Conspiracy Theories

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If somebody doesn't care what happens to them, it's really hard to stop them from shooting someone else. Presidents get shot with more (and better trained) people guarding them than a couple dozen police officers.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
And no record kept of the lengthy interview of Oswald. Possibly the most important interrogation of all time.
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We've gone on holiday by mistake
If somebody doesn't care what happens to them, it's really hard to stop them from shooting someone else. Presidents get shot with more (and better trained) people guarding them than a couple dozen police officers.
Even the fact that Oswald was taken through that very public area full of press and who knows what is very suspect.



And no record kept of the lengthy interview of Oswald. Possibly the most important interrogation of all time.
But it's so easy to think of reasons for this stuff that don't suggest a conspiracy. For example, the officers knew this was an important interrogation, and that it was going to be scrutinized to death. They have no idea what this guy will say. Maybe they don't trust themselves not to rough him up, or at least go a little beyond normal interrogation techniques, given the stakes.

Even the fact that Oswald was taken through that very public area full of press and who knows what is very suspect.
Are you familiar with the building layout? Was there another way to get him through? What are the legal implications of not allowing press in a courthouse? This is just off the top of my head.

It's easy to raise vague questions to make things sound suspicious if you don't actually care what the answers are.



Why is that convenient? Seems perfectly logical: it should be public, but only when the principals are gone.

What's going to be convenient are all the new workarounds for conspiracies people will come up with when it's released.



matt72582's Avatar
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Why is that convenient? Seems perfectly logical: it should be public, but only when the principals are gone.

What's going to be convenient are all the new workarounds for conspiracies people will come up with when it's released.
I'll let the Establishment answer my question... "If you didn't do anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"



There's a pretty huge chasm between "have nothing to hide" and "is hiding a massive conspiracy."

That's kind of what I'm talking about when I say there are non-conspiratorial reasons. People cover their asses or do odd, suspicious things all the time. The explanation doesn't have to be innocent to avoid being conspiratorial.



matt72582's Avatar
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There's a pretty huge chasm between "have nothing to hide" and "is hiding a massive conspiracy."

That's kind of what I'm talking about when I say there are non-conspiratorial reasons. People cover their asses or do odd, suspicious things all the time. The explanation doesn't have to be innocent to avoid being conspiratorial.
It's the same typical statement they use against the public.... Before (like now), any question is answered with "national security"...

I also find it odd that the public won't believe something until it's confirmed by mainstream media, when they have a business agenda mixed in with politics...

Ok, I'll go in that direction.. The House on Assassinations Committee (did you ever see the Church hearings, they are on C-Span, CIA director describing the heart-attack gun that leaves no trace).... And this is straight from the archives.

"Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy."

"The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."

"The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that the Soviet Government was not involved in the assassination of President Kennedy."

(they add "Cuban Government" and "national syndicate of organized crime, as a group")

The committee concluded there were more than 3 shots fired (they believed four, because audio couldn't confirm the fifth, which they say could have been a ricochet).... They say the 3rd bullet came from the grassy knoll..

I'd also consider those on the grassy knoll and citizens in general with their information; people who have nothing to hide, people who were there to see the President, who had no idea what was going to happen.



Since I am completely ignorant on this subject pass what I learned on a very forgettable Stone film and Seinfeld, I have to ask a question. Who does the conspiracy think killed Kennedy? I really didn't realize so many have accepted the alternative as the truth.
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Since I am completely ignorant on this subject pass what I learned on a very forgettable Stone film and Seinfeld, I have to ask a question. Who does the conspiracy think killed Kennedy? I really didn't realize so many have accepted the alternative as the truth.
Even my dad believes that stuff. Dammit, pops!



@matt72582;

Matt, that was a good post and I wish I was versed enough in the subject to discuss all of that with you, but I'm not. It's been many years since I was interested in the JFK assassination and watched a bunch of documentations on it. So just a few thoughts:

What about the bullet that was found unscathed on the stretcher?
I believe that was covered in the doc that I watched, but I can't remember what they said. I would surmise that an unscathed bullet neither proves or disapproves additional shooters. I mean if it was a bullet fired from a gun then it doesn't matter what gun, it should have some marks on it. I would guess whoever examined the bullet was wrong in their conclusion that it was unfired.

I was going to ask you who you believed was behind a conspiracy to kill JFK, as I have a hypothesis that people have their own spin on it based on their own political beliefs.

Like you, I'm mostly liberal-independent (depends on the issue) and for most of my adult life I believed right wing elements in the CIA and FBI had JFK killed. Many liberals who believe there was an assassination think like wise.

Now I've read conservatives who also believe it was a conspiracy and they often believe it was the Soviets or Cubans behind it.

And non political people will often say it was the Mafia who did it....

It's telling that each of those three groups lean towards a belief that supports their own viewpoints. Which I found telling.

I'd say: the phenomenon of the JFK assassination conspiracy is caused by the human need for people to write their own narrative.
People have a tendency not to except such a great and unexpected loss.

Think of how many people believed Bruce Lee, Jim Morrison and Elvis all faked their own deaths and are still alive. Especially Elvis, people still today believe the death was faked and involves conspiracy and cover up. I'd say that's an emotional reflex to deal with something that is so shocking. Much like looking at the stars and connecting random dots and making a pattern.

A comparison:

The Roswell UFO incident of 1947. An Army official who believed he had recovered an alien flying saucer, said so...and much like the officials who wrote the Warren Report, he misinterpreted some of the evidence including the strange ultra light weight alien metal that could be folded up in one's hand then would returned to a perfect straight state.

