QAnon: Who Are They, and What’s the Connection to Scott Morrison?

15/10/2019

I had heard of this group before and pretty much instantly passed them off as a small group of conspiracy nutcases making disproportionate amounts of noise over nothing of substance. My opinion of them and their ideas has not changed at all, but they have come up again in select (read independent) parts of the Australian media, specifically because of recently surfaced ties between a prominent member of the online group and Scott Morrison.

Before getting into the Australian connection, seeing as the group is still rather unknown it may be worth discussing what they are and what they believe. You don’t really need to go much further than the homepage of their website to realise how insane some of the content they firmly believe to be true is, and to see people try and legitimise it and promote it is quite bizarre, to say the least.

First off, the origins of the “Q” identity (who/what that is I’ll explain in a bit) should instantly reveal why so many people have dismissed it; in some cases, I suppose, it is actually why they adopted it. It began as something from 4Chan and 8Chan, the former being the home of an endless stream of shitposting, awful memes, and no small amount of insensitive content, most of which is posted ironically or for the purpose of making people laugh or angry. It does, of course, have it’s darker sides, the strangest of which turned into 8Chan, where most of the irony is put aside for “serious” discussion.

Basically, it originated from the same place that conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and staged mass shootings come from, but then also one of the sites where the Christchurch mass shooter earlier this year had fallen into the path that lead him to New Zealand with his manifesto (yes, some of these people, on a website that fostered a murderer, do try to claim that very shooting was also staged, figure that out). So not many people pay much attention to it, or hear much about it, because it is a select corner of the internet that these things dwell in.

Q, however, is probably one of the largest and most comprehensive of these ideas, with the ‘official’ QAnon supposedly being someone, or a group, deeply embedded in the US intelligence community, but even more deeply a committed patriot to their country. Think of many of the conspiracy theories out there today (disregarding alien life) and Q, without fail, has answers and information that not only prove them, but which will topple the entirety of the current global system when the inevitable so-called “Great Awakening” takes place.

On the website’s homepage (I looked through the .au one, obviously, so not sure if other regions offer different or additional content) there is a lot of rambling text that consistently remains inconsistent in size and font effects. They explain what Q is, a group that “has been given the task of bringing everyone up to speed about the wrongdoings and evil that almost took over our world.” This, of course, is referring to what they call the Cabal, the Deep State, the New World Order – the mysterious, evil, looming beast that has its many tentacles wrapped around the world’s comings and goings.

It evokes powerful imagery of a global force that the ordinary person is unable to perceive, let alone challenge – exciting, but not exactly original. As usual, this shocking revelation is accompanied by the soothing and reassuring message that you, yes, YOU, now have the means to face them and understand the TRUTH. Your very own Great Awakening can take place if you shut yourself off from the media and lies of the Cabal and listen to Q.

But, it’s not all bad – the videos that make use of music, emotive and effective language, and specific clips of video do have a positive message, of sorts. It is somewhat undermined by everything else, but taking the good concepts at face value, along with enough half-truths to convince ignorant and pliable masses, and you can understand (without sympathising) how some can get caught up in it.

One of the videos talks about how criminal and immoral actions, as well as division and hate, are not human nature, and that it is love and connection that helps us thrive. Black or white, men and women (notably nothing else here), Christian or Muslim, young or old, capitalist or communist, these things should not divide humanity. That, to me, is a good and basic philosophy to have, if that is indeed your goal. But you can very quickly see the holes and flaws in the provided story, even if you had a partial understanding of how history and international relations worked. Perhaps that is a bit much to hope that people understand, but at least with critical thought one should be able to see through it easily.

For starters, Q believes that Trump was legitimately elected with the elevation of patriotic military and intelligence forces fighting a hidden war against this criminal world that has enveloped the majority of US political society for decades. Right off the bat, you know you’ve struck bullshit – the whole “love is human nature” motto is instantly incorrect, and the façade of fighting against the elite is shattered because, it doesn’t even bear repeating sometimes, TRUMP IS ONE OF THEM.

Where QAnon is correct is with half-truths only. Yes, the political and financial elite are incredibly powerful, but this fact is not hidden. The majority of the media, the mainstream outlets across the spectrum, are propagandistic, just not for the reasons QAnon claims. There are many serious problems that must be dealt with that this ruling elite and the media aren’t handling properly or at all, but Trump and this delusion of “good people” winning some underground war does absolutely nothing to help that.

They do start listing off a number of events that have taken place to prove that the Plan is going forward and facing resistance. For example, JFK supposedly knew of this Cabal and was therefore assassinated, and Ronald Reagan was touted as being the last President to do anything good for the American people and he was shot in a failed attempt to stifle him. It should be worth noting, however, that both JFK and Reagan were very much a part of the political machinery, with Reagan ramming through the neoliberal changes that lead to the Global Financial Crisis over the next few decades, along with a divisive series of culturally motivated policies designed to pick up specific votes (like the sudden anti-abortion stance and fanatical gun rights movement that saw the religious and 2^nd Amendment folks lurch to the Republicans.)

