Alex Jones: Federal Government thinks Whites are the new Al Qaeda
Antigovernment conspiracy theorist Alex Jones seems finally to have crossed the Rubicon of race. Earlier this month, the man who may have done more than any other to popularize ‘truther’ theories about government complicity in 9/11 declared that the U.S. government believes that ‘whites are the new Al Qaeda.’
The source of Jones’ race paranoia is the Department of Homeland Security’s year-old ‘If you see something, say something’ terrorism awareness campaign. According to DHS’ website, the program is meant to encourage people to consider ‘behavior, rather than appearance’ when considering whether to report apparently ‘suspicious activity’ to authorities. ‘Factors such as race, ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation alone are not suspicious,’ it says. To drive that point home, DHS produced a series of public service announcements such as a 10-minute video released in July featuring mostly white ‘terrorists,’ while the actors portraying citizens who report their suspicious activities are all minorities.
Jones sees this heavy-handedness as evidence of a racist conspiracy to demonize white people. ‘Far from representing some superficial nod to political correctness, this is in fact a deliberate effort by the feds to characterize predominantly white, middle class, politically engaged Americans as domestic extremists. It’s all part of the agenda to frame dissent against big government as dangerous radicalism,’ reads a widely reposted July 18 article on his website, Infowars.