Alex Jones and the Fox News Anti-Welfare Poster Boy

A few hours ago I wrote something defending (up to a point) Alex Jones regarding an attack by a mob of rentallectuals. But as much as the attack was unwarranted and highly defamatory, Jones is not beyond reproach and before long he was frothing at the mouth like a Daily Mail reader over a beach bum who lives on food stamps.

British readers will be aware of the phenomenon of indignant benefits churnalism in which the Daily Mail - or more specifically, the Mail Online website - specialises. Take a completely unrepresentative benefits recipient who has somehow played the system to their advantage and hold them up as being a typical benefits scrounger - thus ignoring the millions of people who are struggling in debt and queueing for cans at charity food banks. The tactic of perfidiously convincing the very poorly paid that people who don't work are handed more than them succeeds in turning those on the lower rungs of society against each other.

Step forward, then, Jason Greenslate, a 29 year old who spends his life surfing and eating lobster; or so the Fox News report would have us believe. Apart from the mathematical unlikelihood of such a lifestyle on $200 pcm, this episode either ignores or is an attempt to sidestep the millions of Americans who are in genuine need of assistance. Jones doesn't see or make this point, he behaves like a Rottweiler with a lard soaked rag doll being waved in its face at which he foams and snaps.

For somebody who openly proclaims that 9/11 was an inside job, Jones is remarkably willing to swallow this story whole. Maybe he is real? Who knows? But for somebody who makes a very comfortable living out of what some call doom porn, endorsing such trash laden right wing propaganda is pretty feeble. Willingly or not, Jones is complicit in the establishment's game of divide and rule. Why? Because despite his regular claims to have seen through the left right paradigm, he is a right wing reactionary.

If This Guy Is What The Future Of America Looks Like, We Are In BIG Trouble