Obama Conspiracies in a Venn Diagram

November 8, 2012 by Ed Brayton

Mother Jones has put dozens of different crazy conspiracy theories popular among the loony right about Obama into one big Venn diagram. This is one I never saw before. Did you know that if you play Obama saying “yes we can” backwards, it says “Thank you Satan”? I didn’t either.

httpv://youtu.be/jqALdkTArqs

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UnknownEric

Is there a bustle in his hedgerow?
Alverant

You know, for all the laughing we’re doing at the nutjobs and their outragous conspiracy theories, I have to try and remember how bad we were in 2000 and 2004 with W. Not that the two were equal in nuttiness or quantity or that it excuses anything. Just maybe we should be the better half and try to clam down those who are acting like an Obama win will not doom the country.
hexidecima

oooh! More Christians showing that by their inept lies, they don’t belive in their god any more than I do.
Michael Heath

Unknowneric:

Is there a bustle in his hedgerow?

Well . . . don’t be alarmed now,

It’s just a spring clean for the May queen.

Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run

There’s still time to change the road you’re on.
tubi

Just maybe we should be the better half and try to clam down those who are acting like an Obama win will not doom the country.

You’re saying we should just mussel them into shape?
Stevarious, Public Health Problem

So…. ‘Yes’ backwards is ‘Satan’?

I listened to that clip a bunch of times and the only thing I can get out of ‘Yes we Can’ backwards is ‘Nack Eww Say’. Even with the video prompting me to hear it as ‘Thank You Satan’ I can’t get it. Do you have to be a wingnut to here a ‘th’ sound instead of ‘n’ at the beginning, and mentally tag a ‘tan’ on the end?

*shrug*
Stevarious, Public Health Problem

You’re saying we should just mussel them into shape?

What he’s sea-ing is that we cannet be shrimps about this. We reely need to make shore our fronds are on the same page as us.
mommiest

I don’t have time or ability to do this, but someone please, please show Mittens or Pat Robertson, or any televangelist speaking backwards and interpret them liberally. Just think of all the fun things they could say (backwards):

“I’m really just kidding about all this God stuff.”

“It’s such an easy way to earn a living.”

“I have a man-crush on Richard Dawkins.”

“I channel Hitchens through my Ouija board.”

“Thank you Satan.”

Come on. You know you want to.
Red-Green in Blue

Anyone who thinks you can communicate with such “reverse speech” has never tried to say more than a single word backwards. It is hard. As for trying to understand someone else’s speech backwards: well, there’s the slight problem of having to store in your memory the complete sequence of sounds for a sentence or more, in order, reverse them and play them back in your mind.*

This guy clearly thinks that “reverse speech” is a way for all those evil liberals to communicate secretly. So where did whole crowds of people – no, whole Obama-supporting sections of the population – secretly learn to develop this phenomenal skill of short-term auditory memory?

I once went to a concert of a barber-shop group where for an encore, they sang “The Lambeth Walk” backwards. This is the only time I’ve ever heard or seen anyone trying the feat of doing a whole song backwards, and afterwards they admitted how incredibly difficult it was to learn. And of course, I’ve no idea how intelligible the lyrics would have been had the performance been recorded and reversed to restore the original song – because I didn’t understand a word!

(shakes head in bemusement)
jimnorth

I’m pretty sure the walrus was Paul…
Kevin

The Venn diagram is incomplete. The entire thing should be encircled with “OMG. He’s totally BLACK!!!”
Stacy

Grandma? Pharaoh Zeus? Nairf?
jaybee

Michael Shermer did a Ted Talk about why people believe weird things. The highlight was when he played Stairway to Heaven backwards and had the audience listen. It sounds like gibberish. Then he played it backwards a second time, but with the deciphered backwards lyrics spelled out … and it was very easy to hear what was written, demonstrating the power of prompted expectation.

It comes about 9 minutes into this video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_on_believing_strange_things.html
John Kruger

I only hear “heck you say”, but what do I know?

Was going to bring up the very same thing jaybee linked.
Vasha

The fact that it would require magic to hear a backwards message is not a problem — these are undoubtedly the same people who truly believe that if you say the spells from Harry Potter you will really summon demons.
Modusoperandi

Weird, the Venn Diagram itself is contained within the circle of a larger Venn diagram, labeled “Not one of us”.
timgueguen

I’m surprised I hadn’t heard of the Obama killing his granny as part of the ocverup idea before.
some bastard on the net

Pharoah Zeus

This one had me wheezing from laughing too hard.
yoav

Obama once aided the mujahideen:

They got the wrong president, the one who financed the Afghan mujaheddin was saint Ronny (and Sylvester Stalone in Rambo III).

Obama trained to overthrow the government:

Isn’t violent overthrow of the government like wingnut porn?
escuerd

Stevarious, Public Health Problem:

So…. ‘Yes’ backwards is ‘Satan’?

That’s also the relevant word people hear as “Satan” in the Led Zeppelin song above. Has the clear “say” sound. I think that hearing a beat backwards in the song can make it sound like there’s a syllable with some kind of schwa after it. Doesn’t take much for a deranged mind to turn that into “Satan”.

Red-Green in Blue:

Anyone who thinks you can communicate with such “reverse speech” has never tried to say more than a single word backwards. It is hard.

Amen to that. I never could get the hang of doing a plosive sound backwards and having it sound very convincing (though I could make words pretty recognizable). Of course, these people may just imagine there’s something mystical going on to enable it. In the fantasy world they live in, that sort of thing can happen.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)

Great. Now every time I hear the word “yes” I’m going to mentally substitute “Satan”.
ursamajor

I had forgotten that old religious right bit of nonsense about how alleged messages in a song or speech which can only be heard when the recording is played backwards are more powerful than the original song or speech.

BTW, if I say “The girl was loudly kissed” and it is played backwards then it comes out as “Satan is my lord” which I think is way cool.
Pseudonym

Oddly enough, I hear “thank you saint”. I’m totally going to start a rumour that Obama is secretly Catholic.
Markita Lynda—threadrupt

Wouldn’t “Yes, we can” backwards be “Nac ew sey”?
Markita Lynda—threadrupt

Speaking of conspiracy theories, the day after the election when the Facebook group “One Million Strong Against Mitt Romney” or http://www.facebook.com/StopMitt would normally be celebrating with backslapping, high fives, cartoons, and the like, it had been deleted fom Facebook. The page was in no way a hostile or violent place and had over 330,000 “Likes.” Is there any way of getting Facebork to pay attention and review it or are a couple of fraudulent “Reports” enough to get any page deleted?
Modusoperandi

Markita Lynda—threadrupt, you’re still against him? Can’t you ever leave him alone, you monster?

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Obama Conspiracies in a Venn Diagram