Terror Alert Hysteria: A Real 'October Surprise'?

(Oct. 4) — The month has barely started, but has the U.S. electorate already been the victim of a dreaded “October surprise“? 

That is what troubles conspiratorial-media mogul Alex Jones — host of his own radio show and purveyor of websites Infowars and Prison Planet — and his collaborator, writer Paul Joseph Watson, who posted an article today on the latter site called “October Surprise: Terror Hysteria Recycled In Election Ploy.”

In it, Watson argues that the European terror alert that was activated this weekend, and trumpeted loudly by the American media, was actually the work of “the establishment” — in this case, the Democratic-controlled federal government. (Although to be clear, Watson implicates the Bush administration and other conservative power-wielders in prior “October surprise” instances as well.) He writes:

In attempting to “force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security,” the establishment hopes to derail the momentum of Tea Party candidates like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle, whose entire campaigns are built on the premise of turning away from the state and giving power back to the individual. Manipulating voters by threatening terror worked for the Republicans in 2004, but the Democrats might have to go a step further if they hope to use it as a deciding factor in 2010.

Then, in an ironic feat of counterprogramming (ironic since Jones himself appears to be a master media manipulator, at least when it comes to gaming Google Trends), Jones later took to the airwaves and told his listeners to not only read the article, but to Google the terms “terror hysteria” and “October surprise” repeatedly, to ensure that they would appear high up on the search engine’s Hot Terms and link even more people to the original article. Of course, as with previous feats, it worked, at least that part of it. But what about the other part: convincing people that what Jones and Watson believe is true?

It may sound somewhat wild to a political moderate, or to those who generally trust their government (which these days, sadly, is not very many), but there is again a grain of truth to what Watson and Jones state. 

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