The 6 Most Misguided Causes Ever Made Famous by Celebrities
#3.
The Government is Lying About 9/11
If you had an Internet connection about four years ago, you likely ran into some 9/11 conspiracy theorists. The 9/11 attack has been to conspiracy theorists what Prohibition was to Al Capone. They believe that the government either secretly knew that it was going to happen before it happened, or did the deed themselves to have an excuse to go to war. And while it eventually faded as all Internet memes eventually do, a select few crazy people work tirelessly to keep the fire burning.
And like dumbasses to the attention flame, Rosie O'Donnell, Charlie Sheen, Janeane Garafalo, Jesse Ventura, Woody Harrelson and other less important people have flocked to the movement. For instance, O'Donnell famously said on national TV that 9/11 was "the first time in history that fire has melted steel - it is physically impossible."
We at Cracked.com would never dare question Ms. O'Donnell's expertise in the field of metallurgy, but how does she think steel is made? Does she think we dig up chunks of it already in the shape of a car door? Has she not seen the climax of Terminator 2?
Makes us a little misty-eyed just thinking about it.
Charlie Sheen, meanwhile, made a video personally begging President Obama to open a new investigation to find out if George Bush blew up the towers.
No response from the President yet. Maybe because he knows something.
The Low Point:
But that's just something Sheen did in his spare time. Everybody is entitled to some crazy beliefs, right? And it's not like these people are out there profiting from this stuff.
#2.
Fidel is Your Friend
Fidel Castro has endeared himself to so many Tinsel Town heavyweights it's hard to keep track of them. Steven Spielberg described his 2002 meeting with Castro as "the eight most important hours of my life," just edging out the birth of his children and marriage to his wife. Jack Nicholson referred to Castro as a "genius" after meeting with him for a few hours in 1998. Other celebrities who've visited Castro and his island fortress and have come back roses and sunshine include Robert Redford, Leonardo Dicaprio, Spike Lee and Oliver Stone.
Castro's beard is like catnip to Oscar nominees.
Chevy Chase put it best when he described Cuba under Castro as proof that "there have been areas where socialism has helped to keep people stabilized at a certain level." In a weird way, Chase was right; Castro's version of socialism has kept people stabilized through imprisonment and mass executions.
The Cuban American National Foundation estimates that there have been 12,000 political executions since the bearded one took power in 1959. The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy puts the number between 15,000 and 18,000.
Maybe the celebrities of the world discount those numbers; the thing about a communist dictatorship is it's kind of hard for outsiders to get solid information (Internet access there is restricted, and emails are monitored). But come on. Have they ever wondered how he could stay in power for almost half a freaking century? May Day baskets? Free shower curtains? Nope, Castro has maintained power the same way every dictator in the history of civilization has done it: political, civil and media repression. And by repression, we mean Stalinist gulags.
Instead of trying to make a joke about gulags, please enjoy these adorable baby porcupines.
The Low Point:
We could go with this claim in the New York Post that Castro has given the ol' flesh cigar to 35,000 women, but we'd prefer to not leave you with that mental image.
Try not to think about where that finger's been.
So how about Oliver Stone spending three days with Castro shooting a friendly documentary called Comandante in 2002, only to have HBO refuse to air it. Why? Because shortly after the interviews (intended to show the "human" side of Castro) Castro jailed 75 political dissidents, including journalists, human rights activists and even some freaking librarians.
#1.
Immunization is Bad for You
If you didn't have to spend your childhood like this:
...you can thank vaccines for pretty much eradicating Polio. Same for smallpox and measles. But don't bother telling that to one-time "it" girl and Playboy centerfold Jenny McCarthy, who is utterly convinced immunizations gave her son autism. They totally didn't, but to prove her point she's made the talk show rounds, organized Washington D.C. rallies and, most unforgivably, persuaded Jim Carrey to join her in her crusade.
How is Jim Carrey like Jenny McCarthy? Both have built a career on talking out of their asses.
