Mental Illness Epidemic

Captain's Quarters blogs that "[t]he State Department and the National Institue of Stantards and Technology both released reports this week to stem the tide of conspiracy theorists eager to deny they are targets of terrorism and the whole thing is George W. Bush's fault. Terrye posted this:

I think fear drives a lot of this, After all if it is Bush and a few other dangerous people, then all of this will be over when he is gone. It is safe to go after Bush.

I kind of agree with Terrye, who says a lot of this is just fear, though I would call it cowardice. It's a lot like Holocaust denial. Part of that is the sheer terror that someone could just drag you and your family to a death camp because you were fool enough to pick your mom's womb to gestate in.

Of course, this falls hard on reality even with a cursory glance. As the NYT points out, it would take many thousands of explosives to bring the towers down by design, especially if one rejects the science behind the heat of jet-fuel fires and its effect on steel girders. When exactly were these explosives planted, and how did they get planted with no one's notice? And if the building was primed for demolition in this manner, how did the explosives keep from detonating at impact, or at least in the heat of the jet-fuel fire? For that matter, why design a demolition from the top down when building demolitions always take place from the ground up?

Conspiracists refuse to believe Americans were targeted because they are Americans, Israelis because they're, well, Jews actually, and that Death stalks us all just because we are alive which is true, though the characterization of Death as a personnage is, not so much crazy as a necessary imaginative tool. What do their imaginative tools tell us about the conspiracy theorists? What are those tools supposed to help them face? Well, nothing - they are shovels to dig themselves a hole to hide in so as not to face reality. In those holes they'll die, stalked by their terrors. If that ain't insanity, I don't know what is!

But is mental illness communicable? I'd say so! After all, my neighbor watched Michael Moore and "believes in it," to quote her, and believes capitalism is evil 'cause of a documentary ("The Corporation") she saw. "I believe in it," she says again. Are these shades a substitute for the religious mumbo-jumbo they reject as "irrational" and "controlling?"

Is this funny or tragic? and where is the W.H.O. when you need 'em?