Clyde Lewis

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Clyde Lewis is a conspiracy theorist with a syndicated radio talk show called Ground Zero, a kind of poor man's combination of Alex Jones, Coast to Coast AM, and Glenn Beck. Lewis's specialty is a flashy mixture of "paranormal" pseudoscience, ancient history, Forteanism, Ufology and numerology designed to convince his gullible or mentally ill listeners that evil (government) forces are taking over the planet. One mental health expert said that Lewis is endangering the mentally ill when he tells callers suffering from paranoid schizophrenia that the voices in their heads really might be caused by some secret government brainwashing project, instead of just being well-known symptoms of an illness.[1]

After an on-air campaign in May 2018 where he encouraged listeners to complain about his Wikipedia page, the page was deleted.[2]

Early life[edit]

Born in Utah (birth name: Louis Clyde Holder), Lewis says his background in Mormonism influenced his work in conspiracy theory because "It is part of the Mormon faith to question everything." As a Mormon missionary in Argentina, Lewis says he met voodoo priests, satanists, witches, communists, and Muslims while witnessing telekinesis and telepathy; this experience contributed to his explorations of different belief systems. Lewis has been through three marriages.[3][4][5]

Conspiracy theories and politics[edit]

Lewis often repeats long-debunked tinfoil hattery, like the charge that Obamacare requires Americans to get a computer chip implanted into their bodies. Lewis actually told a reporter that creatures from outer space have come to earth to eat people and "farm" their organs. He also says the moon landing in 1969 was faked--but there might be secret US military bases on Mars where the air is breathable[6] and the temperatures moderate. Of course, he's a birther who thinks Barack Obama was born in Africa after being "conceived during a CIA operation" to infiltrate communists because "the communists were black at that time." Lewis says the weather is controlled by the government or "rogue scientists" to manipulate global politics, and said that Hurricane Sandy was maybe created to help Obama by delaying the upcoming 2012 presidential election (it wasn't delayed). He says Prince William of Britain "has every chance of being the Anti-Christ", President George W. Bush was a mind-controlled "Manchurian candidate"[7] and Men in Black once bombed Lewis's car "to scare him."

In light of Alex Jones being sued in a defamation lawsuit by parents of children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre because Jones claimed that the massacre was a hoax, it's interesting to remember that Lewis said much of the same thing. Lewis said the shooting was staged (using "crisis actors" and those devices that beam homicidal thoughts into the shooter's mind) as part a conspiracy to take American's guns: The shooting was "staged for an agenda. So the truth that everyone is not speaking is that the shootings at Sandy Hook were nothing more than a campaign," Lewis wrote at the time. He has since deleted his videos and his webpages on the subject.[8][9][10][11][12][13]

Lewis says he has been haunted by demons and claims that his former mentor in radio, William Wolfgang Gossett, was in fact the fugitive airline hijacker known as D. B. CooperWikipedia.[14]

When answering critics on his website or Facebook page, he regularly becomes scatological, vulgar and proudly hateful. For example, in a response to one deranged listener he wrote, "have you ever considered yawning in a rainstorm and drowning? I would applaud while watching this event. You are such a douche canoe.. I don't express my hatred for anyone often but in your case I will put in writing my disgust that you are still breathing .. could you please figure out how to stop?"[15]

Ideology[edit]

Like Alex Jones, Lewis's faux-rebellion sometimes crosses ideological lines, but in the end his idiotic claims support a reactionary mindset, and Lewis's blabbings regularly overlap with right wing memes. A good example of Lewis's bias is that, though he touts every ridiculous doomsday scenario ("magnetic storms," anyone?), he denies the serious global problem that is really happening: climate change.[7][16] Lewis says climate change is a hoax created by an international Nazi conspiracy that could lead to another Holocaust by the UN's "green police force."

Likewise, progressive activism and “Equity and social-justice programming" is really "a particular brand of prejudice and enmity not seen in Europe since the days of the Third Reich," according to Lewis.[17]

Lewis believes the "Deep State" is conspiring against Donald Trump and speaks positively of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as reflected on his website: "Vladimir Putin has been instrumental in rebelling against the hostile encroachment of the World Government and has challenged Barack Obama on his decisions to embrace the new World Order" and "The idea of Russia being our enemy I believe has been nothing more than perception management by the media."[18][19][20][21]

Covid pandemic[edit]

Almost needless to say, Lewis used the COVID-19 pandemic to spread all sorts of denialism and more predictions of Holocausts (See "CAMP COVID – THE NEW FINAL SOLUTION"[22]). Then the Covid vaccines prompted the usual microchip fantasies, with Lewis warning his followers in May 2021 that the "The Pentagon has developed a microchip that will detect asymptomatic COVID"[23] even though that notion had already been debunked days before.[24]

External links[edit]

References[edit]

  1. Dr Jeff Daly on Conspiracy Radio & Schizophrenics; Mike Slater's Duck Dynasty vs MLK; Mark Levin's Book Buy Lie; Brett Winterble's Hate Rant. Local Media Monitor podcast, 23 January 2014.
  2. http://www.groundzeromedia.org/5-2-18-whackypedia-what-is-this-crap/
  3. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1071347/bio
  4. https://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/fertilized-by-belief/Content?oid=27317
  5. http://portlandinterviewmagazine.com/interviews/media/clyde-lewis-ground-zero-radio/
  6. Captain "K" of Mars. groundzeromedia.org.
  7. 7.0 7.1 http://aboutfacemag.com/interviews/media/clyde-lewis-ground-zero-radio/
  8. https://web.archive.org/web/20130130134700/http://www.groundzeromedia.org/sandy-hoax-a-grim-dose-of-reality/
  9. https://web.archive.org/web/20150729230348/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SH0oLuJZpI
  10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SH0oLuJZpI
  11. Lewis, Clyde (2013-04-12). "Mental Hopscotch | Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis". Groundzeromedia.org. Retrieved 2014-07-23. 
  12. https://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/fertilized-by-belief/Content?oid=27317
  13. http://portlandinterviewmagazine.com/interviews/media/clyde-lewis-ground-zero-radio/
  14. http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/fertilized-by-belief/Content?oid=27317
  15. Bearing Bitter Fruit. groundzeromedia.org.
  16. Lewis, Clyde (2010-01-10). "Seeking Intellectual Honesty About Global Warming | Ground Zero With Clyde Lewis". Groundzeromedia.org. Retrieved 2014-07-23. 
  17. https://groundzeromedia.org/5-24-21-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-huddled-masses-yearning-to-breathe
  18. http://www.groundzeromedia.org/36-cold-war-cloak-and-dagger-situation-normal/
  19. http://www.groundzeromedia.org/fascist-clowns-from-outer-space/
  20. http://www.groundzeromedia.org/214-the-looming-octopus-w-jp-sottile/
  21. http://www.groundzeromedia.org/2-1-russia-love/
  22. https://groundzeromedia.org/5-26-20-camp-covid-the-new-final-solution/
  23. https://groundzeromedia.org/5-24-21-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-huddled-masses-yearning-to-breathe
  24. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/fact-check-did-the-pentagon-develop-a-covid-detecting-microchip/ar-BB1fEckO