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Douglas Carpenter

(20,226 posts)
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 05:57 PM Jan 2013

Meet the Sandy Hook truthers: Theorists think they've found “absolute proof” that Newtown was a hoax

Have they no shame?


Credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer)

By Alex Seitz-Wald for salon.com

In the crazy world of Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, this one may be the worst yet. (Maybe you’ve already heard some of the others, like the one about fantasy ties between the gunman’s family and the LIBOR banking scandal and a related theory about the Aurora shooting and the “Dark Knight Rises.”) Most of the theories are really pieces of a larger meta-theory: that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, perhaps by the Obama administration, designed to stir demand for gun control.

In the latest angle, theorists think they have found “absolute proof” of a conspiracy to defraud the American people. “You reported in December that this little girl had been killed,” a reader emailed Salon in response to a story. “She has been found, and photographed with President Obama.”

There are dozens of websites, blog posts and YouTube videos extolling the Emilie Parker hoax theory. If you Google her name, the very first result is a post mocking her father for crying at a press conference after the shooting. One popular video, which already has 134,000 views, was made by the producers of a popular 9/11 Truther film. “Just as the movie ‘Operation Terror’ shows the 9/11 attacks were a made-for-TV event, so too were the mass shootings … There can be no doubt that Sandy Hook was a staged event,” the narrator intones. He goes on to say that the adults who participated in the media coverage of the shootings “should be prosecuted as accessories after the fact in a mass murder” — i.e., the parents whose children were murdered in the massacre should be thrown in prison.

But the hoax theory has even earned the backing for some presumably more credible sources. James Tracy, a tenured professor of communications at Florida Atlantic University, sparked controversy this week after he wrote a blog post suggesting the parents were “crisis actors.” “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described,” he wrote.

Websites owned by Alex Jones, the conspiracy theory pundit who helped start the 9/11 Truther movement and has millions of readers, are a virtual one-stop shop for Sandy Hook “false flag” miscellanea. So far, mainstream conservative figures haven’t hopped on board, though Gun Owners of American head Larry Pratt told Jones this summer that he thought there was a good chance the Aurora massacre was perpetrated by government agents.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/the_worst_sandy_hook_conspiracy_theory_yet/
16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Meet the Sandy Hook truthers: Theorists think they've found “absolute proof” that Newtown was a hoax (Original Post) Douglas Carpenter Jan 2013 OP
Emilie Parker's family is from Utah. We've got a lot of her story here... Drunken Irishman Jan 2013 #1
This is sad on so many levels. Kalidurga Jan 2013 #2
^^This^^ Sheldon Cooper Jan 2013 #7
I have to question tosh Jan 2013 #3
until recently I have not had very much right-wing crazy stuff showing up on my Facebook timeline Douglas Carpenter Jan 2013 #4
I've had NON rw friends posting this stuff Marrah_G Jan 2013 #11
It's just a predictable result of what happens when people spend Blue_Tires Jan 2013 #6
Newtown is and always has been a hoax. KamaAina Jan 2013 #5
Ha. Jennicut Jan 2013 #8
Sadly, one of the nation's largest institutions for people with developmental disabilities KamaAina Jan 2013 #9
Sad, sad, sad Dpm12 Jan 2013 #10
The one fatal problem with this CT. Dash87 Jan 2013 #12
There's no such thing as a "fatal problem" with a CT that has willing belivers JHB Jan 2013 #14
INSANELY using the 1st Amendment rights to INSANELY defend your 2nd Amendment wrongs. JaneyVee Jan 2013 #13
I wish there was a hell so those assholes Zoeisright Jan 2013 #15
I would like to see these individuals and especially the groups, sued. Jefferson23 Jan 2013 #16
 

Drunken Irishman

(34,857 posts)
1. Emilie Parker's family is from Utah. We've got a lot of her story here...
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 06:04 PM
Jan 2013

Many, many, many people here know the family. This is absolutely bat-shit insane! I mean, offensive and insane.

