Like a lot of people out there, I’m going to miss the magnificent weirdo that was David Bowie. While the rest of us listen to our favorite Bowie songs on repeat, the not-so-good folks at Infowars — conspiracy theory central — are actually celebrating the musician and cultural icon’s death.
In a post titled DAVID BOWIE: A NON-APPRECIATION, Darrell Y. Hamamoto suggests that Bowie, who died of cancer, was himself a symptom of “civilizational cancer.”
After several paragraphs of mostly incoherent throat-clearing, which sort of suggest (among other things) that Bowie was responsible not only for Gary Glitter’s fashion sense but also his sexual abuse and exploitation of children, Hamamoto presents us with his thesis, declaring that Bowie’s
death is the capstone on the pyramid of necrotic Anglo-American mass culture spanning a half-century of civilizational cancer away so fantastic and unreal that leads one to suspect that “Bowie” (Born David Robert Jones) sprang from the twisted, fervid minds of social psychologists residing at the Tavistock Institute.
That was all one sentence.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the Tavistock Institute is a nearly 70-year-old British think-tank that does work in psychology and the social sciences; it’s a favorite bugbear of assorted conspiracy theorists, who blame it for, among other things, the brainwashing of American prisoners of war in Korea, the CIA’s MK Ultra program, and The Beatles.
Anyway, Hamamoto is pretty stoked by the news of Bowie’s passing, declaring that
the Death of David Bowie might presage a new era of spiritual regeneration that is the precondition of civilizational health and advancement.
Skimming through the more than one thousand comments left on Hamamoto’s post so far, it appears that there are not a lot of Bowie fans in the house.
Someone called daf declares that
Bowie was an agent of the NWO, forging acceptance for gender identity politics re: transvestites, transgender, gays… Not to mention furtherance of the ET/ Alien meme that the NWO sought to advance. Listen to the music: is it really that good? Nah.
“The Hebrew Institute,” meanwhile, argues that
David Bowie can kiss my ass… he was a fuckin satanistic edomite who is rotting in the pit for his homosexual acts and overtones to accept that behavior not of God and he is now paying for it….may he keep rotting in the pit of hell to which he deserves AMEN.
Blahblahblah is clearly not a big fan of Bowie’s unique style:
He was a Luciferian puppet, spreading NWO agenda through music like so many others. Look at the lightning bolt on his face.
But not everyone in the comments is quite so enamored of Hamamoto’s analysis. Indeed, one longtime Infowars listener was so appalled by the post, and the responses to it, that they decided to become a former listener:
After years of being a dedicated listener, observer and supporter of this program I just cut ties with you all together. … I’ve stuck up for your articles and it’s caused me a lot of social consternation … your OPINIONS and ASSUMPTIONS in this matter are so far off base it makes me want to vomit on my computer screen. Then reading the hateful comments on this page about homosexuals and FREAKS makes me want to jump this boat and join the illuminated manipulators … The fact of the matter is that this was a talented human being with much love and talent to offer the world and the author ties this in to some “homosexual illuminati occult agenda” … [T]hat I have supported such a bigoted support base here is something I am ashamed of after all these years.
Good for you.
In case you’re not familiar with Infowars, here’s Alex Jones, the dude who runs the place. And yes, the tantrum in the video is a real one. He’s got some anger issues.
And here are a couple of videos of Bowie performing in 1972.
Yesterday, I put together a little playlist of some of my favorite Bowie songs on Spotify.
Sorry, Alex Jones; you will be remembered, if at all, as an embarrassment to humanity. Bowie will be remembered as a musical and cultural legend, albeit a far from perfect human being.
EDIT: I reworded the ending to take into account Bowie’s reported rape of underage “groupie” Laurie Maddox, which I didn’t know about when I originally wrote the piece. (I say “reported,” because I wasn’t there and he wasn’t charged much less convicted for it, but Maddox’s account is all-too-plausible; I believe her.)
Through all the hatred, this sentence stands out for me: “the Death of David Bowie might presage a new era of spiritual regeneration that is the precondition of civilizational health and advancement.” So Bowie was the only reason that the Manospherians and John Birchers haven’t taken over already, and now that he’s gone they’ll be free to conquer the world and be greeted as liberators. Logic!