Unlike the 9/11 conspiracy silliness, this crusade will wind up killing people. You see, parents have started to believe her, already resulting in a spike in measles-related sicknesses, thanks to an unwillingness to get their kids vaccinated. Good going Jenny, keep showing up on Oprah hawking your books and maybe next time you can bring back the mumps, or typhoid fever, or every other disease you can get on Oregon Trail.
Despite the Oregon Trail's claims, rest cannot cure every disease.
She's not alone. Bill Maher contends that not only are flu shots unnecessary, but they also give you Alzheimer's. Maher doesn't say where he got his proof, but there's a good chance it came from Herman Fudenberg: a physician famous for his anti-vaccine agenda who had his medical license suspended in 1995 by the medical board of South Carolina after being found guilty of "engaging dishonorable, unethical or unprofessional conduct."
The Low Point:
Jenny McCarthy is about to get her own show to promote her bullshit full time, pushed with the full force of the Oprah Winfrey promotional machine.
"What do you desire, our queen?"
All of America is about to catch McCarthy Fever! And measles.
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Check out some more frightening things celebrities have supported in The Top 10 Secret Celebrity Scientologists and The 5 Most Ridiculous Celebrity Cameos in Japanese Ads.
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just some insight into mumia:
Replynot everyone is asking for him to be freed. i don't think there's anyone who believes he's innocent. what is protested is his treatment behind bars. yes, he committed a crime, for which he should pay. but he was incarcerated in isolation, which is completely inconsistent with his crime. there are a lot of cop killers, of any race, sitting behind bars and on death row, who are not subject to complete isolation and no contact. last week he was moved into general population, after 30 years- which was all most of his supporters were asking: that he be subjected to the same terms of imprisonment as anyone else who was convicted of committing the exact same crime. yes, there are some misguided people who will jump behind any cause just to have something to do, but there's a difference.
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ReplyGreat site. That's where I find the majority of my vict.... nevermind.
Dear Jenny McCarthy,
ReplyDue to your gross endangerment of human lives from abusing your undeserved influential position, we regret to inform you that you are required to have your name legally changed to one of the following: Dumb b***h, Crazy Lady, f******d, or Idiot Skank. If you wish to have your name changed to something else, it must be first cleared by the Department of f**k Your Rights, People are Dying.
We hope that this will prevent future parents from following your advice to not have their children vaccinated. Children do not deserve to die just because their parents were stupid enough to listen to you.
Sincerely,
Espea, Head of the Protect Children from Dumb Broads Agency
Celebrities are so stupid now, that it's lethal. Everything has to become not funny! Damn it.
ReplyGod some many of the comments here are depressing.
ReplyOk, to all the people bickering back and forth whether 9/11 was a conspiracy or not. STOP! I look at everything with a skeptical eye, and there has to be an explanation on why the government closed off "ground zero" only after thermite was discovered on the support beams, and why the engine found in the pentagon wreckage doesn't belong to a 747 (whatever plane it was, dont care to look right now) or how an irate insurgent with a box cutter was able to steer that plane in such a tight turn that it would have ripped the wings off even with the most experienced pilot (the angry insurgent was also one of the ones that went to the flight school, yet could barely handle a tiny single engine plane....) I won't even mention that the terminal velocity of a plane like that would have ripped it to shreds (not hover over the ground for 1/4 mile before hitting the pentagon and completely dissolving.... except for the wrong engine of course) and how about the fact that the jet fuel from the towers burns at 260 - 315 degrees C yet they managed to find one of the angry insurgents passports on the rubble (after it was declared ground zero and fenced off of course) Those who refuse to even look into the teories are the ignorant, uneducated fools. Not the ones who believe.... look into it for yourself, until u do that, then don't try to discredit others that have....
ReplyYour penis is also a conspiracy theory, its actually a vagina.
Those of us who have actually done research know that the "truth" movement is full of shit. I'll approach practically any idea with an open mind, but those claims are just flat out untrue. You can see screwloosechange.blogspot, check out the npr special on the "truth" movement, or go as far as I did and have practically any physics prof from your local junior college run you through some of the evidence.
