AP–For many Americans, it was the defining moment of their generation. All who witnessed can tell you exactly where they were when it happened. And though for some of us it may seem as if it happened just yesterday, today marks the 40th anniversary of the so-called “moon-landing.”
Across the nation, millions will pause and take time to remember that moment when America tried to pull the wool over the world’s eyes and pretend it put men on the moon. Some will watch old footage of this total mockery of science. Others will pull out old newspapers and marvel at the primitive techniques of photographic trickery that tried to sell this deception to a sheep-like public. Still others will send threatening notes to NASA, begging them to reveal the secrets behind this cheap facade that laughs in the face of truth itself.
“I remember watching it on TV, and seeing Neil Armstrong plant that flag on the moon,” said Jerry Derwood, a part-time web designer from Skokie, Illinois. “And seeing the Stars and Stripes wave in the lunar sky, I thought to myself ‘Hey, there’s no atmosphere on the moon! That flag shouldn’t be waving! Something’s fishy here!'”
In his spare time, Derwood runs the web site NeilArmstrongSuperfraud.com, one of roughly 675 million moon-conspiracy-related sites that have received a huge amount of hits in the last month, thanks to the hoopla surrounding the anniversary of The Great Moon Sham of ’69.
“A lot of kids can’t imagine what it was like back then to witness something like this,” Derwood said. “These days, ridiculous frauds are foisted on the American public all time. But children of my generation hadn’t yet seen such a blatant, cynical attempt to play on our emotions.”
Derwood plans to celebrate the event by standing at the foot of Buzz Aldrin’s driveway, demanding that he submit himself to a polygraph test.
Others will celebrate more peacefully, such as Mark Harlin, a freelance copyeditor who runs the web site TheMoonandOtherLies.com. “There’s no point in harassing the quote-unquote spacemen,” Harlin said. “They were merely pawns in the vast games of The Cold War and the machinations of the military industrial complex. Besides, there’s nothing I could do that would make these guys’ live any worse than they already are. How would you feel if you were party to such a snarled tapestry of lies, one that threatens to unravel at any moment? I wouldn’t wish that kind of living hell on my worst enemy.”
Harlin then launched on a 27-minute monologue about how no human being could withstand the radiation of the Van Allen belt.
This morning, President Obama marked the occasion with a speech punctuated by numerous ironic air-quotes.
“Today we celebrate the ‘achievements’ of the Apollo 11 ‘astronauts’,” Obama said, rolling his eyes at several key junctures.”At a time when America was reeling from the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and embroiled in a bloody struggle in Southeast Asia, you ‘bravery’ made America ‘believe in itself’ again.
“I only regret that the great Walter Cronkite passed away before we could mark this ‘anniversary’,” the President continued. “The sincerity and solemnity with which he marked the ‘event’ were almost enough to convince America that men had actually walked on the moon.”