{"id":291414,"date":"2024-07-17T07:27:31","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T07:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=291414"},"modified":"2024-07-19T06:53:32","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T06:53:32","slug":"oh-what-a-tangled-web-spring-weaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=291414","title":{"rendered":"Oh what a tangled web Spring weaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iain Davis \u2013 Off-Guardian July 16, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

On Sunday night I watched the footy at my Mum\u2019s. Thoroughly deflated by England\u2019s 2-1 defeat to Spain and irritated by BBC \u201cpundits,\u201d I then had the misfortune to watch the BBC evening news\u2019 alleged analysis of the Trump shooting.<\/p>\n

Now, it seemed to me that the BBC were asking us all to believe that there are questions to be asked about what happened. Certainly, the story we have all been asked to accept is pretty astounding.<\/p>\n

Kit Knightly, writing for the OffGuardian, recently raised the spectre of the\u00a0FALSE False flag<\/a>. A Few days later, Trump was reportedly shot in a shooting that can only be described as bizarre. It is worth noting the point that Knightly made:<\/p>\n

[. . .] observation would suggest a deliberate agenda of undermining the very idea of objective reality. A move by our controllers to insert themselves as a filter between every person on the planet and the world they experience. The final aim being that\u00a0everything \u2013\u00a0everything<\/em>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the entire fabric of our shared reality \u2013 is made up.<\/p>\n

Cards on the table, I have done absolutely no research in to this shooting and probably won\u2019t because, frankly, I\u2019m not very interested. What I am interested in is BBC propaganda and psychological manipulation. No one embodies the state propagandist more completely than\u00a0Marianna Spring<\/a>, the BBC\u2019s first social media and disinformation correspondent.<\/p>\n

The BBC told me and my Mum that, while speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump\u2014a nailed on certainty for the Republican presidential candidate nomination\u2014was shot by a gunman who was positioned 130 metres away on the roof of a building adjacent to the stage. With a clear line of sight to Trump, at 18:11 (EDT) the gunman fired three shots. One of the shots grazed Trumps right ear\u2014because he was looking towards the gunman at the time\u2014but, more importantly, a member of the crowd, Corey Comperatore, was shot and died.<\/p>\n

The BBC reported eyewitness accounts from people that said they saw the gunman both moving into position, with rifle in hand, and taking aim\u2014which at least one person captured on camera. One witness said he told the police about the gunman but that they\u00a0did nothing<\/a>. The BBC showed a still image of police looking toward the gunman before the shooting.<\/p>\n

The BBC showed Mum and I a photograph of the bullet, in flight, as it flew past Trump\u2019s injured ear. A Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, no less, called Doug Mills just happened to click his shutter at that moment. If you can\u00a0believe that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The BBC provided a report by\u00a0BBC Verify<\/a>\u2014the BBC\u2019s very own factcheckers\u2014who confirmed everything I\u2019ve just relayed to you and then told us what questions we should ask:<\/p>\n

How did the US Secret Service fail to stop this. [. . .] The investigation will want to find out why the Secret Service didn\u2019t do more to prevent it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s certainly one question but, given the completely implausible story\u2014something that seems more like the plot of a comic than a \u201cnews\u201d report\u2014others definitely spring to mind\u2014pardon the the pun.<\/p>\n

We are supposed to believe that the gunman, instead of shooting Trump in the temple, waited until Trump was looking directly toward him before firing his shots. Thus explaining the grazed ear that Trump apparently sustained from a bullet fired from a rifle 130 metres away from him. Certainly, Trump clutched his ear and was then seen to be visibly wounded.<\/p>\n

A bullet grazed ear from a pistol fired a few feet away from the target is plausible, I guess. A one centimetre variance in the firing position could account for the near miss. From a rifle fired 130 metres away from the target that \u201cvariance\u201d would be measured in nanometres.<\/p>\n

The chance of the rifle firing gunman hitting the target but only striking a relatively inconsequential part of the head he was aiming at, over such a distance, is incredibly, almost unbelievably remote. What we can say is that it was extremely fortunate that Trump was facing the right way at the right time, even more fortunate that the gunman chose that moment to fire and that Trump was very, very lucky.<\/p>\n

