Qanon, Blood Libel, and the Big Lie

Q’anon, blood libel, and the big lie

PART ONE

There is a recurring tendency of mankind to somehow assign to a certain group, some abhorrent behavior; in an attempt to demonize that group and turn the populace against that group. A common accusation was highlighted by the X-Files character agent Scully in one episode of the series.

[X-files clip]

This is often referred to as “blood libel”, “ritual murder libel”, or “blood accusation.” It is typically antisemitic in nature in that it most often accuses the Jewish people of sacrificing children. However, the Q’Anon conspiracy assigns this terrible activity to people in the Democratic party and other influencers – consistent with Agent Scully’s suggestions that this appears to be a recuring behavior within humanity—that is, we tend to make this accusation against a certain group in order to discredit, alienate, and quite frankly, stir up hatred toward a certain group.

[Channel 4 News_Pizzagate clip]

PART TWO

Probably the most notable demonstration of how strong this belief exists within some American’s minds is the incident often referred to as PizzaGate. Hacked emails between Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, which were believed to be coded messages, AND through some incredible application of extreme imagination, these emails led people to believe that this pizzeria was an epicenter of the sacrificial killing of children and child molestations.

The belief in this conspiracy was so strong within some people’s minds, that they decided to engage in aggressive actions to rise up against, retaliate, and/or free these abused, trafficked children. Criminal activities included threatening phone calls, arson, and most notably the incident where 28-year old Edgar Welch entered the restaurant and opened fire with an AR-15.

While the X-files character Scully’s suggestion that the accusation about ritualized killing of children is varyingly applied to whatever group that a certain other group may wish to demonize, this blood libel is most often associated with antisemitism.

It should be noted that most of Q’Anon’s misinformation campaigns are not outright antisemitic. But certain references do exist such as assigning these horrible acts to Jews, Zionist, the banking family Rothchilds, and the philanthropist George Soros.

PART THREE

In any regard, the argument being made here is that the Q’anon misinformation template is not new. Some argue that blood libel goes back to the 12th Century and the Crusades. Hitler was probably the most successful person ever to execute a misinformation campaign to effectively demonize a certain group, I say this because he was able to convince an entire population that a certain group was so evil, including making the blood libel accusation, that they should be exterminated – resulting in the murder of 6 million Jewish people during the Holocaust.

I mentioned Hitler as a suggestion for caution. Afterall, through his master propagandist Joseph Goebbels; he used the blood accusation to convince Germans that a certain group of people were not worthy of life...and murdering them in mass was justified.

The Q’anon conspiracy, due to its similarity to Natzi propaganda, is dangerous. Each of us, when we hear an accusation similar to blood libel, should remember the use of, application of, and execution of this terrible lie back in Natzi Germany.

Q’Anon is a big, outrageous lie, but many believe it. Perhaps because we tend to ask ourselves, when exposed to such a big lie, how can anybody make this up? It must be true. But remember, Goebbels once stated, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Unfortunately, the Q’Anon conspiracy meets Goebbels criteria. Social media allows the lie to be repeated infinitively and the lie is obviously massive enough to make even Goebbels proud.

A core message of Q’Anon is that we should question government actions, as our patriotic duty, but equally patriotic is the duty to question bull shit like Q’Anon itself.