Boston Marathon Bombing Conspiracies: “Pretty Chilling”

This post originally appeared on Houdini's Revenge

I have stated many times throughout my discussions of the Boston bombings that I believe the mainstream media and the details from the official investigation itself have fueled as much conspiracy theory as the “usual suspects” have created. Boston has been notable in the realm of conspiracy theory in how so many people who are not conspiracy theorists have begun to think something is being hidden and that we are being manipulated, or at the very least that everyone involved in the case is incompetent.

They have very good reasons for thinking this way because the media handling of the case and the investigative decisions have been a complete mess. My article on the “Alex Jones-ification of the Mainstream Media” showed dismay at the original reporting in the case and, when I wrote it, I thought we had seen the nadir of the misreporting but I was wrong. Even worse, I was completely unprepared for the official investigative statements that seem to be making everything worse. At this point, anyone paying close attention to the details of the case should be having a hard time believing much of any official narrative about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s role in the Boston bombing, his role in the various shootouts in Watertown and the confession he allegedly gave federal interrogators.

This is worth paying close attention to. The low standards of reporting and the continually changing stories from the investigators as they engage in activities that ten years ago would have been unconstitutional and grounds for prosecution are actual, provable harms. While people are agitating about staged scenes and casting aspersions on bomb victims, while people are making disgusting anti-semitic accusations, the press and the government are legitimately doing terrible things that are less exciting than creating fantastic theories that would be too outrageous even for movies. Were I a conspiracy theorist, I might wonder about the motivations of those who are engaging in such insulting flights of fancy. But mostly I think theories are created for mundane reasons that have nothing to do with being government plants or purveyors of disinformation. But the end result is the same. But while people are contemplating a staged attack that five minutes on Google proves couldn’t have happened, the press are merrily reporting garbage and the investigation is changing their official story whenever it suits them and the waters have been so muddied by the usual conspiracy theory suspects that people are afraid of being tarred with the same irrational brush if they speak out and say, “There are so many problems with the case against the Tsarnaev brothers that I do not know if they were even involved.”

One of the reasons I cannot throw my hat emphatically behind Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a bomber is because none of the evidence that the government claims to have proving he planted a bomb has been seen by anyone who spoke to the press and because the eyewitness identification that led the FBI to identify the Tsarnaev brothers is shaky at best. There are some who think that the FBI doesn’t have a tape that shows Dzhokhar planting a bomb and their suspicions are very much an element of the “Dzhokhar Was Framed” theory.

Let’s begin discussing the whole mess with Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts.

Boston Marathon Conspiracy Theories: Dzhokhar Is Dead

This post originally appeared on Houdini's Revenge

In several places online I have seen people postulate that they think that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is dead. With one sickening exception, the Dzhokhar Is Dead rumors are benign and based on assumptions that are easy to understand. But even as they are easy to understand, there’s not much to back the theories because they are all fueled by the fact that we haven’t seen Dzhokhar moving since he stepped out of the boat in Watertown on April 19. An uncredited and unverified picture of him, presumably after surgery, was leaked, and in it he looks pretty bad. Since then, the public has not seen him. He was taken from Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, where he was rushed on April 19, and transferred to a federal prison hospital, Federal Medical Center Devens and at no time did anyone in the public witness the transfer.

Though no one in the public has seen Dzhokhar, there are pretty clear signs that he is alive. He recently was permitted to speak to his mother on the telephone, and told her he was recovering, among other things. There is always the possibility that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was listening to someone else on the phone, as Zubeidat reports that the call was very quiet and it was hard for them to hear each other. However, this situation is different from Maret Tsarnaeva insisting the man in the Naked Guy video is her nephew despite not having seen him in over five years. One presumes a mother will know her son’s voice, even if she has been away from him for a while. Given how vocal Zubeidat has been about her suspicions about staging and false flags, and that the police killed Tamerlan after taking him into custody peacefully, had she any suspicion that the boy on the phone was not her son, she would have shouted it from the rooftops.

