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gun. The Lord of the Flies, incarnate, laughing.

And so conspiracy checks into the myth hotel. Of course it wasn't chaos; it couldn't be, because if it was, then everything we believed in couldn't matter. Progress? No. A mail order rifle can wipe it away. The certainty that we would achieve great things again, that we had that marvelous destiny? Gone in an instant. Forever.

So, no. we had to invent a counter myth. The killing had to be for a reason, rationally organized - by sinister forces to be sure, but still forces within the scope of human control. And it doesn't matter if the villain of the piece is Castro, Clay Shaw, the Mafia, LBJ, the Russians or even Marilyn Monroe. At least we could ascribe this most chaotic and frightening event of our lifetimes, this fundamental assault on our communal dream, to organized human action: the same force that, when harnessed for good, empowered our parents to wipe out Hitler and hang Tojo from the deck of a battleship.

Conspiracy theories are a secular religion, that's all. They're national Thorazine. They keep the devil at bay, the voices that whisper in our ears in the middle of the night: we are darkness, there is nothing you can do to stop us. We are waiting for you. There is no rhyme or reason in the Universe. And your life and death mean nothing more than dust caught in an infinite wind.

Bang Bang.

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