Discussion for article #230416
Americans are obsessed with all kinds of conspiracy theories, not just JFK. Sandy Hook, Obama birthplace, 9/11, moon landing hoax, FEMA camps, New World Order, Oklahoma City, Boston Marathon, etc. People are gullible, and there is a great market for conspiracy theories.
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Benghazi! Benghazi!! BENGHAZI!!!
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I invite Rachel to reflect on how deeply she is immersed in the âofficialâ narrative, accepting at face value a host of questionable ideas. Her piece is written in a condescending and silly tone, which makes one feel she is not a serious student of history. Would one talk about âconspiracy theoristsâ who believe that Dick Cheney outed Valerie Plame?! In that case what we know for sure is that Cheneyâs right-hand man lied to keep the facts from come out. Similarly, the one thing we know for sure about the Kennedy assassination is that LBJ, Hoover and the CIA were accessories after the fact. Despite their efforts, the outline of the coup remains clear, and new information still comes to light from time to time. E.g. start here (http://vimeo.com/102327635) for one illuminating thread which leaves no doubt that the CIA played the central role.
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I used to buy into the multiple gunman theory.
But a few yrs ago I saw a recreation of what a rifle shot to a head would do from the Grassy Knoll. If JFK was shot in the head from the Knoll with a rifle, it would probably been a much more violent injury - effectively taking his head off.
After seeing that I certain buy the Oswald as the lone shooter much more.
Now at whoâs behest, well thatâs another story.
I agree DrQ, about the âcondescending and silly toneââpatronizing is another word that comes to mind, as does the word smug.
This might be a good time to revive Woody Allenâs great one-liner- that in addition to his work as a comedian, heâs also a writer: in fact, heâs been working on a nonfiction version of the Warren Report.
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Indeed. One. Maybe even a few.
I encourage you to follow the vimeo link I posted; it is quite possible that JFK experienced an extremely violent shot from the front, and that it was removed from the Z film. I also point out that there is little reason to believe Oswald did any shooting; his co-workers place him on the ground floor just minutes before the shots, policeman Baker places him there just minutes after, and the paraffin test showed no gunshot residue on LHOâs
cheek. Odds are that he was exactly what he claimed to be, a patsy.
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Thatâs conspiracy fact, not theory. Big difference.
Oswald shot Kennedy. He missed with the first shot, hit the second two. Had Kennedy just ducked after shot one, or slouched over after shot two, he does not get killed, and this plot to kill JFK fails. So using conspiracy logic, it sounds like he was in on it too.
I remember you nuts yapping about the single bullet theory too. In reality, the single bullet makes PERFECT sense when you analyze it.
How about TWA flight 800, which seems (to many) to have been brought down by a missile fired as part of a US Navy training exercise. (The US Navy was conducting a training in the area; when the flight went down, the ships fled rather than offering assistance. The FBI was caught messing with the evidence. Etc.)
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Try reading âBest Evidenceâ by David S. Lifton. If it doesnât give you pause for thought nothing will.
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Our âintelligenceâ services have difficulties predicting a tableclothâs laundered future but are masters at spilling ink onto freshly set dinner tables.
Post war organizations like The National Committee for a Free Europe, events like the Red scare and modern artâs intersection with 1940s politics offer a better indirect window into what happened with media and government and why sensitive Americans have felt for 60+ years that something wasnât right.
See: âWho Paid the Piperâ and âKatharine the Greatâ
The CIA has always been massively incompetent at everything theyâve done. The idea that they could have pulled something like this off successfully is ludicrous.
Letâs not also forget the SS and such continually told JFK not to use a limo without a top. JFK continually refused to do it. So using conspiracy theory logic, JFK was in on his own assassination.
Because of the bungled/doctored autopsy and the Warren Commissionâs flawed/misleading report. There were clearly two shooters.
Oh and that little thing about Oswald being murdered before he could tell anyone who was behind it all.
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Reagan and Ford could both have easily been killed in the attempts on their lives, and this was after JFK, and they were Republicans. Was that some plot too? No.
The reality is that there are nut jobs in this world who do stupid shit. Oswald was one of them. Tell me this, why on earth would a person hire that asshole loser to kill the President? He MISSED the first shot, and the second did not kill JFK either. Had JFK just slouched over, the plot fails. Why would these âpowers that beâ have hired a loser like Oswald? Wouldnât you want it to be a fool proof plot? Why would you hire a fool for a fool proof plot?