Maybe instead of attacking stupid celebrities you should try attacking the idiots who listen to them, AKA Americans who base everything they know from history to politics around what the "geniuses" in Hollywood tell them.
ReplyJenny McCarthy is a horrible person. Has she not looked around and seen all the people that aren't autistic and received vaccinations when they were children? Some people should just be told to sit down and shut up for the remainder of their lives. Maybe we should have asked Castro to take care of her.
ReplyAutism runs in families. It's not caused by vaccinations, bad mothering, or any of the other scapegoats that have been blamed over the years. And even IF there were the slightest grain of truth to it, believe me, your kid is better off with autism than with polio.
9-11 was history repeating itself. It was a ditto blueprint of Pearl Harbor. THINK: the night before Pearl Harbor, if you were to go out on the street and ask any commoner about getting into the war in Europe (Hitler's Germany), there's a good chance that there would be an overwhelming "NO WAY". We'd learned our lesson in "The Great War". But 24 hours later, men are lining up to go and kick ass! Pearl Harbor was a neat deal for the Elitists to move the wealth of this nation as the ships sunk at PH were antiquated to say the least. What replaced them were the new Iowa Classed battle ships that could lob
Replyan 1800 lb. shell 23 miles inland in 5o seconds with amazing accuracy. WW2 was a great excuse to get the military machine totally lubed and ready to go. And the players behind the scenes were the fathers of the same players today. Look at the Bushes for example. Prescott Bush got his hand slapped trading with the Nazi's. Think I'm joking? Check it out. Won't read it in a MacGruder's text book (run by the same money that make the battleships etc.) And since were talking about the Bushes, Iraq was the last of 3 big regions in the world that aren't "governed" by the one world bankers. The Establishment just needed an excuse to march in and convert that region over, all in the name of democracy. TRUE STORY.
I'm not sure what's funnier: The articles or comments from tinfoil hat wearing assclowns like you.
By the way, the Iowa "classed" battleships (that one got a chuckle from me) carried the Mark 7 16inch/50 caliber gun, versus the Mark 5 16inch/45 caliber guns on the Maryland and West Virginia, both present at PH during the attack.
The difference in relative throw weight, range and accuracy? Negligible. Massive ordnance fail there buddy.
Just for giggles, I'm going to COMPLETELY ignore the fact that the aircraft carrier was firmly made ascendant by the PH raid, which made the Iowa "classed" (still chuckling) battleships purely secondary before they were even completed.
Typical anti-communist bullshit in number 2. Do some research about the place before sprouting nonsense. For shame Will.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesDo you seriously expect a comedy writer on cracked to do a complete investigation into every aspect of the communist ideology and how a country tries to fulfill it? a lot of people have no idea what's going on in Cuba. Even more people have no idea what's REALLY going on in Cuba. Conspiracy rhetoric floods every article written on the subject, and even trustworthy journalists who try to avoid bias only catch a small glimpse into what is an intricate and enormous machinery of a state. Not to mention having to investigate into matters of corruption, which is usually something people risk their lives doing, spending many years undercover, building a network of informants. Even after having uncovered as much as humanly possible about how Communism works in Cuba, he still has to write several more entries into the article, find funny stock images, write captions, and generally try to make the article a good read and hopefully one that makes you smile from time to time. Give him a break, and find your information about politics and history from a place that deals in those.
Yes, I'm sure people are floating on leaky boats to get to Florida because it's a worker's paradise.
I cant believe there are still idiots wo think communisum works.
U mad, commie?
On behalf of all those who truly lean left, please shut the f**k up.
Peltier also had a song written about him by Toad the Wet Sprocket called "crazy life." I would count that as supporting him.
Reply. . . Those are hedgehogs, not porcupines . . .
Replywho cares? they're so cute!
freakiNG: I don't think Doofus meant it to be a "HAHA YOU'RE WRONG AND THEREFORE STUPID" correction as is often found on the internet; I think she was just pointing out an error. It's true it doesn't MATTER, but it's also still true that they're hedgehogs, not porcupines.
