It is All a Conspiracy

 Sometimes an event could have a giant impact on the world we live in, but not have a similar cause.  A disgruntled man takes aim from a six floor window and a popular President loses his life, terrorists discover an easy way to wreak havoc in the United States and iconic buildings are destroyed or damaged, a virus jumps from animals to humans and a world-wide pandemic ensues.  For some these kinds of events demand in their minds a larger genesis or reason.  So they create a story of a hidden cabal of individuals that planned this out for nefarious reasons.  It is often not sure who did it, sometimes the ideas are several different groups.  Even worse when pressed, the why is often an amorphous answer that may or not make sense with reality.  We call these views of the world through the Picasso colored glasses conspiracy theories.  

Conspiracy theories all link to each other by the common thread that there exist a group or groups that want to control us by manipulating the world in ways big and small.  The big events are covered up by their partners in governments and the media.  This notion is that most people are sheep who just believe what they told but the conspiracy theorists have inside knowledge.  What is somewhat interesting is that there is even a conspiracy theory about term conspiracy theory.  There are those that say the term was invented by the CIA to discredit people who challenged the prevailing story of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  People swear by this but in fact the term appears in print as early as 1863 in reference to a wild idea of how England should engage with the combating armies in the American Civil War.  On January 11th in the New York Times the term is used to reference the idea that the British Elite would look to support one side to help make the young reforms that led to the United States government fail.  Thus take over the country once again.  There are also printed accounts using the term in the 1870s and early 1900s.  

Conspiracy theorists for decades made their pitches to like minded individuals or people like me who dive down rabbit holes when I grow interested in a topic.  For example I have read, watched and listened to so much material on the Kennedy assassination that it seems like everyone was in Dealey Plaza with a gun and a plan.  When in fact, if you take a sober look at the events of November 22, 1963 the only conclusion is that Lee Harvey Oswald, a complicated and disturbed man, looking for some personal value, shot and killed the President of the United States.  

I will grant that the are in fact conspiracies that take place.  Efforts to obfuscate the facts to outright lying to meet an end.  But there is a difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.  Conspiracy theories take things that have a rational or easily examined cause and weave an elaborate and often ridiculous plot to explain the event.  

Conspiracy theories have looked to the government as the bad actor in the conspiracy but there is always a hint at something bigger than a single government.  Somehow there is an elite group of wealthy individuals who control banks, money supplies, even the necessities of life who are really pulling the strings.  The government is just another puppet, either willing or ignorant.  This has in recent centuries boiled down to being led by The Jews.  Driven by bigotry and often a sense that someone is keeping them down, people bought into conspiracy theories because it made them feel better about themselves and for some feel like they were special.  In this one area they knew the truth and everyone else was a fool.  So often when you challenge a conspiracy theorist the response is either that you are part of their conspiratorial worldview or too dumb to see the truth. 

In recent years however conspiracy theories have become far more partisan.  People are promoting and supporting certain wild conspiracy theories because it slips nicely into their view over who their candidate for office is.  Politicians and their surrogates have noticed and thus promote those conspiracy theories that garner them support.  Sometime directly and sometimes indirectly, they keep the fire of a nonsensical conspiracy theory alive in the hope of getting votes.

Partisanship driven conspiracy theories are dangerous.  In June John Rumpel, a Florida businessman and a Trump supporter was traveling to New York from Tennessee when the plane changed course and found its way over Washington DC's restricted airspace.  Fighter jets were scrambled to intercept but it became clear that no one on-board was conscious.  The plane crashed in Virginia with no survivors and Mr. Rumpel, his adult daughter and granddaughter among the victims.  This type of tragedy is rare but not unheard of.  In 1999, a private jet carrying Payne Steward, a PGA Gold champion, crashed due to decompression in the cabin cause the people on board to not have adequate oxygen.  The people on-board were likely already dead as the plane continued to fly until is ran out of fuel.  It crashed in South Dakota leading to the loss of Stewart and 5 others.  The flight had been intercepted by Military Jets but there was nothing they could do.  But for many in the right wing noise machine the similar tragedy that befell the Rumpel flight was not a simple accident.  No they suggested that the Biden Administration had targeted this plane and it was shot down because Rumpel was a financial supporter of Trump.  They said that the government is coming for Trump supporters.  Similarly this week, a man in Utah had been making wild threats against the various prosecutors who are working on the Trump cases as well as the Attorney General and President and Vice-President.  When confronted by the FBI, which is standard procedure in cases of threats, he told them the next time they come by he would shoot them.  So earlier this week the man made a specific threat to the President who was going to be in Utah so the FBI got a warrant and went to serve and arrest him.  It is still not know exactly what happened but the FBI chose to use deadly force and kill him.  This man had a stockpile of weapons and had on more than several occasions suggest exactly how he was going to use them on his enemies. Again, the right wing noise machine suggested they killed him because he was on outspoken Trump supporter and that he was old and frail and that he wouldn't hurt anyone.  The same people who dredge up instagram posts of unarmed black kids killed by police when they were teens looking violent and call them thugs don't show the pictures of this terrorist from a few days ago with a ghillie suit and sniper rifle saying he is ready to take action.  No for them this killing of a highly armed man is not part of a conspiracy to take out Trump supporters.  This certainly would be a highly inefficient way to do it.  But because the people killed, one by accident and one by law enforcement, were Trump supporters there must be a cabal behind it. 