Some people find Zubeidat Tsarnaeva a bit odd but there are other people who have had access to Dzhokhar. He has a defense team that has seen him and fought for and won permission to photograph him. Evidently Dzhokhar is in such bad shape that his physical state could be used in his favor in court (and if he is so debilitated weeks after the shootout that it is remarkable enough that it needs to be introduced in court, it points to the notion that perhaps he was in no state to have been interrogated after surgery, but more on that in another entry). That a defense team is going to photograph him should give lie to the idea he is dead. Moreover, from a place of anecdote, the presence of Judy Clarke on Dzhokhar’s defense team should calm suspicions about Dzhokhar’s death. An independent thinker, Clarke is one of the last people I can think of who would participate in a conspiracy wherein she would have to cover up the death of a client or defend a doppelganger. Raised by John Birchers, she became rabidly anti-death penalty and has long been an advocate for people the government and private citizens would genuinely like to see dead, like child murderer Susan Smith. Judy Clarke’s presence on Dzhokhar’s defense team should comfort those who think him dead or fear for his long-term safety pre-trial.

I am of the opinion that much is odd about the accusations against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and I worry that he is being treated harshly or that the we have been misled about the state of his injuries after the shootout. I am not the only one. A rumor that I have not been able to prove through any legitimate source insists that Dzhokhar also has a broken arm that he received either during prison mistreatment or as the result of the shootout at the boat. That such a rumor didn’t immediate strike me as unlikely says something about the quality of reporting that has accompanied Tsarnaev throughout this case (it appears to have originated from a faked transcription of the phone call Zubiedat had with Dzhokhar, since removed from the VK account where I first saw it). We were told weeks after the boat in Watertown was searched that a note had been found so it’s not unlikely Dzhokhar could have broken his arm before or in custody and the news not have filtered out. I would not be surprised if Dzhokhar’s physical state is far worse than the public has been led to believe but the call with his mother and the defense team’s presence, especially now that they can photograph him, should dispel most of the rumors. Hardline conspiracy theorists who believe the whole world is in on the conspiracy cannot be swayed but for the rest of us, I think we can rest assured he is at least alive.

But even as most of the “he’s dead” theories about Dzhokhar are largely benign, there is a theory that verges into the malignant. I am not sure if the video in question was created by StillSpeakingOut but his or her YouTube channel is the first place I have seen this video and every single share of it I have seen originated from that channel. There are other channels that have uploaded this video but they don’t come close to the view numbers that StillSpeakingOut has. Therefore I will, for rhetorical purposes, attribute the video to StillSpeakingOut and will be only too happy to edit this text if another creator is revealed. The “Free Jahar” fandom of young women who have no idea what “Zionist” may mean in this context have been a boon to this video, sharing it without much thought as they scare each other with vapid rumor. For them this video is like a campfire story that ends with a car door and a hook except this time the hook is anti-semitism.

Regular posting resumes next week

This post originally appeared on I Read Odd Books

I had planned to have another “Bizarro Week” but the tepid turn out for the last one has convinced me to wait a bit before engaging in such an endeavor. However, I still plan to discuss some bizarro in a lump, more or less. Then we’ll leave basic bizarro and branch out into other books, and hopefully some non-fiction. I miss discussing non-fiction over here. But in the upcoming weeks, look for discussions of Bradley Sands, David Barbee, G. Arthur Brown, David David Katz, Kevin Astkin, and hopefully in July I can get back to discussing odd non-fiction as well.

I’ve been busy at work over on Houdini’s Revenge. A mention on MetaFilter and an indignant conspiracy theorist resulted in an onslaught of new readers and all sorts of comment situations. I thought running IROB for five years had prepared me for the worst that “creative” thinkers bring to the comment section. I was wrong. Oh, was I wrong. Mr Oddbooks wants me to close comments, but I am leaving comments open over there and just keeping my ban hand strong. In five years of IROB I’ve had to ban two people, and one of them was unbanned later. Not the case over on HRev. In another two weeks, I think I will be in possession of a data set that will show a definitive link between Tor accounts and anti-semitism. Maybe I’ll apply for a grant to complete a study, or maybe I’ll just smack myself in the head repeatedly with a copy of Modern Trolling.

