In the wake of last week's suicide attack on an IRS building in Austin, Texas by software engineer Joseph Stack, numerous media critics and establishment pundits are blaming influential documentary filmmaker and radio show host, Alex Jones, for the violent act.
An article in The Guardian called Austin, Texas: paranoid politics central by Amanda Marcotte makes the linkage between isolated acts of violence with truth-telling and data-mining that Jones is known for. As a regular listener of Alex's radio show, I can say for certain that the notion that Alex has made statements in favor of violence against government authorities and government property is completely false. Although Marcotte doesn't target Alex as the prime motivator for Stack's decision to commit what is clearly an act of terrorism, she makes the point that his informational operation in Austin is the nucleus that should be held responsible.
But what is Alex Jones doing wrong exactly? Is questioning your government a vice? Why is disbelief in government accounts of reality considered paranoia? Shouldn't we have learned by now, after the brutal oppression of human rights by governments in the last century, that distrust of authority is a healthy thing in society?
Unlike Joseph Stack, Alex Jones is not a political man. He is a vigilant truth-teller, and unfortunately for the rulers of America, a very successful one. To him, breaking political ties, even when it is against the interests of his politics, is more desirable than lying or sacrificing his integrity. When Debra Medina, a candidate for the Governor of Texas, appeared on his radio show at the beginning of her campaign he was enthusiastically supportive of her intentions and encouraged his listeners to assist her run. But after Medina made the remark that 9/11 truth and the individuals who compromise it are despicable on national television, Alex immediately held her feet to the fire for backtracking on her previous statements, a quality that many journalists lack today. A starkly political man would have let it go, being that the statements were campaign rhetoric meant for the less tolerant members of the voting public. But a man who is dedicated to liberating his countrymen from deceitful politicians, criminal interests and powerful delusions is unfriendly to all who turn their back on the truth and those who righteously demand and stand by the truth.
There is indeed much to admire in such a man. And they are few in number. Even fewer are those who combine passionate truth-telling with mighty eloquence, as Alex Jones does. But such men do not live to enjoy their fruits. As Hannah Arendt writes in her essay "Truth and Politics":
Throughout history, the truth-seekers and truthtellers have been aware of the risks of their business; as long as they did not interfere with the course of the world, they were covered with ridicule, but he who forced his fellow-citizens to take him seriously by trying to set them free from falsehood and illusion was in danger of his life: "If they could lay hands on [such a] man . . . they would kill him," Plato says in the last sentence of the cave allegory. 1The fact that Alex is attracting all citizens, instead of just those from the left or right, is another telling sign of what he is about. The call of patriotism reaches beyond republican and democrat, liberal and conservative, and Alex is a citizen who has responded the loudest. Marcotte acknowledges his wide appeal but spins it in order to portray it as a bad thing. She says:
Jones's politics are ostensibly libertarian-conservative, but really, his ideology is paranoia. His empire sucks in rightwingers with conspiracy theories that feed the militia gun culture, but they also love conspiracy theories that appeal more to the left, such as the belief that 9/11 was an "inside job".Marcotte and others are obviously troubled that Alex is objective about the different White House administrations and political candidates, unlike others in the mainstream media who have taken only one side of the field, such as Beck and Limbaugh. Marcotte fails to realize that truth is neither left nor right. That freedom is not republican. And that justice means putting the country above yourself and your party. Then again, how should she know? For she is not a rebel.
And what is a rebel? To Albert Camus, a rebel is a "man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes his first gesture of rebellion." 2 And "with rebellion, awareness is born, " Camus writes, specifically, the awareness that all men are born free and have certain rights. And not just any act of rebellion guarantees these rights for a new generation, but a confident act of rebellion, the kind that requires battle out in the open, the kind that Joseph Stack, who cowardly attacked a building out of nowhere, was unfamiliar with. Camus points out:
Rebellion, though apparently negative, since it creates nothing, is profoundly positive in that it reveals the part of man which must always be defended. 3Stack acted from the part of man that must always be denounced, the profane and incompetent part. He targeted innocent people, an act which will cement his reputation as a terrorist more so than his raunchy rhetoric will solidify him as a one-time populist polemicist. His suicide attack was not an act of rebellion, but an act of resentment, and false desperation. If he had burned himself alive in his own home, and left a note for the media and IRS explaining his wrath, he would have gained much more sympathy, but causing destruction and injuring ignorant authorities automatically discredits all his grievances.
