The Truth vs. Alex Jones

One of the biggest ironies in this whole tragedy is Alex Jones claiming the Sandy Hook families faked and acted the whole thing - when Jones himself is just an actor. And not a very good one.

He is a charlatan who preys on a vulnerable audience to make money.

This is a great documentary which shows the rise of fringe groups that have sucked in a group of people who doesn't even believe in basic science. A decent percentage of the population really needs to grow up and learn from this whole situation.

Grifters will always grift but they can't if they don't have a market.

I just feel so sorry for all the families and victims who lost everything and those poor children who were robbed of their future while a redneck continues to con people without any remorse or guilt for what he is doing or what he has done.

The world got a horrible shock in December 2012 when a psychopath walked into a school in Connecticut and murdered several children. Most people were rightly horrified. Unfortunately, radio host Alex Jones - known for whipping up conspiracy theories - called it a false flag event, and his listeners ate it up.

Dan Reed's documentary "The Truth vs. Alex Jones" looks at Jones's rumor-mongering and how this led to harassment of the victims' parents. The harassment got to the point where the parents filed a lawsuit against Jones. Much of the documentary shows scenes inside the trial, with Jones trying to pretend that he didn't try to harm the parents.

The main thing to take away from the documentary is that Jones is the latest in a long line of blowhards making things up to further their careers (such as Joe McCarthy and Rush Limbaugh). Sadly, their fans - one might call them cultists - believe the lies and proceed to torment the victims. One can only hope that criminal prosecution will bring down these mendacious goons.

Not the greatest documentary, but I recommend it.

Within the first 6 minutes of the documentary that point is made clear when Alex Jones is trying to force another group not to expose the facts behind lies he extolls so he can sell a product.

There has been a long history of profiteers but with the speed of communications we have now, it can be more far-reaching. My biggest hope, is when these fraudsters are exposed not just they but they people that helped support their lies also have to pay or go to jail.

Hiding behind the First Amendment when you know you are lying does not give you freedom of speech.

The documentary is worth watching though to see all the details of the lunacy that was exposed.

It's one thing to question authority and official explanations of highly public events; it's something else entirely to portray them in a wholly falsified light, especially when done so in a ridiculing manner that causes tremendous personal pain. Such is what happened when conspiracy theorist broadcaster Alex Jones fanatically contended that the December 2012 mass shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School was a staged false flag event aimed at prompting the seizure of the private citizens' firearms, essentially gutting the guarantees of the Second Amendment. Jones vociferously claimed that the event didn't happen as reported in the mainstream media, that it was all pulled off with actors and that no one was killed. He openly mocked the public grieving of devastated parents through a relentless campaign of blatant disinformation, effectively enabling him to convince nearly a quarter of the nation's population into believing his story. Finally, after many anguishing years (including unbridled derision, public ridicule and death threats from disbelieving fanatics and hecklers), those who lost loved ones fought back, filing defamation suits in Jones's home state of Texas and in Connecticut, site of the tragedy. Documentarian Dan Reed's latest feature chronicles the events of this troubling story with no-holds-barred candor, capturing the searing pain of the Sandy Hook families, Jones's cartoonish out-of-control bluster and extensive courtroom footage of the two trials. Shot over four years, the filmmaker effectively captures the crazed ravings of a two-faced, delirious conman whose self-serving self-promotion efforts made P. T. Barnum look like a rank amateur by comparison. But what's perhaps most unsettling here is the film's uncompromising depiction of someone who honestly believed he could publicly say whatever he wanted through today's powerful, far-reaching communications technology - regardless of its truthfulness - and get away with it, a truly potent cautionary tale for our times. "The Truth vs. Alex Jones" poignantly reminds us of the precious nature of freedom of speech and the need to protect it, especially where matters of responsibility are concerned. Indeed, the First Amendment may allow us to express ourselves, but it doesn't give us license to lie.

I lost an old friend to Alex Jones when Infowars did a special on the Bilderberg group (basically "Jewish cabal controls the world"). This friend, a successful game designer with a college degree, accused me of not being open to different interpretations of facts, and I cut ties with him because I had to admit to myself that you cannot penetrate a wall of BS with rationality when people want to believe what they want to believe - in his case, antisemitism.

I was hoping this documentary would dwell a little more on how we have come to this distorted scary place and what a major part Alex Jones has played in this. It is fitting to give the Sandy Hook parents so much room, to show that they are real people whose kids were really murdered. And you can deduct from Jones' own statements that he thought he could escape justice with the mob power of his (ab)user base. But unfortunately the film plays out as a courtroom drama and will therefore do little to dissuade the (mis)believers. Don't get me wrong, it's great material, and I understand that the director wants to use as much of it as he can. But those who think Alex Jones is a false prophet will just receive yet another confirmation, while those who take him for a civil rights hero will still find it possible to confirm that.

It's an important documentary in terms of respecting real victims and giving them a voice. But I wish the approach had been broader so as to describe just how many myths on how many subjects this man has created and how many millions of people he has harmed.