Blood libel — coming to a theatre near you

"Sound of Freedom" exploits parents' fears of child abuse to revive age-old anti-semitic tropes in Qanon conspiracy smokescreen

In his newest film Sound of Freedom, which hit American theaters on July 4, Jim Caviezel plays Tim Ballard, a man with a not-so-good record of “rescuing” trafficked children. Directed by the ultraconservative Alejandro Gómez Monteverde, Sound of Freedom claims to be based on a true story.

Ballard is indeed a real person and human trafficking is a serious issue that should not be taken lightly, but this stealth film-flam exploits the tragedy to promote the lurid fantasies of QAnon, a crackpot cult that intersects heavily with fervent Donald Trump supporters.

“At an August 2019 meeting, Tim Ballard laid out his vision for the future. On a whiteboard, a diagram showed how he’d build his empire as a public speaker, anti- trafficking advocate, and proselytizer for his Mormon faith. “Take sizzle of the Rescue,” it read, amid a thicket of arrows connecting his for-profit and nnonprofit entities to one another. “Lead them to the Covenant.” 

Ballard is the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, a group which claims a long history of heroic, daring, and often unprovable rescues in foreign countries. These operations, which have supposedly liberated thousands of trafficked women and children, have led to an ever-increasing public profile for Ballard, a former appointee of the Trump administration who’s long been believed to be interested in elected office.

Now, a major piece of his vision is falling into place: the film, which mythologizes OUR’s rescues and could fix Ballard—who styles himself an anti-slavery activist, has in the past been featured in a painting depicting Harriet Tubman and other abolitionists bowing to him, and in the film is played by the same actor who played Jesus in the shockingly violent, Mel Gibson-directed The Passion of the Christ—more firmly in the right-wing media spotlight he’s already been seeking. 

Caviezel has long since gone over to the dark side of QAnon. He has a long history of antisemitic and conspiracy-promoting behavior, so it isn’t too surprising he’s now fully red-pilled.

In 2021 he spoke at the “Health and Freedom Conference”, where electoral and COVID conspiracy theories were also in heavy rotation. (Election truther Lin Wood was also a speaker) on the topics of D.U.M.B.s (Deep Underground Military Bases) and the “adrenochroming of children.”

Caviezel recently appeared on Steve Bannon's podcast to promote "Sound of Freedom,” along with Trump adviser Jason Miller.

During the segment, Caviezel made mention of “adrenochrome,” a hormone that QAnon adherents say global elites harvest from child victims as an allegedly life-extending elixir. "Couple of years ago, I'm talking about adrenochrome, you can't say that word," the actor told Bannon.

The adrenochrome conspiracy, a bizarre theory with antisemitic roots, posits that Satan-worshipping global and Hollywood elites run a massive child trafficking ring to drain their blood and harvest the chemical adrenochrome to stay young, and has been embraced by subscribers of the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy movements.

“QAnon is definitely represented in Sound of Freedom, but not in a frontstage manner. Butterfly symbols are seen onscreen a few times, which have became part of the long-debunked but still popular PizzaGate conspiracy theory (which acted as a precursor to QAnon in 2016.) Butterflies were also used to push another QAnon precursor, Operation Monarch, which is supposed to be a mind control, government-run sex slave continuation of MK-Ultra. Those who “know” will easily recognize the symbolism."

Donald Trump plans to host a screening of Sound of Freedom at his Bedminster golf-club-snd-wife-cemetary next week, seizing on the unexpected box office performance of the movie. Mel Gibson, who has championed Sound of Freedom, met Trump and Roger Stone at a recent Ultimate Fighting Championship event. The unholy trinity discussed the movie and the actor-director said that he thought a screening was “a good idea”.

Star Jim Caviezel and producer Eduardo Verástegui will attend, along with Tim Ballard.

Verástegui, a Mexican actor who has also worked extensively in the anti-abortion movement, is credited as producer. A recent Wall Street Journal story on Angel Studios, the Utah-based company promoting and distributing the movie, emphasizes its strategy of marketing directly to religious and socially conservative audiences. (“In its marketing, the studio encourages ticket buyers to ‘pay it forward,’ by contributing extra money, framing that as a way to raise awareness about child-trafficking,” the Journal reported. “The studio says it uses that pot to offer free tickets to people, but declined to say how much money or ticket activity that effort has generated so far.”)

Like so many other grifts trumpists have opened their wallets for, like Steve Bannon’s “Build the Wall”, a great deal of $$ is being siphoned off poor suckers and enriching someone— but not who donors think. It’s doubly sad, not just because some people who are honestly appalled at child sex trafficking and apparently were not previously aware of it somehow, are being duped. But also, the hyperbolic and often unprovable activities of such vigilantes can hinder the work of legitimate international aid groups.

“ Stephen K. Bannon surrendered to state prosecutors to face a new criminal indictment. Prosecutors alleged that Bannon and several others defrauded contributors to a private, $25 million fundraising effort, called “We Build the Wall,” taking funds from donors who were told would support construction of a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

The marketing efforts for “Sound of Freedom” are chiefly concentrated on national chains of local social media sites, where true believers extol the virtues of the film in eerily similar snippets of purple prose, like “Tears are running down my face as I write this” — and claims of mysterious forces trying to prevent people from seeing the film are echoed endlessly—”my neighbor’s grandmother said the A/C was cut and the sound turned too low to hear,” is a frequent repost— on different sites. Anyone who dares question the authenticity is shouted down by the rightwing bullies who invariably comandeer social media, and labelled a “pedophile”.

You have to ask, why would a local theatre try to lose business? Who really cares if fools wish to be parted from their money? Well, you guessed the answer, right? It’s part of a vast international conspiracy, involving “elites” trying to drown out conservative voices.

Of course it is. That explains everything.