[Continuation] JFK Conspiracy Theories VIII - Page 5

Axxman300 · 22nd February 2021, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Major Major

If I've "bailed" it's because you don't get the point. You have assembled the detail why from your point of view you are right. And Hornberger has assembled the detail from his point of view that he is right. You put it forth to your circle. He puts it forth to his. You consider that you have decisively made your case.

It's not Hank's case. What he argues is that the facts should speak for themselves.

Quote:

He considers he has decisively made his case.

Most conspiracy theorists do. His problem is his basic premise is historically inaccurate. His theory has no truthful foundation.

Quote:

And meanwhile, the majority of people seem to think, "gee, there must be something to that."

...and?

Quote:

It all dates back to Jackie Kennedy. She couldn't believe that a lone nut Marxist could have done it all by himself, not in that city full of right-wing anti-Kennedy hate. And that fit so well with the opinions of the Kennedy people that they took it up. (For more on this see Camelot and the Cultural Revolution by James Piereson.)

Jackie wasn't the only one to think this.

But history shows it was RFK who shut down many avenues of investigation which drifted too close to revealing the Kennedy Administration's operations against Castro. Throw in the Kennedy family's influence over New York-based news media and what happened was a careful creation of a JFK mythos. This mythos lasted through the mid-1980s, but as CIA and FBI files were declassified the JFK legacy has tarnished quite a bit.

The larger issue is that EVERYONE was trying to link Oswald to a larger conspiracy. The recent document release details this fact. Hoover demanded agents shake down their CI's at least four times throughout 1964 looking to link Oswald to Castro. The same was true at CIA.

Quote:

Meanwhile the Soviets discovered that oh govno, this was a man who had defected to them (and whom they were glad to be rid of), we had better deflect the focus. So they too publicized conspiracies. Not in coordination or cooperation or association with the Kennedy people, but they were pushing it too. (For the beginning of this read Operation SOLO by John Barron, wherein he describes how utterly consternated the Soviets were by all this.)

We've discussed this multiple times.

Quote:

So conspiracy, pushed by two different groups, each for their own purpose, was founded. Then it got picked up by those, not of either group, but with their own purposes, and since there was no point in just reiterating one person's book something new was always added. Jim Garrison was neither a KGB asset not a Kennedy supporter, just a guy with a failing reputation trying to find something to grab the headlines. And so on.

It was more than two different groups.

In April 1964 the CIA's Mexico City Station sent a cable wherein they listed about 20 conspiracy theories forwarded to them by various Central American diplomats. Each one of these conspiracies would eventually become the subject of a "Tell All" book as low-level intelligence sources who saw the memo either misinterpreted its meaning, or did care that the theories were labeled as gossip.

As the 1960s progressed, and Vietnam wore on, the JFK Assassination became parlor game. The myth that Hornberger postulates about JFK pulling the US out of Vietnam became popular even though there is no reason to believe it would have happened. Also, in the late 1960s, the FBI continued to investigate leads, but now their net had spread to the Mafia's involvement in the killing (thanks to Mark Lane). The Chicago Mafia was happy to use the accusation that they were behind killing JFK as advertising to their enemies about not screwing with them. This lead to the House investigation in the 1970s, and perpetuated the myth of a second gunman.

Quote:

And they don't have to show how you are wrong. They say that you are wrong. The next level up. No need to confront the evidence.

According to CT rules, yes. According to reason, and law - no. The reason being that every time they confront the evidence they fail. Their theories fall apart like the wet toilet papar they're written on.

Allen773 · 22nd February 2021, 02:53 PM

Mark Lane, a left-wing lawyer, spread conspiracy theories about US government/right-wing extremists/Mafia involvement to deflect attention from the troubling fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Castro-lover.

The Soviets and Cuba spread similar conspiracy theories for similar reasons.

The CIA and Bobby Kennedy withheld key information from the Warren Commission staff to protect JFK’s legacy - and their own - from being tarnished by association with the assassination plots against Castro, and so that Congress and the public wouldn’t get the impression that JFK’s death was some form of blowback from Operation Mongoose.

The Warren Commission might have downplayed the significance of Oswald’s political beliefs out of fears of inflaming Cold War tensions to the point of (nuclear) war. After all, it had been less than two years since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Everyone had an incentive for covering things up. Doesn’t mean that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the lone assassin of JFK, unconnected to any conspiracy.

HSienzant · 22nd February 2021, 05:56 PM

Originally Posted by Major Major

If I've "bailed" it's because you don't get the point. You have assembled the detail why from your point of view you are right. And Hornberger has assembled the detail from his point of view that he is right. You put it forth to your circle.

FALSE. I understood your point. I first summarized your argument, then showed you how it was wrong.

