Today's MOZEN: Elvis Killed Kennedy

F LoBuono

My favorite tee-shirt meme is this: Elvis Killed Kennedy. It is so because it represents my feelings towards Conspiracy Theories - all of them.

Choose a historic event, ANY historic event or unusual occurrence, and you will find someone who will be willing to debate you as to the legitimacy of its cause. Let's list just a few of the biggies:

1. Elvis Presley - faked his death and went into hiding. Many rabid fans of The King believe that instead of dying of a drug overdoes, he went into hiding to begin a new, more stable life.
2. The Kennedy Assassination - theories abound challenging the official reports that President Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin claiming, instead, that it was carried out by the CIA or the mafia.
3. The Moon Landings - in order to restore American pride during the cold war, there are those who believe that the 1969 US landing on the moon was nothing more that an elaborately staged movie stunt.
4. Chemtrails - the exhaust streams left by high-flying jet airplanes are thought by many to contain toxic chemicals placed there by the government in collusion with major drug companies. It is said to be in an effort to control things like crop growth through weather manipulation.
5. 911 - the grand daddy of them all. The collapse of the World Trade Center complex, particularly building #7, was not caused by strikes from two jet airliners but was, rather, a controlled explosion detonated by the government. The purpose was to blame radical Islam and plunge us into war in the Middle East.
6. Vaccines - rather than cure, or even eliminate disease, some believe that vaccines are a direct cause of autism and that it is a plot by big pharmaceuticals to collect more money.

There are mountains of mainstream scientific evidence that seem to be reasonable and legitimate explanations as to why all of these things happened. There is also considerable evidence presented by Conspiracy Theorists to support THEIR claims. Generally, however, most of this support comes from sources other than those considered "reliable". Now, this in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. A certain amount of skepticism can be healthy, especially when it applies to dealing with information from so-called "official sources". Certainly, we HAVE been lied to and mislead - and more than once. Still, at some point, since most of us do not have the expertise to actually KNOW, we must decide who to TRUST.

And, how do we arrive at that trust?

I, for one, in order to trust, need to know what motivates anyone to do anything, especially if goes against the so-called norm. For example, why would Elvis Presley fake his own death? What would motivate him to attempt such a radical stunt? What could he possibly gain? Instead, considering his past history of drug addiction, is it not perfectly reasonable to believe the explanation that Elvis Presley did, indeed, die from a drug overdose?

The same question should be asked of ALL conspiracy theories - what would be gained by presenting misleading or inaccurate information to the public? Are the so-called rewards worth the risk of staging such a deception? Is it reasonable to accept as an explanation that during the terror attacks of 911 our government killed thousands of its own people by its own hand in order to legitimize going to war? Impossible? No. But, to me, that seems HIGHLY unlikely as a motivator.

Then, there is the issue of feasibility. Is what you are proposing as an explanation actually DOABLE? Is it physically possible? Does the technology exist to produce the results that you were hoping for? These parameters should include not only physical factors, but psychological ones, as well. For example, it is physically possible that the World Trade Centers were brought down by something other than the crash of two jet planes into them. However, HIDING how it was done and WHY it was done is an entirely different matter! If it is difficult to keep a secret in a small office of a just a few people, then how many complicit people would have to be silent in such an enormous attack? FOREVER? I find that incredulous.

And, last, but not least, if one looks hard enough, one can find just about anything anywhere. We can CHOOSE to interpret facts as we wish. But that becomes a slippery slope. Isn't EVERYTHING in life open to interpretation? When does one stop? Also, sometimes, in order to make a situation fit our particular narrative, we can see things that simply are not there. When we try too hard, we suffer from Cognitive Dissonance. In other words, we see only what we want to see. And, there are those who see conspiracies in just about EVERY aspect of life!

Besides, as I get older, I continually look to simplify my life. In fact, the simpler the better. I have little or no time to go looking for theories that might or might not explain why things happened the way they did. Especially since I, or anyone else for that matter, CANNOT know with absolute CERTAINTY, why and how things happen. This does not mean that I do not seek answers to pressing questions. In fact, I am always searching. However, I do not want to be consumed by the search. Somethings, most, in fact, are simply what they appear to be. And, that's just fine by me.

So, yes. Elvis did kill Kennedy.