Wacko with Conspiracy Theories

She was a friend of mine
For a number of years,
And I respected her
For her sharp mind
And her generous hospitality,
But I watched
As she slowly drifted
Off the deep end,
Allowing her paranoia
To overwhelm common sense.
She convinced herself that
Behind every happening
Is a conspiracy of evil minded
And devious manipulators
At the highest levels of government.
In her mind,
She saw the assassinations
Of the Kennedy brothers
And Martin Luther King
As blatant conspiracies,
And not as the acts
Of deranged individuals.
She saw the Vietnam War
And the wars against Iraq
As nefarious plots by
Our military-industrial machine
To justify the expense
Of weapons development
For the sole benefit of
Major military contractors.
She also saw the Iraqi conflicts
As the Bush's attempt
To personally take control of
The Kuwaiti and Iraqi oil fields.
Then there was 911
And the attack
On the Twin Towers in New York.
She saw that as
A conspiracy perpetuated by
George Bush and cabinet
To justify the war in Iraq
And in Afghanistan.
Now I can understand
Her mistrust of politicians,
For I don't trust them myself,
But I have witnessed
Too much bungling
And outright incompetency
At all levels of government
To ever believe that anyone
In government or elsewhere
Has both the intelligence
And the ability
As well as the intent
To orchestrate effectively
Something so intensely bizarre.
As I see it, mostly we
Stumble bumble our way along
Largely in reaction to
The things that happen
As opposed to in control
Of what happens.
I see a lot of evil
In the world,
But I just don't see it
As the kind of
Grandiose conspiracies
That she does.