Conspiracy theories used to interest me. Some of them have even fascinated me for a time, such as the Kennedy assassination. For a while, I was really exploring many of the different theories, and continually questioning the official accounts, which seemed to me ridiculous at the time. There are still many questions that remain unanswered from that event, and the official accounts would not likely be so suspect, even well after half a century, if that was not the case.
However, I did read Gerald Posner’s “Cold Case,” and he made some very compelling arguments. Most importantly, he made the point about how crazy some of the conspiracy theories are, and indeed, some of them really are quite crazy. There is one theory that has the kill shot being taken from the sewers. Some have either LBJ or George H.W. Bush as the master planners of the entire thing. There are others that have Lee Harvey Oswald actually being a victim, having tried to save President Kennedy from the assassination. Some have him as a Communist sympathizer in the employ of either Cuba or the Soviet Union, and some have him as an extreme right winger. Some have him leaving the Texas Book Depository right after the event, and given the magnitude of what had just happened – the sitting president being shot – and Oswald himself being a political animal, it just seems completely impossible that he would simply have left the scene so shortly after the event. I cannot say with absolute certainty whether there was only one shooter or more, or what happened. But whatever happened, there is just too much evidence pointing to Oswald to ignore those facts. As improbable as it seems that someone as troubled and seen as insignificant as Oswald would have managed to have such a huge impact on history, there are just too many factors which point to him at the very least being involved, and quite possibly, being the only shooter.
Still, those questions that remain unanswered are more than a little troubling, right? I mean, why were there so many damn coincidences? Is it even possible that there were so many coincidences, and that they were neatly explained away, or sometimes largely ignored, and that we should be satisfied with that?
I do not know. But what I do know is that there comes a point in time when you have to get on with your life. What that means is simply being able to put that kind of thing away, to admit that you do not know the answer, or answers without a shadow of a doubt, but to still be able to move on with your life.
There seems to be a growing number of people, however, who are not able to get on with their lives, and who remain fixated on conspiracy theories. That many people have lingering questions about the Kennedy assassination is understandable, and I would even argue reasonable. After all, a majority of Americans have doubted the official account since the very first polls were taken shortly after the official account was released. That is over half a century of a majority of Americans disbelieving the official accounts, and not simply accepting the unsatisfying official accounts. So, it is not completely unreasonable to have strong doubts. It is, however, most unreasonable to allow these doubts to fuel your present anger about circumstances going on today, and believing that this is just the mother of a widespread series of conspiracy theories which have come to plague this country in particular.
Indeed, there are so many conspiracy theories out there, and they vary in range of credibility. Some are outright laughable. You really have to be surrounding yourself only with information that you cherry pick to truly believe that the Earth is merely 6,000 years old, and ignoring all of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Same thing with Darwin’s “theory” of evolution, with more than a century and a half of very compelling scientific data to reinforce that this is more than a mere theory. Same thing with the world being round, even though it appears that either there is a growing number of people who are doubting that the world is indeed round, or that those who deny it are gaining more publicity, or both. That is a lot of evidence to ignore, to believe those things.
Some others are a bit more believable, more or less comparable to the Kennedy assassination, only sometimes with conspiracy theories that sound even crazier. FDR knew about Pearl Harbor before the attack happened, for example, yet allowed it to happen. Or George W. Bush knew about the September 11th attacks before it happened, yet also allowed it to happen. That the Twin Towers were taken down by orchestrated demolition, and not because of the intense heat from the two jets that crashed into them. Some conspiracy theorists even believe that the two jets did not, in fact, crash into those two buildings, and that apparently, the millions of people in the greater New York/ New Jersey metropolitan area who actually saw the attacks as they happened were either all lying (and thus in on this conspiracy theory), or that they were somehow fooled. There are more legitimate doubts about the attack on the Pentagon, although again, the clearer crime was just how quickly and thoroughly the Bush White House worked to capitalize on the attacks to grab more power, particularly surveillance powers to prey upon the American people.
Those are just some of the conspiracy theories, but there are plenty of others. And about the time that I was getting into the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories (around the 50th anniversary of the event itself in 2013), I began to meet a few people who were enthusiastic conspiracy theorists. Many of them seemed a bit crazy, and quite a few of them – a surprising amount, actually – seemed very angry. Conspiracy theories fueled that anger, that sense that they were being cheated and life to.
Not surprisingly, quite a few of them came to support Trump in the 2016 election, and still remain among his loyal supporters now, despite more than two years of utter crap and nonsense from Trump and his ridiculous excuse for a White House administration. It feels like a horrible joke taken way too far, yet some people still very much believe in conspiracy theories, and still feel that they are being cheated. Turning to someone who so clearly is comfortable playing loosely with the truth as somehow the ultimate authority of what is true or not seems to me utterly ridiculous, and if the circumstances were not so serious and even tragic, it would seem almost comical.
