0 >> next question, please. yes, yes? yes? >> why are you denying there was bomb drills? the conspiracy theorists claiming there was not really a boston bombing, that it was the government blowing us up on purpose so they can enslave us or whatever. this is not a freelance thing. these guys are mostly associated with a popular conspiracy theory talk show called "into wars." the host of the show is called alex jones. matt drudge, the drudge report, yesterday afternoon matt drudge tweeted this, he tweeted i've privately told friends that this will be the year of alex jones. one hell of a broadcast in such a homogenized media. this is from the most influential media in conservative media. and this is the guy he's now endorsing saying it's this guy's year. the boston marathon was a black ops terrorist attack. info wars broke the story, she says. when her local paper in new hampshire called her for clarification she insisted she meant every word, saying she can't rule out the possibility that the u.s. government carried out the boston marathon bombings and also something about john kerry and a saudian arabian man at the bomb site, something, something, are you that blind, literally, that's the quote at the end of the article, are you that blind? glenn beck, alex jones conspiratorial froth is not just boiling up in state legislatures, whose names aren't worth pronouncing on television. four republican members of the house, including the chair of the homeland security committee, they have written a letter now to the homeland security department demanding an investigation into glenn beck's conspiracy theory about the guy who glenn beck is pitching as the real bomber in boston who naturally is being protected and controlled by the u.s. government by janet napolitano, and by first lady michelle obama, oh, yes, the first lady is in on it, too. just like sandy hook and aurora and oklahoma city and the moon landing, it's all the government coming to get you. the right has always had this to contend with, the alex jones of the world and glenn becks of the world have always been out there on the fringe right eager to decode anything to make it very simple for you, to make it very simple so that every story in the world has the same implication, which is all of your suspicions and prejudices is true, the world is a simple place, people are really out to get you and that you do understand all of it and you can trust no other sources of information about the world other than these gentlemen that would like you to please send another $19.95 for another subscription. conspiracy theories are a great american pastime, there's plenty on the left, as well, but the american right right now is embracing this stuff way more overtly than they have in the past. and it is happening at the same time that the supposedly nonfringe conservative media, the part of the conservative media that's supposed to seem like the mainstream media, it's happening at the same time that part of the media has decided to give up all pretense on restraint of just blaming muslims, blaming the muslim religion, blaming islam, calling for americans to blame all muslims, suspect all muslims in response to the boston bombings. >> we know there's one bottom line, in the muslim communities around the world, they do not like us. >> american muslims, they largely remain silent. this is a situation we all face in america. the jihad is real, radical muslims are killing innocent people and threatening the world. >> we bring these people in, even though they are radical muslims. we have to figure they don't much like us. we bring them in. >> let me just say this about the access that muslims have in this country, whether they are american muslims or here on a student visa, it is enormous the access that they have and it is virtually all radical. >> senator, very quickly, some are getting very leery of all the muslim students in america. >> what other theology in this world justifies murdering innocent people? the answer is only radical islam allows terror murder. that's the truth. >> he's also very dangerous. he's kind of been like the muslim apologist in congress for a long time. he swore, he raised his right hand and took the oath of offense on the koran, if you remember, in 2007, keith ellison did. i think it's time for profiling. >> i do. >> talking about a muslim member of congress there, keith ellison, who you just saw last hour on chris hayes's show. the right is taking the gloves off after the boston bombing. the most influential media online is saying it was the government who attacked, it was the government who staged the boston bombing as a false flag attack. on the televised conservative media it is a full-on religious war now, the problem is muslims, the solution is an american war on muslims. these forces have always existed on the right and they are now though as mainstream as they have ever been. where are the countervailing forces on the right, if there are any, and where does this all end? our guest tonight here at the top of the show is alice hoagland, alice hoagland's son died in shanksville, pennsylvania, on september 11, 2001, since her son was killed, she has taken it upon herself to talk face-to-face to people who believe in the 9/11 conspiracies. she met several of them in shanksville for a bbc documentary. >> began to be surreal right away. i answered the phone and i heard mark's voice. mom, this is mark bingham. >> he had to introduce himself? >> on occasion, and people have made quite a to do about that. one of the persistent rumors is that what i heard was a computer-generated voice that no son would call up his mother and say, mom, this is mark bingham. i was puzzling about it, but i realized he was a public relations man, he was used to talking to people by introducing himself on the phone, hello, this is mark bingham. it was what came out of his mouth when he was trying hard to be calm and composed and talk to his mom. >> i don't think there's anything suspicious