On another note, I noticed some incoming links from a site called HTML Giant and found I had been referenced in a very interesting analysis of Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel. I am unsure if being “compellingly tedious” is a good thing yet the description delighted me. It’s possibly the best description of what I do, now that I think of it. But back to Lin. Increasingly I feel less… offended by Tao Lin and warming toward his style or his schtick, or whatever it is he has going on. And the article over on HTML Giant is very much worth a read so have a look if you have an opinion on Lin.

Thanks to all who offered support during my resent “unpleasantness.” The situation is largely resolving itself and while one can never say never, I don’t see a similar problem cropping up any time soon. I am working very hard to catch back up and an heartened that I have such great readers here. Lurkers are awesome too because you raise your heads at just the right moment. IROB’s readers rock!

See you next week!

Boston Marathon Bombing Conspiracies: Dzhokhar Was Framed/Is a Patsy

This post originally appeared on Houdini's Revenge

Much of the conspiracy theory that has sprung up around the Boston Marathon bombing is spun from whole cloth, caused by misinterpretation of basic facts or is the result of complete cognitive failures on the parts of the theorists. 95% of the conspiracy theories can be debunked pretty easily, though I still put in the time because I think objective truth is worth working for.

But I have to say that there is so much strangeness surrounding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that while I do not think he has been made a patsy by The Forces That Be, I can also say that the media and governmental failures in this case are responsible directly for a lot of the conspiracy theory that has been formed around the idea that Dzhokhar is innocent. When the mainstream media and the actual investigative agencies screw up this much, we have to expect conspiracies to crop up. The regular conspiracy theory suspects are going to create theories but this time lots of regular people have been sucked into conspiracy theory because they find it difficult to believe what any agency or news source has to say about the case. Some of what I write here will also be found in my article about the media failures and what may seem like odd governmental actions in the Boston bombing case, but I think they are worth repeating. And frankly some repetition is inevitable. And impossible. It’s all been horked up in some sort of conspiracy theory hairball. It’s just one big, interconnected mess.

There are so many conspiracies and so many rumors about Dzhokhar that again I find myself forced to break them out into separate entries. Some may not be “theories” as such but rather examinations of evidence that play a role in the “Dzhokhar Was Framed” theories. I feel I need to break them up into single entries because otherwise I will have a 20,000 word document, if that short, for all of the theories. And a new one seems to pop up every day. If you have a particular Dzhokhar conspiracy theory you would like to see explored here, let me know. As many as I have found, I bet there are a lot more I haven’t read yet. Stay tuned for some debunking and, and I have to be blunt here, lots of complaining about how information is disseminated by online sources and mainstream media.

While you are waiting for my first Dzhokhar debunk, be sure to have a look at my discussion of the “Free Jahar” fandom and be sure to check back later as I add to the Dzhokhar theory discussions.

Boston Marathon Bombing Conspiracies: The Jahart Throb

This post originally appeared on Houdini's Revenge

I initially wanted to discuss the fandom that has sprung up around Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the conspiracy theories about Dzhokhar, mostly scenarios that involve him having been framed. As I wrote, it became clear to me this needed to be a section on its own. The fandom is important to any discussion of conspiracy theory in the Boston bombings, but the girls in the fandom are not actual creators of theory. They just share what is already out there. I want to discuss them because I think that they are a subset of conspiracy theory in general – a mini moral panic, and a misrepresented one at that. Also I initially thought these girls were a bellwether of sorts, a case study of what happens when we don’t teach our young people how to tell a good source from bad, how to research claims people make, and how to engage in independent thought without leaving the realm of reason.

While I still think we can see some failures in how we teach young people to process data, I also think this particular fandom has been blown up by the media into just another excuse to clutch pearls, declaiming These Kids Today. A few articles about the Free Jahar fandom are even-handed but the bulk focus on the teen crush angle, insinuating that all the people online who are concerned about the “evidence” against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are just angst-filled teeny-boppers. I also think a lot of the discussion about this topic is click bait, an easy way to draw people who want to gawk at the salaciousness of young women lusting after a suspected killer, dun dun DUN! (Please note that Jahar is an anglicized spelling of Dzhokhar.)