In case you forgot, I wrote this (and more):

Originally Posted by HSienzant

Major Major:

It appears you have bailed on the discussion. If that's true, I'm only putting this point out there for the lurkers:

Your argument is that there are two unwavering sides, and we're talking only within our own circles and are only talking past each other.

I know for a fact in my own case that's untrue. You see, from the publication of the earliest critical books on the assassination, I was a conspiracy believer. I read Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane, Whitewash by Harold Weisberg, Six Seconds in Dallas by Josiah Thompson and Accessories After the Fact by Sylvia Meagher in the mid-1960s and was convinced of a conspiracy. I read of lot of other stuff as well by lesser known authors.

It was only when I decided to find the conspirators and started by reading the 26 Warren Commission volumes and the 12 HSCA Volumes of supporting evidence (first doing this every Saturday at a major metropolitan public library -- then shelling out $2500 to The President's Box Bookshop to purchase the 26 Warren Commission volumes (the HSCA volumes cost considerably less from the Government printing office) -- that I began to be convinced otherwise. I can't count how many days I went to work dog-tired from reading and re-reading the testimony until one, two, or three in the morning.

By reading everything - twice - I saw how the sleight of hand by the conspiracy authors was done. I saw behind the curtain. I discovered how they took stuff out of context, how they ignored contrary evidence, and how they used supposition and innuendo in place of facts to fill in the gaps in what they believed happened....

I've put it plenty of places. He has no forum that I can find, so there is no way to put it forth directly to his circle.

Here's one other place I'm currently debating the Kennedy assassination.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.conspiracy.jfk

Feel free to invite him to join us here, or there, or anywhere the assassination is being discussed.

Originally Posted by Major Major

He puts it forth to his. You consider that you have decisively made your case. He considers he has decisively made his case.

And meanwhile, the majority of people seem to think, "gee, there must be something to that."

The truth is not up for vote. It only happened one way. What the majority thinks really doesn't matter. The majority of people on the planet weren't even born when JFK was shot. I would venture we're over 50% of the population wasn't even born when the movie JFK was released (30 years ago) - if not, we're damn close. This is ancient history to most.

Moreover, if more than 1/100th of one percent of the U.S. population has read the Warren Report, I'd be very surprised. I would wager far fewer than that have actually read the 26 Warren Commission volumes of testimony and evidence. So why does their uninformed opinion matter?

I'm reminded of this comment in a different context about a different subject, but it is applicable here:

"Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true, but many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly."

--- Thomas Sowell

Originally Posted by Major Major

It all dates back to Jackie Kennedy. She couldn't believe that a lone nut Marxist could have done it all by himself, not in that city full of right-wing anti-Kennedy hate. And that fit so well with the opinions of the Kennedy people that they took it up. (For more on this see Camelot and the Cultural Revolution by James Piereson.)

Jackie commissioned a book about the JFK presidency after the assassination. It was serialized in LOOK magazine (a competitor to LIFE). I don't recall it pushing a conspiracy theory. Both Robert and Ted Kennedy said they agreed with the conclusions of the Warren Report. I don't recall either of them pushing a conspiracy theory either. Blaming the "anybody but Oswald" fervor on the Kennedys when there are more obvious culprits (see below) seems to be stretching it too thin for my taste buds.

Originally Posted by Major Major

Meanwhile the Soviets discovered that oh govno, this was a man who had defected to them (and whom they were glad to be rid of), we had better deflect the focus. So they too publicized conspiracies. Not in coordination or cooperation or association with the Kennedy people, but they were pushing it too. (For the beginning of this read Operation SOLO by John Barron, wherein he describes how utterly consternated the Soviets were by all this.)

The Soviets were pushing a right-wing conspiracy theory on the day after the assassination. But that didn't make much of an impact on the U.S. population whatsoever, which was familiar with Soviet propaganda.

Originally Posted by Major Major

So conspiracy, pushed by two different groups, each for their own purpose, was founded. Then it got picked up by those, not of either group, but with their own purposes, and since there was no point in just reiterating one person's book something new was always added.

Most of the early critics were on the extreme left. Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg, Sylvia Meagher, Richard Popkin, Thomas Buchanan, Joachim Joesten, etc. Those are the people I read back in the day. Those are the people that moved the needle with the U.S. population's belief on whether there was a conspiracy or not.

Indeed, I just checked Piereson's book online. And he blames many of the same authors for the spread of conspiracism after the assassination on page 124 of his book. (I used the "surprise me!" function at Amazon.com. Serendipity strikes again.

Originally Posted by Major Major

Jim Garrison was neither a KGB asset not a Kennedy supporter, just a guy with a failing reputation trying to find something to grab the headlines. And so on.

I think that's an extreme over-simplification, but I'm not going to bother arguing it.

Originally Posted by Major Major

And they don't have to show how you are wrong. They say that you are wrong. The next level up. No need to confront the evidence.

