General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLet's have a poll on JFK
Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 02:12 AM - Edit history (2)
Keeping it simple:
(1) Warren Commission: Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, murdered the president.
(2) President Kennedy was assassinated in a coup d'etat by elements within the U.S. military and intelligence complex.
(3) Other. (Feel free to elaborate.)
| 91 votes, 3 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
| (1) Oswald. | |
22 (24%) |
|
| (2) CIA etc. | |
52 (57%) |
|
| (3) Other. | |
17 (19%) |
|
| 3 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
| Show usernames
Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll |
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hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)billhicks76
(5,082 posts)Watergate burgler and die hard republican faithful operative confessed in 2005? and was recorded. He laid out the chain of command a jealous LBJ teaming up with J Edgar Hoover and the CIA while also using some organized crime members who were on the CIA payroll. Check ur out on YouTube. He also admits to being involved in the killing.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)is just something to joke about.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)The intellect behind the keyboard is evident!
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts) 
zappaman
(20,606 posts)This poster has been providing plenty of entertainment in the CS forum.
Glad to see he has expanded his act to GD!!!
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)You're not entertaining at all.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)See #160
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Didn't say I was.
Maybe you should actually read posts before responding???
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)billhicks76
(5,082 posts)Read Mary Pinchot Meyers story as JFKs mistress and wife of CIA Director Of Operations.
gopiscrap
(23,726 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)
former9thward
(31,949 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Organized crime syndicates (here I refer to those like the mafia that do ostensibly illegal activities such as racketeering, although of course the banks and major corporations can also be described as organized crime) don't publish political manifestos as such, but they are actors in organized politics. It's central to their identity, they rely on their ability to corrupt and control governments and law enforcement. In their impact and in the explicit statements of their front organizations and representatives, they tend to be pro-capitalist, culturally conservative, patriotic, committed to organized religion, and of course patriarchal.
former9thward
(31,949 posts)But they support the institutions which support them. The mafia in Chicago always worked with whatever machine was in power there. Chicago has never had right wing governments. Neither has New York City. A city like Dallas (I really don't know its history) may have had right wing governments and the Mafia existed there. So yes they may vote right wing in the ballot box but that is a petty number. They work with the local institutions no matter what the politics.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Okay, but are you sure a Daley government can't be right wing? Why, because it's nominally a Democratic government? Because it's hosting the 1968 D convention? A lot of cracked heads would say otherwise. 
former9thward
(31,949 posts)I am from Chicago although I didn't get a cracked head in 1968. None of the locals did. We told the people from New York (Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden and David Dellinger) exactly what was going to happen but they would not listen to us. They knew better and would negotiate permits from the city.
Well I am getting off topic. Richie Daley who took over as mayor when dad passed (after a brief period of non-Daley usurpers) bought off all the 68 radical crowd giving them jobs in his administration. He got endorsed by all 'right' lakefront liberals. So he was not right wing in any respect as long as you bowed to him. He happily allowed the Mafia to man the city laborers union and transportation workers that work for the city. He was friends with near northwest side mobbed up aldermen. And they with him. As long as they are making money they don't care if Stalin is running the show.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)You say:
All of which is very classically right-wing in practice. Under whatever label.
And of course they don't care if Stalin is running the show: He was a very reliable right-wing ultra-authoritarian, a cultural conservative who rounded up left-wingers.
former9thward
(31,949 posts)I was talking about Richard M. Daley -- the son. Not Richard J. Daley the father. The father cracked the heads of the lefties in 68 and was a cultural conservative. Richard M. , the son, put the lefties on his payroll and got the lakefront liberals who fought his father to endorse him. Both the son and the father had Mafia on the city payroll.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)The mob found speakeasies, some of which were integrated, and many of which featured african-american performers, very profitable. The mob (in some areas) plays a significant role in alternative-lifestyle clubs, the adult film industry, organized labor (to a greater degree in the past than the present) and certainly the narcotics trade. The people running it all may seem culturally conservative, but they don't seem to let it interfere with making money. As far as politics go, the candidate that gives them the best chance to make money is the one they'll back, usually regardless of any personal beliefs.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Oh, woe, that you're forced to respond!
