The Paranoid Strain

We're a day late, but boy howdy do we have some nonsense to share with you. Learn how the book of Revelation apparently predicted modern attack helicopters. And how Christian and Jewish zealots are working together to raise sacrifice a red cow to bring the arrival and/or return of the Messiah. And how Donald Trump had Hillary and Bill executed. And then somehow had her arrested again, three years...

When we started this series, who thought we would be doing a multi-episode detour into the Book of Revelation? Certainly not your fearful host. But the more we got into this topic, the more we realized that end-times fanaticism, which defines not just the decade of the 90s, but also certainly Q's whole "the storm is coming" thing, deserved a thoroughgoing review. So that's this week's episode, and...

Yeah, there's still a little sex-trafficking teaser at the beginning of this one, but it also inaugurates our next topic. That is--how did the apocalyptic year-2000 obsessions of the 90s seed the ground for the eschatological focus of the Qanon cult? Over a few episodes, we plan to answer that question, and in the process, we plan to revisit some of the best cultural touchstones of our youth. Yes,...

We said last episode was our final Satanic Panic episode, and we meant it! At least, mostly--we still have to wrap up the surprising and awful story of how our interviewee, Justin Sledge, found himself caught up in a late-breaking satanic panic as a 1990s teenager. Plus--Debbie Nathan helps us see what forest we're missing for the sex trafficking panic trees. That makes more sense after you listen...

The Paranoid Strain? They still do episodes of that show? Will wonders never cease. Sorry we're late. I promise, we weren't being neglectful. We just got caught up in a combination of holiday obligations, ongoing research, and a mountain of work for an upcoming project so ridiculously grandiose, we can't believe it ourselves (and it was our idea). That's coming soon. How soon? Who knows. But for n...

Our de facto holiday episode is here, not that there's anything notably Christmassy about it. Or even Hannukah-y. We continue to lift up the rocks of the Satanic Panic and watch the horrible worms and bugs squirm in the disinfecting light of the truth. This time, we turn our attention to the way the media fanned the flames of the panic, convincing people across North America that Satan was coming...

We're waist-deep in Satanic Panic, with no end in sight. Our story continues with details of the McMartin preschool trial, the highest-profile, most emblematic event of the whole sad, deluded era. Our expert interviewees walk us through the gory details...you know, normally when people use that expression, they don't mean it. Unfortunately, in this case, the details are pretty awful, and we don't...

You asked for it, you got it. The 80s Satanic Panic--especially related to supposedly abusive daycares, was a direct antecedent to the Qanon child abuse/sacrifice mania. So we dive into the whole icky story. Joining us is interviewee Debbie Nathan, pioneering skeptical journalist who was among the first to call bullshit on the whole nightmare, which boiled down to well-meaning parents and official...

Last stop before our full, multi-part discussion of the Satanic Panic of the 80s and early 90s. This stop is back in the depths of antisemitism, the miasma from which so many conspiracies arise. Learn how the unsolved murder of a 12-year-old boy in 12th century England was transformed into an unkillable, slanderous rumor tying Jews to ritual murder, blood-letting, and cannibalism. We wish we could...

Out with the old, in with the new. In this case, no more Birchers of fluoride--we've moved on to other Q-related topics. This time, we're taking a long windup to get to the Satanic Panic period of the 80s and early 90s in the US and Canada, which is the direct antecedent of the Q "democrats harvesting adrenochrome from abused sex trafficked youngsters" meme that has so obsessed lunatics in recent...

Today, we're gonna get to the bottom of the fluoride conspiracy. Where does it come from? Who believes it? And how did we start dunking our teeth in the stuff in the first place? Hopefully, we'll get through everything we have to say without anything weird going on. Like, it's an mp3 file, right? It's not like anyone can just hijack it and take over. What a weird thing to worry about, Jesuit. You'...

We're finishing up our Bircher talk here, with our discussion of the group's great crusades to keep people from having more rights, because apparently expanding civil, women's, or gay rights played right into the commies' hands. Plus, they really, really wanted to get rid of Chief Justice Earl Warren. Did they? Kinda. I mean, he retired. So Victory! Plus, you'll learn who this John Birch guy is, a...