Assertions are not evidence. They duck confronting the evidence because the evidence is against them.

Hank

Pacal · 23rd February 2021, 08:19 PM

Originally Posted by Major Major

And they don't have to show how you are wrong. They say that you are wrong. The next level up. No need to confront the evidence.

If they have "No need to confront the evidence.", then all they are engaging in is fantasy and their assertions can be dismissed out of hand.

They can scream to high heaven that they don't have show how you are wrong, it only makes them look like true believing fools. They can say you are wrong until kingdom come and their opinion is worthless unless they can demonstrate that.

It is obvious they are engaged in fantasy story telling and their story is constructed by them in such a manner has to be unfalsifiable. (All the evidence is fake, the documents are fake, witnesses are lying etc.) With this fantasy construct any fantasy can be advanced. For example I am a brain in a vat and everything I experience is the result of a conspiracy of AI to deceive me into thinking this is all real.

It is all worthy only of contempt.

People are perfectly free to believe in stupid idiocy, (Like JFK conspiracy crap.), without evidence that withstands even the most minimal scrutiny it is not worth taking seriously. And if they are starting with the stance that dismisses the evidence out of hand, with absolutely no proof it is fake, fraudulent etc., then it is worthy only of utter contempt.

As for JFK planning to withdraw from Vietnam, that is and has been for quite sometime an easy to disprove myth. Of course JFK was planning to withdraw from Vietnam - once America had won the war!!! (Just like Lyndon) But withdrawal without victory? The evidence is close to zero.

In fact recently disclosed documents reveal that JFK was much more deeply involved in the overthrow and assassination of Diem than previously thought and this was only weeks before JFK's own assassination. This of course provides no support to the JFK withdrawal without victory nonsense. Why? Because the main reason Diem was overthrown, murdered was because Diem was thought to ruining the chances for victory in Vietnam.

The "other side" has to confront the evidence, if they fail to do so it only shows they are true believers who belong in the same place has Qanon nut bars, Creationists, believers in the great Jewish conspiracy and vast numbers of other true believers.

The next level up for these people is into non-falsifiable clap trap and all sorts of stupidity can be put there also.

Axxman300 · 23rd February 2021, 09:19 PM

The best part is that both Hank and I used to believe the JFK conspiracy theories.

I read every CT book written up through 1995. I thought the Warren Commission and those who supported it ignored evidence.

And then I went to Dallas.

Every theory went down the toilet when I looked out of the 6th floor window next to the "sniper's nest" onto Elm Street, and realized that it was a ridiculously easy shot:

https://www.earthcam.com/usa/texas/d...am=dealeyplaza

Down on the sidewalk it was clear that no shot came from the Grassy Knoll, and a gunman would have been visible in almost all of the pictures of the incident. Every book I'd ever read made it impossible for Oswald to have hit JFK, and it is clear that CT authors either lied, or parroted other CT authors. If the CTists could screw up such an easy and obvious fact I wondered what else they got wrong. As it turned out, other than JFK and Tippit being murdered on 11/22/63 there are few facts to be found in any JFK-CT book.

This is why I'm here, to do my penance for twenty four years of spreading lies about the murder of JFK. I know all the tricks.

JayUtah · 24th February 2021, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by Axxman300

Every theory went down the toilet when I looked out of the 6th floor window next to the "sniper's nest" onto Elm Street, and realized that it was a ridiculously easy shot:

That's what did it for me too. I didn't subscribe to the conspiracy theories before then, but I was prepared to give them a fair shake. Now I've stood where Oswald was. I've stood where Abraham Zapruder was. I've stood where the alleged Grassy Knoll shooter stood. I've driven the motorcade route myself with a Dallas local. At the time I was a reasonably competent rifle shot. I know which shot was easier. When you realize that most of the conspiracy authors must have been in that same spot and gathered the same observations, you realize it's more likely they know what they're doing when they peddle their handwaving nonsense.

Big Les · 25th February 2021, 01:41 PM

There's been a rehash of the 2007 claims by Ion Mihai Pacepa (ex-Romanian secret police) that Oswald was a Soviet asset after all, and that he went ahead after they stood him down. This has attracted some press attention because his new book is co-authored by R. James Woolsey, a former CIA Director, to whom this claim is now being attributed. It's not clear to what extent Woolsey is able to corroborate Pacepa's theory, or if it really is just a rehash of the latter's speculation. Anyway, here's the NY Post story on it;

https://nypost.com/2021/02/22/soviet...-ex-cia-chief/

Axxman300 · 25th February 2021, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by Big Les

There's been a rehash of the 2007 claims by Ion Mihai Pacepa (ex-Romanian secret police) that Oswald was a Soviet asset after all, and that he went ahead after they stood him down. This has attracted some press attention because his new book is co-authored by R. James Woolsey, a former CIA Director, to whom this claim is now being attributed. It's not clear to what extent Woolsey is able to corroborate Pacepa's theory, or if it really is just a rehash of the latter's speculation. Anyway, here's the NY Post story on it;

https://nypost.com/2021/02/22/soviet...-ex-cia-chief/

So many problems with their theory.