The Army official was convinced that it was indeed alien in origin as he hadn't seen anything like it. No one had. It was similar to chrome mylar which we now use in children's balloons but at the time was part of a top secret nuclear test surveillance balloon which the Army official didn't know about, so he drew the wrong conclusions drawing from his own imagination.


But as his name held great weight, conspiracy and UFO believers latched onto the idea that an alien craft had crashed at Roswell. And despite the government declassify in the 1990s what the actual cause was, Project Mogul...people today still believe that a alien craft crashed at Roswell. Then even go as far as to think that alien bodies were recovered.

Roswell UFO incident



It's the same typical statement they use against the public.... Before (like now), any question is answered with "national security"...
Well, yeah, but now you've shifted from arguing a conspiracy to arguing that you think the government is hypocritical, which wasn't the question.

Ok, I'll go in that direction.. The House on Assassinations Committee (did you ever see the Church hearings, they are on C-Span, CIA director describing the heart-attack gun that leaves no trace).... And this is straight from the archives.

"Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy."
Counterargument:
According to the House report, an acoustical analysis of the tape revealed that four gunshots were fired—and that, given the echo patterns and the officer’s location, one of those shots came from the grassy knoll.

The report stirred such commotion that the National Academy of Sciences conducted its own analysis of the tape—and concluded that the House report was hooey. First, it turned out that some of those four gunshot-like sounds were not gunshots. Second, the motorcycle cop in question was not where the House report claimed, so even if the sounds had been gunshots, a revised echo analysis put them someplace other than the grassy knoll. Third, some of the sounds on the tape occurred a minute after the assassination.
This is why I asked earlier about whether people had bothered to Google any counterarguments. They're usually sitting right there for anyone who puts in even a tiny effort.

Also, what a crappy conspiracy, if there's an entire committee out there contradicting the company line! This is where conspiracy theorists end up arguing against themselves: one second they have to argue that the cover-up is elaborate and carefully orchestrated. The next they have to argue that there's so much evidence and that it's so obvious to anyone looking. Which is it?

I'd also consider those on the grassy knoll and citizens in general with their information; people who have nothing to hide, people who were there to see the President, who had no idea what was going to happen.
Yes, and when we look at what they say, we get a mishmash of contradictory answers, which is exactly what you'd expect from a gun shot, with buildings around, and a lot of ensuing chaos. The reasonable response to this is not to just pick whichever witness testimony you like, ignoring the rest, but to simply recognize that it's really hard for people to determine the source of something like that, since dozens of people who were right there apparently can't agree on it.



matt72582's Avatar
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The investigation never stops.... And without counter-questions, it's pointless. People should be flexible to change their minds with new information. Maybe people have something to say that others didn't consider.

For example, "The government has promised to release as many documents as possible in October, 2017, the 25th anniversary of the JFK Records Act, in which Congress mandated that all efforts be made to release everything in Washington’s possession unless an overriding case can be made for withholding in the national interest."

Part of me thinks the best thing one can do is read EVERYTHING, but there's too much, and a lot IS baloney, and that can distort and turn off people searching for the truth. I guess I trust the public with the truth, and what happens, happens. The truth might hurt, but the lies will kill the soul of a country.

Again, I think after you get the facts, it becomes faith. We know people in the government lie on purpose, and we know people make mistakes.




I think people put too much stock into the number of shooters. Oswald could have been the sole shooter and it still could have been the result of a conspiracy. Above is an FBI document, which is the founding document for Lamar Waldron's Legacy of Secrecy, which claims that New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello was involved with JFK's assassination.

But playing Devil's Advocate, even this document really doesn't prove anything. As I state in my blog post Bunk Buddies, Marcello Cellmate Talks , the FBI started to question Marcello's mental state at the time.

I've read through 200+ pages of declassified FBI files that basically ends with the FBI not taking anything that Marcello said during this period too seriously (the portion of the FBI report I'm referring to is Marcello "owning" Governor Edwin Edwards), and everything he says is greatly exaggerated. There were areas where agents thought that some of his comments were part of an act, but by large the FBI found that Marcello was suffering from the affects of severe dementia and short term memory loss. Waldron's book fails to mention this, and should be taken into consideration when analyzing this evidence.



@matt72582Like you, I'm mostly liberal-independent (depends on the issue) and for most of my adult life I believed right wing elements in the CIA and FBI had JFK killed. Many liberals who believe there was an assassination think like wise.

Now I've read conservatives who also believe it was a conspiracy and they often believe it was the Soviets or Cubans behind it.

Yeah, I was wondering if it was something like these. I am not saying there is no chance but these vast conspiracies are a hard pill for me to swallow. Two people can hardly keep their mouth shut about work gossip. Conspiracies like this that would have to have many people who all have different agendas involved. Fat chance everyone keeps quiet. Three jokers couldn't break into a hotel and plant a mic without everyone in government finding out about it.



Yeah, the conspiracies that do get exposed make it pretty hard to swallow the idea that there are conspiracies several orders of magnitude larger kept under wraps for literally decades. Even before you get to the facts, human nature itself is pretty hard to reconcile with most of it.



A system of cells interlinked
RE: Marching the guy out through a crowd.

I was in the jury pool for a pretty high profile federal case in Boston (James "Whitey" Bulger). I didn't make the jury or anything exciting, but they had to bring the guy in and out of the federal courthouse on certain days of jury selection, as they would bring him in and sit him down in front of the potential jurors along with his team of attorneys. They brought him right through the front entrance for all to see, and there was plenty of press waiting outside at the times I entered and left the building. There were also police with dogs and semi-automatic assault weapons.

I am unsure if there is a back entrance to the courthouse, but if there is, they weren't using it that day. Whitey is certainly not a presidential assassin, but I am pretty sure there plenty of people/criminals/mobsters who wants to eighty six the guy. *shrugs*
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