Trump flags at anti-mask rally
You guys have got to see some of the flags Fabrice de Pierrebourg snapped at an anti-mask rally in Montreal Saturday. CBC says there were many signs of support for QAnon*.
I actually do not understand this. There is a serious illness circulating among us. How can people really think this is a realm in which protesting has any usefulness or validity?
*Note to CBC: “openly flaunted the distancing guidelines”? You mean “flouted”.
CharlesQ 19:42 on 2020-09-12 Permalink
It’s all beyond me. Some people are so starved for certainty, they’ll believe anything (really anything, Donald Trump as the second coming fighting the forces of evil… what?). That is what strikes me the most in those people, the level of certainty they have about all their “beliefs”. There is no questoning, it’s a cult. I don’t think it’s funny or quirky anymore. I try to convince myself that they are only a few people (and they are) but somehow it doesnt help.
walkerp 20:36 on 2020-09-12 Permalink
They are actively brainwashed via Facebook. It is very frightening.
Ephraim 21:54 on 2020-09-12 Permalink
Well, time to examine the ministry of education and the schools these people went to.
Tim S. 09:00 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
Based on a couple of well-educated people I know who have some interest/sympathy for these ideas, I’m not sure there’s much the schools can do. I think Charles is right that it’s a need for certainty, for easy yet seemingly logical and sophisticated answers, and a rejection of the ‘they,’ variously defined, who think they’re better. Some of the stuff kids learn at the knee of Grandpa Simpson, so to speak, can’t be easily unlearned.
Kate 10:33 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
Tim S., it’s hard not to get the occasional impression that many big decisions are made in places we don’t know about, and not by the people we think are supposed to be making those decisions, i.e. our democratically elected officials. I can see why people might be grasping for some sort of theory to explain their misgivings, but how it follows that Donald Trump is the person to fix it, I do not know.
MarcG 10:33 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
I got into conspiracy stuff in my 20s and agree with Charles and Tim’s explanations. Thankfully the internet hadn’t become “social” yet so I didn’t get sucked down a rabbit hole. I smoked a lot of weed, perhaps relevant.
bpmpost@yahoo.ca 10:45 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
“Several thousand people gathered… and at one point stretched more than six city blocks. It attracted people of all ages, and from a wide-variety of mindsets.”
That is scary. Even the educated can lack critical thinking. It’s proof of the power of the internet – it can support, amplify, distort whatever beliefs or baggage you have.
In the early aughts, I once read a pretty convincing article explaining that climate change is part of the natural cycle and how it was alarmist to think it was being caused by human activity. At the time, it made sense to believe that, but after being told I was wrong and I did the mature thing and wised up, read up on reputable scientific articles and admitted that I had a momentary lapse of reasoning.
MarcG 10:51 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
Regarding Trump being seen as anti-establishment, I recall after he won thinking “how the fuck did that happen?”, then looking up his ad campaigns and finding this amazing bit of agitprop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vST61W4bGm8.
MarcG 15:58 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
Something else attractive about conspiracy theories is they make the world seem more interesting than it is. Rather than a collection of greedy ex-fratboy pedophiles playing with numbers, there’s a cabal of satan-worshipping lizard people who want to enslave humanity for some mysterious intergalactic purpose (or whatever). It also makes you feel superior to other people because you know what’s really going on, so there’s an ego boost aspect as well.
Lockland Stepworthy 19:08 on 2020-09-13 Permalink
These “protestors” are the same ones who don’t believe Saddam had WMDs or that Libya didn’t need to be bombed. Some of them are probably Palestinians grasping at yet more straws.
Dhomas 05:25 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
@Lockland Stepworthy: dude, what are you on about? First of all, Iraq had no WMDs:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-intelligence-assessments-of-saddam-s-iraq-got-it-right-new-paper-says-1.5697028
Also, I’d love to hear more about your theories on Libya as well as what any of this has to do with Palestinians and anti-mask protesters.
Am I replying to a bot?
Su 07:22 on 2020-09-14 Permalink
Russian Oligarch funded “media” brainwashees-dupes fighting for deregulation.