Conspiracy!

[peter]

[One of the UK's main TV channell's is running a new series looking at the major 'conspiacy theories' of today, so expect a lot of questions from 'yours truly' on all these hackneyed old chestnuts as they arise week by week] This weeks program [or recording actually] involved the much argued about

Death of Maralyn Monroe.

The program gave an account of Maralyn's final hours as per the official records [ie that she died, probably as a result of an overdose of sleeping tablets taken at around 10pm ish. The caretaker called her psychiatrist at around 3am because her light was still on. He came and in turn called the police who attended at around 4.30am. She was pronounced dead by the psychiatrist and removed to the county morgue and the following day [IIRC] an inquest said that she had died as a result of 'probable suicide'.

The program then went on to show that all of the people with the single exeptions of the psychiatrist and one of the attending secret service men disputed the facts of this account saying that there had been a positive throng of individuals coming and going [including Robert Kennedy] throughout the day and into the evening - and numbers of people actually claim to have seen the psychiatrist administer the injection to the heart that it is claimed killed Maralyn.

As presented by this program the murder of Maralyn by the powers that be of the day is a pretty open and shut case. These were not uncorroberated theories made by people speculating to make a quick buck from a book, but absolute denials of the veracity of the official account by the very people who were there at the actual time of the events; the policema who attended at 4.30 [who said the psychiatrist kept pointing to the 4 empty pill bottles and saying 'look - it's suicide, it's suicide', but who observed that in thirty years of police work he had never attended a suicide where someone had swallowed handfulls of pills with no glass of water to get them down] the lady housekeeper who saw the body being moved from the outside flat to the inside bedroom and who earlier had witnessed the suggestedly fatal injection being given, the pathologist who found no evidence of tablets in Maralyn's stomoch. Coupled with Maralyn's public outburst days earlier in a night-club where she had stated that she was going to go public and expose both the president and his brother as liars and adulterer's, these things make, it has to be said, a fairly compelling case.

Question. What do most Americans feel is the likely truth behind the claims that Maralyn was murdered on the instructions of the Kennedy's. Do most people take it as read, but [probably correctly] assume it will never be proven. Or do people not believe that the conspiracy theories are true and that this was just a case of a mentally unstable woman stepping over the edge in an act of self-destuction. Or indeed did the program hoodwink me. Was it designed to do so with a lot of spurious facts being strung together to make what appeared to be a watertight case where in fact none exists.

[michaelm]

Well I'm an American, but British by birth, so I might not have the same outlook as many. To me, there seems to be a hell of a lot more paranoia and conspiracy theories in the US than anywhere else I've lived.

I consider myself a skeptic, and whenever I hear something where alarm bells go off in the back of my head, I'll do some research. I try not to focus on proving a theory, but more on testing a theory, and more often than not I find that I can't come to a conclusion or that there's a plethora of easily accessible evidence out there that the theory is complete bullshit.

Marilyn Monroe, JFK, etc. - they're all pretty much non-provable now, so many of the theories are just that and can't really be tested in any way.

Quite honestly I'm bored by hearing about them here, and even get more than a little annoyed when people try to foist their latest theory on me. I have a neighbor who if vociferous about GMOs, vaccines causing autism, 'big pharma' theories, etc. I just wish she would shut the hell up, but it's amazing how some people feel the need to endlessly repeat some of this crap.

[peter]

I think it's entierly possible to be interested in 'conspiracy thneory' without being a paranoid nut-job and not being gullible enough to soak up every alien under the bed and Illuminati story in the book. It may be that in the States it has assumed an exagerated degree of acceptance where in the UK it is less of a deal and more a fun subject. If we take the case of Dr David Kelly, a measurable proportion of the populace probably believe there is at least some question as to the manner of his death, but no-one is getting to over-wrought about it. It's serious [or at least it could be] but you don't get that feel about it. I can see that it could become irritating were every second person you met to be harping on about 'Area 51' and the Illuminati - but here it's a bit more of a joke than anything else. We don't take it too heavy.

[lorin]

I don't believe we know everything about her death. I don't believe we know everything about JFK's death or Diana's either.

But as my life goes on I believe I know less and less about most everything. By the time I die I will know nothing.

[Avatar]

By the time I die I will know nothing.

Post of the week.

--A

[peter]

And be thereby as wise as Socrates! [nb Don't feel to bad about this Lorin; most people achieve that state long before they die - infact some never leave it .]

