#630: Mark Downey

And just in case you thought you’d seen the worst of lunacy by now, we give you Mark Downey. Reverend Downey is the culprit behind the “Christian Identity” website Kinsman Redeemer Ministries, which is a good place to go to give up all hopes for humanity. Downey’s main tenet is that the so-called “Chosen People” of the Bible are – as opposed to what the Bible suggests – not the Jews, at least not today’s Jews, but rather the “Germanic, Celtic, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon” peoples. And thus you may get an impression of the direction in which Downey is headed. And indeed: “Adolf Hitler showed the world the mercy and loving kindness of Positive Christianity,” he says, but we failed to listen and were instead fooled by a Jewish conspiracy to view Hitler as evil. Yes, that’s the idea, and even among the most insane it will probably remain a minority view for some time. As for anti-semitism, Downey has revived most myths from ancient and medieval times. “How many of the innocent youngsters you see on milk cartons have fallen prey to the ceremonial knives of rabbis and lie buried in secret graves or were ground up into dog food in some jewish-owned processing plant?” asks Downey in his series of articles charmingly titled "Why We Hate the Jews", and follows it with this.

But Downey isn’t quite done. The whole idea of the notion of “Kinsman Redeemer” is that Jesus came to redeem not all humans, but his kinsmen. His kinsmen were the white people (since, as most renaissance paintings so accurately depict him, Jesus was blond and blue-eyed). It doesn’t really help, then, that Downey actually purports to reject “white nationalism” – he rejects white nationalism since white nationalism is, according to Downey, a pagan movement. Instead, he prefers to view his ideas as “Christian nationalism”, which combines the main tenets of white nationalism with dominionism and hysterical endtimes babble. It is not as charming as it sounds.

Of course, Downey and his group also rejects evolution – not on technical grounds but because evolution implies common descent and by the inference rule of Downey’s wacky wishful thinking evolution must therefore be false. Instead they claim that all races were created separately (and should not be mixed – “race mixing adulterates God's plan for the Ages”) and that the different races represent not only different species, but different genera (no, they do not exhibit any trace of having the faintest idea what that would mean).

To really emphasize their fervent contempt for reality, they are also 9/11 troofers (though you probably saw that one coming), and promote the idea that the levees of New Orleans were destroyed on purpose by the guv’mint during Hurricane Katrina, which, alongside most other natural disasters, was a punishment from God for America’s rejection of God’s laws on race in any case. I don’t think much good can come from delving deeper into Downey’s ideas so we’ll leave it at that. (We are also reluctant to link directly to any of Downey’s own stuff; you’ll have to google it).

Diagnosis: Could he be the most deranged psychotic madman we’ve encountered thus far? His candidacy is at least a strong one, though his influence will probably remain somewhat limited for the foreseeable future.

#624: Mark Dice

A.k.a. John Conner

Mark Dice is an author, “media analyst”, political activist, founder of the group “The Resistance”, and radically attention seeking extreme, hardcore religious fundamentalist conspiracy theorist who tends to spew (a lot of) garbled nonsense about the New World Order and a vast and a largely incompatible array of (mostly Satanic) secret societies, including (but not limited to) the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, and Bohemian Grove. His favored technique for spreading the word is phone mobbing (“flood the airwaves of call-in radio and television shows”), which does not put him and his followers in a particularly favorable light even with his fellow conspiracy theorists, but Dice is so far removed from this world that he wouldn’t notice (a good example is his anger at Charlie Sheen for not promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories) (if you think Sheen is insane, you’re only proving to Dice that you’re part of the conspiracy and probably a Satanist).

Dice’s first and most well-known book was a 450-page and largely incoherent manifesto, “The Resistance Manifesto,” which consists mainly of unsupported claims, fallacies, rage, confirmation bias and hearsay – the latter being primarily things he has apparently heard himself say; since he trusts himself, this counts as testimony (and since he doesn’t seem to trust anyone else, such testimony is apparently better evidence than anything anyone else might say). The main point of the manifesto is that the Illuminati (“many would say that the illuminati were instrumental in insuring that the 9/11 attacks happened, [and] that they are behind the banking collapse,” which does not constitute evidence even if correct) manipulate political and financial arenas to erode the Constitution and push for a socialist New World (why a secret organization would want a socialist government is anyone’s guess, but you know; socialism is evil, the Illuminati is evil … and so forth. They also promote immorality (e.g. here), selfishness (socialism, you know), materialism, and they purposefully try to keep the population entertained with television to keep them away from politics. They also produce child porn and snuff films (Dice allegedly has evidence that Hunter S. Thompson was a big producer of such), since that’s what socialists do (keep your children away from them), and were behind Occupy Wall Street protests. His other book “The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction” consists primarily if not exclusively of the latter, though Dice does spend some time debunking competing Illuminati conspiracy theories. In particular, he dislikes Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” (calling for his followers to “disrupt” its premiere) since it makes the Illuminati idea look like a mere conspiracy theory. Indeed.

Dice is a regular guest on The Alex Jones Show, as well as Coast to Coast AM, and has appeared on various other shows hosted by various delusional conspiracy theorists, such the Sean Hannity Show, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage. He is also featured in various 9/11 conspiracy documentaries as a reliable source, and his loudness, zeal, persistence and tirelessness in promoting his stuff – making a lot of noise, disrupting events, and pestering people – have managed to garner him some intermittent national attention also without the help of said talkshows – for instance when he attempted to ship DVDs to troops stationed in Iraq to convince them that 9/11 was an inside job (one wonders a little what he wanted them to do with the information). His calls for boycott of VeriChip, claiming that it is the “Mark of the Beast”, received some attention as well, as did his request to have the “Satanic” Georgia Guidestones removed and his call for a boycott of Starbucks because “the Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute.” The socialist Illuminati apparently works in mysterious ways to undermine our civil liberties, but I am sure Dice can connect the dots and get whatever he wants.

