The conspiracy theory
The internet, George Soros and the death of George Floyd...
When Facebook first became a thing, my kids – who are much smarter than I am and have the test scores to prove it – tried to tell me it was free because Facebook was really in the business of selling my information to people who wanted to sell me stuff.
I didn’t believe my kids; turned out my kids were right.
When the Black Lives Matter protests turned violent, my kids – building on their winning record – told me the protests were being infiltrated by right-wing nutjobs who wanted to discredit the demonstrators and if possible start a new Civil War.
I didn’t believe my kids; turned out my kids were right.
But despite my lousy track record at detecting conspiracies, there are still some I don’t believe – like what’s currently being said about George Soros.
CliffNotes version of George Soros’ life:
He’s a billionaire investor and philanthropist who has been accused of being the driving force behind all kinds of stuff people on the right don’t like. That’s probably because he’s donated billions of dollars to liberal and anti-authoritarian causes. Soros is also Jewish and has been subjected to anti-Semitic attacks, so throw that in the mix as well.
Frankly, I don’t know a lot about George Soros, so maybe he is the Ernst Blofeld of the left, but let’s take a look at just one thing he’s been accused of doing: colluding with police to fake the death of George Floyd.
Let’s spend the next paragraph unpacking that truckload of lunacy.
If George Floyd is alive and well and sipping a Mai Tai on a beach somewhere, that would mean the police – including the officers charged with crimes – are in on the conspiracy, so are the people who performed the two autopsies that concluded Floyd was in fact dead and died by homicide, so are the people who brought charges against the officers involved and the conspirators would have to include George Floyd’s family who seemed pretty upset at his funeral.
So how does anybody believe this crap?
Maybe they don’t.
Laura Silber, chief communications officer for Soros’ Open Society Foundation had a pretty good conspiracy theory of her own: “I think partly it’s an attempt to distract from the real matters at hand – the pandemic, the protests or the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Flood the internet with crazy rumors and maybe people will focus on them instead of the stuff that matters like doing something real about racism and police misconduct.
Facebook?
If you’re still selling my information to people who want to sell me stuff, let them know I’m in the market for a good bullshit detector.
Hey, I think you're a pretty good bullshit detector, Lee! Thank you!