Almost comical.
But there is nothing funny about them, in fact.
One of the most persistent conspiracy theories has been about the moon landing. Specifically, that it never happened.
There have been multiple nations that have made it to space. Even by the sixties, the United States had not even been the first to reach space, as the Soviets had taken the early lead in the space race.
Perhaps it was John F. Kennedy’s speech which stated as a national goal to put a man on the moon, and then safely return him back to Earth within a decade, which ironically gave birth to the conspiracy theories. Maybe it seemed a little too perfect of a story, given how the martyred, stricken president became a symbol of so much regarding the national potential and striving to reach for better could so neatly have been fulfilled within the decade that Kennedy had predicted it to happen.
Or, maybe people really just feel that there were things about the images that indeed seemed odd.
However, I grew up believing that we had reached the moon, and that it was one of the greatest triumphs not only for the United States as a nation, but indeed, for humanity in general. It was a technological feat unlike anything that came before, and nothing quite as immediately monumental has seemed to have been achieved since.
Plus, it happened just as people were beginning to really grow more skeptical about official accounts of things in general. After all, the Kennedy assassination shook our national belief of being untouchable. Then, the official account of the assassination seemed suspect to many people as well. There were other political assassinations, and to a certain degree, this added more shock value and skepticism regarding official accounts. The Vietnam War added more skepticism still, as the leaders kept insisting that the war was going well, and that there was light at the end of the tunnel, even though, in fact, the war was going very badly. Within a few years, everyone would know that the Golf of Tonkin Resolution itself that justified the increased American presence in the war was suspect, and shortly after that, there was Watergate. So, perhaps indeed, the climate was just right for a certain skepticism to prevail.
Personally, I believe that the conspiracy theories, which tend to be fueled by severe skepticism and largely understandable disillusionment with suspicious and often overly convenient official accounts of things has gone too far. Almost four decades ago, the United States elected a man to the White House who strongly warned that government was the problem, and that big government in particular was downright evil. The nation plunged fully into those waters, and has been swimming in them ever since. But the waters themselves have grown toxic, due to the growth in the spirit of deregulation. That has been the miracle phrase that has seemed to far too many Americans to be the cure all for every problem that ails the nation. The only problem is that, in fact, deregulation has empowered private corporations who’s only interest is profiting to lie, cheat and steal, and to do enormous damage to the lives of ordinary people through various means. This has been allowed by an elitist fueled popularization of demonizing popularly elected government as tyrannical. At least governments are elected by the people, or at least they are supposed to be. But by weakening them, we have effectively ended the system of checks and balances on other powerful institutions.
Still, people believe in it. The official position of many highly-ranking government officials is skepticism of the very government that they were elected into to begin with. Many of them are in the pay – often transparently so – of major corporations and private special interests, which calls into question their commitment to serve the American people who elected them in the first place.
Given all of that, it really is no surprise that we are where we are presently, nor that many of these same very skeptical people towards government, and who helped to elect Trump to the White House, are among those who very strongly believe in conspiracy theories, including that the moon landing was fake, a conspiracy.
Just one more thing in a long, long list of things that are just draining everything and all faith in the institutions of this country. Just one more thing that is draining the positivity and optimism for our future. These people would try to convince you that you are a fool if you “believe” that man walked on the moon, and they would offer ridiculous "proof" that it was all fake and staged. They would generally dismiss any and all evidence, however compelling, that lends credence to the first moon landing, and they too often accept almost any theory, however crazy, that seems to reinforce their own notions that it was all fake. Worse yet, they applaud themselves for this, believing themselves to be sharp, piercing minds, and assume anyone who disagrees with them are idiots and sheep, unable to think for themselves.
It is the same with other crazy conspiracy theories. There can be some doubts about official history, to be sure. I, for one, still feel that there are unanswered questions regarding the Kennedy assassination, as just one example. But - and this is key - we need to be able to move on and live our lives, and not constantly looking to events like this for clues and proof about some mysterious powers that be who manage to control every aspect of what we believe to be life, or living. In other words, I do not assume that the secrets behind the Kennedy assassination are necessarily going to provide me with any serious or clearer understanding of how the powers that be operate today. They are not the same people, and we are not dealing with the same problems. The Kennedy assassination and the moon landing were at different times, in a world that was entirely different.