âIt probably would have been a much more violent injuryâ? The back half of his head was blown open. Doesnât get much more âviolentâ than that.
The autopsy photos clearly show that Kennedy was shot from two different angles.
One thing separates the Kennedy assassination from all of the other favored objects of conspiracy theories. The Warren Commission. The Warren Commission produced such a flawed concluding report that even the most ill-informed person could see the gaps in the logic. Inasmuch as the people on the Commission were all of high political and social office, the feelings of conspiracy were fed with wild fodder for their particular pet theories.
The Warren Commission made outlandish claims, such as the âmagicâ bullet theory, in reaching its conclusions that it made questioning of the official line an easy target for attack. I will admit that I, too, question the âsingle shooterâ theory. I have good company. The House Select Committee on the Assassination of JFK raised the same questions. Like the House Committee, I have no idea what the explanation is for WHO the conspiring parties were or even why they wanted to commit such a horrendous crime (one of the frequently cited conspiracy theories immensely popular among people of my generation who were convinced that Madame Diem, sister of the murdered dictator and his principal co-enabler, the Diem brothers). This latter specific conspiracy theory involves the dream of tens of millions of wishful thinking âCamelotâ disciples who erroneously believe that President Kennedy was going to pull us out of Vietnam. This in spite of all of the hard evidence that President Kennedy was more firmly enamored of the Vietnam War and the âDominoâ theory than LBJ ever was. That latter fact was the main reason that LBJ DIDNâT cease our participation in the war. Far too many âCold Warriorsâ (present day neo-cons) were Kennedy worshippers and âCold Warriorsâ made up a significant majority of the Democratic Party. Not to mention that Pres. Kennedy was a founding member of the âCold Warriorâ club.
I have no idea who was involved in the murder of JFK or why. I do have a firm belief in the hypothesis that there was more than one shooter. The quick murder of Lee Oswald after the fact simply buttresses that conviction. The excuse that Jack Ruby used, that he was âdistraughtâ over the JFK murder, is simply too outlandish to believe. 66% of the population of the USA was distraught over the assassination, yet no one from that population attempted murdering the President. Particularly so because he owned that successful Dallas strip club. People with a tendency towards âdistraughtâ thinking donât generally have the acumen for success in business.
Actually, you should watch the Zapruder tape more closely. After the 2nd shot, President Kennedy did slump or, perhaps, cringe forward. It was the third shot that killed him, the one that blew the last 1/3 of his brain out. If you know anything at all about ballistics and guns, you would know that the âpink mistâ that flew out of the back of the Presidentâs head along with chunks of brain matter and skull fragments, you would know that the bullet must have come from the front. The bullet going out does the damage, particularly when it is a 7.62 mm bullet like the Mannlicher Carcano. The bullet going in enters cleanly.
At first blush, Frame #313 of the Zapruder film might appear to show the âmistâ and the human fragments exciting the Right side of JFKâs head. However, you have to look at Frame #279 to see that JFK had already been hit once by bullet #1 and had been turning towards Jackie, placing the left side of his head towards the left rear of the car. The bullet clearly splattered out of the left side, confirmed by the splatter marks on Mrs. Kennedyâs pink dress, an ubiquitous photograph, of Mrs. Kennedyâs witnessing the swearing in of LBJ while Air Force One still sat on the ramp at Dallasâ Love Field. Furthermore, at the time of Frame #313, the limo had finished maneuvering around the turn to the right (the second half of the âSâ-turn the road took through Dealey Plaza), making an entry into the left side from the rear, at most, a glancing, non-fatal wound. It also would have made a hit on the left side of the head from the book depository virtually impossible.
When you have seen as many âliveâ killings as veterans have, you would know this as fact. Particularly when your best friend had his brains blown out by an NVA 7.62 mm bullet and you watched it happen.
Furthermore, the Reagan and Ford murder attempts were from completely different sets of trajectories, equipment types, wind, temperature, sunlight angles, distance from weapon to target and/or fire vs misfire triggering. Any of those differences by themselves, let alone all of these, would make the three attempted murders incompatible for comparison.
Yes, except there is no credible evidence that the Secret Service ever received such an order or made such a recommendation. Furthermore, the Secret Service had received at least a dozen reports of a potential assassination attempt occurring in Dealey Plaza. The Secret Service, because of whatever reason (my favorite is that the Dallas office was on a weekend, office-paid holiday to Colombia for 2 days of whoring and snorting coke), neglected opening a single file on any of these tips, even after 12-plus tips.