So this little Alex Jones “greatest hits” video I’ve pasted in below — more like a greatest fits video, amirite? — got me thinking. Take a minute (and 34 seconds) to watch it and join me below.
Alex Jones: Master of self-control pic.twitter.com/Le4xL3AC1C
— VICE News (@VICENews) March 6, 2017
Jones has been doing this for years — the yelling, the threats, you name it. Hell, sometimes he literally takes his shirt off and beats his chest like a gorilla. Poke around on Youtube and you can find any number of videos documenting his regular meltdowns. Here’s one of them, in case you haven’t yet reached your Alex Jones limit for the day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN4zBUJ89II
And here’s a loop of Jones yelling for ten minutes.
Thing is, though, “meltdown” isn’t really the right word for what Jones is doing here. These tantrums of his don’t seem to drive viewers away from Jones. If they did, I suspect that Jones — who’s a lot cannier than many people give him credit for — would discover his self control in a big hurry, and the “meltdowns” would cease.
No, these fits seem to be part of Jones’ appeal. Why? What’s appealing about them?
I suspect that a lot of Alex’s fans — especially the men — get a charge out of seeing a man reveling in his own toxic masculinity. Male tantrums aren’t really about men “losing control” over their emotions. Most of these men can control their emotions just fine when they have to. When men throw Alex Jones style fits in real life, it’s often a way to cow and control those around them. If a man throws a fit whenever he doesn’t get what he wants, those around him often realize that the safest course of action is to give him what he wants.
Jones has simply brought this rudimentary “toxic male” tactic to the world of politics. And a lot of men are eating it up.
No wonder he and Trump get along so swimmingly.
Just out of interest, what’s the US government’s contribution to healthcare costs over there? i.e. How much of the budget goes on healthcare?
I’m just curious as to how much an NHS type system would cost and what’s the shortfall.
The 2016 NHS budget was £116.4 billion. That’s to cover a population of 64.6 million. I understand the US population is just shy of 320 million. Maths isn’t my strong point but that’s about 5 times bigger. So you’d need a budget of £582 billion, which is $710 billion.
How does that compare to actual spending? (I’ve tried looking up the figure but can’t find a definite answer)
@Jesalin
http://crooksandliars.com/files/imagecache/node_primary/primary_image/17/03/but_her_emails.jpg
OT, though not for the blog:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/wildrose-on-campus-fire-comms-director-1.4012824
A Calgary screening of ‘The Red Pill’ was cancelled after the campus Wildrose club sent out an email promoting the screening starting off with ‘You and I both know that feminism is cancer.’
(The Wildrose party is an Alberta-specific party who think the Conservative party aren’t conservative enough.)
And yes, they had deliberately scheduled a screening of ‘The Red Pill’ for International Women’s Day.
@Alan
Population density. Hospitals in London can serve 1/8 the population of the UK. New York City is 1/40 of the US. So we’d need more hospitals total, more doctors total, more everything than a simple population ratio would suggest. Then there’s higher transportation costs, administrative costs (more expensive to build a system than maintain it), far more red tape, etc etc
https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet.html
MedicAid + MediCare isn’t the best answer to that question by a long shot, but:
MC 2015~$650b
MA 2015~$550b (37% state funded)
Total 215~$1200b ($1000b from the feds)
All healthcare expenditures (including patients’ out of pocket spending, private insurance, hospitals, etc) is $3t+
That’s just the top of my head stuff…
Well, we have our ‘virtue signaling’ so I guess they have their ‘vice signaling’ right?
I am beginning to think that Alex Jones wanted to be a professional Wrestler but didn’t make the cut. so he fell back on being a conspiracy theorist. He was acting like a Heel Wrestler who grabs the mic and scream about how hes going to kick the ass of his opponents
Man, if ever there’s a definition of the phrase “trying too hard,” Alex Jones’ picture is gonna be there. Alongside that Caiden “I’m trying desperately to become the next Rush Limbaugh” Cowger guy.
I remember during the heyday of the Occupy movement where they protested CPAC and a clearly intoxicated and disheveled Andrew Breitbart was recorded screaming “Behave yourself! Behave yourself! Stop raping people!” before he was physically retrained and led back to the building by security. When he was dead less than a month later, it didn’t surprise me in the least. Jones is 43, the same age Breitbart was when he passed and looks even worse. The guy is two years younger than Justin Trudeau and looks a good 15 years older than him.
Life comes at you fast….
@ Axe
That’s still pretty helpful. I can see that a direct comparison isn’t possible. Not least because we’ve had since 1948 to get all the infrastructure in place. Although would you need to replace everything? Presumably there wouldn’t be a new parallel system and a load of abandoned former hospitals (good for the horror movie industry I suppose).
The actual budget bit was incomprehensible. Seemed everything from half a trillion to three and a half, depending on how it was calculated. Like whether to include tax rebates on private health insurance (I can see how that’s a ‘cost’ but it’s not really expenditure).
Still, as the Fanta Menace put it “Who would have thought health care could be so complicated?”
(Er, everyone except you?)
@Alan
Ha!