As Camus writes, "the man who kills himself in solitude still preserves certain values since he, apparently, claims no rights over the lives of others." 4 In contrast, "the rebel's aim is to defend what he is," Camus says, and since a true rebel is peaceful and honest like Martin Luther King Jr, he must remain peaceful to the very end, or else his whole work will unwrap before the rest of the world as another episode in the violent age of humanity.
Islamic extremists, and all extremist suicide bombers, deserve no respect and should never be given any clout because they have a mentality of conquest, and are still ignorant of their true and non-violent power. Stack made the mistake of letting the IRS get to him, and he copied their values of destruction and robbery with his final act, which revealed a tired individual’s indifference to life and human innocence. Camus, again:
Resentment is always resentment against oneself. The rebel, on the contrary, from his very first step, refuses to allow anyone to touch what he is. He is fighting for the integrity of one part of his being. He does not try, primarily, to conquer, but simply to impose. 5Stack did not impose himself by flying a plane into a building, he exposed himself. He grabbed the attention of the country by performing a weak and desperate act, whereas Alex Jones has continually used peaceful and educational means to wake up individuals from across the globe. Some falsely equate the ability of Alex Jones to impose himself in conversation and on a public street with a pure act of aggression, but it is not, it reflects the warrior's urge to defend the values of his community and all the people in it. And the reason he is able to strongly position himself is because he has chosen to stand behind an invisible shield, the truth, with all his being, which in the present political climate is a very dangerous thing to do because never before has the truth been a bigger threat to the powers that be than today.
In her essay, Arendt describes the indestructible nature of truth, and its much feared ability to stand above the crowd. She writes:
Seen from the viewpoint of politics, truth has a despotic character. It is therefore hated by tyrants, who rightly fear the competition of a coercive force they cannot monopolize, and it enjoys a rather precarious status in the eyes of governments that rest on consent and abhor coercion. Facts are beyond argument and consent, and all talk about them--all exchanges of opinion based on correct information--will contribute nothing to their establishment. Unwelcome opinion can be argued with, rejected, or compromised upon, but unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornness that nothing can move except plain lies. 6Almost a year ago I wrote, "I'm sure as Alex Jones' popularity and influence grows a bucket full of lies will be thrown at Americans about his intentions, affiliations and message by the government and corporate media." It appears that is happening with increasing frequency, except a bucket full of lies may become a bucket full of spikes. The fact that there is a rebel on the radio whose influence grows every day does not sit well with the rulers of America and the cowardly bunch who stick up for them. But nothing they throw at Alex Jones will ever stick. They can even throw sticks. And bones. And bullets. And bones infused with bullets. And still, they will cause no damage, because Alex Jones is a testament to resistance and courage. He has demonstrated that rebellion is a daily act, not a final violent deed, and surely he packs more explosive energy into one radio broadcast than anything a plane could muster.
Once America's totalitarian government is peacefully and financially reduced to a fraction of its size, and our nightmare is over, we'll have a lot of people to be thankful for, and Alex Jones is certainly at the top of the list. "No permanence, no perseverance in existence," said Arendt, "can even be conceived of without men willing to testify to what is and appears to them because it is." 7
Notes
1. Arendt, Hannah. The Portable Hannah Arendt. Pg. 547
2. Camus, Albert. The Rebel. Pg. 13
3. Ibid. Pg. 19
4. Ibid. Pg. 7
5. Ibid. Pg 18
6. Arendt, Hannah. The Portable Hannah Arendt. Pg. 556
7. Ibid. Pg. 547
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