about him saying his full name. >> no. >> is there any doubt in your mind it was your boy you were speaking to? >> not a bit. >> joining us now is alice hoagland. mrs. hoagland, thank you so much for being with us tonight. i'm really looking forward to a chance to talk to you. >> thank you, rachel. you have put the arguments to a fine focus with that remarkable introduction. >> thank you. you have been through this personally, and you didn't have to. you chose to put yourself out there face to face with people who deny the reality of the events that claimed your son's life. why did you decide to do that, and did that process change anything for you? >> well, you might be giving me a little too much credit. i actually stumbled into that program about conspiracy theorists. i remember getting a call from a lovely producer lady with a british accent telling me it was a bbc documentary, so i rushed to get on a plane and flew out to pittsburgh and ended up in shanksville talking to, i didn't realize it at the time, but six or seven lovely young people who apparently when i'm not around spout all kinds of conspiracy theories. when i was there, they were extremely sweet to me. i hugged them and i thanked them and appreciated them for remembering the story of mark bingham and all of his fellow passengers onboard flight 93. and i stumbled into conspiracy theories in another way. i was walking around the san jose state campus one day and i saw a sign the 9/11 for truth. i didn't know what that meant, but it was a real buzz word for loonies, so i went and listened to a fine fellow, an architect, expound for an hour about how it was impossible that the world trade center could have been brought down by nothing more than merely two boeing 767s and he asked could anyone believe anything else and my hand shot up, he pinned me down and i pointed out that you really do need to consider a theory before you take it to your bosom, and folks, you're being sold a bill of goods here. of course, i was in the minority and i was not very popular and i almost got shoved down. a lady said, well, your theory's not better than mine, so they reduced everything to theory. i've come to the conclusion you really can't talk to those folks. you cannot reason with them, because they are so invested in the crazy story that they've gotten ahold of like a rottweiler and bitten it and chewed it until it became a really bloody, big lie. the better way is to just use the serenity prayer and say, lord, help me to accept the things i cannot change and the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference. i've given up on trying to change conspiracy theorists. they are going to be with us for a long time, and a friend of mine told me when they had -- remember the group called the phelpses? they showed up one 9/11 anniversary in shanksville and a friend of mine put her arm around me and said just think of them as mental patients. so that's what i do with conspiracy theorists. they are off their rockers. >> everybody who i have talked to who has been personally affected by a story about which there is denialist conspiracy theories, people saying this didn't really happen, everybody consistently has said you cannot argue with them, that is what they want, and the facts will not convince them. do you think there is anything other than the serenity prayer that can lessen the harm that they do? i'm worried with the theories about boston, i see the pretty mainstream conservative media really flirting with these folks and maybe starting to mainstream some of this craziness so we won't be able to ignore it. >> well, i'm very sorry to hear that, and i know the conspiracy theories work against us in several ways. we already talked about a few of them. another serious problem with conspiracy theories is that these two chechen brothers, especially the older one, tamerlan tsarnaev, he radicalized himself and then he recruited his brothers and sisters to a ridiculously foul and violent form of islam and he did that by visiting these various alternative news websites. one of them was al qaeda that taught him step-by-step how to make a bomb. it's horrifying to me that we live in the information age where we're blessed with just a bombardment of information, but it leaves us with a responsibility to sort out the wheat from the chaff, the truth from the lies, and operate on the truth. the trouble is, we can't -- it's unfortunate that some very impressionable individuals such as tsarnaev was able to be recruit the in that way. it was really cute, brian williams, nbc nightly news, he said that these men are being called self radicalized islamist terrorists, which is another white washed way of saying cold-blooded killers. i think it's important that we go back to really discussing things for what they are. and i cannot figure out, rachel, where i fall in this continuum between right wing and left wing. i can see both sides and in many ways i'm a little bit of both so i can call myself middle of the road, but i am patriotic, i love this country, the united states of america, i'm a former history teacher and a mom of a guy who went down fighting for the united states of america and i truly admire much of what the conservative side of america has to say. but on the other hand, i live in central california, my son was a gay man, i am a odd and unlikely apologist, so it's -- i have several different hats to wear, and i think that conspiracy theorists are making it more miserable for us in -- as we pick and choose our ways of life. >> i hear you. alice hoagland, the mother of mark bingham, who died on united 93 in shanksville, pennsylvania, on 9/11. thanks for being with us. it's been a lot of years, but i'm so sorry for your loss. >> thank you, dear, thanks very much. all right. our guest for the interview tonight is one of the more compelling people in politics right now, massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. stay with us. 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