Maybe insight into these events can teach us something today about our world. But some people, crazy conspiracy theorists, fixate so much on these past events and believe so blindly that they have some bearing on our worlds, and on the reality we face today, that they completely muddy the waters of truth, rather than clearing them up. And we have one such individual right now in the Oval Office, a man who rejects any evidence of something that he either does not believe in, or does not want to believe in, such as climate change. And the problem is that he is making that almost official policy, simply throwing out evidence of the existence of climate change, mocking it. Censoring others from being able to mention it. We have had other powerful men and ideologies who did the same in other times and in other countries, and it never ends up well. Also, at some point, do we not have to believe in something as true? Shall we look to that one man, with his crazy conspiracy theories, as the sole arbiter of truth? He certainly believes that, because he said as much. Do you believe it?
Am I 100 percent sure that the moon landing absolutely happened, without a shadow of a doubt? No. There is perhaps that sliver of doubt, just as their is about anything. These days, however, almost everything is questioned, and it can be hard to differentiate fact from fiction. We might have needed more healthy skepticism back in the 1950's and 1960's, but I personally believe that we need less of it today. Too many people are skeptical of everything, and far too many people take themselves, and their friends and other like-minded individuals, as absolute experts, when too often, they draw only on articles that interested them and buttressed their own narrow views as their main points of reference.
So, I have my doubts about things. Sure, of course I do. But I will not literally question everything that most have come to believe to be true, simply because I want to believe in some wild and unproven conspiracy theory, or because there are always going to be doubts. Remember that in the American justice system, guilt is established, or diminished, based on credible evidence. Someone can be exonerated from a crime that they were charged with if reasonable doubt is established. Again, that is reasonable doubt. Not any doubt. After all, things happened before our own lifetimes, and things happen outside of the immediate orbit of our lives. We can doubt that these things existed because we ourselves did not experience it, and we can fixate our focus, and our lives, on unpeeling the layers of this particular onion, even if it causes our eyes to water. But that will not give us clearer sight, much less bring happiness or fulfillment.
It is the same with other crazy conspiracy theories. There can be some doubts about official history, to be sure. I, for one, still feel that there are unanswered questions regarding the Kennedy assassination, as just one example. But - and this is key - we need to be able to move on and live our lives, and not constantly looking to events like this for clues and proof about some mysterious powers that be who manage to control every aspect of what we believe to be life, or living. In other words, I do not assume that the secrets behind the Kennedy assassination are necessarily going to provide me with any serious or clearer understanding of how the powers that be operate today. They are not the same people, and we are not dealing with the same problems. The Kennedy assassination and the moon landing were at different times, in a world that was entirely different.
Maybe insight into these events can teach us something today about our world. But some people, crazy conspiracy theorists, fixate so much on these past events and believe so blindly that they have some bearing on our worlds, and on the reality we face today, that they completely muddy the waters of truth, rather than clearing them up. And we have one such individual right now in the Oval Office, a man who rejects any evidence of something that he either does not believe in, or does not want to believe in, such as climate change. And the problem is that he is making that almost official policy, simply throwing out evidence of the existence of climate change, mocking it. Censoring others from being able to mention it. We have had other powerful men and ideologies who did the same in other times and in other countries, and it never ends up well. Also, at some point, do we not have to believe in something as true? Shall we look to that one man, with his crazy conspiracy theories, as the sole arbiter of truth? He certainly believes that, because he said as much. Do you believe it?
Am I 100 percent sure that the moon landing absolutely happened, without a shadow of a doubt? No. There is perhaps that sliver of doubt, just as their is about anything. These days, however, almost everything is questioned, and it can be hard to differentiate fact from fiction. We might have needed more healthy skepticism back in the 1950's and 1960's, but I personally believe that we need less of it today. Too many people are skeptical of everything, and far too many people take themselves, and their friends and other like-minded individuals, as absolute experts, when too often, they draw only on articles that interested them and buttressed their own narrow views as their main points of reference.
So, I have my doubts about things. Sure, of course I do. But I will not literally question everything that most have come to believe to be true, simply because I want to believe in some wild and unproven conspiracy theory, or because there are always going to be doubts. Remember that in the American justice system, guilt is established, or diminished, based on credible evidence. Someone can be exonerated from a crime that they were charged with if reasonable doubt is established. Again, that is reasonable doubt. Not any doubt. After all, things happened before our own lifetimes, and things happen outside of the immediate orbit of our lives. We can doubt that these things existed because we ourselves did not experience it, and we can fixate our focus, and our lives, on unpeeling the layers of this particular onion, even if it causes our eyes to water. But that will not give us clearer sight, much less bring happiness or fulfillment.
The dark side of the moon by Pink Floyd is very clear about it.
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