Them: Adventures with Extremists
Written and Narrated By: Jon Ronson
Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
Oooooooh, how I doooo love Jon Ronson!
P’raps ya saw our review of The Elephant in the Room wherein Jon Ronson, desperate and desirous of catching a wave shouts out, “Bohemian Grove!” as Alex Jones swaggers by with his entourage and people galore. Didn’t know what Bohemian Grove was there?
Well, here in Them: Adventures with Extremists, we get to see just what the blighted heck Ronson was squawking about. A. Jones, J. Ronson, et al, sneak/saunter into a retreat held by the elite who mean to rule the world. Cheney is there, Bush is there, there’s a Rockefeller, there’s drag dressing, and there’s plenty of urinating pell mell all over the place.
Oh, and the place is festoooooned with owls hither and yon, PLUS! there’s an owl effigy tossed into a bonfire as the climax to hoodoo-ish and elitist hijinks.
And Ronson makes it all frightfully creepy, frightfully hilarious, as is his way. ANY time you listen to a Ronson audiobook, you spend 1/2 your time wanting to jam ice picks into your brain, and ALL the time wanting to laugh yourself silly (Which added up comes to 150%, but I suck at math, so sue me…).
Jones isn’t the only extremist covered in this book; indeed, a wiiiiiiide assortment of people come off as Them, Those People Over There Who Think Crazy Crap. It opens with the grand hypocrisy of Omar Bakri Mohammed, the most dangerous man in Great Britain, with Jon doing chauffeur duties, all whilst fearing his Jewish heritage will be outed (And it is…. at a Jihad Training Camp… oh, but there’s Jihad Fishing too, so huzzah!!!). There are those who believe the elite in our society/government are 12 foot lizards/and those who believe “12 foot lizards” are code for: Jewish… so let’s hate them because we’re preeeeetty sure they hate us. There’s a lovable KKK grand toot who Jonson posits as kinda sorta an insecure Woody Allen-ish character; all said toot wants is to get better PR for the Klan, make it more cuddly… until he TOTally loses it at a sparsely attended rally, and he shouts a homophobic slur at the top of his lungs (Go Thom Robb, GO! Lead the Klan like that!).
The other side of the tragedy at Ruby Ridge is considered as Ronson learns to shoot assault weaponry with the surviving daughter, and we come to see that the government take down was really rather disgusting, illegal, and definitely immoral: Who are the real nut jobs in such a case?
No matter whom Ronson is speaking with, ‘twould appear that ALL believe there is a cabal of elites who meet in a special room and who run the world, and who seek World Domination. Yup, it might be taaaaall lizards, suuuure, it might be The Jews, PROBably it’s the Bilderberg group. WhatEVER: They’re aaaall talking New World Order, and Ronson desperately does all in his power, all to locate that Secret Room (After all, it’s gotta be someplace around here!).
AND hope that he’s not outed as a Jew at a KKK cross burning at the same time.
Yes, he looks at the (Growing) seedy underbelly of society, the paranoid nut-nicks. But when he’s followed by an eerie looking dude wearing shades, after trying to infiltrate and monitor the Bilderberg group? Welllll, maybe there IS something nefarious going on.
All this as narrated by a histrionic Jon, spastic, staggering, and paranoid here; affable, avuncular, and sympathetic there. He beCOMES Them here, and it’s a creeped out bumpy ride, especially as he narrates it himself. His delivery is flawless, his comedic timing is impeccable. And he manages to make the homicidal cuddly, the mentally unsound sooo sympathetic.
I definitely got my adrenaline/dopamine hit with this particular Jon Ronson—When you just wanna give a hug to a dude spouting off about those lizards? Yup, you then know you’ve been Ronson-ed.
All this was written before 9/11, but it’s oh so unfortunately relevant today; today more so than ever—When conspiracy theories and QAnon are going mainstream and are touted from our political leaders and the general rabble rousers.
If you weren’t paranoid before this audiobook, you’ll DEFinitely be looking at the world with the squid’s eye after. It’s just that you’ll also wanna be riding around with a quirky (Though absolutely murderous) Jihadist; you’ll wanna be giving David Icke a hug all whilst telling him: No, really; get help. And you’ll wanna be eating from Ceaucescu’s silverware/checking out the diminutive size of his shoes at an auction.
All while chuckling; all while groaning; all while weeping into your sleeve…
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