However, before I talk about the girls who make up the group/fandom that so many media venues have mocked, I want to make a distinction. There are “Free Jahar” groups that do not focus on the relative attractiveness of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and it is my belief that many articles bashing the “Free Jaharists” as silly, love-struck girls have mixed the more serious groups in to make the fandom group seem larger. A few hundred girls on Tumblr acting like teenage girls often do isn’t newsworthy. Fifteen thousand girls mooning over a suspected bomber and spreading wretched conspiracy theory is marginally more newsworthy. But from all the reading I have done (and thank me later for taking that hit – I should subtitle this blog “I read this crap so you don’t have to!”), the girls who spawned the Gawker article that got this ball rolling are entirely different from the larger groups they have been lumped into.

Early articles discussing the “Jihotties” reference a large Facebook group that was later shut down. There is a current, private Free Jahar Facebook that has almost 15,000 members, and from what I have gathered, this is a continuation of the Facebook community that got shut down, reforming after the dust settled. I joined this community and read a lot of the status updates there and this community is definitely not a fandom, nor is it steeped in conspiracy theory, though potential conspiracy is discussed. There are no sighs about how cute Dzhohkar is and the bulk of the community maintain a reasonably intelligent discussion level, though there are a few odd drawings of Dzhokhar and someone posted an article about psychic predictions of the Boston bombing. A few people post new pictures they find of Dzhokhar, but none of the sillier elements to this Facebook group are the focus of the group. Yet I think that this group is used to plump up the numbers in reports of the infinitely more interesting, media-wise, fandom. A fandom is far easier to mock and to dismiss than collectives of mostly young people who think there are serious problems with the case against Dzhokhar. (ETA: And an hour after I posted this entry I see a post wherein someone touts a paranoid and lunatic video wherein some gubernatorial candidate in Nevada is convinced DHS staged the Boston Marathon bombing. I have no idea what I was thinking, assuming that any place was safe from the gut punch of bad conspiracy theory. I’m sure within minutes someone will post a cuddly picture of Jahar, but for a brief few days, there was a place wherein people were discussing problems in the case against Dzhokhar intelligently. I take some comfort in that very few people have responded to it, either by comments or by likes – some very small comfort. But they aren’t behaving like a fandom so my original analysis still stands in that regard. )

From what I have read, I would be very surprised if there are more than a thousand girls in the Free Jahar fandom. The largest open group of the sorts of “Free Jaharists” sensationalized on Gawker I can find is a Facebook group with around 600 members. FreeJahar on Twitter has around 1,800 followers. The other names on Twitter associated with the Justice for Dzhokhar “movement” have substantially fewer followers. Troy Crossley, an aspiring rapper, who was once friends with Dzhokhar and who is vocal in his support for his friend, has over 15,000 followers. Troy’s account, however, pre-dates the Boston bombing attack and I have no way of knowing how many followers he had before April 19. None of the actual “Justice for Jahar” Twitter accounts even come close to having the number of followers Troy has. But for the sake of argument, let’s lump all the serious groups in with the fandoms. Even if every single Troy Crossley follower, lurid Dzhokhar Tumblr user and member of the largest Free Jahar Facebook account are unique users and are representative of the love-sick fandom mocked in the mainstream press, the Free Jahar movement is still very, very small. All combined, they would represent .01% of Americans and it must be stated that these groups are international. There may very well be more people in the world who think the Earth is flat and think that the Cottingley Fairies were real.

Oh, and hello!

This post originally appeared on Houdini's Revenge

Due to the MetaFilter entry about Houdini’s Revenge and my recent unpleasantness with a conspiracy theorist, I find myself with some new readers. I hope some of you stick around, even the ones who feel sorry for me because you think I suck at the teat of the media. Have a read. Tell me what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.