We find ourselves falling deeper into the history of the John Birch Society, Robert Welch's baby, and the anti-communist organization that seemed so fringey in the mid-20th century, yet seems so clearly a prologue to Qanon today. Learn how the group formed, how it misjudged the communist menace, and how Welch's unique personal history shaped its worldview. See you in a couple of weeks with more ex...

As the title suggests, this is the moment where we hand off the story from contemporary Russia to the USA's number one Cold Warrior, a former candy magnate who founded the most successful and influential anti-Communist movement in our nation's history. The John Birch Society is truly the forerunner of today's unhinged right-wing conspiracy culture--the proto-Qanon, if you will. So let's examine wh...

Our second full part on the topic of Putin's Russia, we cover more of that fun-loving gaggle of nationalist extremist conspiracy theorists who run that place these days, and with the help of our intrepid guide, Professor Yablokov, we learn how they do that conspiracy and repression voodoo that they do...so well. Also, we explore a series of interlocking theories that post-Soviet nationalists dream...

Having finished our dissection of Fed conspiracies, we now move on to consider how the other great world power of the 20th Century ended up becoming a dysfunctional autocracy overwhelmed by conspiracies. We learn what makes Russian conspiracy culture unique (and uniquely damaging), so that we can better understand Q and our own homegrown crazy. Of course, part of the Q crazy also overlaps with the...

The last gasp of our Fed-related shows, this covers the truly goofy shit--sordid plots to sink huge ships to keep people who don't oppose the Fed from...opposing the Fed. Angels shacking up with human women to spawn giants who found the Federal Reserve. Plus, some sensible discussion of problems (and potential solutions) for how the Fed works, complements of Mr. Greeley. Next time: RUSSIA, COMRADE...

Episode 3! We hope you like hearing Federal reserve conspiracy theories debunked, because boy, that's what you're getting this time. Thrill to the history of monetary policy. Experience the chills of arguing with bitcoin enthusiasts on Twitter! Seriously, though, our interviewee is great, and we think this is a really rare opportunity to learn some super-interesting stuff about the way the most co...

Second episode! Which means the introduction to this series literally took up an entire episode. Does that mean we're getting better or worse? Hard to say. This time, we're taking on the conspiracist view of what actually transpired on Jekyll Island back in 1910. Was it a conspiracy? Yes! Did mainstream historians already know that? Yes. What does it have to do with Qanon? We're more than happy to...

We're back, bay-bee! For the next umpty-bajillion episodes, we're going to take a new angle to look at Qanon. Why, when we've already done Qanon several times? Because we believe the Qanon conspiracy is...in a sense "eating" other conspiracy theories. Because we think it's metastasizing into the one uber-conspiracy theory that rules our current moment in time. But more than that, we want to know h...

We did it! We reached the end of the marathon. In this one, we chat through the Zapruder film, and its cultural impact. But the most important thing about this episode is it marks the end of the new-content dry spell. We're putting out a brand new episode next time, and we can't wait to share it with you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

PENULTIMATE! It does not, as a young Jesuit believed, mean "better than ultimate". It means "the one before the last one." Which is what we have here. Some more discussions of the impact of JFK conspiracizing prior to the final wrap-up. We've finished the first episode of Year 5--like, totally finished, can't wait for you to hear it. Soon, my Strainiacs. In the meantime, enjoy. Hosted on Acast. Se...

This time, we focus not on Oliver Stone, but rather the real guy whom his movie portrayed as a fearless, untouchable campaigner for the truth--former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. Our analysis of the man's career and crusade to prove a JFK conspiracy is rather less sympathetic. Enjoy the episode, and we'll see you with the next part in a week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

Part 4, which includes the end of our Stone/Costner courtroom takedown, as well as a discussion of a bunch of other conspiracies that somehow Stone managed not to regurgitate in that scene. Year 5 coming in a matter of weeks. Can't wait for you to hear it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Third part of JFK inbound. This one features one of the highlights of our cross-country conspiracy trek of 2017, an interview with Stephen Fagin of the 6th Floor Museum in Dallas, which we insist you visit if you find yourself in that town. We then get to the important business of taking Oliver Stone down a peg or two. Still working hard on new shows. Still very excited about what we'll be sharing...