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)You're so very, very welcome.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)
Sid
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)He tripped in front of a bullet?
JVS
(61,935 posts)
dionysus
(26,467 posts)
zappaman
(20,606 posts)
dionysus
(26,467 posts)and for all...
zappaman
(20,606 posts)
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I wanted a poll of these two options head to head, but I allow that there are other scenarios.
My view is that other than these two options, all are extremely unlikely because if it's not official story and it's not a coup d'etat, what actors would have the power within the government to carry out the cover up? But people who see the absurdity of the Oswald-alone story nevertheless reach for reassuring narratives in which it wasn't a coup d'etat. And there's an industry of making this stuff up. So you have mafia alone, Cuba did it (and magically the U.S. government covered it up for them), etc. etc.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)but I do not believe that Oswald acted alone.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)will be solved one day.
Uncle Joe
(58,300 posts)
ProfessorGAC
(64,877 posts)I think two shooters, same window. One a pro. The mob possibility is one i just can't release. As a sicilian, i can't trust that crowd.
petronius
(26,598 posts)RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 03:49 AM - Edit history (1)
Over 70% of DUers who voted on this poll question the official story?
(.... at 2:47am 66%)
Don't they know stories that question the authorities are not welcome on DU?
Will 70% of DUers get banned from posting in GD by the overheads of the undergrounds? Stay tuned. There are some DUers who would be pleased as punchy pubbies to see that what over 70% of us think becomes outlawed or sent to a dungeon. You know who they are - right?
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)There's a forum that allows for discussion of conspiracy topics - Creative Speculation. These topics will always be welcome there.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)Is the Creative Speculation Group indexed by Google? I suspect not, which would limit the willingness of serious researchers to post there.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)So "serious researchers" are only interested in upping CT visibility in Google rankings? That does not sound serious to me. It sounds like free advertising.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)You like to have your work accessible to the outside world so you don't have to get too discouraged when it gets buried by ZOMG LOL straw man spammers.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)Serious researchers welcome critique.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)I don't welcome my work being buried under inches of LOL spam or obfuscation spam.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)And if you'll do a search, you'll see that CS is indexed by Google. It's the only way DU's Google-powered Entire Site Search can function.
Serious researcher.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)
zappaman
(20,606 posts)
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)run in a POS manner.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)For instance, the number of people banned from posting in the group. That would be... Oh, that would be zero.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)Got tired of all the authoritarian bitch slapping in the old forum, and could tell CS was going to be worse.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)So you speak of something about which you actually know nothing.
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)or not.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It does serve an important function: showing that those who do not believe the Warren Commission are a majority, and thus by definition not a fringe or isolated crazies or whatever other name-calling is applied to them. In the rest of the world, of course, they are the vast majority. People have less trouble accepting when a coup d'etat happens in a country other than their own. It's ultimately the Americanist myths that keep highly unlikely constructs like the magic bullet and "Oswald the lone Marxist" alive.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)The fact that a majority of people may hold a given belief is no test of its validity.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Last edited Sat Nov 16, 2013, 11:30 PM - Edit history (1)
Which you can read in the very same post you are replying to, and falsely characterizing.
What I am saying is that the believers in the official story do not get to use name-calling along the lines of fringe, crazy loners, tinfoil hats, right-wing, etc. etc. They have to at least acknowledge the majority view. Obviously the majority can still be wrong. But the minority shouldn't present itself as a majority, or claim a hegemony over legitimate opinion. They also aren't entitled to that within the subset of leftists and liberals (where the "conspiracy panic" rhetoric and psychological bullshit is particularly pronounced). Now we can have a discussion on the facts of the case, including the history and context, rather than the distraction of psychological bullshit that seeks to pathologize speakers and avoid case evidence.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Because it's faith that supports the belief in conspiracy in the face of all the evidence against it.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's faith -- in the essential goodness of, or at any rate willingness to play by the rules among all members of the American power elite -- that supports the belief in the Warren Commission story in the face of all the evidence against it.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)anyone who says that is pretty clearly unacquainted with the evidence. What supports conspiracy theories? The refusal to believe that the world is random and chaotic and doesn't make sense; not wanting to believe that the president of the United States can be murdered by a loser with a cheap mail-order rifle, that there must be some grander and darker conspiracy behind it. If Jack Ruby hadn't decided to mosey over to DPD HQ from the Western Union office we wouldn't even be talking about this.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I agree with you. We wouldn't be talking about it if a mafia killer with a fatal health condition had not been compelled to murder Oswald on live TV.