Oswald went to Mexico City to get a Cuban visa, and flipped out when they told him no. Then he storms off to the Soviet Embassy where he pulls out his .38 demanding the Soviets intervene on his behalf.

I see zero tradecraft here.

Then there are his actions in New Orleans. Why put himself on the radar as a pro-Castro activist? An assassin is discrete.

Next problem is that no other KGB assassins ever used a high powered rifle. Competent assassins kill at close range. Look at the FSB's successful kills over the past 20 years, all hands on. Mossad kills at point-blank range.

Consider Oswald's finances. The KGB would have made sure he could pay his bills. If he was a Soviet agent who went "rogue" they would have killed him before 11/22/63.

Someone just wants to sell a book.

The Common Potato · 26th February 2021, 03:40 AM

Originally Posted by Axxman300

A sandwich that he spent the entire morning eating, and it made him sick so he left work early because nobody wants to use the work men's room when you have diarrhea. This forced him to take the taxi after the bus was caught in traffic. The toilet at the rooming house must have been clogged thus explaining why he left the house to go downtown to search for a restroom. Obviously he couldn't hold it and snuck into the movie theater to use the men's room. He stayed because he knew he'd have to use it again soon.

I hereby copyright "The Sandwich Theory" and my e-book will be available soon on Amazon.

The Manchurian Candidate was released 1962 so that leaves plenty of time for stuff. It's not impossible that it was being shown in Dallas a year later. You ought to be aware of stuff and incorporate it. #FACTS #Eleventy

Big Les · 26th February 2021, 01:18 PM

Agreed. At most you could argue that he was radicalised and encouraged to carry out the attack, but it seems incredibly reckless of the USSR to entrust such a rube with that mission, given the high chance of failure and of the CIA figuring out the connection and the US retaliating. Frankly, any significant historical claim that first appears in a mass market book is automatically suspect.

Axxman300 · 26th February 2021, 01:30 PM

Originally Posted by Big Les

Agreed. At most you could argue that he was radicalised and encouraged to carry out the attack, but it seems incredibly reckless of the USSR to entrust such a rube with that mission, given the high chance of failure and of the CIA figuring out the connection and the US retaliating. Frankly, any significant historical claim that first appears in a mass market book is automatically suspect.

Look at it from the Cold War perspective.

Oswald had defected to the USSR and then returned. The KGB would know the FBI would keep an eye on him for a while, and certainly have a file. If Oswald was caught the first place the US would look was Moscow, which the declassified documents show they did. This was just over a year since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Soviets would have been risking all-out war. They saw the US military's movements during the Crisis, and they knew that LBJ and RFk were anti-Soviet hawks.

Personally I can't believe Hoover didn't string together a link to Moscow anyway.

Axxman300 · 26th February 2021, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by The Common Potato

The Manchurian Candidate was released 1962 so that leaves plenty of time for stuff. It's not impossible that it was being shown in Dallas a year later. You ought to be aware of stuff and incorporate it. #FACTS #Eleventy

Yes, obviously the KGB brainwashed Oswald while in Mexico City by locking him in a room with a Soviet Mariachi band, and forcing him to listen to a loop of JFK's voice saying "Cuber" over and over.

Allen773 · 20th March 2021, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by Axxman300

Yes, obviously the KGB brainwashed Oswald while in Mexico City by locking him in a room with a Soviet Mariachi band, and forcing him to listen to a loop of JFK's voice saying "Cuber" over and over.

While the CIA did the same thing but with Oswald's body double and an American mariachi band, also in Mexico City, at the same time.

To this day, no one knows whether the KGB-brainwashed Oswald or the CIA-brainwashed Oswald body double killed JFK. Or whether the whole "assassination" was a ruse to distract the fact that JFK had died a year earlier in a bizarre gardening accident.

In any event, the authorities said, "Best leave it unsolved."

