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[I pass this along with no editorializing -- for now... I have little to add that hasn't already been stated somewhere within the 42+ pages of this thread]
http://gawker.com/5976204/behind-the-sa ... n-one-week"This is a simple, logical video," the text on the screen reads. "No aliens, holigrams, rituals or anything like that, just facts." (All sic.) There's some light piano (from Guns 'n Roses' "Estranged") playing in the background. "New information comes up every single days, so by the time you see this video there may be a lot more evidence that has come to light." In a few seconds, the guitar solo kicks in.
You're watching "The Sandy Hook Shooting - Fully Exposed," the most comprehensive summary of the bizarre "Sandy Hook Truther" movement you can find on the internet. It's also the most popular: in the seven days since it was posted, it's racked up 5.5 million hits. "I... honestly would have spent more time on it if I had known it would explode," the guy who created the video told me.
It only took a few days after Adam Lanza opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School for conspiracy theories to pop up on the internet. We covered a bunch of them at the time, each less likely than the last: Lanza's father was due to testify in hearings about a banking scandal, and the shooting was a distraction; Obama orchestrated the shootings to enact gun control laws; The Dark Knight Returns and/or Hunger Games predicted the shooting.
As it turns out, the one that stuck was maybe the most unlikely of all: the Sandy Hook elementary shooting never happened at all. Or, that it did, in some way, but not as it was reported — there was more than one shooter, or not as many children died, or the parents we saw on television were actors.
Over the last month or so, the "Sandy Hook Truther" movement has taken hold in the usual channels of internet conspiracy — sites like InfoWars and Natural News, message boards like Godlike Productions and Above Top Secret, and most importantly, on YouTube, where self-produced mini-documentaries like "The Sandy Hook Shooting - Fully Exposed" can make the leap from obscurity to viral success without any mainstream coverage at all.
"[I]t all started when me and my friends used to research 9/11 in high school," the auteur behind the video told me over email. (He declined to give me a name or personal information, "due to the sensitivity of the channel and my concern for my security," and signed his emails T.O.T.V., after his YouTube channel's title "ThinkOutsidetTheTV.") "That's what really got me started when it came to researching government cover ups [...] Once I learned about all the false flag attacks in history that have been proven to be true, I knew it was only a matter of time before another came a long."
The "false flag attack," in which the true belligerents of a terrorist attack, shooting, or disaster conceal their identities, is a common trope among conspiracy theorists, especially 9/11 Truthers, who believe the U.S. government (or another actor) destroyed the Twin Towers and pinned the attacks on Al Qaeda. If you believe in the idea that false flag attacks occur with regularity — and spend a lot of time in the conspiracy dregs of YouTube — it's hard not to see them everywhere.
"When Sandy Hook first happened i just had a feeling like it was all too perfect," T.O.T.V. continued. "I just had this feeling deep down that these people and the whole town had this artificial vibe about them." The perceived "artificiality" of the grieving parents is a cornerstone piece of "evidence" produced by Sandy Hook Truther: SandyHookHoax.com, the premiere Sandy Hook Truther site on the web, has an entire section called "All Actors," under an enormous header reading "NO TEARS," devoted to videos of families deemed insufficiently grief-stricken.
Gene Rosen, a Newtown man who sheltered six children at his home near the school and later gave an emotional television interview, appears in T.O.T.V.'s video accompanied by the caption: "FUN FACT: Gene is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, look it up!" (He's not — the widely-circulated "proof" shows a 62-year-old SAG member named Gene Rosen; Gene Rosen of Newtown is 69.) As Alex Seitz-Wald, owning the Sandy Hook Truther beat at Salon, writes, Rosen has been the subject of harassment and accusation from Truthers:
There have been phony Google+ and YouTube accounts created in his name, messages on white supremacist message boards ridiculing the "emotional Jewish guy," and dozens of blog posts and videos "exposing" him as a fraud. One email purporting to be a business inquiry taunted: "How are all those little students doing? You know, the ones that showed up at your house after the ‘shooting'. What is the going rate for getting involved in a gov't sponsored hoax anyway?"
The idea that the U.S. government is somehow behind the shooting is widespread. Jay Johnson, who runs SandyHookHoax.com, thinks that the operation may have been a cover-up for the murder of Adam Lanza's mother, who "was costing his dad a lot of money": "Peter Lanza is reportedly an executive with GE, which is locally into genetic research and closely tied to the Obama regime." (Lanza does work for G.E., which is not "into" genetic research, and is not particularly "closely tied" to the current administration.)
