6 Horrifying Realities Lenny Pozner Faced of Dealing with Sandy Hook 'Truthers'
On December 14, 2012, Lenny Pozner's six-year-old son Noah was one of 27 people murdered by Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Lenny Pozner has since been consistently insulted and threatened by people who think he and his son were actors paid by the government to stage a crisis for reasons that only make sense to those whose thought processes sound like shrieking lemurs.
Lenny Pozner and a volunteer network he founded have been fighting back against these harassers using tactics like threats of legal action and YouTube takedown requests. That sounds like the worst thing in the world, so naturally we wanted to hear his story.
#6. The Conspiracy Theories Began Immediately
How long do you think it takes conspiracy theorists to turn nasty after a national tragedy? A year? A month? "They emerged immediately," says Pozner. First on the scene was Jonathan Lee Riches, an ex-con infamous for filing countless frivolous lawsuits. In a YouTube video posted two days after the shooting, he argued that Lanza had been mind-controlled by the Illuminati. "[He] left voice mails for Nancy Lanza [Adam's mother, whom he murdered] and Ryan Lanza [Adam's brother] on December 14. On December 16, Riches descended upon Newtown and pretended to be a relative of Adam Lanza. He got arrested, but he made videos right away about how it was a conspiracy to take away civil liberties."
Riches was soon arrested for violating parole, but he was only the vanguard. Merely glancing around the internet, it's not hard to come across examples of Sandy Hook conspiracy theory "tourism." We found an "inquisitive couple" that visited Newtown a little over a month after the shooting and were shocked to find that people didn't want to talk to them (clearly a sign of a cover-up!). Another theorist's website says they visited in 2014 to argue that the entire town is fake. Shit, why stop there? Maybe the entire USA and its history are an elaborate charade intended to deprive 300 million people of their gun rights.
#5. At Some Point, Conspiracy Theorists Turn Into Hateful Trolls
Over the years, Pozner's harassers abandoned any pretense of constructing theories and devoted themselves to spewing personal abuse. "These people aren't 'truthers,' they're hoaxers. All of their ridiculous theories have been debunked. They manufacture evidence, falsify documents, and misrepresent facts to create their own whacked-out version of reality."
That's the trick they use. Publicly, they present themselves as "truth-seekers." How can you get mad at someone who wants to investigate the facts or "have a conversation"? After all, they're "just asking questions." But privately, all they do is spew hate and quibble pointless technicalities so their little bubble doesn't collapse. For example, to contribute to the public record, Lenny Pozner released Noah's death certificate. Hoaxers immediately started picking it apart, trying to hold their ideas together with a bunch of nonsensical arguments about font choice and layout like someone fixing a broken sofa with duct tape, if the sofa were also on fire.
#4. Sandy Hook Was A Perfect Storm For Conspiracy Theorists
The thing to remember about conspiracy theories is that they're not built out of thin air. The "anomalies" and errors in the official record are very real. Witness memories are imperfect, reporters get sloppy on tight deadlines, and mistakes get made. One news outlet got the dates mixed up (saying Noah was killed on December 15th instead of the 14th) and that's all the crackpots needed ("THEY ADMIT HE DIDN'T EVEN DIE THAT DAY!!!"). Of course, if 100-percent perfect reporting is your standard, then World War II was also a hoax. No non-hoaxes have occurred in world history, but in the world of conspiracy theorists, each new error or misprint sends the mob into frenzy.
#3. You Learn What Makes Conspiracy Theorists Tick
You have to have a, well, unique worldview to think that you live in a world in which scores of people will happily collect a paycheck pretending to be the victims of an unthinkable tragedy so the government can take advantage of a mourning nation. And Pozner's noticed a trend among those who hold that view. "I used to think these people were open-minded truth seekers. Not so. For the most part, they're socially reclusive narcissists. They're literally in their own little world."
Studies back his observations up. Conspiracy theorists often feel that they have no control over their lives in the grand scheme of things, but their theories at least assure them that there is a grand scheme. The people secretly running the world may be evil, but at least there's someone in charge, and we aren't randomly hurtling through space until we all die. Their lives matter. Now remember that picture of Noah in Pakistan? How could a supposed vast international conspiracy be so sloppy? Hoaxers thought the government did it on purpose to taunt them. That's their mindset: In a world where parents sometimes see their children murdered, the conspiracy theorists are really the ones in the middle of the story. It's all about them.
#2. It Becomes A Self-Sustaining Cycle
Okay, you've seen how soul-crushing all of this can be. So why does Pozner seek this stuff out every day instead of ignoring it?
"The perspective that if you ignore them the theories will dry up and die is an old one," he says. "It's total bullshit. It doesn't apply anymore. Modern-day conspiracy theories are like a thought virus. And the only thing a virus wants to do is replicate. The troll just wants to create more trolls ... I get hate mail from some as young as 15. 'We're watching you, we're going to get you, you're a traitor, and we're going to bring you to justice.' A certain amount of the population is easily suggestible."
#1. Still, There Are Tiny Hints Of Progress
Lenny Pozner does get glimpses of daylight here and there. "Today, our most energized volunteers are former deniers. With the help of a lot of good debunking material out there, they've had a chance to look into these Hoaxer claims and realize that they don't hold up." Pozner described a "moment of clarity" when all the pieces fall into place for a hoaxer. Occasionally they apologize, but most of the time they simply quietly return to their lives. Even at the end, they won't admit they were wrong.
Still, progress is progress. "I do have plenty of worthwhile accomplishments to feel good about. I would consider the firing of a tenured professor who defamed my son as a major victory ... On the downside; places like Twitter have been a constant cesspool of abuse. I have zero respect for Twitter."
Read the full story briefly here at: http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2232-my-son-died-at-sandy-hook-conspiracy-nuts-think-im-lying.html