Iconic Georgia Guidestones bombed by yet unidentified person
On Wednesday, an explosion shook a popular tourist attraction in Georgia that had become a focal point of the campaign of a far-right Republican contender for governor who had called the site “Satanic” and pledged to have it destroyed.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed that an explosive device was set up at the Georgia Guidestones somewhere between 4 and 6 a.m. on Wednesday, resulting in significant damage to the granite monument. The Elbert County Sheriff’s Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are currently conducting a thorough investigation at the scene.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor ran on a platform of “Jesus, guns, and babies,” and she pledged in a campaign video to “demolish the Satanic Georgia Guidestones.” if she were elected. (In the state’s Republican primary election in May, she garnered only 3.4% of the vote.)
The Georgia Guidestones, sometimes known as “American Stonehenge,” have long been the subject of speculation about a sinister agenda. The 16-foot-tall stones, which are inscribed with 10 rules in eight different modern languages and four different ancient scripts, can be used as a compass, calendar, survival guide for catastrophic events, or, in the case of the message about limiting the world’s population to 500 million people, as something more sinister.
The monument has been the centre of considerable discussion since 1979, when a guy named Robert C. Christian who said he represented “a small group of loyal Americans” commissioned Elberton Granite Finishing to place it; it’s unknown why. Yoko Ono has lauded the monument, but some have declared it belongs to the Antichrist, according to Wired.
In her campaign, Taylor related the monument to her fear of the COVID-19 vaccine, abortion as “demonic worship,” and the New World Order, the longtime (and unsubstantiated) myth that an oppressive worldwide government is coming.
In the video, Taylor is heard saying, “If we don’t call things out, and we don’t acknowledge them and we don’t take authority and take dominion over what God’s given us, then we are no better than the evil ones that put it up,”
Both the GBI and Taylor declined to comment to BuzzFeed News on whether they suspect Taylor was involved in the explosion. Taylor tweeted on Wednesday after the explosion news surfaced, “God, by Himself, is God. Anything He wants to do, He can do.”
Several people have urged for the removal of the monument after vandalism occurred there.
In June, the Elberton Star & Examiner reported that a pastor urged the county commissioners to remove the Guidestones because the inscriptions therein support genocide, advocate the killing of 6.5 billion people, and support abortion and Planned Parenthood.