"I don't always crash my Bentley..."
but when I do, it's on an international bridge.
We’ve reached a sad state of affairs in this country when the whacked-out right-wing conspiracy theories fit the facts of a story better than what law enforcement tells us.
On Wednesday a car exploded at the bridge between the U.S. and Canada at Niagara Falls, New York. At first people thought it might have been an attempted terror attack, so the New York governor made plans to fly out there and calm the public.
Then, almost as quickly as the story first spread, came the explanation that everything was fine and nobody needed calming. The whole story was that a well-to-do couple named Villani had an accident that occurred on the Rainbow Bridge. It was now simply a family tragedy, the FBI explained, so we should leave the family in peace and go about our daily lives.
As the Canadian Broadcasting Company explained, “The FBI has said ‘no explosive materials’ were found in the aftermath and ‘no terrorism nexus was identified.’” And if there’s anything I worry about it’s nexuses—-or nexi—anyway, just one nexus bothers me, so any more than that up the ante.
Anyway, a check of newspaper headlines over the past century showed that terrorism and the bridge were seen hanging out together just once—when the bridge was dedicated the first week of August, 1927, and even then it was coincidence. On the day of the bridge’s dedication up in New York newspapers reported on bombs thrown into buildings around Baltimore, likely connected to the notorious Sacco-Vanzetti case.
Some questions the FBI should answer and probably never will:
In a country with 340 million residents, you have to figure that some people are going to die in car accidents and some of those accidents will be unusual. Even allowing for that, how did these people manage to kill themselves on an international bridge, considering what a tiny percentage of our highways go from one country to another?
The explosion was blamed on high speed. Fine, but aren’t possible terrorism targets like international bridges arranged so people can’t drive fast?
The car involved was a $300,000 Bentley. What could possibly have panicked them? What could have made Border Patrol concerned enough about people in a $300,000 car that it tried to stop them and set off the panic?
The story first broke that officials were unsure whether the accident was an accident or not. What made them suspicious?
On Saturday night, November 23, 1963, the police captain in charge of the John F. Kennedy killing said, “We are convinced beyond any doubt that Oswald is our man….I can tell you, this case is a cinch. This man killed the president.”
That was 36 hours after the assassination, before Lee Oswald himself as murdered. Hearing such certainty that soon is impressive—and deserving of just a little suspicion. The president of the United States was murdered, and not from close range as happened to Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. With them it was easy—people saw the assassin pull a trigger. But Kennedy was shot from a distance and reasonable people could disagree over the direction of the bullet and the identity of the killer. Still, the case was declared closed by Saturday night. As a report in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram noted about Police Homicide Captain Bill Fritz, “He brushed aside all other questions.”
That was the beginning of our lack of trust in government and it has yet to be restored. In 1968 Robert Kennedy was shot by a man named Sirhan Sirhan (or at least he was found guilty of the crime), and Sirhan claims to this day he didn’t do it. That could be easily dismissed except for the news that the CIA was working at that time on drugs that could make people follow commands and then forget what they’d done later.
So two wealthy people in a hugely expensive car who are going to a rock concert suddenly go crazy at a border crossing and accelerate so fast that the car reaches almost a hundred miles per hour, strikes a concrete abutment and explodes. Does that make any sense? Does it?
We can’t really be blamed for coming up with conspiracy theories. Who were these people, the Villanis? Why were they crossing a border? Was it really just for a 1970s rock group's final tour? It’s easy to think that something nefarious was afoot and maybe the bodies burned up in that Bentley could have been almost anybody.
Nothing seems to make sense anymore, from the abrupt turnaround of the vote in the 2020 election to the drowning death of the Obama’s personal chef on a floating paddle board when he was in great physical condition and could have easily swum to shore.
From now on I’m all in on conspiracy theories because they make more sense than the stories we’re handed by the media and government. The New York Times lost all interest in the story after the FBI told them it was not terrorism. You know, like $300,000 Bentleys exploding at border crossings by accident happen every week, so it’s only interesting if it involves terrorism.
I await the official government report on the accident—but I don’t really expect it.