This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column
Michael Commane
Media coverage of QAnon is gaining attention in Ireland. Over the last few months many European and US media outlets have been writing and talking about QAnon.
QAnon first appeared in 2017 with postings written by a far-right individual on the anonymous imageboard 4chan. It quickly transformed into a group of ‘secret’ or ‘hidden’ people who spread outrageous conspiracy theories.
One such theory is that well-known famous actors and senior US Democratic politicians are members of a child sex trafficking ring. Among its arch-enemies are Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros.
QAnon sees Donald Trump as the only person who can save the world from impending disaster. But these days QAnon is not just a right-wing group.
It appeals to many people who are disgruntled with established political parties, organisations and institutions. It has as its target elites, whom it believes have the full backing of the media.
Yes, it all sounds bizarre, but guess what, millions of people around the world are listening to QAnon.
There have been occasions where QAnon supporters have been acting as cheer leaders at Trump rallies.
Experts in social behaviour, who are currently studying the phenomenon, say that QAnon has traces of a religious cult about it.
US politician Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is likely to win a seat in the House of Representatives in the November elections, publicly supports QAnon. President Donald Trump has called her a ‘future Republican star’.
It all sounds beyond crazy. A central tenet of QAnon is anonymity, which is an evil.
Anonymity is a plague and raises its ugly head right across all sectors of society.
And one of the places where you might not expect to see it is within the churches. Unfortunately, it is well embedded within the churches. Church postbags contain sizeable numbers of anonymous letters.
In 2018 retired papal nuncio to Washington, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vignanò called on Pope Francis to resign. The letter caused a furore at the time and rumours began to circulate.
In June this year Trump proudly tweeted that he received a letter from Vignanò warning him against certain people, including those within the church who were pushing for a new atheistic world-order. Vignanò talks about a deep state and a deep church. That is exactly the same language that QAnon peddles.
The Covid-19 pandemic has played perfectly into the hands of QAnon. It is constantly hinting that the pandemic is all the work of the elites with the main man in charge being Bill Gates. QAnon manages to feed on people’s fears. It spreads evil and crazy rumours. No matter how mad the material it disseminates is, some of it is bound to stick. That QAnon can gain such traction certainly says something about the times in which we are living.
English author Terry Pratchett’s words are well worth keeping in mind: ‘A lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on’.
3 comments:
Very well put, Michael. I notice that the same issue of anonymity -- a form of absolute moral cowardice -- arises with ALIVE, the (non) Dominican newspaper masquerading as a Catholic publication. Many of its pieces are anonymous and I am not even sure who is the editor nor who is on the editorial staff. Why are they so afraid?
In my professional life I have been the recipient over the years of several anonymous letters: my policy has always been the same -- they go straight into the shredder. If authors of letters or other publications won't put a name to their work, why should it be regarded as being of any worth?
Michael
Michael,
we live in a difficult time in which people are longing for answers to their questions. As I think these are not always answered by the public media (or even spiritually by the church), so people make a connection with QAnon or similar movements.
I am sure that the majority of these people have nothing bad in mind. So shouldn't we talk to these people instead of 'stoning' them with words and driving them further away from us? What would Jesus have done in such a situation? Sure, if you have the better arguments and evidence you will be able to convince them of the better - but maybe it is the other way around and you will get new insights which would not be bad! A win-win situation so to speak.
Here is a small example because you mentioned a billionaire in your article. Do you know that the billionaires in the lock-down period from the middle of March on had billions in gains (Jeff Bezos +76 Billion, Elon Musk +43 Billion & Mark Zuckerberg +42 Billion. Bill Gates 1:20 returns https://t.me/uncut_news/10102 )? They can buy the bankrupt companies for little money in the near future... and surely they also have a PR agency that will add value to this as a charitable activity.
Baron Rothschild, an 18th-century British nobleman and member of the Rothschild banking family, is credited with saying that "the time to buy is when there's blood in the streets".
Prof. Udo di Fabio, former constitutional judge recently said in a podcast "our legal system does not really know any state of emergency... that means that the basic rights are always valid and cannot be overruled, ...but it seems as if the basic rights are no longer valid. Everything is possible for the state and if you were in a satirical mood you could say that if I wanted to make a coup d'état in Germany I would invent a corona pandemic".
Has this ever been in the news? Could there be a criminal energy behind it? Well, there are a lot of unanswered questions...
Andreas, I saw those flags at the Reichstag on Saturday.
Personally, I would much prefer to listen to the words of Frank-Walter Steinmeier, indeed, of Angela Merkel than observe the behaviour of those who carried imperial flags in Berlin on Saturday.
I am well aware that the billionaires made much money during the lockdown, but that's what billionaires do.
Last week Patrick Comey said, that in the past the crazies were outside the perimeter wall of the White House, unfortunately, they are inside these days.
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