Bad Craziness North of Seattle: David Icke in Bellingham
Amidst the protests, boycotts, and public outcry over the mayor of Mount Vernon giving Glenn Beck the keys to the city, we’ve ignored another controversial public figure who’ll be speaking in Washington soon: David Icke will be speaking at the Mount Baker Theatre in Bellingham on October 4, and he is much, much more inflammatory than Glenn Beck.
A former English soccer player and BBC sportscaster, Icke left sports and began a slow, public descent into odd behavior in the late 1990s. After a brief stint with the British Green Party, Icke first proclaimed himself the Son of God. He later began elaborating to interviewers on his surprising (given his conservative past) but relatively conventional New Age point of view. At this point Icke was odd (he wore only turquoise clothing) but relatively irrelevant. Icke then disappeared for a few years, during which he apparently had what was either a mystical experience or a schizophrenic episode. He resurfaced to become a prominent figure in the conspiracy theory community.
At the core of Icke’s “new age conspiracism” is the idea that the world is ruled by a secret conspiracy which he calls the “Global Elite” or “Illuminati.” Icke believes that the Illuminati is composed of pan-dimensional alien reptiles masquerading as human beings. George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth, and Henry Kissinger are among the figures Icke has “outed” as reptiloids. (He’s also accused Bob Hope and Kris Kristofferson. We’re not entirely sure what role either of those entertainers plays in controlling the world.)
“Aliens secretly control the world” seems like a harmless idea on the face of it. David Icke would be kind of adorably ridiculous, except that he links his “Illuminati” to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic document proven surprisingly popular despite hard evidence that it's a hoax. This has led a number of groups, including the Canadian Jewish Congress, to accuse Icke of racism—some have said that his “reptilian humanoid” is simply code word for “Jew.” It’s hard to say whether or not Icke actually really has anything against the Jewish people--there’s a fine line between believing that the world is secretly run by child-sacrificing Satanic alien reptiles and believing that the world is secretly run by child-sacrificing Satanic Jewish alien reptiles.
It would be tempting to discount Icke as a harmless crackpot, but he’s moved aggressively to cultivate an audience in the American extreme right. His appearances this tour are nine hours long, and he routinely draws huge speaking engagements. Past speaking engagements have routinely sold out, and his October 4th appearance is likely to be no different. (The Mount Baker Theatre seats 1,509 people and tickets are priced between $50 and $75.)
While the New Age content of Icke’s message doesn’t sit well with the right, the part about an elite conspiracy of foreign beings controlling the world resonates with militias and the unhealthily patriotic. Icke speaks for 9 hours in Bellingham—the event runs from 11 in the morning to 8 at night. Topics on his docket include the fraudulence of Barack Obama, the government’s role in causing 9/11, healthcare reform death panels, and the engineering of swine flu by the CIA in order to administer mind control drugs through the vaccine. He’ll likely link ideas like this which are currently so popular with the radical (and not-so-radical) right to his reptilian conspiracy.
We’re not suggesting you go see David Icke. We’re not even suggesting you protest it or petition against him. But nine hours for 75 bucks a seat—that’s a lot of crazy ideas coming at you. Has the culture war taken a turn for the totally absurd?