Why would he do a thing like that?
Why wasn't Ruby content with his little stunt at the prior Oswald press conference, in which he corrected a reporter who misidentified which group Oswald was pretending to be a member of?
Why would he kill an obvious intel complex operative who was obviously doing a legend about how he was Mr. Fair Play for Cuba, even as he hung out with boatloads of right-wing emigres?
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Right, so he left the Western Union office with the slip in his pocket and left his beloved dog in his car. Sorry, that doesn't add up. None of the supposed "proofs" of conspiracy can withstand the least bit of rational analysis. (And fatal health condition? If Ruby already had cancer he didn't know it.)
Why would he do a think like that? Because he was non compos mentis. Because he had a hair-trigger temper. Because he greatly admired Kennedy and thought he'd be a hero for killing the man who shot him.
And you mean the right-wing exiles who started an altercation with Oswald after they saw him distributing "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets? It's just as likely that Oswald provoked that confrontation to bolster his credentials as a supporter of the Cuban revolution. He was trying to defect to Cuba, after all (unsuccessfully).
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)was in the same building as the right-wing "Free Cuba" committee. Or that Oswald the committed Marxist, after renouncing his citizenship and yet miraculously being allowed back in to the U.S. after a couple of hours of processing, without an interrogation, then got a high-security job doing aerial spy photo analysis for Honeywell and hung out with Russian right-wing emigres. You just keep believing all that is irrelevant.
Whereas you really think Ruby on his way to his own possible death on live TV was worried about his dog, and that this is relevant? The dog would be found after the deed was done, no doubt--where else should he leave it? More distraction through faux-psychological details. The mafia club-owner kills the patsy, nothing to see here. Oh, but wait, he had a Western Union slip in his pocket: that's totally relevant. Any chewing gum wrappers?
The House Select Committee on Assassinations in its 1979 Final Report opined:…Ruby's shooting of Oswald was not a spontaneous act, in that it involved at least some premeditation. Similarly, the committee believed it was less likely that Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby's intentions… The committee was troubled by the apparently unlocked doors along the stairway route and the removal of security guards from the area of the garage nearest the stairway shortly before the shooting… There is also evidence that the Dallas Police Department withheld relevant information from the Warren Commission concerning Ruby's entry to the scene of the Oswald transfer.
—[52]
When Ruby was arrested immediately after the shooting, he told several witnesses that he helped the city of Dallas "redeem" itself in the eyes of the public, and that Oswald's death would spare "…Mrs. Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial."[53] At the time of the shooting Ruby said he was taking phenmetrazine, a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant.[51]
Ruby's explanation for killing Oswald would be "exposed … as a fabricated legal ploy", according to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In a private note to one of his attorneys, Joseph Tonahill, Ruby wrote: "Joe, you should know this. [My first lawyer] Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?"[42][54]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ruby#Timeline
robertpaulsen
(8,632 posts)So much for being "clearly unacquainted with the evidence." I guess debates really are won by the facts, Jack!
Too bad I'm almost out of popcorn, the suspense waiting for you to be refuted might starve me!
Zen Democrat
(5,901 posts)There are plenty of videotapes available that the official media doesn't spread around. Get past the long and winding intro and watch Evidence of Revision Part 1. There's also a video in two parts that played on the History Channel a couple of years back that contains the interview with Jack Ruby's star, Jada. Listen to her comments on Day 1 of the Oswald killing. And also the Jack Ruby comments when he is leaving court in 1964 are never shown but they are available. This is all news footage.
Oswald wasn't trying to defect to Cuba. He was doing what he was told by his handlers, which he didn't realize was setting himself up. Oswald was a spy. There were several other false defectors who went to the Soviet Union within a few months' period. They all came back to the US after stays of 1-3 years. He went to the Soviet Union and never spoke a word of Russian there, only English. We know he spoke Russian fluently (where did he learn that?) because he hung out with the White Russian oilmen in Dallas (why would they befriend a Communist defector?) and they said he spoke perfect Russian. His best friend was a Russian emigre with strong ties to the CIA, George de Mohrenschildt. Oswald was NEVER a loner. He always had companions. And he wasn't a nut since his teachers all claimed he was extremely bright and a good student.