The gunman was said to have been shot and killed by US police snipers and was later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. So, we are also given to believe that snipers were overlooking Crooks\u2019 firing position. If, as we were told by the BBC, people in the crowd could \u201csee\u201d and film the gunman and they \u201ctold\u201d the police about the gunman on a roof, the fact that he wasn\u2019t shot by the snipers\u2014who subsequently killed him\u2014\u201cbefore\u201d he fired is, well, very, very surprising.<\/p>\n

So, given all the evidently inexplicable anomalies in the story we have been given about the shooting it is perfectly natural that people would speculate. Sure, \u201cmistakes\u201d may account for the otherwise ludicrous narrative we\u2019ve been told to swallow, but why rule out any other?<\/p>\n

What evidence is there to discount the possibility of a wider plot or fabrication? Frankly, there isn\u2019t any. The official account reported by the BBC is patently absurd in many respects. Of course, it could be true, but it is perfectly reasonable for rational people to doubt it. And what\u2019s wrong with suspecting something else other than \u201cmistakes\u201d?<\/p>\n

Enter Marianna Spring.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Marianna Spring. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The BBC rounded of their so-called analysis of the Trump shooting with a concluding segment delivered by Spring. She told the UK public that conspiracy theories and \u201chate\u201d had dominated social media feeds as a result of Trump\u2019s extraordinary near miss.<\/p>\n

According to Spring, this alleged \u201chate\u201d primarily consisted of people suspecting the whole thing was \u201cstaged.\u201d This notion of a \u201cstaged\u201d event, Spring claimed, is \u201cevidence free.\u201d<\/p>\n

While, at this stage, such contentions are largely \u201cevidence free,\u201d so is the BBC\u2019s assertion that \u201cmistakes\u201d are to blame. The BBC has no more \u201cevidence\u201d than anyone else. Or it certainly hasn\u2019t reported any.<\/p>\n

The point is not that one theory is more plausible than another. As I said, I have no idea what explains the outlandish tale of a farfetched assassination attempt. \u201cMistakes\u201d may well turn out to be the most rational explanation but, in the absence of anything remotely believable, the only way any of us can find out is by examining the evidence.<\/p>\n

But that is not what the BBC and Marianna Spring want us to do. They claim that only they, and other approved members of the\u00a0epistemic authorities<\/a>, have the wherewithal to undertake the task of investigating and thinking about the evidence. We should \u201ctrust\u201d them to tell us the truth, Spring and the BBC will define reality for us, however \u201cfake\u201d it might appear.<\/p>\n

In the accompanying BBC article, Spring wrote to expand on her ideas. Marianna explained why the \u201cstaged\u201d hypothesis was\u00a0so hateful<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a word [\u201cstaged\u201d] that has become synonymous with conspiracy theories on the fringes of social media, often to cast doubts on an attack or shooting. But in the last 24 hours it has flooded into mainstream online conversation, and posts filled with evidence-free speculation, hate and abuse have racked up millions of views on X. [. . .] As ever, the conspiracy theories sometimes started with legitimate questions and confusion. They centred on alleged security failings, with lots of users understandably asking how this could happen.<\/p>\n

The only people \u201ccentred on alleged security failings\u201d are the BBC, every other\u00a0legacy media<\/a>\u00a0outlet, and state propagandists like Spring. The rest of us don\u2019t have a clue, all we have is a narrative that makes no sense at all.<\/p>\n

There is no evidence to suggest \u201cmistakes\u201d are even worth centering our focus of attention on at this stage. We are simply \u201ctold\u201d that is the most plausible explanation by Spring and others like her.<\/p>\n

Marianna Spring continues:<\/p>\n

What unfolded on X was straight out of the pages of the conspiracy theory playbook, honed on social media by committed activists who deny the reality of almost everything, including the Covid pandemic, wars, mass shootings and terror attacks.<\/p>\n

