I saw that Jim Carrey advocated for glorious “socialism” the other day . To be honest, as a cancer survivor, I am not opposed to the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare). But knowing Carrey’s reputation as an advocate for the idea that vaccines cause autism, my honest first thought was ‘what kind of socialism is it where your medical system doesn’t provide vaccinations?’. I wasn’t really that familiar with this particular ‘brand’ of conspiracism but ‘vaccine truth’ had the ring of Soviet or Russian disinformation to me (much like ‘water fluoridation conspiracism’), so I dug into it a little.
First, I noted that Jim Carrey has an anti-fascist stance on vaccines. It bears pointing out that ‘I am opposed to fascism because Nazis are bad’, but the idea of anti-fascism in general comes from Stalinist propaganda. It has been used as an effective recruitment tactic for ‘useful idiots’ since the days of the Popular Front in 1930’s Hollywood. (Good examples include the films of Orson Welles, Dario Argento, and the documentaries of Michael Moore. It’s en-vogue with even right wing NRA-types like Ted Nugent, who appearing on Alex Jones’ InfoWars referred to gun control advocates as “subhuman Nazi brownshirt punks“.)
In 2015, Carrey wrote on Twitter: “California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory [sic] vaccines. This corporate fascist must be stopped,” “They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosol [sic] is no risk. Make sense?”. The reality is though, that the ethylmercury additive stopped going in childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001.
Unsurprisingly, it has also been shown that people who believe in vaccine based conspiracies are more likely to believe in other conspiracies, which seems like it might make them a good target for Russian conspiracism as a strategy to undermine America.
Looking for the origins of the vaccine myths, I was honestly not so surprised first to find that it was recently reported that Russians specifically exploited the controversy over vaccines to sow divisions.
“Russian troll accounts and sophisticated bots tweeted about vaccination significantly more often than average users”… “Content from these sources gives equal attention to pro- and anti-vaccination arguments”…”This is consistent with a strategy of promoting discord across a range of controversial topics – a known tactic employed by Russian troll accounts.”… “The relationship between the conspiratorial communities is recognized by social platform algorithms, which push more conspiracy theories to people who are prone to believe one,”…”Accounts that tweet Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracies will also tweet vaccine conspiracies.” (US News and World Report)
Maybe this is why the conspiracy monger Ron Paul hastened to rescue Carrey in 2015 when he came under fire for his above anti-fascist commentary:
“Jim Carrey, an actor, came forth and he volunteered his position, which I think is pretty accurate — He called the governor a ‘corporate fascist.’” – Ron Paul (Facebook)
The support by Ron Paul isn’t that surprising, because it was on the back of the vile conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ vaccine-truth-spewing InfoWars and radio program which both Ron Paul and his son Rand Paul achieved some public notoriety.
Alex Jones, whose first mainstream political guest on radio was Ron Paul in 1996, and who claims to have been “probably one of the first people to ever interview” Rand Paul; vehemently defended Rand Paul around the same vaccine issue in 2015 based on Paul’s public skepticism on the libertarian values of public vaccination. (Dr. Congressman Comrade Ron Paul, it should also be noted has tremendously strong connections to modern Russian online influence campaigns, and is observed to have many parallels with the 1930’s-1940’s Communist Party USA useful idiot Henry Wallace.)
Though vaccine-based right wing conspiracism goes back to the 1700’s, as far as mercury in vaccines goes:
“Claims of an association among vaccines, mercury, and child neurological health problems were raised in the early 1980s by Soviet virologist Galena Petrovna Chervonskaya and trumpeted in the Communist Party’s Komsomolskaya Pravda. Vaccination rates fell so low following the report that Soviet soldiers returning from war in Afghanistan, where diphtheria was still common, unwittingly spawned an epidemic that swept the Soviet Union, causing the worst outbreak since World War II. Some 200,000 unvaccinated children contracted diphtheria, which killed roughly 2 to 3 percent of those infected, varying by region.” (Foreign Policy)
Further cementing a connection to modern propaganda, Carrey is a political accomplice of Michael Moore, who also shares Carrey’s views on thimerosal according to a letter sent on behalf of Moore by the Weinstein Company (which produced Moore’s 2007 film: ‘Sicko‘):
“We can certainly discuss issues like Eli Lilly’s thimerosal and what it did to America’s children.” – Michael Moore (as a challenge to the pharmaceutical industry)
Highlighting a theme of Jim Carrey being aligned with ‘communistic’ themes in Hollywood — and in what I suppose is more a John Wayne extremely brief flashback cameo than a full out sequel… Another connection which may highlight Carrey’s stances on overt ‘Soviet-era communism’ is Carrey’s ‘body language’ at the 1999 Oscars. There, Carrey sat next to Ed Harris (whom he’d recently appeared in ‘The Truman Show‘ (1998) with); and though Carrey clapped (unlike Harris), he notably did not stand for the award to Elia Kazan.
Ed Harris got his role in ‘The Truman Show‘ after Dennis Hopper backed out. (The now-deceased Hopper, who appeared in ‘Apocalypse Now‘, and who John Wayne called a “pinko”, said of his beliefs in a 2012 Piers Morgan interview that Wayne had been correct because Hopper was then a self-admitted “borderline” Communist and “pretty heavy socialist”.)
Robert DeNiro: “A man whose work is vitally important in the history of American film. He was the master of a new type of psychological and behavioral truth in acting. The work that he did and the actors that he used brought a thrilling new reality to the stage and screen. More than anybody, he inspired us. He taught us a new respect for ourselves as actors and the potential power of our profession.”