The danger of this, coupled with the echoes of the Q Anon conspiracies, is that people will see all people opposed to a MAGA policy not only as wrong, but evil.  One roots evil out and what I fear is that there will be more violence, directed at Democrats and Republicans they deem unworthy of the party.  People die in accidents, people die when they challenge the police with weapons, and people die because the world is not perfect.  We don't have to look for the men behind the curtain on everything.  Mostly there is no curtain. 

I Only Every Saw My Dad Hit My Mom Once

 I only ever saw my dad hit my mom one time. It wasn’t out of anger but frustration. We were in the car, traveling during a terrible thunderstorm.  My dad pulled over as the wipers couldn’t keep up with the rain. My mother was crying and screaming, she wanted to get out of the car to run into the church. The rain, then hail, made the two block walk dangerous and my dad tried to tell her.  She wasn’t able to listen, my dad slapped her, then grabbed her and held her tight.  The storm eventually passed and my dad took us all home, in silence. 

 

We were in the car because whenever a storm came my mother had to get out of the house.

We would leave and go somewhere else, anywhere with people. During the day, if a storm came we would go to the Ames Department store.  We would go inside and walk around, I would mainly look at the toys. We could watch the storm through the big windows to the parking lot but it was impossible to hear the thunder.  

But the real fun came at night.  If a storm was predicted, when we went to bed we would be told to keep our clothes nearby on the floor. Like fire fighters socks in the shoes, pants and shirt handy, we needed to be ready to go when the call came.  

“Wake up, there’s a storm”

We would get up and pile into the car and go out.  Good nights we went to the hospital, the big waiting room that people sat in waiting to visit someone upstairs in a room or being treated in Emergency.  My mom chose there because it was a fallout shelter.  The yellow and black sign that looked like a weird pizza to me, the result of Cold War fears, hung outside the building.  For mom that was safety.  We would go in, climb a set of hard stairs and then sit in plastic covered furniture under the watchful eye of the Pinkerton guard at his desk.  I always tried to getting pennies for the gumball machine and was impressed I got two squares not one round one.

The large window that look out toward the river and the church parking lot gave us a clear view of the storm as it passed. Once, my mother went into the back and came out calmer and more comfortable. She fell asleep on the ride home.

 

If we were in luck however we would go to the all night truck stop at the edge of town,

Aptly named The Edge of Town. There we would cram into a booth as the server brought the children chocolate milk and my parents coffee.  We sat among overnight truckers, drunk college students (Denny’s had not come to the North Country) and often women seeking comfort from a driver or offering it for coin. 

This was my normal.  Storms meant you awoke, went someplace and waited them out.  I didn’t realize how strange that was until college.  When I lived in the dorms I was always surrounded by people so the realization came when I had an apartment and was sharing my bed through a late night storm.  I awoke and quickly turned on the TV to watch the storm information on the weather channel.  I felt anxious and wanted to leave but didn’t know where to go as my companion grunted questions about why I was up and to go back to sleep.  I realized that maybe not everyone reacts to the storms the way my family did.  She fell back asleep in the glow of the TV on mute as I watched the radar show the storm move off to the east.  As the weather quieted I slipped back under the sheets and continued the night.  

Over the years I have mellowed on my reaction to storms.  I watched my son grow up not caring about them.  But I still have to follow them, where they are, where they are going, when the threat is over.  Smart phones allow me to monitor this with stealth I didn’t have before.  I still must be aware of all that is going on.  Storms are always my nemesis and I must conquer them each time they come.  