Boston Marathon Bombing Conspiracy: Craft International, False Flag – UPDATED

This post originally appeared on Houdini's Revenge

I can’t determine what site or what commentator initially brought up Craft/Blackwater but there’s a lot of information about it out on the web. Craft International started being mentioned on April 17, two days after the bombings. Pontifications about the possible presence of Craft International at the Boston Marathon blossomed into full force false flag paranoia on April 18. Alex Jones, the ruddy huckster, was a force behind accusations against Craft International as being part of a false flag, which makes sense because he was literally the first conspiracy theorist to declare false flag as the cause behind the Boston bombings. He waited a cool 41 minutes after the bombings before he invoked false flag, and I have to commend him for his restraint. It had to have hurt him to wait that long. But he had to have sighed with relief when people began to notice the men in the black caps with the black backpacks because then he had something upon which to pin his false flag allegations.

I suspect I will mention this again when I discuss all of the false flag accusations that happened before 4/18, but it is logically impossible to declare any violent event a government-inspired false flag before the government has even had a chance to declare a suspect. How can it be a false flag before the government has even told us an official story? It can’t, unless you are convinced that every horrible thing that ever happens is obviously planned by the government against innocent Americans in order to strip us of our rights in some sort of eventual Constitutional rights denigration in the name of… whatever it those who invoke false flag during a stiff wind fear. At that point, all evidence is just confirmation bias. They knew a false flag was going to happen. They had to wait for one. And that’s crappy logic and evidence analysis.

Still, the Craft International rumors had some steam. The discussion and accusations were provoked by the number of men on the ground at the scene of the bombing, before and after, dressed identically. The men were wearing khaki pants, khaki boots, black zip-up jackets, black caps with what appear to be skulls on them, and black backpacks.

Boston Bombing Conspiracies: The Naked Tamerlan Recording

This post originally appeared on Houdini's Revenge

Early on April 19, Boston police took into a custody a man who had been stripped naked and cuffed. Footage was taken of this man as he was placed in the back of a squad car. This man bore a certain resemblance to Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

It’s understandable how at first glance this film could raise all kinds of questions. One is that if Tamerlan was naked and cuffed in the back of a squad car, then he could not have been in a shoot-out with the police that ended with him being run down by his brother as Dzhokhar fled the scene in the stolen car. Another is that the story about Tamerlan being killed on the scene was rubbish and that he was taken into custody peacefully and then later brutally murdered.

The theories that have sprung up around the video of the supposedly naked Tamerlan are quite proof-resistant, and show how it is that evidence often cannot have any influence over the mindsets that believe in conspiracy theory.

One of the best debunks comes from Metabunk, but it’s important to note that people take the evidence in this debunk to prove that the Naked Man is Tamerlan. Seriously, people look at this information and think it proves that the Naked Man was Tamerlan. If nothing else, this theory shows so well the intractable nature of the conspiracy theorist mind. All information is filtered in a manner that confirms the biases of those who create theories and believe in them.

What I Did This Weekend: or, Fuck My Life

This post originally appeared on I Read Odd Books

So, for the four of you left who read here regularly, you may have noticed that the site was offline this weekend. I had some… issues.

I am conflicted because I would like to tell you all what is happening but if I do, it may just get worse. But before long, someone is going to have to go jail. I’m not kidding.

Multiple DMCA notices were filed against this site and Houdini’s Revenge, all of them bogus. Complaints were also made about the content I produce on IROB. It was alleged that I have reproduced child pornography and wrote entries to incite people to commit acts of pedophilia and rape. None of these complaints had any basis in reality (no shit). My hosting company had limited choices because I was less than cooperative but they were on my side and all of this has been resolved in my favor. Seriously, they were very professional and very sympathetic.

Because I am very tired I have cancelled ANSWER Me! week because I can only imagine the complaints that will get lodged if I discuss all four issues in the depth I prefer.

If you are a writer who suspects your work may have been twisted up in this mess, please know this nonsense was wholly directed at me. There was no vendetta against any writer involved, and especially no vendetta against Jim Goad, whose work I planned to tackle this week.

