whopping $17.50 savings. An Atlantic article from 2017 shows the same “sale” was going on then. The product purports to contain Tribulus Terrestris (fruit), Tongkat Ali (root), Ashwaganda (root), Maca (root), Avena Sativa (leaf/stem), Suma (root), Catuaba (bark), Muira Puama (bark), and Fulvic Acid. Buzzfeed sent this and several other InfoWars supplements out for lab testing, and this confirmed the accuracy of the labels, but the labels do not state how much of each ingredient is in the supplement, it just says “a blend of” these ingredients. It is not uncommon for supplement blends to lack clarity on their “proprietary formulas,” but Alex Jones purports to be the guy who is telling you the things all these other swindlers are hiding from you, while intentionally obscuring the makeup of the products he sells. This could fairly be described as indicia of deception.
In the supplements industry, it’s common enough for disputes to arise and these can happen in good faith. Buzzfeed’s experts say these ingredients are ineffective, I think that’s likely an overstatement. Tribulus Terrestris, and Tongkat Ali, I recognize from many supplements and there’s anecdotal evidence to support their efficacy, even if it does not meet the FDA standards for concrete statements about health benefits.
More to the point though, these things are dirt cheap, and Jones sells them at outrageous prices. At BulkSupplements.com you can purchase a kilogram of Tongkat Ali for $48.96, and a kilo of Tribulus Terrestris for $25.96. It is by no means unusual for proprietary blends of readily available supplements to have high markups, but even by the standards of a largely questionable industry, InfoWars products are some of the most expensive. This is the behavior of a company out to get everything that it can as fast as it can, and while that might be a respectable business model in the United States, it clashes with Jones’s own marketing campaign where he’s just looking out for the average American.
To get into each and every Alex Jones theory would be way too time consuming. Whether it’s Sandy Hook or 9/11 or juice boxes turning frogs gay or whatever number of the more controversial claims, there will always be some element of verifiable truth to what he is saying, some tether to reality. The content would not work if he was making things up out of thin air and just telling you that Joe Biden is a cyborg from the Planet Buguhunkachunk on the account of some guy who called in and made the statement on the show without identifying himself.
Jones was influenced early in his career by William Cooper, a radio host and author of the book “Behold A Pale Horse”. To say this book lacked credibility to the skeptical reader would be an understatement. Chief among the “evidence” provided for the myriad conspiracy theories laid out, a document titled “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” begins the book with this Author’s Note;
[Above title added by WC]
WC/Author’s Note: I read Top Secret documents which explained that “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” is the doctrine adopted by the Policy Committee of the Bilderberg Group during its first known meeting in 1954. A copy found in 1969 was in the possession of Naval Intelligence.
The following document, dated May 1979, was found on July 7,1986, in an IBM copier that had been purchased at a surplus sale.
So Cooper claims to have seen this document while he was working for Naval Intelligence, but needless to say, he was not able to retain a copy. Confirmation of this document is discovered in a copy machine that just happened to be sold at a surplus sale. Where that surplus sale took place is left unexplained, as is who purchased the copier, testified to its authenticity, or got the document to Cooper.
The document in the book is not scanned or photographed. It is just text in the book’s font. The document is edited by Cooper, and he places in ALL CAPS or [within brackets] those words he considers very important, as explained in this author’s note, 8 paragraphs in;
WC/Author’s Note: All above emphases are mine as are those in the following two sections and including bracketed additions throughout
The text begins;
TOP SECRET
Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars
An introductory programming manual Operations Research
Technical Manual TM-SW7905.1
WELCOME ABOARD
This publication marks the 25th anniversary of the Third World War, called the “Quiet War/’ being conducted using subjective biological warfare, fought with “silent weapons.”
This book contains an introductory description of this war, its strategies, and its weaponry.
May 1979 #74-1120
SECURITY
It is patently impossible to discuss social engineering or the automat¬ ion of a society, i.e., the engineering of social automation systems (SILENT WEAPONS) on a NATIONAL or WORLDWIDE SCALE without implying extensive OBJECTIVES of SOCIAL CONTROL and DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE, i.e., SLAVERY and GENOCIDE.
This manual is in itself an analog declaration of intent. Such a writing must be SECURED FROM PUBLIC SCRUTINY. Otherwise, it might be recognized as a TECHNICALLY FORMAL DECLARATION OF DOMESTIC WAR. Furthermore, whenever any person or group of persons in a position of great power and WITHOUT FULL KNOWLEDGE and CONSENT OF THE PUBLIC, USES SUCH KNOWLEDGE and METHODOLOGY FOR ECONOMIC CONQUEST —it must be understood that A STATE OF DOMESTIC WARFARE EXISTS between said person or group of persons and the public.
The SOLUTION of today’s PROBLEMS REQUIRES an approach which is RUTHLESSLY CANDID, with NO AGONIZING OVER RELIGIOUS, MORAL or CULTURAL VALUES.