QAnon, coincidentally, blames the GFC, correctly, on everyone, but (incorrectly) exclude Reagan, and they conveniently ignore Reagan’s part in a number of deadly international conflicts, including the selling of weapons to Iraq in the war against Iran – back when Saddam Hussein wasn’t the “bad guy”.

Some quick-fire points:

• They refer to mass shootings, including Sandy Hook, as staged events used to remove the right to defence from Americans
• Believe the number of sexual abuse cases being called out in the upper echelons of society, like DC, Hollywood, and the Church, are just the beginning of a global, satanic paedophile ring – a call back to the Pizzagate accusations – but only involving the ‘evil’ side, not the loosely described and unaffiliated ‘good guys’. Worth noting that there have been revelations regarding powerful people being involved in paedophilia and other abuses, systematically. This includes Donald Trump, who has openly bragged about it, but QAnon see him as the leader of the ‘good guys’ so any accusations against him are instantly deemed salacious
• They talk about division being wrong, but heavily rely on patriotism and nationalistic language, and again ignore Trump’s own part in causing division; this is easily explained by saying the ‘evil’ media is forcing that narrative
• Race doesn’t matter, but they talk of “murderous gangs” coming through the borders of the US and decry the waves of immigrants into Europe as a purposeful tactic to destroy “national identity”. They do believe in stopping the “endless wars”, but Trump has certainly done his best to continue and worsen them – I suppose the dying Kurds were either ‘evil’ too, or an unfortunate part of the “Plan”?
• Did you pick up earlier, when I mentioned their division comment and listed “Christian and Muslim”? The word Jewish is not mentioned once on their website or in the three videos I watched, but there were multiple clips of prominent and rich Jewish figures that are often singled out for these kinds of globalist conspiracies, including George Soros and Lord Jacob Rothschild. Soros and Rothschild are, no doubt, worthy of contempt, just like all the other countless money driven men out there – why are only the Jewish members of the elite class given prominence in this Cabal myth? Oh… that’s right
• All of the videos end with the phrase “God bless America”, seemingly contradictorily tying the QAnon group with religion despite calling out the Church (including Australia’s own Hillsong) as one of the greatest abusers in the system

So that, in a loosely thrown and tied together sense, is QAnon: a group that claims to be good, against division, and against this globalist new world order, and doing so by blindly following some unknown identity from 8Chan and believing Trump is playing 5D chess with the entire world. The information I’ve written about is just from their homepage, and looking deeper into it, it actually gets scarier and weirder.

And Australia’s most prominent member, Tim Stewart (better known by his Twitter account @BurnedSpy34), who has spread false conspiracies about people in our own Parliament (like connecting Julie Bishop to the global paedophile ring), is close friends with Scott Morrison, our Prime Minister.

Nice.

This whole story appears to be rather covered up in mainstream circles, with only The Guardian doing a relatively face value story and keeping Tim’s identity secret, and accusations that Morrison has demanded the press not to comment on the relationship, citing family privacy. However, a number of independent voices, like Ronni Salt and even Friendlyjordies, have expressed grave concerns over this connection and absolute silence over the matter.

It is difficult to prove outright that the friendship implies influence, but given that the Morrison and Stewart families have been close for many years, it would be impossible to rule out conversations regarding political matters and Stewart’s involvement with QAnon; I haven’t been able to verify it, but there are apparently texts between Stewart and another man strongly suggesting that Morrison is being fed information in some way, and the @BurnedSpy34 Twitter account praised Morrison for using the phrase “ritual sexual abuse” when talking about the Royal Commission into sexual abuse, a phrase used by QAnon.

Coincidental phrasing? Perhaps, but that should not preclude investigations into just what kind of relationship Morrison and Stewart have. The FBI deemed QAnon a security risk, saying that they may very well spark instances of domestic terrorism in the US, a claim not without substance given the 8Chan connection with the Christchurch shooter. So even if the friendship between these two men is entirely unprofessional, they have never once spoken about politics or personal beliefs, etc. etc…

Why the fuck is the Prime Minister friends with a wildly conspiratorial man hailing from a group even the FBI considers a threat?

From legitimate and innocent friendship all the way to direct influence over thoughts and policy, all options are possible, and secretive games will only spark speculation, as the hashtags “RUOKScott” and “mategate” had quite a run over Twitter this past week. Everything points to a close relation that involves a lot of influence, so the Australian people deserve to know what this connection is, because I would question anybody who is found out to be in any way associated with QAnon.

That questioning becomes more urgent when it involves global leaders.