October 2012 Infowars cover
I recently picked up the October issue of Infowars, a new, free monthly publication released by infamous conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones. Honestly, I liked the design of the cover and the few pages that I quickly flipped through, so I grabbed it, always curious to explore new and seemingly interesting pieces of print.
The theme of this issue is zombies. One of the first articles in the magazine, “Breaking the Zombie Programming: We Can Become Conscious!,” introduces the concept of human beings existing in a “zombie-like” consciousness. Steve Watson, the author, elaborates on his belief that the huge majority of modern day people—himself included—spend about 99% of their lives simply going through the motions. Watson references (or entirely repeats, I’m not sure) Todd C. Moody, a philosophy professor at St. Joseph’s University, and Charles T. Tart, a professor (?) at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology.
“These zombie qualities,” Tart explains, “include: a) a greatly reduced sense of aliveness and vitality [and] b) a great narrowing of perspective and perception,” among several other zombie-esque qualities.
Watson’s article was the only one I read in its entirety. I just couldn’t get through any more. I skimmed the remainder of the publication and from the story headers, images, and pull quotes of the other articles, it is as if the writers become more and more paranoid, more insistent on spreading fear, more skeptical of every single component of society.
Infowars is a well designed publication and successfully appeals to a very particular audience, but I am certainly not a member of this audience. It is a dark and borderline fictional magazine. If anything, I can use it to make my collages with.
City Whitty 512 