The big business of conspiracy mongering

Oliver Stone is still trying to find JFK's real killer:


The NYT heavily annotates its interview with Stone to point out that his grasp and interpretation of facts can, uh, depart from mainstream understandings of the matter. But it struck me to read this interview on the same day President Trump retweeted this bonkers bit* of conspiracy mongering:


Back to Stone: His movie, JFK, which was all about evidence of a conspiracy to kill the president in order to really go to town on the Vietnam War, reportedly made more than $200 million worldwide during its run in 1992. I saw it in the theater myself! The film received eight Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.

I mention all this by way of making what is perhaps an obvious point: Conspiracy mongering in the United States is often, well, a profit-driven enterprise. A studio invested its money into creating an alternative version of the JFK assassination, and it reaped benefits. A substantial portion of moviegoers ended up believing that alternative version as a result.

I don't doubt Stone believes everything he says. (I think -- contra his theory -- the evidence suggests JFK was stumbling into Vietnam on his own anyway.) But it took a whole system to bring his belief to mainstream culture. We didn't get here by accident.

* "Bonkers bit of conspiracy mongering" is redundant, I know.

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