{"id":1183,"date":"2016-02-14T14:28:06","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T14:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=1183"},"modified":"2016-02-16T16:56:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T16:56:45","slug":"alex-jones-the-court-jester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html","title":{"rendered":"Alex Jones, the court jester"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Although many Americans see Alex Jones, talk show host and conspiracy theorist, as a critic of the political &#8220;elite&#8221;, he could not be further from it. Whether he is aware of it or not, Alex Jones is a member of the political elite, and a useful one.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Alex Jones labels his work as &#8220;alternative media&#8221; and says &#8220;the establishment is doing everything they can to suppress us&#8221;. But while\u00a0other authors, including academics and scientists, struggle to have their views aired in the US, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Alex_Jones\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Jones<\/a>&#8216; stupid crazy beliefs and theories are broadcasted into every home in America. As far as all forms of hard and soft censorship are\u00a0concerned, Alex Jones experiences none.\u00a0In fact, his performances are actively encouraged and circulated by the existing media, nationally syndicated, flanked by corporate advertisements.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Even more scandalously, some of the &#8220;elite&#8221; demonized by Alex Jones actually have almost no mass\u00a0media reach, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Transhumanism\" target=\"_blank\">transhumanists<\/a>, compared to his asinine show and website. The only reason Alex Jones (and Daniel Estulin) gets away with demonizing transhumanists as a global power elite is that the transhumanists are too weak and outnumbered\u00a0to retaliate. He is a bully, picking on people too weak to respond and portraying them as grand conspirators. Yet we transhumanists are apparently the &#8220;elite&#8221; suppressing\u00a0him?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Alex Jones works via the same broadcasters and is supported by the same web services as all other cheap, shallow corporate\u00a0media. A substantial amount of his income comes via Google ads, which are denied to many other journalists on the grounds that their content is too &#8220;sensitive&#8221; to feature alongside products. Because Alex Jones&#8217; work is shallow, devoid of intelligence, and aimed for the stupid average consumer&#8217;s online shopping bag, it is fit for consumption alongside all other cheap entertainment and products featured on the internet whereas other, more serious and hard-hitting political analysis would have been rejected and boycotted by a number of websites and services including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2014\/10\/punish-google-with-boycotts-whistleblowing-and-resignations.html\" target=\"_blank\">Google<\/a> (the most important one of all).<\/p>\n<p>Whether <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/media-disintegration.html\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Jones<\/a> really believes the stupid nonsense and paranoia he tries to spread through his shows or he is actually a paid actor recruited by the FBI or other agencies\u00a0to discredit the &#8220;other&#8221;\u00a0political dissidents and libertarians in the United States, there is no doubt that the &#8220;elite&#8221; whom Alex Jones claims to hate find him absolutely non-threatening. In fact, Alex Jones can be likened to a court jester.<\/p>\n<p>Court jesters were a type of clown\u00a0(probably often mentally ill), kept in a\u00a0king&#8217;s court, who were allowed to ridicule the king\u00a0in the medieval era without the fear of losing their head (though there were probably some exceptions). They were the only ones allowed to do this, because they made such a show of themselves and amused the rulers enough that they were not considered to be threatening.<\/p>\n<p>When Alex Jones <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_XZvMwcluEg\" target=\"_blank\">was interviewed by Piers Morgan\u00a0on CNN<\/a>, and also\u00a0issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Zftn8_ZqzDg\" target=\"_blank\">crazy video against <em>The Young Turks<\/em>\u00a0(with no shirt on)<\/a>\u00a0he went into almost the same kind of\u00a0rambling, exaggerated facial expressions and stereotypical behavior\u00a0typically seen in stand-up comedians, and left viewers with the impression of a psychotic madman. However, between his tirades it was clear that Jones\u00a0was in complete control and deliberately making himself sound crazy and paranoid, much like an actor. The result is always entertaining, and the impression left on\u00a0the average viewer is always that of a crazy &#8220;prepper&#8221; who holds tin foil hat views about the US government. That sounds harmless enough, but when you realize broadcasters show preference towards Jones\u00a0over actual critics of the US government and media conglomerates, it is not so funny anymore.<\/p>\n<p>All this\u00a0means Jones is no dissident. He serves a purpose in the US political establishment as a type of courtier, whether he realizes it or not. He creates a baseline for the political crazies, also known as the lunatic fringe, enabling the US government to dismiss its domestic opponents\u00a0as madmen\u00a0easily. The US government and the &#8220;elite&#8221;\u00a0love Alex Jones because\u00a0more sincere opponents of the US government of the type who appear on other shows like <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Democracy Now!<\/a><\/em> could easily be dismissed as similar to this\u00a0idiot, who can&#8217;t control his tantrums or even talk\u00a0normally.<\/p>\n<p>If the US government has enemies as useful as\u00a0Alex Jones, does it need friends?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-962 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/375\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png\" alt=\"hjb signature new opaque 2\" width=\"285\" height=\"58\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although many Americans see Alex Jones, talk show host and conspiracy theorist, as a critic of the political &#8220;elite&#8221;, he could not be further from it. Whether he is aware of it or not, Alex Jones is a member of the political elite, and a useful one. Alex Jones labels his work as &#8220;alternative media&#8221;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353,63,37,127,66,44,15],"tags":[1341,220,1060,1389,90,1388,1390,1387,478,360],"class_list":["post-1183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-censorship","category-futurism-2","category-history","category-journalism","category-politics-2","category-transhumanism","category-us","tag-alex-jones","tag-alternative-media","tag-cnn","tag-democracy-now","tag-google","tag-infowars","tag-piers-morgan","tag-the-young-turks","tag-transhumanism","tag-us-government"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Alex Jones, the court jester - L&#039;Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Alex Jones experiences no forms of hard and soft censorship. In fact, his crazy rants are broadcasted into American homes by the political &quot;elite&quot;.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Alex Jones, the court jester - L&#039;Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alex Jones experiences no forms of hard and soft censorship. In fact, his crazy rants are broadcasted into American homes by the political &quot;elite&quot;.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"L&#039;Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-14T14:28:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-02-16T16:56:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harry J. Bentham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Alex Jones, the court jester - L&#039;Ordre","description":"Alex Jones experiences no forms of hard and soft censorship. 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In fact, his crazy rants are broadcasted into American homes by the political \"elite\".","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html","og_site_name":"L&#039;Ordre","article_published_time":"2016-02-14T14:28:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-02-16T16:56:45+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png"}],"author":"Harry J. Bentham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html","name":"Alex Jones, the court jester - L&#039;Ordre","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png","datePublished":"2016-02-14T14:28:06+00:00","dateModified":"2016-02-16T16:56:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e"},"description":"Alex Jones experiences no forms of hard and soft censorship. In fact, his crazy rants are broadcasted into American homes by the political \"elite\".","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/alex-jones-the-court-jester.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Alex Jones, the court jester"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/","name":"L&#039;Ordre","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Harry Bentham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e","name":"Harry J. Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. He edits The clubof.info Blog (http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Harry_J_Bentham).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Harry-J.-Bentham\/e\/B00D4MSEY0\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/author\/hbentham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1183"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}