Martin Scorsese: “The passion of his performers matched his passion to explore the suppressed raging discontents of our civilization. At a time when the prevailing American voice was bland and glib — this poetic realist, this angry romantic — always spoke fervently to our most basic conflicts; between races and religions, classes and generations; men and women.”
The lack of standing and applause was seen by some as a protest of Kazan over his 1950s HUAC testimony, which implicated some members of Hollywood in Communist Party activities, effectively ending their careers. Ed Harris and Nick Nolte were the most obvious who did not stand and clap.
This idea of Kazan, along with occult themes related to Communism has resurfaced in the case of Harvey Weinstein and his ‘reading list’, as it relates to the #metoo movement. It seems to still have relevance in the legacy of the Hollywood Communist blacklist. It is a theme which comes up again and again.
Given the controversy which preceded the pre-publicized award for Kazan which included public protests outside the Oscars, and the clear ‘stone faced anger’ expressed by Ed Harris, who sat next to Carrey — it is clear that Carrey was proximate to the discussions about this controversy, and it would have been impossible for him to escape them. One of his next films was specifically about the Hollywood blacklist as well (‘The Majestic‘ (2001)), where he played a sympathetic blacklisted character in a critique of McCarthyism. This might tell us a lot about Jim Carrey’s politics.
From the standpoint of ‘art war‘, Carrey also has some very interesting anti-Trump ‘occult’ artworks which he introduced in an appearance in a video recorded prior to an on-stage appearance with Moore in 2017 in the context of ‘prophecy’. A more recent example of Donald Trump as depicted by Jim Carrey in the context of a ‘witch’ is below.
Today, it would seem that many of the same online conspiracy outlets and accounts (like InfoWars) which spread vaccine-based conspiracism, also spread occult Pizzagate, and Anthony Bourdain conspiracy theories. It also seems connected to the Russia-friendly (and notably US Military-CIA ‘skeptical’) policies of Ron Paul and Rand Paul.
Was Kazan a part of ‘right wing’ conspiracism much like that which Ron Paul, Ted Nugent, or Alex Jones clearly espouse? It is interesting that Martin Scorsese introduced Kazan’s 1999 award in the context of ‘dialectic’ contrasts and this has emerged as a modern concept in the Weinstein case, as well as in models of Russian political warfare. In any case it would seem to be complemented by folks like Michael Moore and Jim Carrey who are notably left of center on a political spectrum, but seem to agree on other aspects of Russian cultural influence (e.g. anti-fascist propaganda themes and conspiracy theories).
For example, Kazan’s ‘On the Waterfront‘ (1954) may not have been pro-Communist, but it targeted the mafia influence in unions which is a clear theme in the Trotskyist narratives about Jimmy Hoffa connected to the same legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist and HUAC hearings. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had refused to acknowledge the existence of organized crime up until 1957. Kazan was clearly leading the pack in a way which affected workers’ unions, in a way which might have heaped public pressure on the FBI (through film-based influence) to pursue the mob. At the time, this may have reduced barriers to Communist control of labor unions.
Regardless of that speculation, it seems pretty clear that Jim Carrey’s idea of “socialism” is informed by Hollywood communist and even Russian propaganda ideas. Perhaps in rebuttal, you could say that Jim Carrey comes from Canada, and Jim Carrey advocates for ‘socialized medicine’. I get it, but I don’t think it is a separate argument given that his anti-vax claims from the past make him unqualified to comment on public health, quite frankly; let alone his lack of qualification to dictate a blanket embrace of socialism to us all from his (estimated) $150 million ivory tower (much like staunch anticapitalist Michael Moore, whose 2014 divorce reportedly put his assets at $50 million).
I believe that the Declaration of Independence encourages a right to ‘pursuit of happiness’; and happiness is inextricably tied to health and wellness. I don’t believe someone should be saddled with insurmountable debts or a life of ineffectiveness because of unwanted injury or illness — that denies the American dream — but if we have a public healthcare system, we need to be able to afford it and do our individual parts to use it responsibly to keep costs down. Clearly, a big thing towards that end would be the maintenance of a state-wide childhood vaccine policy. That’s just sensible. The last person I think should be qualified to advocate the political merits of a wholescale embrace of socialism is a rich Hollywood actor of dubious personal integrity (and personal wellness), who has made much of his public politics in the post-2000 period about being an advocate for conspiracy theories about vaccines which have roots in Soviet propaganda.
Fascists suck and we deserve good health; but I don’t want your ‘useful idiot’ Hollywood socialism – let alone your anti-fascism; I want a fiscally-conservative, socially progressive data-driven Democracy. Conspiracy theories don’t hold up to a fact and data based analysis and should not be used as a basis for a system of governance as we seem to have now.
Yet, for some reason, I won’t be surprised if we get Michael Moore and RT‘s dream of President Matt Damon someday to solve all our social problems (‘Citizen Damon’?). It seems to be the logical reciprocation of left based Hollywood conspiracism in politics (that is if we don’t get President Alec Baldwin or George Clooney first), which Carrey is apparently advocating for. The suffocating social justice shaming culture under such a hypothetical ‘luxury communism’ regime might be just as nauseating as ‘pseudofascist populism’ under Trump, even if the kids of Flint Michigan finally get to drink fresh water (derived from a Stella Artois PR campaign).