I genuinely don’t know how I am going to get this weirdness to stop. Mr Oddbooks and I have explored legal options but then we decided we couldn’t justify the hassle or the expense so we’re gonna lie low and hope it doesn’t happen again. I plan to write here, probably next week, but I have a limited capacity to deal with much in the way of bullshit, which is why I collect books and write online rather than have a real job. So we’ll see how this goes.

Also, while I’m feeling a bit testy, I need to let everyone who has sent me books to read know that I have made a decision about how I plan to handle the books that remain to be read. If I count more than ten grammar, spelling and/or punctuation issues in your book, I won’t be discussing it. It’s harsh but really, it’s not. Lately a lot of the literature I have read has been difficult to appreciate because of all the errors, which makes me tired as I try to find ways to praise good ideas with crappy editing, and I need to recharge my mojo, which will be hard in a world without Ray Manzarek, but I’m going to give it a try (note: avoid using sentences like this one when you write books). I’ll handle rejected novels quietly. Thanks for your understanding. (Edited because I found a nicer way to say what I needed to say.)

ANSWER Me! Week Starts Monday

This post originally appeared on I Read Odd Books

Hey everyone, sorry to have been so quiet since the end of the NBAS week but I’ve been busy over on Houdini’s Revenge. In fact, I knocked out an attempt to debunk of one of the more involved “it was staged” theories regarding the Boston Marathon Bombings, as well as writing about some of the backpack theories. I hope eventually to amass a clearinghouse of all the theories, debunked (or confirmed – it could happen) and in some sort of order. For those who enjoy conspiracy theory, have a look.

I made an interesting decision about discussing ANSWER Me!, issues 1-4. I have been working on these discussions for months, almost a year. And when I say I “these discussions,” I really mean Issue 4, the infamous Rape Issue. I have never hit the backspace key more in my life. I have read almost all of Andrea Dworkin’s body of work to make sure that I have my ducks in a row if the Andrea Dworkin Lie Detector types show up. I have agonized over word choice, trying to make sure I conveyed the point I wanted to make without offending the usual suspects, even as I sort of want to call out the usual suspects (:cough:melissamcewan:cough:) for trivializing rape to the point even ardent liberals are sickened by their penny ante and Penny Arcade antics, making rape seem trivial as they wage war against fictional creatures committing impossible acts against cartoon characters that in no way represent any living person, past or present. And I will have to mention Peter Sotos. Sotos is a polarizing dude, and by polarizing, I mean I get rape and death threats when I talk about him. I can cope with that sort of shit – welcome to the Internet, Baby Girl! – but it can get a wee bit demoralizing.

All that agonizing has let me to this interesting decision: I am trashing everything I have written and will begin again on Saturday morning, cranking out text quickly and from a place of reaction rather than contemplation. When I am forced to write quickly, I have to stop dithering. When I stop dithering, I can say what I want to say and not worry about who may be offended or that people I want to offend may find my POV to their liking, which is almost as bad.

I may be cranking out Friday’s entry Thursday night but, even if it is rushed, it will be better than the tentative semi-turd I have right now. Hopefully raw writing will encourage raw and interesting discussions.

I had planned to host a giveaway for this themed week but I am 86ing it for two reasons. One, all of the ANSWER Me! books are out-of-print and the last I looked on Amazon, the affordable copies were in crappy condition (acceptable on Amazon means someone’s cat shat on it), all the reputable dealers want way too much, and easily half the listings were from dropshippers, the scourge of the online book purchasing experience. I could give away Goad’s other books but that seems weird since I’m not discussing them. Two, the last two giveaways I hosted had really lukewarm reactions. I’ve seen hundreds of people freak out at the chance to win a $10 card at a coffee shop and I had 26 entries for a $50 Amazon card, and those entries represented nine people. Maybe 10. I’m too tired to go back and look. At any rate, though I really like sharing the book love, there is a fine line between Sharing the Love and becoming That Girl Who Looks Like She Is Begging For Readers. I love you guys but I feel like I’m forcing my love down your throats. Which seems an appropriate way as any to end this entry that basically bemoaned my neurotic inability to write from the hip about rape.

Funny how that works.

Tune in Monday for ANSWER Me! week. It should be interesting.