But, no, you wouldn’t need to replace everything. It’s just that a government takeover of private hospitals likely wouldn’t go over well with a particular crowd. So, either buy them out or build another one nearby. And if more people have insurance, more people will get themselves checked out (or checked in, I guess). Build another hospital to compensate? Build a smaller clinic instead? Expand an existing either or those? That’s cost. Also, it’s probably a good idea to invest in facilities in more remote areas. Oh, and dealing with tribal sovereignty in some places can be tricky. And the VA hospitals? Will they stay exclusively for servicemembers? Pros and cons for that one, and lotta money either way. Complicated is too meager a word…
@Gussie: he’s 43?! Good lord, I had him pegged as a decade/15 years older. He’s younger than I am!
@Alan:
“The Fanta Menace.” I like that.
honesly it just pisses me off how ready he is to lick boot after literally screaming about how the govt is evil for all this time. Your average Obama-loving liberal is so much more skeptical & anti-govt than that (I say that as a liberal who thinks your average liberal isnt skeptical enough of Dem leaders).
The whole “Juice boxes will make your kid gay because they contain feminizing hormones!” was basically 100% pure distilled toxic masculinity.
Also this is the only format that I can watch Infowars in:
Alan and Axecalibur: here’s some data from the WHO.
http://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.main.HEALTHEXPRATIOUSA?lang=en
From 2009 to 2014, the US has been spending about 17% of GDP on health care.
Just under half of that is spent by government, about 10% is spent out of pocket by individuals, leaving about 40% paid by health insurance plans. Government spends about 8% of GDP on health care, or $4100 per capita.
For comparison, the UK spends about 9% of GDP on health care, and a bit over 80% is public spending. Government spends about 7.5% of GDP on health care, or $3150 per capita.
So the US government is right now spending more than the UK government, but only provides half as much care.
@Alan Robertshaw: Back in the Bush administration, there there were graphs of healthcare spending per capita going around, found one useful one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
US spending per capita in 2015: 9451
UK spending per capita in 2015: 4003
That said, population density is not the predominant factor here. Yes, the UK has a population density of 650/square mile, while the US has a density of 84. ( http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934666.html )
Canada has a population density of 3. THREE. Canada’s spending per capita is 4608, far closer to the UK than the US.
There’s a passage in Lundy Bancroft’s book Why Does He Do That? in which he demonstrates that sometimes male tantrums are directed intentionally: The abusive man breaks things, but they’re never his things, and then fucks off and returns later, contrite and apologetic, after the mess has been cleared up.
Jones’ antics reminded me of that passage. There’s no breaking anything, but the outbursts and threats serve the same ends.
@Moocow, oh god, it’s like Tumblr in 2014!
@eli
I find this sort of “shouting into the void” stuff to be incredibly distasteful, and I can see its potential for harm, but it doesn’t tend to give me any visceral emotional reaction. On the other hand, more subtle and manipulative abuse behaviors can pretty easily get my heart pumping.
I like the way he apologizes for his “outbursts,” while trying to convince us it’s a “family show.”
Moocow, that clip is fascinating/horrifying.
And *43*?? Dude.
Alan: Fanta Menace is a fabulous sobriquet. Permission to steal?
OT: GOP representative: Trump should ‘purge’ White House
https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-representative-trump-should-purge-white-house-174638632.html
Yeeeeeeeeeesh. >.<
If I only knew about InfoWars from these videos I would assume it was a more intense version of “The Colbert Report” where a liberal pretends to be an extreme conservative to mock conservatives. Unfortunately I’ve heard that there are people who actually believe this stuff.
I’m also reminded of popular depictions of middle school bullies mocking their victims, repeating what they said but in a silly voice. The bully thinks he can win the argument that way, but if he tried in with adults he would just get an eye-roll and then get ignored. That, and of course being super aggressive and angry to enhance his masculine image.
@Alan, and in general re: Fanta menace
Is it weird that I associate Fanta more with the grape sort, mostly because I much prefer grape to orange and mostly focus on that? And they also have the strawberry (which seems to be equivalent in taste to Faygo Redpop), the blue berry mix, and the recently-forked-to-America pineapple.
@ Axe, numberobis & leftwingfox
Thanks for all that. I’m more confused than ever, but in a good way (that’s pretty much my default state anyway). Lots to ponder.
What? That’s a near enough approximation to there being no Canadians. No wonder they never cause any bother.
@ laughteratbigots & peevee
I snaffled that from somewhere else so I’m sure it’s in the public domain by now.
@ troubelle
Yes, very. But all the best people are a bit weird so I’d positively encourage that.
They don’t really believe Pepsi is flavoured with aborted foetuses now do they?! Isn’t that just a joke that got way out of hand?
That’s not entirely fair. Canada has 90% of the population within 100 miles of the US. That’s where we spend money on health care. We hardly spend anything per capita up North:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/auditor-general-finds-major-problems-in-first-nations-health-care-1.3051978
Modern nations have about 2 doctors per 1,000 population. You really don’t need much population density at all to support a clinic with a pair of docs. All you get with greater density is the ability to support specialists to treat ever more niche illnesses.