Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
I’m sure the readers of this blog remember the Newtown massacre that occurred in Connecticut on December 14, 2012, when twenty students and six adults were shot and killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Not long after that tragedy, conspiracy theorists began to spread stories about the massacre being a hoax. In January of 2013, Gene Rosen, a man who had sheltered six children during the massacre, began receiving calls from people he didn’t know accusing him of lying about what had happened that day…and of his being a “crisis actor.”
At that time, Rosen didn’t know what to do. He said, “I’m getting hang-up calls, I’m getting some calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid?’” Someone even posted a picture of his house online. It was reported that Google+ and YouTube accounts were created in his name. Messages about him appeared on white supremacist messages ridiculing him as the “emotional Jewish guy.” In addition, in dozens of blog posts and videos, people claimed that Rosen was a fraud. He even received an email that purported to be a business inquiry, which taunted him asking, “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?”
Rosen admitted that he had done a lot of media interviews following the tragedy at Sandy Hook School. He said, “I wanted to speak about the bravery of the children, and it kind of helped me work through this. I guess I kind of opened myself up to this.”
Alex Seitz-Wald of Salon reported that there were “many flavors of conspiracy theories surrounding” the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He added that one thread that united many of the theories was “the notion that this was a government hoax aimed at taking away people’s guns.” Similarly, Tom Boggioni of Raw Story said, “Sandy Hook ‘truthers’ believe that the Newtown shooting never occurred or was part of a ‘false flag’ operation designed to open the door to the confiscation of all guns by the government.” Ben Smith and CJ Lotz wrote that the “leading version of the ‘Sandy Hook Hoax’ theory, such as it is, holds that the incident was staged by the White House as a prelude to disarming America. Many of its claims are rooted in contradictory and confusing media statements that came out of the chaos of the first hours of the shooting, and which are virtually always present in such chaotic moments.” They added that similar “confused media reporting served as the basis of the 9/11 Truth movement.”
Robert Goldberg, a historian at the University of Utah who has written a book and lectured extensively about American conspiracy theories, said, “Whether it’s the Oklahoma City bombing, or the Waco incident, or Ruby Ridge, or 9/11, or Sandy Hook, the idea is that these are modern Reichstags (the event that occurred in Germany in 1933), which is an excuse that the government is going to use to declare an emergency to take the guns away from the patriots, and then confine the patriots.”
One might have hoped that the Sandy Hook truthers would have moved on by now…and maybe found a new conspiracy theory to wrap their warped minds around. Unfortunately, it appears that hasn’t happened because one of the truthers recently stole a sign from a playground in Mystic, Connecticut. The sign had been displayed at a playground dedicated to the memory of Grace McDonnell, one of the Sandy Hook shooting victims. The vinyl sign, which weighed 50 pounds and featured a peace symbol, was based on a drawing done by seven-year-old Grace. The man who claimed that he stole the sign called Grace’s home. He told Lynn McDonnell, the dead child’s mother, that he had taken the sign because he believes that the shooting at Sandy Hook was a hoax. McDonnell said that the caller taunted her by claiming that her daughter Grace never existed. How heartless and cold can a person be?
Peace Sign Stolen From Conn. Playground Honoring Sandy Hook Victim Grace McDonnell
Tom Boggioni said that the Grace McDonnell playground is “one of 26 planned playgrounds being built by the Where Angels Play Foundation in honor of all 26 victims.” He added that the theft of the peace sign came ‘two weeks after another playground sign, located in Hartford, was vandalized with someone spray-painting ‘Peace to Sandy Hook,’ a peace sign, and the numeral ’2′ on it.”
I can’t begin to imagine what kind of delusional, sick individuals would steal or vandalize signs displayed on playgrounds dedicated to the memories of innocent young children who died in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.
Note: There are plans to replace the signs at both playgrounds.
SOURCES
Newtown truthers: Where conspiracy theories come from (Salon)
This man helped save six children, is now getting harassed for it (Salon)
Beware of Conspiracy Theories About Sandy Hook (Lewis Rockwell)
Sandy Hook Truther Tells Mother of Deceased Child One of the Most Awful Things You Can Imagine (The Blaze)
Sandy Hook ‘Truther’ Tells Victim’s Mother Her Daughter Never Existed (Huffington Post)
Peace Sign Stolen From Conn. Playground Honoring Sandy Hook Victim Grace McDonnell (CBS)
Sandy Hook truthers more hated than Westboro idiots? (Daily Kos)
Sandy Hook truther steals memorial sign, tells victim’s mother her child never existed (Raw Story)
Sandy Hook truthers claim the Newtown massacre was a hoax (America Blog)
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
This kind of heavy-handed tactic is sad to see – whether here or at JREF, or anywhere else.
Bill – I think you will see that you did not get censored. Jonathan did some repairs and stuff happened, and then stuff came back. 🙂
Bill, only Prof. Turley has the right to censor anyone. And he is left of center, is my understanding.
Censorship should have no place on a blog run by a law professor, so I assume tt’s being done by one of the resident rightwingers who has been annointed by Mr. Turley to be a MSM gatekeeper.
People who don’t agree with posts should not have the right or even the desire to censor speech. Just shows you how desperate some people become whenever their opinions are challenged. That’s cowardly chickenshoot.
Jonathan – it is going top to bottom not bottom to top, if that makes sense. Latest comments are on top. But the comment thingie is on the bottom.
Oops, have I been univited?
Now, this is getting funny.
