I am going to coin a new term.
"Politanoia."
Then again, I haven't Googled the word so I can't say for certain that I'm the first one on the block with it. Politanoia is a symptom of our severely bifurcated, polarized nation. Or at least that's how it seems, anyway. Whenever an event occurs, no matter how tangentially it can be related to politics, there always seems to be someone eager to pounce upon it and say, "See! Obama is trying to take your basic American freedoms away!" We saw it sadly enough after the Newtown Shootings and we're seeing it again after the tragic bombing of the Boston Marathon.
Conspiracy maven Alex Jones wasted no time getting a jump on things. Soon after the terrorist attack, he tweeted that the whole thing "stinks to high heaven." Jones, who as described in this article in The Los Angeles Times is a "libertarian and an 'aggressive constitutionalist' " (whatever that means), has argued that the occurrence was staged as a "false flag attack" by the FBI in order to gather broader powers for the Department of Homeland Security. Theoretically, this would allow for furthering the "Obama agenda" of confiscating guns and having the TSA feel us up at every turn.
For those who might not be familiar, "false flag attack" is a term used to describe covert operations that are designed to look as if they are being carried out by powers other than the ones actually executing them. Say you want a war with Canada. A nefarious sort might get a unit of U.S. special ops together, dress them in Canadian fatigues, kit them out with Canadian gear, and then have them flee into Canada after an attack on the United States. Bingo. There's your war. In theory, anyway. This notion has formed the basis for many conspiracy theories, including the "9/11 was an inside job" movement (facets of which, I must admit, do give me pause) and several surrounding the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.
Jones isn't alone. Good ol' Glenn Beck claims there is a cover-up going on in relation to the bombings and that he is going to "expose it." Again, the basis appears to be something to do with the FBI orchestrating or "provocateuring" [sic] the attacks and that our response to it will "determine whether or not America survives." He later described the police manhunt for the terrorists "as scary as Nazis on the hunt for Jewish people."
Oh wait. He gets better. As Beck furthered, “The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself,” he wrote in a published opinion, as Politico reported.
Sigh. Oh Glenn Beck. You so crazy. Are you still ticked off for my calling you out about scaring my Grandma? I'm still wondering if you're behind my aunt buying all those guns, but that's another matter altogether.
Folks, this was no "false flag" incident. The whole theory fails the Occam's Razor test: the simplest solution is usually the correct one.
What is simpler? The attacks were carried out by a handful of extremists or they were carefully orchestrated "false flag" attacks executed through the collusion of a several different government agencies and a few hundred (at least) people to work towards the ends of the nefarious New World Order? I think the answer is spangly evident.
Sadly, this is more indicative of the widening political divide than anything else. Something bad has happened? Then there's got to be a way to pin it on Obama! To be fair, liberals were doing much the same thing during the Bush administration but I don't remember it being quite so vitriolic. "Politanoia" like this does no one any good. Calm, rational dialogue, however, does.
But there's a good buck to be made in the "politanoia" racket, isn't there Alex and Glenn?
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