On Friday, Infowars founder and host Alex Jones trended on Twitter, despite being banned from the platform, due to the hashtag “#AlexJonesWillEatYourAss,” referencing a rant by Jones in which he satirically described eating his neighbors during a hypothetical societal collapse.
In an interview with his son, Rex Jones, and a video response uploaded to Banned.video, Jones explained the satirical nature of the video, and compared it to Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” in which the 18th century writer suggested that British accustom themselves to eating poor Irish children to prevent mass starvation in the lower classes.
Jones explained that, had the clip not been edited, viewers would have seen Jones identify his statement as sarcasm, and explain that the United Nations is predicting millions of people will starve due to disruptions in the food supply caused by coronavirus lockdowns across the world.
“It’s Jonathan Swift from 1730, he’s the most famous satirist of all time, and he said let’s eat little Irish children at age one,” said Jones. “I thought, ‘Well that’s a little extreme, let’s just say I’m going to eat my neighbors.'”
“Because 135 million people are starving to death, extra, who will die this year instead of 10 million according to the UN food program. So I did a 10 minute segment, did the crazy rant, then said ‘This is about African people dying, and if society collapses this could happen here some day, so get ready to eat your neighbors.'”
Jones also bashed the media for not repeating his full statement, as he was hoping that Americans and world leaders would understand that over 100 million may die as a result of the lockdowns disrupting the global food supply.
“It’s pure satire to get people’s damn attention, but of course the media will not let me actually get out the full statement,” said Jones. “By me engaging in this Jonathan Swift-style satire, we can actually save the planet before the COVID lockdown causes a planetary depression that’s irreversible.”
I asked my dad #AlexJones about the #AlexJonesWillEatYourAss hashtag. Here’s what he said. pic.twitter.com/VyMynuyWs2
— Rex Jones (@rexjonesnews) May 2, 2020
Africa’s stagnation and slow growth has been well documented, with top experts questioning if giving humanitarian supplies to the nation will actually help lift the continent out of poverty. Currently, it is believed that most countries in Africa would not survive without food and resources imported from other continents.
Forbes notes that African nations are being robbed of the incentive to implement capitalist reforms that led to Asian countries becoming self sufficient:
In 2002, the then Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said: “I’ve never seen a country develop itself through aid or credit. Countries that have developed—in Europe, America, Japan, Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea and Singapore—have all believed in free markets. There is no mystery there. Africa took the wrong road after independence.”
In Asia, the fight against poverty and hunger has been so effective because so many Asian countries have implemented capitalist reforms. In China alone— thanks to the partial introduction of private property rights and free-market economics—the proportion of people living in extreme poverty has fallen from 88% in 1981 to below 1% today.
Jones’ response to the trending hashtag can be viewed on Banned.video.
