‘Jewish Space Lasers’: not the cause of the California wildfires

Real history has been long tainted by confabulations and outright lies. Myths work their way in without holding any truth, but after a long enough time period, they can start to feel like they’re true. The rumors surrounding the Rothschild banking family exemplify this — everyone’s heard of them, and everyone has ideas about them, but the hard truth is that very few people actually know much about them.

Journalist and author Mike Rothschild — who is not related to those Rothschilds — has long himself been a target of the conspiracy theory community, but now it comes in the middle of catastrophe. Rothschild lost his house in the Eaton Fire razing California last week. Amid the ruins, bad actors from the right and the left are scuttling out to gleefully mock or parade out conspiracy theories about the fires.

This is not a new thing, as Rothschild discusses in his book Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories. The titular concept comes in part from an unhinged rant from Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who suggested that the Camp Fire of 2018 was caused by “directed energy weapons” in orbit. The book takes us on a 200-year journey, demonstrating how clearly plagiarized and forged pieces of “literature” like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have become so accepted as fact by too many duped or racially motivated conspiracy theorists.

The seemingly nascent “fire truther” movement has an awful lot to say about things they know nothing about. The most common speculation concerns why one big item burned while another smaller one did not. Conspiracy theories about FEMA are yet again taking hold, along with outsized reports of looting, misinformation, scams, and grifts.

The parallels between Jewish Space Lasers and the current situation are uncanny. In a world that seems to be increasingly conspiratorial-minded, some might see this as Rothschild having been in on some grand plot announced in his book, because those are the rules of predictive programming.

“It’s horrifying on a personal level, but also to be at the center of an event driving conspiracy theories and disinformation is a whole new level of irony,” Rothschild says through personal message. “I wish I could show these people what my community is going through, and how useless their idle speculation is.”

Jewish Space Lasers recounts the continual lack of empathy the Rothschild family has faced throughout history, and how they became the figureheads for some globalist, evil cabal that just doesn’t exist. The Rothschilds are so embedded in conspiracy theory “history” that to believers, they’ve lost all semblance of humanity. “Those people aren’t like us” quickly becomes, “Those aren’t people.”

Some social media accounts are openly joyful about the loss of Rothschild’s house, essentially mocking the loss of his neighbors’ homes as well. If you were to guess that all of this hate and cruelty is coming from the right, you’d be wrong. Many “Resistor” and BlueAnon accounts are jumping onto the awful train, proving yet again that conspiracy theories and the delusional self-importance that comes with them are universal.

If you’re able, please consider subscribing to Mike Rothschild’s Patreon or purchasing one of his books, like Jewish Space Lasers or The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything, during this difficult time. You can read his direct experience with the fire here.

My father and I lost our home in 2011. I experienced firsthand how one thing burns, but another thing doesn’t. Here is a list of some resources, and a site where you can track ongoing information.

Thanks to Mike Rains and my other Adventures in HellwQrld co-hosts for information on the conspiracy theory chatter surrounding the fires.