Mr. Turley,
Why do you allow people to make highly insulting posts about those of us who question certain government actions, yet you, or someone on your behalf, has censored many of my posts.
Makes you look like a hypocrrite/anti-free speech blogger.
Normally, he announces deletions, but not always.
RTC – I am not seeing anything on the Sandy Hook site after 11:43
Schulte: Your comment suggesting that I support the Tea Party in any way doesn’t make any sense, neither does the one about what you call the war on women. Nothing in my comments support your imputations.
Either your required to log in too early to make sense before the coffee kicks in, or you been bakin’ in the hot desert sun too long.
It’s a shame because you try to lead people to expect more from you. Maybe you want step it up.
Did Jonathan lift a group of comments out of here without saying anything? I came to respond to two and they no longer exist.
Paul Schulte,
We were working on the blog comments section. It should work. Please recomment.
RTC,
You have had yet another comment deleted for violating our civility rule.
RTC – the comment on supporting the TEA Party was because of something Bill said. You have to admit that is funny. The idea of you being a member of the TEA Party?
The War on Women is from your denigrating comment about Michele Malkin and her writing. You supposedly support strong smart women but when you run into a strong smart woman like Michelle Malkin you denigrate her.
Some of these people are likely mentally ill, but not all of them, and to the extent lawsuits can cause others to think twice, they should be pursued.”
Agree, but keep in mind that many of them are actors that specialize in all kinds of crisis exercises, staged terror events etc.
I think you’d have a difficult time trying to sue actors.
“Truthers,” if they can be identified, could be sued for libel by their victims. What could be more defamatory and hurtful than accusing the parent of a murdered child of lying about the child’s very existence? Some of these people are likely mentally ill, but not all of them, and to the extent lawsuits can cause others to think twice, they should be pursued.
Boone:
The biggest problem with the Kool Aid crowd is that they don’t know what they don’t know, and they’re too intellectually incurious and lazy. THAT is why, imo,
they never try to make an argument for what/why they hold a certain viewpoint.
Their only “weapon” is school-yard level insults – which makes it very clear that they don’t have a clue. What’s frustrating is to realize how long and tedious it would be to try to educate those kind of folks — who may be decent people, but lack the capacity or desire to learn the truth, how to THINK critically and logically, and how to develop a rational argument and question what they don’t understand, rather than put on a display that has no place in a serious discussion of ideas.
Sad – but there it is.
I’m quite aware of the P.M. disinformation piece.
“It’s clear from the above that I don’t believe the clumsy Warren Commission cover story, although for a time after the Warren Report was published in September 1964, I fell under the spell of its disinformation. As Mark Lane, Sylvia Meagher, Léo Sauvage, Penn Jones, Jr., and other important early researchers probed into the case, I began to pay attention to their and other dissenting voices and to reexamine the Report. By December 1966, I was writing a letter to a Madison newspaper discussing my doubts and admitting, “I am totally unable to assess the case,” which was the beginning of wisdom. It was hard to shake my indoctrination as an American citizen and Catholic schoolboy that gave me a blind trust in authority. That kind of misguided allegiance has interfered with many people’s inability to see through all the lies and to accept the fact that a conspiracy was involved in Kennedy’s murder, although, to our credit, a majority of Americans (and more) have believed from the beginning that Oswald did not do it alone. I don’t believe Oswald fired any shots that day. He may have entered the Texas Theatre without paying, but even that supposed infraction is in doubt.”
Interview snippet from Joseph McBride, resarcher and author of “Into The Nightmare”
http://jfk-thecontinuinginquiry.com/our-newsletter.html
Do you know and understand who was behind the P.M. propaganda piece?
A Civil Engineer, huh? OBL was a real Muslim Magician, eh what?
Paul —
You are quite a piece of art and in ADDITION, you believe in bizarre miracles if you think planes can go thru buildings and come out the other side, as though the buildings are made of butter, and that those same planes could continue to fly scheduled flights until 2005.
If you believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by a man living in a remote cave, then you are woefully uninformed or else cognitively impaired. Your ignorance of the facts is breathtaking…exceeded only by the arrogance of your certainty that
lies are true and Muslim physics makes L R Hubbard seem like a writer of sci-fi comics for 12 year olds.
bill mcwilliams – regardless of where that man was, cave or not, he was reportedly a trained civil engineer. He and his family were in the construction business. The suicide crews were trained in flying the planes. They did not learn to take-off. Would you like to link film footage of the planes flying through the building? You are aware the education level of many terrorists is very high. As high or higher than most people on this blog?
There are many sites, including Popular Mechanics, who have walked through the whole destruction of the Twin Towers. Have your read them?
Are ALL of the ANTI-truth seekers right wingers? Have another glass of the kool aid and stay comfortably numb.
CIGARETTE LIFE IF YOU DON’T WEAKEN
Fortunately some of us have figured out 9/11 and the conspiracy involvement of western governments, but with so many falsehoods pushed on us by governments and media, you get to even wonder about generally obvious evils like the Taliban & Boker Haram (spelling?)….. While everyone is outraged by chopping off women’s four limbs and leaving them to die horribly, or slicing open a little child’s stomache to plant a bomb in it, or selling young girls into sex slavery…. you get to wonder if these things really occured as reported or if there are worse or as bad things happening by one’s presumed allies.
traveling limey – I am aware that there are some things we should be wary about. However, I don’t think 9/11 was a Western conspiracy.
Yes, the government lies to us everyday and in every way. So we have to wade through the lies to try to find the truth. Sadly the MSM helps them with their lies, so we cannot depend on them for the truth.