[michaelm]

I don't believe we know everything about her death. I don't believe we know everything about JFK's death or Diana's either.

To be honest the main reason I am disinterested is that I really don't care. My thoughts really focus much more on the deaths of loved ones, and the deaths of loved ones of friends.

As I've got older I've really lost interest in spending much time on things that I can't influence or don't have much bearing on what goes on in my life. There are things that I am interested in and like to find out about, but I find it irritating when people try to foist their unsupported opinions on my as if I had expressed some interest before they started.

It definitely is different in the US Peter, and I have no recollection of it being anywhere near as obsessive in the UK - you're right, it's more of an interest than an obsession. Right now it really sucks that so many people seem to think I'm interested in their political opinions - I wonder if they've ever heard of the maxim of not discussing religion or politics...

[Avatar]

Pretty much agree with MichaelM there...I just don't care.

--A

[peter]

Mmmm....

Not sure about the don't talk about religion or politics thing. Last election in the UK I was proud that I was able to convince all of my workmates [10 or so people that they should take the trouble to vote - that people had fought very hard, often with disastrous personal results, to buy them their enfranchisement; that what politicians do affects them personally. Now we talk politics - and they are intersted - and I think thats good.

[michaelm]

Mmmm....

Not sure about the don't talk about religion or politics thing. Last election in the UK I was proud that I was able to convince all of my workmates [10 or so people that they should take the trouble to vote - that people had fought very hard, often with disastrous personal results, to buy them their enfranchisement; that what politicians do affects them personally. Now we talk politics - and they are intersted - and I think thats good.

That's different though - I have no problem with people convincing me to vote or reminding me - I just don't want to hear their opinions based on whatever they lifted from the front page of some tabloid or nutjob web site.

[peter]

Well, peoples views are always going to be influenced by the media they expose themselves to - and that's ok as well, with the proviso that they actually *think* about what they are being fed and balance it against possible alternative positions. Most people are capable of this, though occasionally you have to prod them a little to look at things from a different perspective.

[michaelm]

Well, peoples views are always going to be influenced by the media they expose themselves to - and that's ok as well, with the proviso that they actually *think* about what they are being fed and balance it against possible alternative positions. Most people are capable of this, though occasionally you have to prod them a little to look at things from a different perspective.

Which is fine, but in my case it seems that no one checks first if I want to hear, and they don't actually do the thinking part but repeat back what they've been told verbatim.

[sgt.null]

junkies tend to die messy, unplanned deaths.

that sums up my thoughts of MM's death.

[Cagliostro]

I hate hearing conspiracy theories when I'm around the person and they honestly seem to believe the far-fetched B.S. they are spouting. But reading them online is oftentimes so much fun. Some of my favorites are about the Denver International Airport (or DIA) that involve lizard men enslaving little German children in underground cities.
I really want to write a screenplay that involves some poor kid enslaved in what appears to be a different planet, but have him escape and emerge out of DIA. Maybe I can sell it to M. Night Shaymalan.

[aliantha]

I've never heard that one, Cag. I think you should write it.

[Sorus]

Don't do it, the lizard men will get you.

[Cagliostro]

Good point.

[Ananda]

Good point.

This is clearly you trying to throw us off of the trail now. They got to you, didn't they? You are one of them... just look at that illuminati symbology in your avatar...

[Avatar]

Heute die welt, morgens das sonnensystem!

--A

[peter]

I hate hearing conspiracy theories when I'm around the person and they honestly seem to believe the far-fetched B.S. they are spouting. But reading them online is oftentimes so much fun. Some of my favorites are about the Denver International Airport (or DIA) that involve lizard men enslaving little German children in underground cities.
I really want to write a screenplay that involves some poor kid enslaved in what appears to be a different planet, but have him escape and emerge out of DIA. Maybe I can sell it to M. Night Shaymalan.

This sounds like a 'David Icke' story. Do you guy's ever hear of David Icke? He's the one that reckons most of the establishment [the British Royal Family included] are really extra-terrestrial lizards that have seized controll and direct world affairs from their hidden lair's, a sort of scaly Illuminati. Funny thing is he can literally pack auditoriums in cities the world over where he speaks, unaided by notes, for hours at the time. He's made more money from it than he ever did as a footballer or tv presenter, so mayhap he's not as mad as he sounds!

[Cag - where can I get one of those hats, they're really cool!]