22nd February 2021, 12:40 PM	#161
Axxman300 Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Central California Coast Posts: 4,962	Originally Posted by Major Major If I've "bailed" it's because you don't get the point. You have assembled the detail why from your point of view you are right. And Hornberger has assembled the detail from his point of view that he is right. You put it forth to your circle. He puts it forth to his. You consider that you have decisively made your case. It's not Hank's case. What he argues is that the facts should speak for themselves. Quote: He considers he has decisively made his case. Most conspiracy theorists do. His problem is his basic premise is historically inaccurate. His theory has no truthful foundation. Quote: And meanwhile, the majority of people seem to think, "gee, there must be something to that." ...and? Quote: It all dates back to Jackie Kennedy. She couldn't believe that a lone nut Marxist could have done it all by himself, not in that city full of right-wing anti-Kennedy hate. And that fit so well with the opinions of the Kennedy people that they took it up. (For more on this see Camelot and the Cultural Revolution by James Piereson.) Jackie wasn't the only one to think this. But history shows it was RFK who shut down many avenues of investigation which drifted too close to revealing the Kennedy Administration's operations against Castro. Throw in the Kennedy family's influence over New York-based news media and what happened was a careful creation of a JFK mythos. This mythos lasted through the mid-1980s, but as CIA and FBI files were declassified the JFK legacy has tarnished quite a bit. The larger issue is that EVERYONE was trying to link Oswald to a larger conspiracy. The recent document release details this fact. Hoover demanded agents shake down their CI's at least four times throughout 1964 looking to link Oswald to Castro. The same was true at CIA. Quote: Meanwhile the Soviets discovered that oh govno, this was a man who had defected to them (and whom they were glad to be rid of), we had better deflect the focus. So they too publicized conspiracies. Not in coordination or cooperation or association with the Kennedy people, but they were pushing it too. (For the beginning of this read Operation SOLO by John Barron, wherein he describes how utterly consternated the Soviets were by all this.) We've discussed this multiple times. Quote: So conspiracy, pushed by two different groups, each for their own purpose, was founded. Then it got picked up by those, not of either group, but with their own purposes, and since there was no point in just reiterating one person's book something new was always added. Jim Garrison was neither a KGB asset not a Kennedy supporter, just a guy with a failing reputation trying to find something to grab the headlines. And so on. It was more than two different groups. In April 1964 the CIA's Mexico City Station sent a cable wherein they listed about 20 conspiracy theories forwarded to them by various Central American diplomats. Each one of these conspiracies would eventually become the subject of a "Tell All" book as low-level intelligence sources who saw the memo either misinterpreted its meaning, or did care that the theories were labeled as gossip. As the 1960s progressed, and Vietnam wore on, the JFK Assassination became parlor game. The myth that Hornberger postulates about JFK pulling the US out of Vietnam became popular even though there is no reason to believe it would have happened. Also, in the late 1960s, the FBI continued to investigate leads, but now their net had spread to the Mafia's involvement in the killing (thanks to Mark Lane). The Chicago Mafia was happy to use the accusation that they were behind killing JFK as advertising to their enemies about not screwing with them. This lead to the House investigation in the 1970s, and perpetuated the myth of a second gunman. Quote: And they don't have to show how you are wrong. They say that you are wrong. The next level up. No need to confront the evidence. According to CT rules, yes. According to reason, and law - no. The reason being that every time they confront the evidence they fail. Their theories fall apart like the wet toilet papar they're written on.
	__________________ Disingenuous Piranha

22nd February 2021, 02:53 PM	#162
Allen773 Graduate Poster Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Cali Four Neea Posts: 1,370	Mark Lane, a left-wing lawyer, spread conspiracy theories about US government/right-wing extremists/Mafia involvement to deflect attention from the troubling fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Castro-lover. The Soviets and Cuba spread similar conspiracy theories for similar reasons. The CIA and Bobby Kennedy withheld key information from the Warren Commission staff to protect JFK’s legacy - and their own - from being tarnished by association with the assassination plots against Castro, and so that Congress and the public wouldn’t get the impression that JFK’s death was some form of blowback from Operation Mongoose. The Warren Commission might have downplayed the significance of Oswald’s political beliefs out of fears of inflaming Cold War tensions to the point of (nuclear) war. After all, it had been less than two years since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Everyone had an incentive for covering things up. Doesn’t mean that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the lone assassin of JFK, unconnected to any conspiracy.
	Last edited by Allen773; 22nd February 2021 at 02:59 PM.

