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Marjorie Taylor Greene was taken to task on her earlier statements suggesting that dark Jewish interests were involved in corruption at PG&E and certain California wildfires. In November 2018, she went on a Twitter diatribe about wildfires in California and how it appeared to some that “lasers or blue beams of light” caused the fires. Earlier in the tweet, Greene said that a PG&E board member was also vice chairman of Rothschilds, Inc., an international investment banking firm, and had provided funding to Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown, she claims, signed a bill that allowed PG&E to pass it’s costs from the fires along to the customers. She claims later that she didn’t know that using the word “Rothschilds” was an anti-semitic dog whistle. There may be elements of truth imbedded in her brain dump of words.
Then Greene strings the “analysis” along to PG&E’s connection to Solaren and space-based solar energy generators. She speculates that the orbital solar energy generator may have mistakenly beamed energy onto California and started the wildfires.
This is a good example of how conspiracy theories get started. There is some foundational truth in her words. PG&E had agreed to purchase energy from the startup Solaren as early as 2009. And Solaren did have technology for the beaming of RF energy from space. However, the story goes non-linear when anecdotal information arises claiming that “lasers or blue beams of light” are seen coinciding with forest fires where inference transmogrified into cause. Greene does not overtly state that energy from space in fact caused the fires. A knot of brain cells somewhere tells her to be careful with that. Greene only has to raise the question to imply it.
This is exactly what Fox News people like Carlson and Hannity do. They misdirect by claiming that they were “only asking the question.” In fact they are asking leading questions. A leading question is one that prompts a desired answer. It is a very effective tool in grooming anger, fear and suspicion in the population as well as bringing profitable ad revenue to Fox. For people who enjoy being lead into the dark side, saying that they are being bamboozled won’t matter. This dark art would not have been unknown to propagandists like Joseph Goebbels.
The question for the rest of us is this- How do we discourage unfounded conspiracy mania in political discourse? Continuous education? Loud denials with stamping of the feet? My feeling is that it only begins early with better secular K-12 education that sharpens analytical skills in young people. But that is the easy part. The harder part would be increasing economic opportunity for a middle class life and affordable housing. If life is a constant struggle to make ends meet, if you have little or no discretionary income, or if you have a go-nowhere job, then anger and despair with “the deep state” will be a constant companion and discolor your outlook. My guess is that most MAGA adults are refractory to persuasion and are likely to live out their lives with their misguided Trump fantasies.
Silent, democracy-minded people out there can help by speaking up and voting, to begin with. False and misleading assertions should not go unanswered. Advertisers who pay for the broadcasting of inciteful and malignant content should be shunned on the large scale. People like Australian Rupert Murdoch must be held accountable for the purposeful and profitable content that damages American culture. True damage to America does not require the breaking of laws. It only requires the loss of faith in democracy.
Lamentations on Chemistry 