Like many of his fellow conspiracists Johnson, who describes himself as "the New Age Messiah" and "the only person in the world to solve LOST" — the TV show — cites the confusion around the initial reports as a reason to believe his conspiracy. "There were early reports [Peter Lanza] was killed, and that is an impossibility, that such a thing would be randomly falsely reported. So, there has to be an unseen hand (unnamed law enforcement officials) feeding disinformation and misinformation, maybe to form an incomprehensible web to dissuade or confuse investigations?" There's an odd but unsurprising overdetermination to this line of thought — if early reports are conflicting, it's evidence of a conspiracy of misinformation; if everyone agrees on the story, it's a cover-up.
But mostly Johnson sticks to I'm-just-asking: the conspiracy is "offered as food for thought." For his part, T.O.T.V. takes the same stance, in email as in his video. "I really try to stress this video was about putting together a bunch of evidence and raising questions that others could research and answer," he wrote.
"I never intended to expose who was behind it because I dont know, and I could be wrong. But history repeats itself and i'm really glad people are waking up to it. [...] People seem to mistake my video for exploitation of victims and children and that is totally wrong. As I said in the beginning of the video, we in no way claim this shooting did not take place and our hearts go out to anyone affected by the tragedy, weather one person was responsible or another. [... S]tay tuned for part 2, we have learned from the first one how to improve upon the delivery so hopefully it will be even better than the first."
From the comments section to the above posting:
When you want someone to take your word on something incredibly complicated and far-fetched, be sure to include LOTS of spelling errors. That's usually a sign of tremendous forethought and credibility.
The most disgusting aspect of the Sandy Hook Truthers are the "Grief Police" who seem to think that because one of the victims parents didn't act in a grieffy enough way, it must be a conspiracy. Any psychologist or counselor will tell you that there is no "normal" way to grieve. Some people remain completely stoic and logical; others emotionally break down. Still others feel so overwhelmed by emotion that they only way they know how to respond is through laughter or humor. So STFU Sandy Hook truthers and stop telling people the correct way to grieve. Especially when giving interviews to the media, many people just aren't going to become the blubbering walruses that you think all grieving parents must act like. It's not a conspiracy. It's a diversity of human emotional responses to an extremely tragic situation. Reality doesn't fit so neatly into your narrow minded, "it all makes sense," world view.
Also, drugs. A classmate of mine was killed in a car accident in high school, her mother was so distraught they had to drug her (Ativan) so she could get through the memorials and services. My friend's dad committed suicide, same thing, she and her mother had enough klonopin to last a lifetime. I hate that these people can't see outside of their own bullshit.
Thank you! A lot of these people were still in such shock and confusion.
It PAINS me to see that Robbie Parker was so scrutinized for "laughing" before he talked about Emilie. That was most likely a nervous laugh! None of these people know how to feel!
I hate when they scrutinize Grace's parents too, for smiling while talking to Anderson Cooper about Grace. They were smiling because they were talking and reflecting on their beautiful daughter.
I completely reiterate what stacyinbean said, so many of these people are on drugs to just get through their fucking day and can still barely come to the realization that their most precious loves, their children, are gone.
As a resident of Newtown, I am truly disgusted with all the people that are believing this. My town is still grieving and heartbroken, and none of these sick people are helping.
I second the commenter who suggested drugs as an explanation. My cousin dropped dead of a heart attack at age 27. To get through his funeral, my mother, my aunt, and I all took Xanax that a friend gave us. We were able to talk about Roy and laugh as we remembered funny things about him. We could not have cried if we tried. I did try to cry because I felt weird sitting at his funeral dry eyed. I felt like others were looking at us weird because we weren't crying. I'm sure parents dealing with the death of their young child AND the national news media would have what we call here in the south "nerve pills."
Seriously - I have to wonder if any of these fucking "Truthers" have ever lost a loved one? My dad died suddenly a year and a half ago from a heart attack. He had been a textbook perfect example of "how to not have a heart attack," so it was completely unexpected. The hospital told us he passed out at the grocery store, and wouldn't tell us more until we got there - and in the little private room, like they do. When they told me my dad had a heart attack and died, I didn't cry. I didn't express sadness. I just couldn't process it. It seemed like they were talking about someone else. For the longest time, it seemed like he was on a long out of town trip, like he sometimes would take. I did cry when I saw his body, and at the funeral, but the past year and a half has been so insane and I've spent most of my time taking care of other people with their own life problems, that I feel like I haven't had time to grieve. It comes in bursts, but it's not a pattern that anyone can replicate or assign as "the right way."
I am fucking flabbergasted as these pieces of shits - to let their paranoia, their masturbatory gun obsession, guide their basic dismissal of decency and common sense. And further, to harass family members of the dead. It's fucking unreal and an unforgivable level of assholery.
you are so patriotic, but sadly you are wrong. i can not name my inside sources who work with the government, but yes, this was stage to affect millions of americans to give in to ban gun laws in the long run. remember my words, Obama not long from now will deliver a speech on possible banning guns if not almost impossible to obtain a gun legally through all kinds of paper work and drug test of individual and family members.
