When you get around to seeing Chowchilla - a brand-new CNN documentary about the notorious 1976 kidnapping of a school bus filled with 26 children - please remember to return to this post and tell me what you think will most stick with you. I guarantee this: This is a film you will remember.
Watching it together last night, my wife recalled the broad details of this horrifying story. I had no such recollection, probably because 1976 was such an upside-down year in my young adult life. But after the film ended, there was no doubt it would be the subject of my next blog post. Indeed, I have thought of little else since; this story and the people telling it are that memorable.
Foremost of the things that will remain with me is one inescapable conclusion. People born into immense wealth - as was one of the three evil kidnappers - have the ability to lease the best lawyers, helping them to frequently escape full responsibility for their crimes. And the rest of us? If caught, it's likely we will pay full price.
My takeaway was more about how far we have come since 1976 in recognizing the long term effects of childhood trauma.
ReplyDeleteKim; That was indeed another key learning I took from this excellent film. Unfortunately, learning that one of those three awful men was able to use his inherited wealth to such an immoral end is a pill I'm still choking on, two days later.
DeleteHello, Pat. To be honest I had completely forgotten about this event which happened the year after I graduated HS. Although I was aware of it when it happened. Not having seen the film I am definitely going to watch it as soon as time allows. But your post does ask that unpopular but seemingly always present in one way or another in your last paragraph. Although, in some ways, very different than what happened in 1976 to these children, one cannot escape the stories of wealth being able to 'free' someone no matter the crime committed. Putting it bluntly, especially as I watch the various trials of one individual these days, it makes me sick.
ReplyDeletebe well,
Bob
Bob; Thanks for the comment and I totally agree with your last sentence. If the ex-tweeter-in-chief is not THE paradigmatic example of how inherited wealth - not matter how misbegotten - allows people to escape paying for their misdeeds and/or crimes, I don't know who is.
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