No lone nut at all. Just a cover story to frame the patsy who had been in the process of having his goose cooked for several years. Angleton at CIA was running the false defector program. James Jesus Angleton, the covert operations chief of the CIA is a good place to start looking for masterminds.
This isn't all that confusing. After all these years, we can look at the group of people murdered in the immediate days after Dallas, and then during the Warren Commission, and then there was another big spurt of deaths by murder or suicide at the time of the House Select Committee on the Assassination of JFK and MLK.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)There's also a serious problem for your thesis: the bullets that struck Kennedy and Connally came from Oswald's rifle. From the sixth floor of the TSBD. The large fragment from the headshot recovered from the interior of the presidential limousine, and the intact bullet recovered from Connally's stretcher in Parkland, match the rifling characteristics of Oswald's rifle, to the exclusion of all other weapons. JFK's autopsy and subsequent forensic reviews of the evidence of autopsy photos and X-rays agree that both shots came from behind. There's nothing "magic" about the "magic bullet"; it did exactly what one would expect a fully-jacketed military round to do, and given the relative positions of Kennedy and Connally, they *have* to have been struck by the same bullet (the bullet that struck Connally in the back? Left a slightly oblate wound of entry, which means it was tumbling, which means it had already passed through something; that something was Kennedy). Reconstruction of trajectories from the entry wounds gives a cone that centres on the 6th floor "sniper's nest". Multiple witnesses (including the mayor of Dallas) saw a rifle in the sixth-floor window. Men on break on the fifth floor heard the shots coming from above them, heard the bolt being cycled, heard the spent brass hitting the floor. Oswald was the only TSBD employee unaccounted for. So, evidence: the shots came from the TSBD. They came from Oswald's rifle. (The rifle Oswald had left at Ruth Paine's house and went to get the night before, telling Wesley Frazier it was "curtain rods" . Process of elimination says that Oswald was the shooter, because who else would have been in the TSBD with his rifle?
Other problems with your thesis: Oswald got the TSBD job seven weeks before the assassination after Ruth Paine told him they were hiring (one of her neighbours was a foreman there). George de Mohrenschildt? Left Dallas for Haiti in June. Five months before.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)very expensive but widely available e.g. to TV stations, dates to 1951. 1951!!!
1963-1951=12 years.
That pretty much bespeaks the quality of the rest of your post, which is an uncritical listing of faulty WCR conclusions, all of which were put to question many decades ago by witnesses and documents the WCR omitted, distorted or ignored.
Said investigation was effectively run by the most active WC member by far, Allen Dulles -- the CIA coup d'etat master that Kennedy had fired!
What kind of system appoints the former intel chief, a war criminal many times over, to investigate the assassination of the president who had fired him?! This is prima facie invalidation of the process, and it's no wonder that three of the less active WC members who went along with the consensus at first eventually cast doubt on the conclusions they had originally endorsed.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)And no, nothing I've said has been contradicted by any later investigation; the HSCA reached the same conclusions, based on the evidence.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Which is all that's relevant here. And which, golly gee, what a shock, is the reason we have hours and days worth of TV footage from these events still preserved. I guess you never noticed this?
When discovered to have made an obvious error, the smart thing to do is to admit it freely and move on. Your lame attempt at still knowing-it-all only digs your hole deeper, and makes you look shady. You're not interested in the facts, only in the appearance of being right.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)There's also physical evidence, circumstantial evidence, and witness evidence that all points to Oswald. There's no evidence that points to anyone else. The conspiracy arguments are all very ridiculous when examined. Oswald's rifle was found on the 6th floor of the TSBD? But oh, it was misidentified at first as a Mauser, therefore it was planted! The Zapruder film shows a shot from behind, and so do the autopsy pictures, therefore they were faked! The conspiracy argument is untenable in the face of the evidence, therefore it has to discredit the evidence...because it's very unlikely that there would be SO MUCH evidence that says "Oswald did it" if someone else had.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)As your title and first question are non-sequitur to what we were talking about, and only come as a clumsy means of repeating the same set of false generalizations you started with, I'll let you pretend to win instead of repeating your false text with all the statements reversed.