Kalidurga

(14,177 posts)
2. This is sad on so many levels.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 06:06 PM
Jan 2013

The worst thing is those people who say it is a hoax so they can be ok with just about anyone having access to WMD in the form of semi automatics.

But, then there are those that have to believe it. They have to believe the children were moved somewhere and are safe, ripped from their communities and families but safe so that someone can promote an anti-gun agenda. What is going on with them is painful. The really don't want innocent children murdered and the thought has caused a mental breakdown of sorts. They also want to be able to own any kind of gun they can afford or get their hands on. It's like that Star Trek episode when they killed the robot women with illogical phrases and questions. They can't figure out how to deal with these two competing ideas. That innocent people are killed by guns that were purchased legally by a presumptively responsible gun owner. And that this is a good reason to have more gun control and perhaps to ban a large amount of guns.

tosh

(4,422 posts)
3. I have to question
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 06:35 PM
Jan 2013

the mental stability of anyone who believes this assanine garbage.

These very well may be the ones who should NOT have access to weapons.

I am ashamed to admit that someone I actually know has posted this stupidity on social media today.

Douglas Carpenter

(20,226 posts)
4. until recently I have not had very much right-wing crazy stuff showing up on my Facebook timeline
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 06:52 PM
Jan 2013

but I recently joined a couple of Facebook group of current or former residents of Corry, PA - my old hometown and I am now seeing one of the reasons why I left that part of America decades ago --- guns and Jesus - it's all about guns and Jesus. Now how that hell did those two get mixed together?

Marrah_G

(28,581 posts)
11. I've had NON rw friends posting this stuff
Wed Jan 16, 2013, 04:07 PM
Jan 2013

Always with some sentence like " I don't want to sound like a nut but" or "It makes you think".

I've taken to just hiding the posts and I'm sure the nuttery will pass eventually.

I have been tempted to say that if you think all these people are actors, go knock on their fucking doors and ask them.

Blue_Tires

(55,445 posts)
6. It's just a predictable result of what happens when people spend
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 07:18 PM
Jan 2013

WAY too much time on the internets instead of occasionally going outside and interacting with real flesh-and-blood people...Psychologically, they just sort of "remake" their own reality...

I saw some pretty good research in some academic journal years back predicting this phenomenon...If the "Information Age" is the renaissance, then this distorted mindset will be the Black Plague, imo

 

KamaAina

(78,249 posts)
5. Newtown is and always has been a hoax.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 07:07 PM
Jan 2013

There has never been anything between Bethel and Southbury except dark matter.

The flagpole is merely the transmitter for the dark matter.

Jennicut

(25,415 posts)
8. Ha.
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 07:49 PM
Jan 2013

The flagpole is the flagpole of EVIL. I am telling you, I know this since I have driven past it many times being a resident of the fine state of Connecticut. Or Hell, as we in the know refer to it.

Is there anything IN Southbury? Or is that Woodbury? There is a Masonic Temple in Woodbury, proof that CT really is hell.

These people are truly nuts, aren't they?

 

KamaAina

(78,249 posts)
9. Sadly, one of the nation's largest institutions for people with developmental disabilities
Wed Jan 9, 2013, 08:01 PM
Jan 2013

the Southbury Training School. Most DD advocates wish it would simply be sucked into the vortex across the Housatonic and its residents resettled in community settings, as in many other states.

Ironically, the other thing there is Heritage Vilage, where Temple Grandin and I stayed the night before addressing an autism conference up the road in Waterbury.

JHB

(37,128 posts)
14. There's no such thing as a "fatal problem" with a CT that has willing belivers
Wed Jan 16, 2013, 04:19 PM
Jan 2013

Mere facts have never impeded belief for those who want to believe.

Jefferson23

(30,099 posts)
16. I would like to see these individuals and especially the groups, sued.
Wed Jan 16, 2013, 04:25 PM
Jan 2013

They're harassing people with this insanity government is behind all this..it's sickening.

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