22nd February 2021, 05:56 PM	#163
HSienzant Philosopher Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Never Mind Posts: 5,025	Originally Posted by Major Major If I've "bailed" it's because you don't get the point. You have assembled the detail why from your point of view you are right. And Hornberger has assembled the detail from his point of view that he is right. You put it forth to your circle. FALSE. I understood your point. I first summarized your argument, then showed you how it was wrong. In case you forgot, I wrote this (and more): Originally Posted by HSienzant Major Major: It appears you have bailed on the discussion. If that's true, I'm only putting this point out there for the lurkers: Your argument is that there are two unwavering sides, and we're talking only within our own circles and are only talking past each other. I know for a fact in my own case that's untrue. You see, from the publication of the earliest critical books on the assassination, I was a conspiracy believer. I read Rush to Judgment by Mark Lane, Whitewash by Harold Weisberg, Six Seconds in Dallas by Josiah Thompson and Accessories After the Fact by Sylvia Meagher in the mid-1960s and was convinced of a conspiracy. I read of lot of other stuff as well by lesser known authors. It was only when I decided to find the conspirators and started by reading the 26 Warren Commission volumes and the 12 HSCA Volumes of supporting evidence (first doing this every Saturday at a major metropolitan public library -- then shelling out $2500 to The President's Box Bookshop to purchase the 26 Warren Commission volumes (the HSCA volumes cost considerably less from the Government printing office) -- that I began to be convinced otherwise. I can't count how many days I went to work dog-tired from reading and re-reading the testimony until one, two, or three in the morning. By reading everything - twice - I saw how the sleight of hand by the conspiracy authors was done. I saw behind the curtain. I discovered how they took stuff out of context, how they ignored contrary evidence, and how they used supposition and innuendo in place of facts to fill in the gaps in what they believed happened.... I've put it plenty of places. He has no forum that I can find, so there is no way to put it forth directly to his circle. Here's one other place I'm currently debating the Kennedy assassination. https://groups.google.com/g/alt.conspiracy.jfk Feel free to invite him to join us here, or there, or anywhere the assassination is being discussed. Originally Posted by Major Major He puts it forth to his. You consider that you have decisively made your case. He considers he has decisively made his case. And meanwhile, the majority of people seem to think, "gee, there must be something to that." The truth is not up for vote. It only happened one way. What the majority thinks really doesn't matter. The majority of people on the planet weren't even born when JFK was shot. I would venture we're over 50% of the population wasn't even born when the movie JFK was released (30 years ago) - if not, we're damn close. This is ancient history to most. Moreover, if more than 1/100th of one percent of the U.S. population has read the Warren Report, I'd be very surprised. I would wager far fewer than that have actually read the 26 Warren Commission volumes of testimony and evidence. So why does their uninformed opinion matter? I'm reminded of this comment in a different context about a different subject, but it is applicable here: "Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true, but many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly." --- Thomas Sowell Originally Posted by Major Major It all dates back to Jackie Kennedy. She couldn't believe that a lone nut Marxist could have done it all by himself, not in that city full of right-wing anti-Kennedy hate. And that fit so well with the opinions of the Kennedy people that they took it up. (For more on this see Camelot and the Cultural Revolution by James Piereson.) Jackie commissioned a book about the JFK presidency after the assassination. It was serialized in LOOK magazine (a competitor to LIFE). I don't recall it pushing a conspiracy theory. Both Robert and Ted Kennedy said they agreed with the conclusions of the Warren Report. I don't recall either of them pushing a conspiracy theory either. Blaming the "anybody but Oswald" fervor on the Kennedys when there are more obvious culprits (see below) seems to be stretching it too thin for my taste buds. Originally Posted by Major Major Meanwhile the Soviets discovered that oh govno, this was a man who had defected to them (and whom they were glad to be rid of), we had better deflect the focus. So they too publicized conspiracies. Not in coordination or cooperation or association with the Kennedy people, but they were pushing it too. (For the beginning of this read Operation SOLO by John Barron, wherein he describes how utterly consternated the Soviets were by all this.) The Soviets were pushing a right-wing conspiracy theory on the day after the assassination. But that didn't make much of an impact on the U.S. population whatsoever, which was familiar with Soviet propaganda. Originally Posted by Major Major So conspiracy, pushed by two different groups, each for their own purpose, was founded. Then it got picked up by those, not of either group, but with their own purposes, and since there was no point in just reiterating one person's book something new was always added. Most of the early critics were on the extreme left. Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg, Sylvia Meagher, Richard Popkin, Thomas Buchanan, Joachim Joesten, etc. Those are the people I read back in the day. Those are the people that moved the needle with the U.S. population's belief on whether there was a conspiracy or not. Indeed, I just checked Piereson's book online. And he blames many of the same authors for the spread of conspiracism after the assassination on page 124 of his book. (I used the "surprise me!" function at Amazon.com. Serendipity strikes again. Originally Posted by Major Major Jim Garrison was neither a KGB asset not a Kennedy supporter, just a guy with a failing reputation trying to find something to grab the headlines. And so on. I think that's an extreme over-simplification, but I'm not going to bother arguing it. Originally Posted by Major Major And they don't have to show how you are wrong. They say that you are wrong. The next level up. No need to confront the evidence. Assertions are not evidence. They duck confronting the evidence because the evidence is against them. Hank
	__________________ I have never ”refused” to provide evidence. I provide evidence if requested to do so in a specific and relevant manner. Hanks ”method” [of requesting evidence] is not going to [get me to] provide any evidence since it has a completely different purpose. To create the the illusion of me not providing evidence when requested to do so. - Manifesto Last edited by HSienzant; 22nd February 2021 at 06:40 PM.