Seriously, for all the ch-ch-changes Bowie went through, he was one of a kind genius. We may never see anyone like him again.
“When I complain about homosexuals, I’m always sure to tell them they can kiss my ass. I can’t figure out why they always take me up on that, but those weirdos defy explanation.”–that guy who wrote that great Onion article asking why homosexuals always sucked his dick
They’re just jealous of a man who could turn his death into art.
after Alex’s rant he should have yelled out “beef cake! BEEF CAKE!”
oh and I also used to be an Infowars listener aswell, but found out what dicks they the same way with how they attacked Clementine Ford.
Hey Infowarriors, the monsters under your bed are REAL! Just thought you should know.
You know, they said the say thing about Mozart when he died*.
(* may not be true. I haven’t done the research, because I’ve been too busy planning my vacation to see the Great Pyramid of necrotic Anglo-American mass culture in Egypt, Texas.)
I’ve been to a few seminars run by the Tavistock (they’re good on medico-legal stuff, especially involving young people and addiction issues).
Was more cheese and wine than conspiracies, but maybe they do the new world order stuff on a different night.
David Bowie’s little toe had more talent and genius and empathy than there is in the entire manosphere.
I have to say, I’m a little disappointed so far. I thought the Age of Aquarius would be more groovy and less spittle-flecked.
This is the one that’s boggling my mind. Is the lightning bolt supposed to be a Luciferian symbol, or an NWO symbol, or what? I mean, I know about pentacles and eyes and pyramids and all that stuff, but this…. I know the Grateful Dead used a skull-and-lightning-bolt motif for some of their stuff; is it related? I really wanna drag blahblahblah in here to explain this one….
Wait…this is the guy who did a Christmas song duet with Bing Crosby…right? Bing Crosby!!
I hadn’t heard about lightning being an NWO symbol either. But if butterflies can be a symbol of satanic illuminati brainwashing, I guess anything can be.
Seriously. Go look up the stuff about Boy Meets World being a vehicle for illuminatti indoctrination. It is hilarious.
I think this person is alluding to the lightning bolt-inverted pentacle combo favored by Anton Lavey.
Eww. The predominant ad showing up here is making me look at a huge herpes sore. I hate offensive click bait ads.
@ WWTH
do we all get different random ads. All I seem to get is fitness stuff, and mending gas boilers for some reason.
I’m surprised (not) that they didn’t bring up the fact that David Bowie raped an underage girl into this but, then again, most manospherians want to do that so I guess just having consensual sex with legal adults that happen to men is the bigger offense here. Or was that mentioned but not mentioned here because I don’t wanna click any links to that shit.
There isn’t a current event that Alex Jones and the other screaming idiots at Infowars can’t look at through a conspiratorial lens, is there? I keep waiting for Infowars to crumble under the tremendous weight of all that “truth” they expose.
@Alan Robertshaw
Ads for mending gas boilers? I have yet to see one of those on my Interwebz.
Sometimes I’ll see an ad for repair of hot water heaters.
LOL – I had to go to the Tavistock Centre in 1979 when I was 13 for family therapy. They were not at all weird – no experimental or ‘way out’ methods were used. And as far as I am aware Bowie had nothing to do with them ever.
Bowie didn’t do ‘gay’ or ‘transvestite’ from before 1980 – so this great talent is being judged by a short (though admittedly brilliant and highly influential) part of his career.
What a bunch of fuckwads – even if you didn’t like his music (I am a huge fan of pre ’75 only) it would be more than ridiculous to say that Bowie wasn’t brilliant. He was a true artist and innovator.
@ kat
Is that not the same thing? The ad I sometimes see is about repairing boilers/water heaters. Not sure why. Someone is keen for me to have visible abs though.
Of course already beaten them to it *unconvincing cough*.
@Pandapool
I didn’t know that Bowie raped underage girls. As far as I know, it wasn’t mentioned here.
But I did Google it and found some info. It seems that Bowie did what a lot of rock stars did at the time, which was to bed very young groupies. Not that there’s any excuse for that.