The reason why people think vaccines gave their child autism is because 1/4 to 1/3 of people with autism have very few or no symptoms until they are 2-3 years old. Then they loose their speech, social skills and toilet training etc. and develop autistic behaviors (to varying degrees, autism being a spectrum disorder).
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesAlso happening at that age is a lot of vaccinations. But you may as well say going to daycare/preschool causes autism. It is pretty ridiculous.
Actually, the reason there are very few or no symptoms until they are two or three years old is because one of the symptoms - one of the MAIN symptoms is the whole "no talking bit", and since a lot of kids do not talk until around 2-3 - THAT is why they do not get diagnosed. All of the symptoms (e.g. lack of eye contact, "no talking", LACK OF TOILET TRAINING etc.) can all be attributed to the child just "being a baby" before the age of two. So.... yeah, that is my reply.
Also, vaccines start at birth.
What Anushka said. Ours showed troubling signs even as an infant, but they weren't clear enough for diagnosis until she reached walking/talking age. Still, ToshikoSato's point is correct: correlation does not equal causation.
All 9/11 truthers are guilty of treason and should be executed.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI disagree.
I'm not a hugely paranoid guy but the fact is the CIA had the means, motive and opportunity, not to mention a history of organizing terrorist attacks on government soil.
Operation Northwoods would be a good example.
The vaccine thing is, however, obviously complete bullshit.
Bullshit in that there is no proof to suggest vaccines cause autism.
No edit button showed up.
Well, we still have freedom of speech. Also, if everybody did believe what they were told we would all be cattle and coverups would become much easier. While I believe there is things the government withheld about 9-11 I don't think they were in on it. I do support peoples right to believe crazy s**t though.
Leonard Peltier may indeed have committed other crimes - but he still should not be in prison for one he did not. That's really not too difficult a concept.
ReplyThe others who were accused along with him were released because of witness tampering by the FBI.
Perhaps he did this, but it is unlikely, and at the very least, he should have a new trial that is untainted the way his first was. We can't have a justice system in which things like this stand.
It's the only point of contention for me in this article. You used other crimes to decide Peltier should be in prison for something he should not have been convicted of in the first place.
Apologies of it's already been mentioned in the comments but the only thing missing from this for me was Roman Polanski (with Whoopi Goldberg's delightful "it wasn't RAPE rape" expert summary).
ReplyInstead of wasting her time fighting the 'nasty, evil vaccine companies', why doesn't Jenny McCarthy spend her time and money looking for a cure?
ReplyAutism is not a disease that can be cured. But in Jenny's mind she actually believes she has cured her son. As a mum to two children on the autism spectrum I want to whack that woman until she vomits ribs. My children cannot be "cured" and nor would I want them to be.
I feel bad for her son. One of the worst mistakes you can make with autism is to deny the disorder, or ignore it and its effects completely. It's one of the things that messed my sister up so bad - she was diagnosed late, and went through years of public school with everyone ignorant of the disorder. A woman who believes her son is "cured" of autism is not going to care for him properly, no matter what her intentions.
And I know what smauge means about not really wanting a cure. My kid's autistic and she's just about the happiest child I know. She doesn't know there's anything wrong with her, and she should be able to function just fine in life with a little bit of help. Considering the much more horrible things she COULD have, I think we're quite well off.
The Cracked Comment section, providing a place for the easily convinced to dogpile on anyone with a different opinion since 2007. Stay classy.
ReplyNo doubt Jenny McCarthy is a stupid, dangerous cumbucket, but there is some useful natural selection at work there. If you're dumb enough to take medical/scientific advice from someone who's famous solely for getting naked, you don't deserve to have kids and/or deserve to die.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesExcept that one of the reasons vaccinations are effective is because "herd immunity". The more people who get polio/measles/etc. the more likely those who are vaccinated are to contract them as well.
Besides the fact that children are f*****g innocent as s**t in all of this. You don't deserve to die because your mother is Jenny McCarthy. Not ever.
People who don't receive vaccines make it easier for people who can't receive them due to illness or allergy more likely to develop that dicease as well.
Should children, who have no responsibility in the matter, pay for the willful ignorance and gullibility of their parents?
*applauds*
Reply