the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Jim Lovell died yesterday. 

Or did he? Did he even exist? I mean, who knows for certain? Yes we’re told all manner of this’ and that’s about him but really? Sure there were photo’s of him, a whole back story, complete with a marriage and children,  but those could’ve all been faked, couldn’t they? Just like the moon landings. 

If you believe that the whole moon landing thing is a one gigantic hoax, then it follows that all subsequent ‘missions’ were as well. There was no emergency on board Apollo 13 which led NASA to abandon another moon landing and launch a rescue mission to return the astronauts, Lovell, Jim Swigert and Fred Haise back to earth, because it was all a part of the same hoax. Even Ron Howard was involved. His film, ‘Apollo 13’ which tells the whole story, is widely lauded as being one of the most accurate depictions of the events it portrays. Why? Why would NASA go to such great lengths help him to convince us. 

Obviously I don’t believe any of this. Its all bollocks. But people do. More and more of them. Initially they just wrote books expounding the whole moon landings hoax conspiracy theory, long before the term ‘conspiracy theory’ had invaded popular consciousness. Then ‘Capricorn One’ happened. It had everything a film could ever have, apart that is, from box-office success.

In it, a NASA mission to Mars is scrapped minutes before launch, the astronauts whisked way to a remote hideaway in the desert, whilst NASA fools the public that the launch went ahead and that that they did land on the Mars by filming everything on a sound stage. They then try to kill the astronauts, one of whom survives and the truth is revealed. 

This gave rise to another part of the conspiracy theory, first promoted by the intellectual heavyweights of the Flat Earth Society 1980, that Stanley Kubrick had filmed it all in Hollywood, based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke, with financing from Walt Disney. This, so we are meant to believe, explains why Kubrick’s career was free from studio interference.

Eventually the internet happened. And all of the various bollocks and bullshit of the moon landing conspiracy theory coalesced in one place. And that place is You Tube. No theory is too outlandish to be evidence of some wider conspiracy, the lack of any academic credentials or scholarly pedigree of the people who make these claims on their You Tube channels being conversely held to be proof of their free thinking.

Yes they are free thinkers, but unfortunately for them, their free thinking is more of the batshit crazy, delusional echo-chamber, but profitable variety. That’s why there are so many of these You Tube Channels. The more bizarre that the claims are, the more of them are made, the more people who also imagine themselves to be free thinkers will watch. And the more people that watch the You Tube videos means that those people will also watch the adverts that accompany the You Tube videos. But remember, they’re the free thinkers!  

What never seems to occur to anyone is why, if the evidence of such a hoax is so easily provable by some bloke living in his mothers basement in Wyoming, Sacramento or Colorado, was it never  announced to the world years earlier by the Russians? Had they even the merest hint of such a hoax, would not the KGB be tireless in their quest to expose the Americans as the charlatans they were? Would not an army of agents and analysts be thrown into the fight, to show the world that capitalism was nothing but a web of lies whilst communism was a condition of glorious perfection from which we would all benefit?

Or that, imagining for a moment that the hoax is true, whilst the very senior figures involved in perpetrating it might well have had numerous vested interests in keeping quiet about it, what about others? The one’s a lot less senior? Whilst it might well have been filmed by Kubrick and he kept quiet because of his career, what about the lighting cameraman, the prop makers, or the other people needed. Even a closed set requires people.

Are we seriously to believe that the US government had them killed? Or is not believing that the US government would do such a thing proof that such a conspiracy theory exists? See? Its a labyrinth of nonsense, where one can easily lose oneself in You Tube driven black-hole of utter bollocks.

So to hold the opinion that the moon landings never happened, that it was one giant conspiracy, proves only that the person who holds that belief should never sit on a jury, have the vote or be allowed to operate heavy machinery. Or have children. We don’t want those genes in the gene pool. 

So yes, Jim Lovell die yesterday. And the sheer scale of the ambition, ingenuity and resourcefulness, the hope, optimism and belief, the political will, unity and commitment that allowed the moon landings to actually happen, another bit of that died with him too.

****************************************************************

Quick thought.

Just seen some photos of Palestine Action supporters being arrested at a performative protest today in Central London. Some young, some not so young. Some wore a keyffiyeh, which has become almost de rigueur if one wants to show solidarity with Palestine.

How is it that dressing up for a fancy dress party as Hiawatha is denounced as cultural appropriation, but wearing a keffiyeh is not? Unless one, or ones ancestors is from the Middle East, then it must be, yes? Or have I got that wrong? Is it dependent upon who is doing it, what they are doing in support of or what the Gruniad think?