One of the truly scary things about President Trump -- besides him being racist, sexist, gross, and a liar -- is that he apparently believes in wild conspiracy theories. He believes in the "deep state" that is somehow trying to undermine his presidency; he believed, during the 2016 Republican primaries, that Senator Ted Cruz's father was somehow involved in the Kennedy Assassination; he believes that massive voter fraud cost him the popular vote in the election. Trump is a Black Helicopter/New World Order/Illuminati-type nut job who, simply put, believes things that just aren't true. He's nuts. And he's the most powerful man in the world!
How did we get here?
Well, believing in crazy conspiracy theories is nothing new in American life. There are media people (Art Bell, Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, the entirety of Fox News) who have for years peddled insane conspiracy theories to the public in order to goose up ratings and profits. What's horrifying about Trump is that he's the first to do so to win votes to the world's highest office. But literally the mother of all conspiracy theorist, the one who started it all, was a woman named Mae Brussell.
An otherwise undistinguished housewife from Southern California, Brussell became unhinged by the JFK Assassination of November 22, 1963. She read over all 26 volumes of the Warren Commission and, by 1971, she was hosting a radio show in Southern California that was all about unwrapping government conspiracies.
Her timing, it goes without saying, was fortuitous. A few genuine conspiracies were about to hit. In 1971 the Pentagon Papers were released, shedding light on government lies about Vietnam. In 1972, the Watergate Scandal broke, leading to the first presidential resignation in history in 1974. In 1975 the Church Committee revealed decades of CIA "black bag jobs" and sordid operations that only heightened the people's distrust of their government. And, in this fetid environment, conspiracy fetishists like Brussell thrived.
And it hit close to home.
And it hit close to home.
From 1976 to 1977, a serial killed dubbed Son of Sam terrorized NYC. He was eventually caught on August 10, 1977. Five days later Brussell offered her own conspiracies about what caused David Berkowitz aka Son of Sam to murder people: in short, Son of Sam was, in fact, part of a program of government assassinations, a "test tube baby out on the streets", who was practicing new and better ways to kill people for nefarious government ends. And she does the usual conspiracy theorist things: she talks about how many things attributed to Son of Sam were "impossible", how isn't it suspicious that there other slayings around the same time as Son of Sam, and on and on and on. You should listen to the whole thing here. It's off the wall!
Interestingly, Brussell was a left-wing conspiracy theorist and, today, the most potent conspiracy theorists are on the right. I say, crazy and crazy. People like Brusell preyed on people's fears and made people (like the Son of Sam's victims) feel even more pain. And now this type of mindset is running the country!
So, the more things change, the more they stay the same or, to put it simply, the crazier things get, the crazy stays the same.
Interestingly, Brussell was a left-wing conspiracy theorist and, today, the most potent conspiracy theorists are on the right. I say, crazy and crazy. People like Brusell preyed on people's fears and made people (like the Son of Sam's victims) feel even more pain. And now this type of mindset is running the country!
So, the more things change, the more they stay the same or, to put it simply, the crazier things get, the crazy stays the same.
Son of Sam cult is nothing new but one of the few conspiracies that has facts. One of the victims knew it wasn’t Berkowitz that shot him, but nobody listened. Way before over the top Netflix doc. It’s nothing new. If she came up with this before others wouldn’t be surprised or she went the mind control route.
ReplyDeleteShe had truths in some of her seemingly whacked out viewpoints and clickbait unlike the shill frauds today. There was legitimacy there mixed with hearsay and broad assumptions. Many of her things were naturally curbed and seemingly biased while others have merit.
Robert Linkletter as Zodiac seems crazy when you read or research it, there’s fire there. Many of us never thought it was a line but anyway. Just never fit. She was good but not always seemingly crazy. She was actually intelligent and knew things much like more respected Mary Ferrell was and her naïveté regarding Oswald. To each his own.