Diagnosis: Frothing, hyper-active nonsense factory who could conceivably have done some good if he’d devoted his energy to it (he does have a lot of energy). As it is, his zealous idealism seem to take him toward mindfuck and nowhere in particular. 

#585: Felipe Coronel

A.k.a. Immortal Technique

Felipe Coronel, better known as Immortal Technique, is an underground rapper and conspiracy theorist. Despite his left-wing activism he is apparently on pretty good terms with Alex Jones, and certainly shares much of the latter’s notorious paranoia. Coronel has for instance endorsed New World Order conspiracies and 9/11 conspiracies (if you really want to, you can see him discuss the latter with Alex Jones here). Coronel’s lunacy on these issues hence provides an unfortunate contrast to his otherwise admirable contributions to the human project.

And yes, the Coronel’s lunacy is pretty much off the charts; not even Alex Jones has, to my knowledge, tried to argue that “The Illuminati grew stronger after Jesus died for our sins.” The idea of “genetically engineered HIV,” which Coronel attributes to rightwing politicians, freemasons and Satanic Illuminati agents (that’s apparently one single group), is more mainstream, as is his ideas of mind control through MKULTRA. Evidence? Coronel can make it rhyme. That seems to be convincing enough to many, and his UK fan website, for instance, reads as a slightly less coherent version of whale.to.

Diagnosis: Batshit crazy. He does good stuff as well, to be sure, but it is not clear that his positive efforts aren’t, in the long run, pretty much undermined by his crazy.

#584: James Corbett

I have no idea what Michael E. Cook, a.k.a. Sheriff Mike, is up to these days (this screed, mentioned here, dates from 2000), but at least he used to be a member of APFN, American Patriots Friend Network, a stunningly insane group of Ron Paul supporters, conspiracy theorists, and militia guys, mostly filled with word salad, UFO sighting stories (and conspiracies), 9/11 conspiracies, pseudolaw, anti-environmentalism, and, well, every imaginable conspiracy, all framed in a beautifully TIME CUBE-like variety of fonts, colors, and random capitalization.

Given the uncertainty of his whereabouts, and the untimely death of Stefan Frederick Cook, one of Orly Taitz’s less than ideally hinged plaintiffs in one of her many birther lawsuits (Joe Kovacs and Chelsea Schilling thought Cook had a point, but then again Kovacs and Schilling write for the WND – Sean Hannity thought he had a point as well), this entry should have gone to the legendary conspiracy theorist William Cooper if he hadn’t passed away (as well) 10 years ago. I am confident that there exists conspiracy theories to the effect that he is still alive. Surely he was one of the models for James Corbett’s “The Corbett Report”, an “independent, listener-supported alternative news source” (podcasts, interviews, articles, videos) “about current events and suppressed history from an independent perspective” (i.e. batshit lunacy Corbett has made up). Corbett sure doesn’t get his news from “Rothschild Reuters”.

The main focus of Corbett’s report is “important issues from 9/11 Truth and false flag terror

to the Big Brother police state, eugenics, geopolitics, the central banking fraud and more.” He is even writing on a book Reportage: Essays on the New World Order. A refreshing detail about Corbett is that he is generally not  merely JAQ-ing off but firmly asserting some wonderfully insane, totally reality-independent claims. If you want an update on what is certainly not going on in Fukushima, you can read one of his many articles on the topic. Or did you know that the shooting of Osama bin Laden was a hoax? According to Corbett, there is consensus that bin Laden died years ago. He was not involved in 9/11 either, and the US government is in an intimate conspiracy with the bin Laden family (Obama himself ensured that many of the bin Laden family members were transported safely out of the US after 9/11 where they had been in various shady meetings with American government figures). See also this and this on 9/11 conspiracy bullshit.

Diagnosis: Fairly typical kook – his webdesign is better than most conspiracy maniacs’, his writing skills less so – and pretty ardent. Completely impervious to truth.

#496: Jason Bermas

Jason Bermas is a filmmaker most famous for his involvement in films such as Fabled Enemies, Loose Change, and Invisible Empire. Loose Change is, of course, the famous documentary asserting that 9/11 was an inside job (directed by Dylan Avery, whom we unfortunately missed even on this second round, and produced by Bermas, Matthew Brown, and Korey Rowe, with none other than Alex Jones as the executive producer). The movie argues that 9/11 was a set-up in order for the US to justify a war in Iraq, but unfortunately offers no explanation for why the government would carry out this ruse and subsequently not incorporate any connection to Iraq in their elaborate scheme (e.g. by making the hijackers have some connection to Iraq). See also this. For a viewer’s guide to Loose Change, you can go here. It is worth noting that Bermas said of Mark Roberts (who constructed the viewer’s guide) “[h]e's betraying this country and humanity,” and Alex Jones called him “[a]n absolute demon”. This site offers helpful guidance as well.

“Fabled Enemies” was another attempt from Bermas at the 9/11 conspiracy. “Invisible Empire” is, as you guessed, about the New World Order.

Bermas used to host The Infowarrior, a political, caller-based and widely distributed t Alex Jones spinoff talkshow. He is currently alternate host of The Alex Jones show itself.

Diagnosis: A rising star in the insanity movement, Bermas efficiently applies his lack of critical thinking skills to a variety of (interlinked) areas in you typical crank magnet manner. One to watch