23rd February 2021, 09:19 PM	#165
Axxman300 Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Central California Coast Posts: 4,962	The best part is that both Hank and I used to believe the JFK conspiracy theories. I read every CT book written up through 1995. I thought the Warren Commission and those who supported it ignored evidence. And then I went to Dallas. Every theory went down the toilet when I looked out of the 6th floor window next to the "sniper's nest" onto Elm Street, and realized that it was a ridiculously easy shot: https://www.earthcam.com/usa/texas/d...am=dealeyplaza Down on the sidewalk it was clear that no shot came from the Grassy Knoll, and a gunman would have been visible in almost all of the pictures of the incident. Every book I'd ever read made it impossible for Oswald to have hit JFK, and it is clear that CT authors either lied, or parroted other CT authors. If the CTists could screw up such an easy and obvious fact I wondered what else they got wrong. As it turned out, other than JFK and Tippit being murdered on 11/22/63 there are few facts to be found in any JFK-CT book. This is why I'm here, to do my penance for twenty four years of spreading lies about the murder of JFK. I know all the tricks.
	__________________ Disingenuous Piranha

25th February 2021, 03:20 PM	#168
Axxman300 Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Central California Coast Posts: 4,962	Originally Posted by Big Les There's been a rehash of the 2007 claims by Ion Mihai Pacepa (ex-Romanian secret police) that Oswald was a Soviet asset after all, and that he went ahead after they stood him down. This has attracted some press attention because his new book is co-authored by R. James Woolsey, a former CIA Director, to whom this claim is now being attributed. It's not clear to what extent Woolsey is able to corroborate Pacepa's theory, or if it really is just a rehash of the latter's speculation. Anyway, here's the NY Post story on it; https://nypost.com/2021/02/22/soviet...-ex-cia-chief/ So many problems with their theory. Oswald went to Mexico City to get a Cuban visa, and flipped out when they told him no. Then he storms off to the Soviet Embassy where he pulls out his .38 demanding the Soviets intervene on his behalf. I see zero tradecraft here. Then there are his actions in New Orleans. Why put himself on the radar as a pro-Castro activist? An assassin is discrete. Next problem is that no other KGB assassins ever used a high powered rifle. Competent assassins kill at close range. Look at the FSB's successful kills over the past 20 years, all hands on. Mossad kills at point-blank range. Consider Oswald's finances. The KGB would have made sure he could pay his bills. If he was a Soviet agent who went "rogue" they would have killed him before 11/22/63. Someone just wants to sell a book.
	__________________ Disingenuous Piranha

23rd February 2021, 08:19 PM	#164
Pacal Graduate Poster Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Toronto Posts: 1,184	Originally Posted by Major Major And they don't have to show how you are wrong. They say that you are wrong. The next level up. No need to confront the evidence. If they have "No need to confront the evidence.", then all they are engaging in is fantasy and their assertions can be dismissed out of hand. They can scream to high heaven that they don't have show how you are wrong, it only makes them look like true believing fools. They can say you are wrong until kingdom come and their opinion is worthless unless they can demonstrate that. It is obvious they are engaged in fantasy story telling and their story is constructed by them in such a manner has to be unfalsifiable. (All the evidence is fake, the documents are fake, witnesses are lying etc.) With this fantasy construct any fantasy can be advanced. For example I am a brain in a vat and everything I experience is the result of a conspiracy of AI to deceive me into thinking this is all real. It is all worthy only of contempt. People are perfectly free to believe in stupid idiocy, (Like JFK conspiracy crap.), without evidence that withstands even the most minimal scrutiny it is not worth taking seriously. And if they are starting with the stance that dismisses the evidence out of hand, with absolutely no proof it is fake, fraudulent etc., then it is worthy only of utter contempt. As for JFK planning to withdraw from Vietnam, that is and has been for quite sometime an easy to disprove myth. Of course JFK was planning to withdraw from Vietnam - once America had won the war!!! (Just like Lyndon) But withdrawal without victory? The evidence is close to zero. In fact recently disclosed documents reveal that JFK was much more deeply involved in the overthrow and assassination of Diem than previously thought and this was only weeks before JFK's own assassination. This of course provides no support to the JFK withdrawal without victory nonsense. Why? Because the main reason Diem was overthrown, murdered was because Diem was thought to ruining the chances for victory in Vietnam. The "other side" has to confront the evidence, if they fail to do so it only shows they are true believers who belong in the same place has Qanon nut bars, Creationists, believers in the great Jewish conspiracy and vast numbers of other true believers. The next level up for these people is into non-falsifiable clap trap and all sorts of stupidity can be put there also.

