DURING AN APPEARANCE on Steve Bannon's podcast in January, Noor Bin Ladin-right-wing influencer, Osama's niece-said she had a message for Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chair of the World Economic Forum: "I don't want to eat the bugs."
Huh? Some backstory: In 2020, Schwab and the WEF introduced a plan called "The Great Reset." A response to the disruptions caused by the pandemic, the proposal calls for governments and business leaders to fix capitalism by moving to more socially responsible and equitable practices.
It reads like PR-speak. But for Bin Ladin and others on the right, the proposal was proof of their doomsday narrative that global elites planned the pandemic to usher in an age of techno-authoritarian rule. In this fever dream, Klaus Schwab is a closet communist and Covid vaccines are overhyped. Of particular concern has been one idea: The global elites want to take away your meat. The WEF does encourage eating less meat to reduce carbon emissions. But this has led conspiracy theorists to claim that Schwab and his cronies plan to usher in a new meatless world, forcing people to obtain their protein from bugs. Some even hint recent fires at egg facilities were arsons.
This story is from the May/June 2023 edition of Mother Jones.
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This story is from the May/June 2023 edition of Mother Jones.
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