YOU have QUALIFIED for this project BECAUSE of your ABILITY to LOOK at HUMAN SOCIETY with COLD OBJECTIVITY, and yet analyze and DISCUSS your OBSERVATIONS and CONCLUSIONS with OTHERS of similar INTELLECTUAL capacity WITHOUT a LOSS of DISCRETION or HUMILITY. Such virtues are exercised in your own best interest. Do not deviate from them.
The supposed document goes on to make some patently ridiculous statements about the laws of physics and economics and asserts that the purpose of warfare is to “balance the account, because war ultimately is merely the act of destroying the creditor”.
In other words, they murder their slaves from time to time because they owe their slaves money. You don’t need to be an economist to understand the problem with that theory. It’s complete and utter nonsense, and the entire book is based on this theory along with Cooper’s assertions that he saw alien space craft while he was working for the Navy.
To call this unsophisticated is charitable in the extreme, but it made money and was presumably a lot of fun. Whatever you might think about Alex Jones, he isn’t stupid. He had to have understood this when he got into the media business, and he would have meant to improve upon it.
Jones began with a public access cable show. He switched to radio in 1996 as the host of The Final Edition on KJFK (98.9 FM) in Austin, Texas. Not entirely unlike your humble correspondent, Jones was fired from the radio station three years later, at which point he launched the InfoWars branding and used the controversy to propel him to fame. He was picked up by Genesis Communications Network, or GCN Live, shortly after, which just so happens to be the same network that carried the show I co-hosted, Free Talk Live. This got Jones national syndication.
Today, not so many FCC stations carry the Alex Jones show. There is a poorly structured list of stations that carried him from 2018, which seems to be updated from time to time noting that a station took him off the air such and such a date, encouraging readers to contact those remaining stations to get them to follow suit. Though many nationally syndicated productions list their affiliate stations, InfoWars knows better then to give such outfits a list of people to pressure, and makes no such thing public.
His Internet media empire has suffered as he was banned from platform after platform. Jones has tried to circumvent these bans, for example launching the National File after being banned from Facebook over supposed “COVID misinformation”.
He suffered some financial system deplatforming, notably from PayPal, but is still able to collect your Super Male Vitality dollars using any major credit card, and though one expects he’s taken a pay cut, it’s a long way down from $800,000 a day.
I started off saying I have some decidedly complex feelings about the situation, and have yet to address those feelings since I got off on a bit of a tear going through what I could present over the course of an afternoon about the business model and history.
I don’t hold making money against nobody. That is not evidence of deception. Evidence of deception is when somebody tells you something completely ridiculous, like “I work my ass off all the time for nothing”. That guy is definitely lying to you.
But the Alex Jones business model thrives on its lack of clarity. It demonstrates through this and its prices that it assumes their listeners to be undiscerning buyers. It necessarily follows then, that they do not presume their listeners to be discerning consumers of information, either, and this comes across in the content.
I’m not a free speech guy. There are a lot of things you should not be able to say without going to prison. Civil liability is an appropriate penalty, and means of compensating victims, for defamation and plenty of other words as deeds when you impose costs on others unjustly. There are plenty of other things you might be able to avoid legal penalty for, but have predictable social and economic consequences that one has little right to complain about, these being foreseeable. Whether foreseeable or not, the idea that you can say whatever you want and hide behind the constitution when your words are impacting others negatively is absolute nonsense. To speak is to act, and we are all responsible for our actions whether they involve the motion of your lips or the motion of a clenched fist.
Alex Jones is not a totally honest actor, so for him, the truth actually is no defense. That’s obvious for anyone who bothers to take a few minutes of research. For Jones to go full shock jock on Sandy Hook demonstrates that he does not mind being hated. So, to then toe the line on race questions, even as he dances around these issues in discussions on immigration and the like, demonstrates that he knows he is lying about things to his audience, because there are some people you just cannot cross in our politics. He backs down to power when it suits his purposes, and purports to challenge it when that sells more overpriced root powders.
The people who hate Alex Jones the most, are more dishonest than he could ever aspire to be, and like many people on the Right, he uses their bad dealings to cover up his own.
So, it is certainly arguable that he means well. We are, after all, involved in an information war. That much of his branding is accurate. It is anything but silent, contra Cooper.
Whether or not it is wise to make the whole information environment so unreliable that discernment is impossible, I’d say leaves room for debate. Breaking the current information frame of the Left wing media and its supposed center Right co-conspirators is a thing worth doing, but must we scorch the Earth and salt the fields in the process? There’s a legitimate argument to be made that this will in fact be necessary. The bad guys would certainly sooner rule the ashes than relinquish control, but the implications are fairly dire.
I don’t see a plan for putting the world back together after it falls apart. It seems to me that, for all actors of noteworthy consequence, there is only destruction on the horizon.
I’ll have much more to say about this when we meet tonight as we do every Wednesday at 9:30pm US Eastern for our SurrealPolitiks Members Only Video Chat.
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