EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 CONSPIRACIES

 When I came to the state on leave from Navy Boot Camp, I encountered the first major conspiracy theory I can recall. Yes, of course, it was that “new information” was telling us that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a staged affair. Jack Ruby had been involved in the assignment to murder Lee Harvey Oswald and then he was somehow injected with drugs that would end his life soon from a pulmonary embolism.

It was a fairly simple conspiracy theory. Somehow “the mob” had orchestrated it by selecting the most unlikely hit man in mob history, the befuddled Oswald to carry out the complicated assignment.

Conspiracy theories evolve. From this simple offering, we now face a theory requiring more complicated interactions than nuclear physics. The array of conspirators grew from the mob to practically everyone occupying a high national government post since the act, all orchestrated by Lyndon Johnson who was a member of the motorcade himself. Oh, we must also include practically the entire public administration of Dallas, Texas along with a substantial portion of state officials. Oh, and the owners of the building from where the shots were fired. Some of shots that is. Another barrage erupted from the crowd on a nearby hill. Or so they say.

In all this time there has not appeared one verifiable—verifiable—tidbit of proof that the affair was anything more than the unfortunate act of a lunatic.

In all this time, there has not been one deathbed confession underlying the myriad theories.

In all this time there has, in fact, been no evidence to support this “Great Mother” of conspiracy theories.

That period of time is now approaching 60 years.

Putting that in perspective, let us consider a real conspiracy. Let’s take, say, the Iran-Contra Caper, a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan administration.

It consisted of a secret U.S. arms deal that traded missiles and other arms to free some Americans held hostage by terrorists in Lebanon, but also used funds from the arms deal to support armed conflict in Nicaragua.

In short, the administration was secretly selling arms to Iran (yes Iran) in order secretly finance an illegal funding of a war in Nicaragua.

The caper fell apart in less than a year. Some of its participants suffered. Some didn't. One main actor, Oliver North (of whom one writer once said that "there is a faint smell of sulfur about him") Oliver North received a lifetime sentence requiring him to be a spokesperson for the Republican Party.

In her book, The Age of Magical of Overthinking, author Amand Montell calls conspiracy theories “sense-making narratives. This is consistent with historian William Manchester’s opinion not long after the JFK conspiracy began to sprout wings. The author of “The Death of a President, once said:

“ …, in a curious way, there is an esthetic principle involved. If you take the murder of six million Jews in Europe and you put that at one end of a scale, at the other end you can put the Nazis, the greatest gang of criminals ever to seize control of a modern government. So there is a rough balance. Greatest crime, greatest criminals.

''But if you put the murder of the President of the United States at one end of the scale, and you put that waif Oswald on the other end, it just doesn't balance. And you want to put something on Oswald's side to make it balance. A conspiracy would do that beautifully.

“Unfortunately, there is no evidence whatever of that.''

But still we believe on.

Morning Thoughts: October 4, 2017

As one whose graduate education was in public administration, I’ve nothing but praise for the women and men who work for and protect the City of Las Vegas.

They have, in my viewing of the news, operated on a professional scale that could be a model for all. They must all be exhausted, shocked, and operating on pure adrenalin, but they press on. They are simultaneously working to discover the facts, analyze the facts, report the facts (accurately), and support and comfort the survivors and their families. I’m in hopes that someone will chronicle their actions from the first shots until the final resolution.

It is with dismay that I see the “conspiracy theory worms” already crawling from beneath the rocks and out of the cesspools around the city, anxious to spew their noxious filth. It is insulting beyond belief that they do so. It cheapens the acts of heroism and professionalism displayed by the elected officials and public personnel of the city, from the brave public safety personnel to the office workers. They all deserve better, as do the victim and survivors.

I can only hope that it will stop, but I doubt that it will. The urge to rewrite history to suit our own notions and prejudices is a strong one, perhaps best described by author William Manchester while discussing the decades-long efforts to distort the facts of the assassination of John F, Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. After publishing his famous work, The Death of a President, he wrote:

“In the end I concluded that [the Warren] report was correct on the two main issues. Oswald was the killer, and he had acted alone.… Those who desperately want to believe that President Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy have my sympathy. I share their yearning … if you put the murdered President of the United States on one side of a scale and that wretched waif Oswald on the other side, it doesn’t balance. You want to add something weightier to Oswald. It would invest the President’s death with meaning, endowing him with martyrdom. He would have died for something.”

As the beleaguered public workers of Las Vegas enter their third full day of a special kind of hell instigated by a special kind of twisted mind, my hope is that we give them the undiminished support that they deserve. This includes our not paying the slightest attention to the ill-reasoned attempts that will surely emerge, attempts aimed at disparaging the findings of the professionals and confusing a stunned and stupefied public.