The \u201cconspiracy theory playbook\u201d is a made up, meaningless term Spring peddles without reason and contrary to all evidence. As I have explored at some length in my latest book\u2014yes, I\u2019m plugging it\u2014The Manchester Attack: An Independent Investigation<\/a><\/em>, there is no identifiable \u201cconspiracy movement;\u201d \u201cradicalisation by algorithm\u201d is baseless nonsense; there are no conspiracy \u201cplaybooks,\u201d no \u201ctextbook radicalisation\u201d and no evidence of anything that can be called the \u201cconspiracy theorist\u2019s mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are empty, accusatory labels stuck on people who dare to question power by Marianna Spring and propagandists like her.<\/p>\n

With regard to the Trump shooting, there is no \u201creality\u201d for anyone to deny, precisely because the fairy tale we have in hand is nonsensical drivel. We don\u2019t know what the \u201creality\u201d is, that\u2019s the point. But Spring and the BBC claim they do.<\/p>\n

Spring has no evidence\u2014nothing, nada, zilch\u2014to substantiate what she has already determined to be \u201creality.\u201d We\u2019ve all seen the same footage, the same photographs and read the same reports and absolutely none of it is conclusive proof of anything other than the fact that a shooting occurred during which an innocent man sadly lost his life.<\/p>\n

We do, however, get to the crux of Spring\u2019s propaganda:<\/p>\n

Incorrect attempts to identify the shooter fed into the various evidence-free narratives. [. . .] On X, political activists and supporters quickly hunkered down in their own echo chambers, reading posts that were recommended by the site\u2019s algorithm and confirmed what they already thought. The rest of us scrambled to avoid this deep pit of conspiracy and speculation. This was a test for Elon Musk\u2019s new Twitter \u2013 and it\u2019s hard to say the site passed with flying colours. The other social media sites haven\u2019t been inundated in the same way, perhaps because of their target audience and X\u2019s reputation as a home of political discourse.<\/p>\n

Springs certainty about what happened is a clear example of an \u201cevidence-free narrative.\u201d There are some obvious observations we can make.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical activists\u201d have just as much of a right to express an opinion as the BBC and Marianna Spring. The BBC and Spring have not avoided the \u201cdeep pit of conspiracy and speculation.\u201d They have waded neck deep into speculation and have labelled everyone who thinks their speculation might be wrong as \u201cconspiracy theorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018X\u2019 failed Springs \u201ctest\u201d because it apparently did not censor enough people for her liking. Most of whom were not \u201cpolitical activists,\u201d just ordinary folk equally speculating about an unfathomable and extremely weird event.<\/p>\n

This is not the social media environment Spring wants. Marianna Spring is among the legacy media propagandists who have been dispatched to promote state legislation, such as the UK Online Harms Act, designed to censor everything we say online and, ultimately, everything we think.<\/p>\n

The idea that\u00a0Elon Musk<\/a>\u00a0is providing some sort of safe-online-haven for political discourse is just as silly as everything else Spring asserts without reason. The only part of her waffle that is vaguely germane is her identification of \u201cecho chambers.\u201d Musk\u2019s X is an online information silo. The\u00a0shadow banning<\/a>\u00a0is rampant.<\/p>\n

This so-called failure in the alleged home of \u201cpolitical discourse\u201d is the real target of Spring\u2019s propaganda. In addition to \u201ctrusting\u201d whatever bilge she and the BBC offer, we must not raise questions that lie outside the Overton window of our officially approved \u201cpolitical discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n

If we do we fail.<\/p>\n

So say Marianna Spring and the BBC.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Iain Davis<\/strong>is an independent journalist a researcher from the UK. You can read more of Iain\u2019s work at his blog IainDavis.com<\/a> (Formerly InThisTogether) or follow him on Twitter<\/a> or subscribe to his SubStack<\/a>. His book Pseudopandemic<\/em>, is now available, in both in kindle and paperback, from Amazon<\/a> and other sellers. You can claim a free copy of his new book \u201cThe Manchester Attack\u201d by subscribing to his newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iain Davis on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the media\u2019s response<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-291414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trump-attepted-assassination"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=291414"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291491,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291414\/revisions\/291491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=291414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=291414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=291414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}