Some people say that the 1970s were a very, very different time and statutory rape was seen as no big deal. Yes — and no. Take Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul and Mary):
(Wikipedia)
What Wikipedia doesn’t say is that the girls’ mother pursued this case hard. I’ll bet that made all the difference in Yarrow being convicted.
What I did know about David Bowie was his Thin White Duke phase, during which he celebrated fascism:
http://www.muhistory.com/from-the-archive-2-mu-response-to-david-bowies-nazi-salute/
However, that phase did not last, and he later blamed it on drugs:
http://www.muhistory.com/from-the-archive-2-mu-response-to-david-bowies-nazi-salute/
@Alan Robertshaw
That was my little joke about how Great Britain and the United States are divided by their common language. In the United States, the only thing we mend are clothes. Or if you’re getting well after an illness, you might be pronounced “on the mend.”
Yeah, I’ve got great abs too. No, really.
@ kat
We also mend roads, or the pavement as you might say. Over here pavements are sidewalks. I wonder how many accidents have been caused by visiting car drivers getting that all mixed up.
‘Cars’ are a type of automobile 😉
And I say ‘cars’ when I mean ‘waggons’ or ‘carriages’, which is a bit confusing as I actually work on the railway in the UK….
Ridiculous as this is, I do like the image of Bowie singlehandedly fighting off all the right-wing wingnuts. Certainly I think he would have been proud to be described as “forging acceptance for gender identity politics re: transvestites, transgender, gays.”
http://i.imgur.com/rfbBtcY.gif
David: I like your playlist.
I’m guessing the “lightning as Satanic symbol” association comes from the fact that it looks very similar one of the “lightning S” marks used by the SS in Nazi Germany. Someone probably heard that the SS got the symbol from Nordic/Germanic occultism (the “lightning S” is really the “sun” rune), and ran with that. But that’s mainly a guess on my part.
I’m with Katz. I think that Bowie still pissing off the right this much at the age of 69 is a tribute to his cultural impact. They are meaningless, he is not.
@Pandapool
Not gonna lie, Bowie’s statutory rape is what’s kept me from really getting into the spirit of mourning his passing. Nothing wrong with being sad at the death of a great cultural icon, of course, I’m just not personally feeling it.
It’s a great indicator of their shittiness that these assholes think the decent and progressive things a celebrity might have done are what’s bad about them. Not that reactionary fuckers would ever focus on the actual shitty things celebrities do, since, as you pointed out, they don’t see anything wrong with those specific things. I’d wager many of these asshats would probably like to be celebrities for the sake of being able to do various bad shit with little to no consequence.
I looked up the word “edomite” and can’t figure why it’s a bad thing. I probably don’t want to know…
Alan,
If you see a blue triangle at the corner of an ad, it means it’s targeted to you. Unless internet ads are different in different countries. Either way, it’s probably targeted advertising.
So, why am I getting an ad about herpes? I haven’t looked up any info about STIs in recent memory. I’m curious about what algorithm led to that. Maybe it’s just because I’m single?
@ WWTH
Well I don’t even have a gas boiler/heater so I wouldn’t read too much into the herpes stuff either.
Speaking of science things, are any other UK bods watching stargazing live?
I like the new horizons lass “Well, we decided to aim the probe at another KBO so now it’s up to NASA to find the funds”. That’s the sort of attitude that gets you a Nobel Prize, or possibly sacked.
@Anarchonist
All I can say is that Bowie played a huge part of my life from a young age and he did a lot of good things which no way makes what he did passable or right.
I’m still mourning his passing, because it doesn’t change the past. I’ve seen a lot of justifiable anger over what he did but it would have been nice to have used that anger when he was alive so he could have been punished properly rather than wait until he’s dead to bring it up.
Everyone who’s outraged about him raping a kid are gonna quiet down once everyone is finished mourning in a month or so. And it’s annoying for a bunch of reasons because you aren’t punishing anyone in that situation, you’re just showing that if you’re rich and famous, you can get away with shit and only have it brought up in any real depth until after you’re dead, just like with most other celebrities.