24th February 2021, 08:11 AM	#166
JayUtah Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Sep 2011 Posts: 19,240	Originally Posted by Axxman300 Every theory went down the toilet when I looked out of the 6th floor window next to the "sniper's nest" onto Elm Street, and realized that it was a ridiculously easy shot: That's what did it for me too. I didn't subscribe to the conspiracy theories before then, but I was prepared to give them a fair shake. Now I've stood where Oswald was. I've stood where Abraham Zapruder was. I've stood where the alleged Grassy Knoll shooter stood. I've driven the motorcade route myself with a Dallas local. At the time I was a reasonably competent rifle shot. I know which shot was easier. When you realize that most of the conspiracy authors must have been in that same spot and gathered the same observations, you realize it's more likely they know what they're doing when they peddle their handwaving nonsense.

25th February 2021, 01:41 PM	#167
Big Les Philosopher Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: UK Posts: 5,044	There's been a rehash of the 2007 claims by Ion Mihai Pacepa (ex-Romanian secret police) that Oswald was a Soviet asset after all, and that he went ahead after they stood him down. This has attracted some press attention because his new book is co-authored by R. James Woolsey, a former CIA Director, to whom this claim is now being attributed. It's not clear to what extent Woolsey is able to corroborate Pacepa's theory, or if it really is just a rehash of the latter's speculation. Anyway, here's the NY Post story on it; https://nypost.com/2021/02/22/soviet...-ex-cia-chief/

26th February 2021, 03:40 AM	#169
The Common Potato Critical Thinker Join Date: Apr 2019 Location: The Scunthorpe Problem Posts: 410	Originally Posted by Axxman300 A sandwich that he spent the entire morning eating, and it made him sick so he left work early because nobody wants to use the work men's room when you have diarrhea. This forced him to take the taxi after the bus was caught in traffic. The toilet at the rooming house must have been clogged thus explaining why he left the house to go downtown to search for a restroom. Obviously he couldn't hold it and snuck into the movie theater to use the men's room. He stayed because he knew he'd have to use it again soon. I hereby copyright "The Sandwich Theory" and my e-book will be available soon on Amazon. The Manchurian Candidate was released 1962 so that leaves plenty of time for stuff. It's not impossible that it was being shown in Dallas a year later. You ought to be aware of stuff and incorporate it. #FACTS #Eleventy
	Last edited by The Common Potato; 26th February 2021 at 03:42 AM.

26th February 2021, 01:18 PM	#170
Big Les Philosopher Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: UK Posts: 5,044	Agreed. At most you could argue that he was radicalised and encouraged to carry out the attack, but it seems incredibly reckless of the USSR to entrust such a rube with that mission, given the high chance of failure and of the CIA figuring out the connection and the US retaliating. Frankly, any significant historical claim that first appears in a mass market book is automatically suspect.

26th February 2021, 01:30 PM	#171
Axxman300 Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Central California Coast Posts: 4,962	Originally Posted by Big Les Agreed. At most you could argue that he was radicalised and encouraged to carry out the attack, but it seems incredibly reckless of the USSR to entrust such a rube with that mission, given the high chance of failure and of the CIA figuring out the connection and the US retaliating. Frankly, any significant historical claim that first appears in a mass market book is automatically suspect. Look at it from the Cold War perspective. Oswald had defected to the USSR and then returned. The KGB would know the FBI would keep an eye on him for a while, and certainly have a file. If Oswald was caught the first place the US would look was Moscow, which the declassified documents show they did. This was just over a year since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Soviets would have been risking all-out war. They saw the US military's movements during the Crisis, and they knew that LBJ and RFk were anti-Soviet hawks. Personally I can't believe Hoover didn't string together a link to Moscow anyway.
	__________________ Disingenuous Piranha

26th February 2021, 01:36 PM	#172
Axxman300 Illuminator Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Central California Coast Posts: 4,962	Originally Posted by The Common Potato The Manchurian Candidate was released 1962 so that leaves plenty of time for stuff. It's not impossible that it was being shown in Dallas a year later. You ought to be aware of stuff and incorporate it. #FACTS #Eleventy Yes, obviously the KGB brainwashed Oswald while in Mexico City by locking him in a room with a Soviet Mariachi band, and forcing him to listen to a loop of JFK's voice saying "Cuber" over and over.
	__________________ Disingenuous Piranha

20th March 2021, 02:07 PM	#173
Allen773 Graduate Poster Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Cali Four Neea Posts: 1,370	Originally Posted by Axxman300 Yes, obviously the KGB brainwashed Oswald while in Mexico City by locking him in a room with a Soviet Mariachi band, and forcing him to listen to a loop of JFK's voice saying "Cuber" over and over. While the CIA did the same thing but with Oswald's body double and an American mariachi band, also in Mexico City, at the same time. To this day, no one knows whether the KGB-brainwashed Oswald or the CIA-brainwashed Oswald body double killed JFK. Or whether the whole "assassination" was a ruse to distract the fact that JFK had died a year earlier in a bizarre gardening accident. In any event, the authorities said, "Best leave it unsolved."