Now you might ask why I carry this through life.  It is simple.  For my mom every time lightening flashed and was followed by a clap of thunder she was no longer a mother of 7, a wife, a survivor or a warrior that I saw her as most of the time.  She was the small child, one who heard the planes fly overhead in Mannheim 150 times in the years before she was 10 years old.  A child who hid in stairwells and basements and prayed with neighbors that the next bomb wouldn’t destroy their house, their school or their lives.  A child who saw the flashes of light at the city edge and waited for the rolling thunder of the bomb’s concussion as it rolled down the streets in the dark of night.  I have never faced death at the hands of an anonymous pilot dropping explosives on my home, but I inherited the fear that was delivered as well.  I carry with me the scars that she earned as a girl who for her 5th birthday saw her cousin’s house go up in flames from a British incendiary device.  The flash of lightening and the sound of thunder of a simple summer storm carried so much more for my mom, and still today for me.  A legacy of a war fought against an unspeakable evil that spawned this irrational response of punishment on the people of Germany.  My mom is gone, but that punishment lives on in me, a little less pronounced than in her, but still there.  I hope my son didn’t pick up on my reaction to the weather.  I hope my son will be able to sleep through the storms in his life.  But I worry about others.  

As drone strikes rain death from far away on camps in Middle Eastern deserts, as bombs take out both ancient buildings and modern apartments in places like Aleppo and Baghdad. I wonder as cruise missiles shake up the centers of the oldest cities in the world.  I ponder when suicide vests destroy pizza places and concert venues what exactly will their legacy be.  Will there be some mother or father, 20 years from now telling their children to keep their clothes close, there might be storm?  Will those children 40 years from now struggle with the weather like I do, knowing full well it is not rational and yet continuing to live in that manner.  When will it stop, and will we ever have the will to make it stop?  

 

Deplorable

When Damar Hamlin was hit during an NFL game, the Buffalo Bills defensive player collapsed on the field.  It was clear this was a very scary moment and after the ambulance took him to a near by hospital the game was suspended, later to simply be cancelled.  But while prayers both on the field, in the stands and across social media began, there was another voice in the ether.  The anti-vax conspiracy theorists, many who had not yet seen the hit, were proclaiming this was somehow related to the Covid 19 vaccination.  Within a day people were saying he was dead and the NFL was covering it up.  As time went on and we learned that Hamlin was recovering, the voices of the conspiracy theorists grew louder. When Hamlin attended the Bills' playoff game but didn't do an interview and was covered for the weather people people started repeating he was dead and they used a body double.  This suggested that the NFL, the Bills, the sports media, and Hamlin's family were all attempting to hide the death of a young man.  When pushed on it the conspiracy theorists would say it was about money.  Somehow they were even able to suggest that President Biden was involved and a long planned trip to Ohio by the President was somehow part of the effort to keep the death quiet.  Now that Hamlin is making public statements these people are even questioning his existence, calling the videos he is making deep fakes or using an actor.  Hamlin is promoting getting trained in CPR and recognizing signs of heart distress and these people are attacking the videos.  

The reason to them:  The vaccine is killing people in large numbers but there is a large cabal stopping the news of this.  They have no real evidence, so they make it up.  What is worse is that anyone who dies at a young age are lumped into this.  Watch any announcement of a death and there will be someone claiming it was the vaccine.  It doesn't matter if the person had a long history of illness, was a likely suicide, or have clear indications of trauma that caused the death.  This has dragged the names of people who lost their lives in tragic ways into their wild fantasy world.  Most recently a 14 year old named Denim Bradshaw.  Bradshaw was a young man at who was riding a bull at a rodeo and was dumped and stomped by the bull.  The trauma caused his heart to stop.  But the facts don't matter they added it to the so-called evidence that something is wrong.  

What is the most disturbing it is that this is not driven by anything more than politics.  It is a right wing driven narrative that populates social media and so-called news channels who are promoting lies and distorted data about the deaths of mostly young people.  Bradshaw's death was a terrible accident but his friends and family have to see people attacking his parents for getting him vaccinated (even though no one knows if he was).  Even worse was the story of a young athlete that died in an apparent suicide being talked about as a vaccine death.  

When Hillary said half the people who supported Trump were a basket of deplorable she appeared to under estimate by a lot.   He and the right wing noise machine have found that there is no real consequences of this kind of behavior.  So I assume it will go on.  I am glad to see Hamlin recovering from his accident, I am sorry for the families who have lost someone and hope they are comforted by friends.  I also would hope that these people who promote this hurtful nonsense find a way to come back to reality.  But that hope is slipping.