Admittedly, I only learned about the whole deal recently–and it would have been nice to know this shit waaay before he was dead. Would I have liked Bowie as much as I do now if I didn’t learn about what he did until a few days ago? Probably not. I won’t deny or defend him in that aspect, no matter what the good he’s done and how he’s shaped me.
There’s also people defending Bowie for doing what he did which is fucking gross and awful. Those people need to fuck off right now. He was a brilliant musician but he did shit no one should be defending. Let people speak about him and don’t fucking try to defend that shit.
Manospherians:
Your male tears are delicious.
Rock on past existence, Ziggy.
KAT – for what it’s worth, the sex was fully consensual. That doesn’t make it not statutory rape, but I would have lied, cheated and stolen to get into Jon Bon Jovi’s room at 14 and do teh nasty (or not so nasty!).
Doesn’t mean it’s not a crime, but I don’t think society had really started talking about how power matters in relationships. That a teen who seems totally willing and even eager to have sex, probably should be stopped by the adult she or he is seeking to have sex with. I know that most rock stars had women throwing themselves in their rooms, and anything went. So it’s hard to put what could be argued “more enlightened” views on the day.
That said, Bowie has said that many of the excesses, including drugs and sex, lead to bad choices, and once he realized what he was doing to himself and to others, he stopped.
Also said, I hold reservations taht 14 year old men and women don’t know what they want. I did. most of my friends did. and sometimes that was things that society said were no-no, like sex with hot (adult) men when we were 15 or 16.
There is some (unverified, anecdotal) evidence floating around out there that Bowie’s attitude towards teenage groupies in his later years was very different; I read a story today passed on from a drummer of his who once thought it would be cool to give some teenage fans access to Bowie’s hotel room. The next morning, David confronted the drummer angrily and told him he’d never work again if he pulled a stunt like that again.
Now, who knows if that really happened and if it did, who knows if it was because Bowie felt guilty over the Lori Maddox thing or just because he didn’t want his privacy invaded? But it does make me think …
It always seems to me that it’s men and especially, anti-feminist men, who take this hard line of believing that a rapist (of any variety, including statutory)=inhuman monster worthy of hellish punishment and death. Not hard to see why: this has the effect of doing lip service to the idea that rape is bad while silencing victims anytime a perpetrator is clearly NOT an inhuman monster. Which is, you know, most of the time.
Meanwhile, of course, any man who rapes and then regrets it can’t actually *say* so without facing this same dehumanizing hatred. Even murderers don’t face such stigma. Can you imagine what a blow it would be against rape culture if someone like David Bowie could actually say, “I did this in my youth. It was wrong,” in a place where young men could hear him?
Tanya: It’s not that ’14 year old men and women don’t know what they want’. It’s what the adult in that encounter wants that’s the issue. Specifically, they generally are targeting the underage individual precisely because they are underage, and believe they can control the entirety of the thing–as you did note, there’s an issue of power there that’s just not talked about enough.
On the other hand, we can draw a very sharp contrast between Bowie and, say, Bill Cosby, who has yet to even acknowledge that what he did was wrong, let alone willingly pay any sort of penalty for it.
@LG
I wish I knew how he felt about it. I was going to say
But I wouldn’t know off hand if he really would or not.
And, also, this was what I was talking about.
“Also said, I hold reservations taht 14 year old men and women don’t know what they want. I did. most of my friends did. and sometimes that was things that society said were no-no, like sex with hot (adult) men when we were 15 or 16.”
There’s a big, big difference between knowing what you like in a broad sense and actually fully understanding the situation you’re in well enough to safely navigate it. The hot adult men that I wanted to have sex with when I was 14-16 are still hot adult men I’d fancy having sex with now, but that doesn’t mean my adult self would want that for my teenage self. My teenage self simply could not have handled it and would have had my emotional growth quite negatively impacted by it.
“Specifically, they generally are targeting the underage individual precisely because they are underage, and believe they can control the entirety of the thing–as you did note, there’s an issue of power there that’s just not talked about enough.”
The power thing is somewhat less of an issue in a case like this where the sex was a one-time thing and not a long-term relationship. However, losing her virginity to Bowie almost certainly helped groom Maddox for her controlling, drug-addled, multi-year relationship with Jimmy Page. How might that have gone differently if Bowie had responded to Maddox’s advances with a responsible, “You’re a sexy girl, but you’re not ready for a man my age. Any man who tells you differently is using you. Talk to me again in five years.”
I don’t think that’s at all too much to ask of men in our society, even 23-year-old men. But it won’t happen without cultural change.
I’d guess that pretty much every rock star is guilty of statutory rape. Gary Glitter ended up getting caught because he’s mainly interested in prepubescent children, which supposedly means it’s much less likely that his arousal patterns will change.
If the Tavistock Institute is responsible in any way for the Beatles, then hurrah!! **standing O***.
Alex Jones and his minions cannot sully the name of such a great legendary artist as David Bowie. They must know this. Hence, the senseless ranting.
Also – how ironic is this conversation for us children of the 80s who primarily knew Bowie as the Goblin King? I mean, what is that story if not an allegory for how dangerous it is for a young teenager to fall for the advances of a sexy, dangerous older man? I mean, it’s just *perfect* – he’s coercive, powerful, enchanting, offers her this life of seductive captivity, and engages in this standard abuser double-speak, saying things like, “I’ve been generous,” and “Do everything I ask and I will be your slave.”
And his entire spell falls apart when she says, “You have no power over me.”
I think the people doing the casting knew something they didn’t know they knew…
Thanks to this article I now have a bunch of new words for my crank bingo card.
Adults should not have sex with minors – not because it’s 100% impossible for a minor to give informed consent – but because it’s more than possible that they can’t.
Also, for every exceptionally mature underage person who has the adequate cognizance to consent to sex with an adult, how many are instead groomed and coerced into “consenting”? I don’t want to ignore the voices of the girls/women who are/were in these situations, but it needs to be done in a way that does not legitimize the actions of predators.
Yes, there isn’t anything biologically abnormal about being attracted to 14-17 year olds. But most people are fine with someone 18 or older. Adults almost always go after younger people so they can have control in the relationship. That’s why men have married teenage girls for thousands of years, especially in societies where minors were considered property of their parents.
@LG Yes, you wrote pretty much what I’d been thinking. Labyrinth DOES show the dangers of granting someone power over you, even if the other person promises that they’ll give you everything you want. “You have no power over me” is a great assertion for a young person–or a person of any age, really–to make in the face of such temptation.
Freemage said:
I don’t think there’s any evidence in Bowie’s case that he was in the habit of targeting the underage. So far there’s this once instance (if there were more, they’ll get dredged up in time I’m sure) where he was approached by an underage girl who well and truly knew – or at least felt that she knew – exactly what she wanted. I agree that he shouldn’t have had sex with an underage girl, absolutely. But I strongly feel that taking advantage (stupidly) of an eager offer is in a different bracket of wrongness to actively targeting or pursuing underage girls in predatory fashion. Also, there’s no proof that he was even aware she was underage. I don’t think she advertised the fact.
If I’m wrong about him being a child predator, I’ll totally own it when the evidence appears. Until then, I’ll continue to love him till Tuesday… and beyond.
I love this observation.
infowars conspiracy theorists (and right-libertarians in general) are honestly as bad as fascists. not only do they spread hatred and condone mass violence (the NAP is a sick joke; it is opposed only to individual violence, not systemic violence, or the violence inherent in capitalism) they distract from the actual horrors that the US and other nation-states have committed. They would likely hand-wave something like the United Fruit incident in Guatemala (which actually happened and which actually caused mass suffering) as a fluke of “crony capitalism” (read: capitalism) and instead fret and scream about something like 9/11 conspiracies, UFOs, or how bigfoots are taking our jobs.
Alex Jones, himself, is a fundamentalist far-right “libertarian” who believes in free market bullshit and allies himself with every sort of twisted hate group under the sun.
You can see one of his greatest moments here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-WabG3EJ8
He and every other alt-right shitstain are lower than cockroaches.
Oh, and David Bowie is the queer messiah. Alex Jones wishes he could be as relevant.