It would have been honorable of you to forthrightly admit your gaping error, but you seem to prefer sophistry.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)such as?
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)"What supports conspiracy theories? The refusal to believe that the world is random and chaotic and doesn't make sense..."
French Captain Alfred Dreyfus, German Colonel Henning von Trescko, and the men of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment may or may not agree with your premise...
(Insert distinction without a difference here...)
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)claim to uphold scientific method are the same ones who, when confronted with contrary evidence, admonish others for seeing patterns and resort to ninth-grade existentialist insights about how "the world is random and chaotic and doesn't make sense." Attributing patterns to illusion and believing the world makes no sense become fundamental scientific principles, when the modern "skeptic" feels contradicted and cranky.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)Take the invasion of Iraq, for instance. Somehow by some kind of random Brownian Motion process, 200,000 troops from 40 countries all wound up in Iraq at the same time! I mean, really! What are the odds of that happening without some very powerful people pulling a lot of strings in some vast organized process? At yet it happened!
The world is indeed far too complex and mysterious for us mere mortals to comprehend. I'm so grateful that we have authorities like the Warren Commission to shine the light of reason in our eyes and tell us how things are, so we are not deceived by our childish tendencies toward dark imaginings about events that--face it, folks--are really none of our business. 
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)In that case, McDonald's makes the best hamburgers and Domino's makes the best pizza/
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's to clarify that there is a debate to be had that can't be won by smug name-calling about "conspiracy theorists."
In other words, state your thesis on the basis of the known facts including history and context, or begone.
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)You had doubt that there is a debate about the JFK assassination to be had so you made a DU poll? pfft Whatever dude. I did not vote fwiw.
I've followed these debates for years on DU. The debates are won by the facts or when the "conspiracy theorists" (you might as well own it) start with the ad hominem attacks.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)and the pro-WC candidate would be telling his/her dispirited supporters that they fought the good fight.
So what? This isn't an election. Even if it were, do you always respect the majority candidate in an election? Should the 30% in Louie Gohmert's district who didn't vote for him not call him a fringe lunatic because 70% of his constituents voted for him? How about the 44% of Texas voters who didn't back Ted Cruz?
And as long as we're talking about polls, how about the majority of Americans who said in April that they would vote for Reagan (!) over Obama?
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/09/entertainment/la-et-st-survey-ronald-reagan-obama-modern-election-20130409
Should we stop calling Reagan a right-wing nut? I sure as hell won't.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's a poll on a site with a relatively well-informed portion of the electorate.
They aren't right-wing.
You can call Reagan a nut all you like. And it gets you nothing if you want to win any kind of argument or persuade anyone not to vote for him.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)I doubt, given your opinion that anybody who agrees with the WC's findings has somehow been duped, that you would feel the same way about majorities if the poll ran in the opposite direction.
Who have you persuaded today?
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)If the poll ran in the opposite direction, it would indicate that faith in the WC is a widespread view, not a "fringe" position. It would not show that the WC got it right.
The point of the poll is not that the skeptics are right. The point is that the skeptics are the majority view, and thus can not legitimately be labeled "marginal".
Would you care to explain what exactly about the poll is biased?
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)"Fringe" and "minority" are not synonyms, no matter how hard you and the OP try to make them so. A view is not rendered more or less extreme by the percentage of its adherents. That is nothing more than argumentum ad populum, and it regularly shows up in debates about the assassination.
"70% of Americans disagree with the Warren Report." So what? Either they're wrong or they're not. When that 70% can agree on a single theory of how the crime occurred, perhaps their majority will mean something.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)It's not about who's right. It's about who's a fringe, and who's minority--and clearly the majority has no faith in the Warren Report.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)which is your point.
If the Warren Report ever runs for President, I'll care that it's not in the majority. Otherwise, it really makes no difference.
It does make me wonder, though, why the 70% who disagree with the WR aren't using their numbers to get the case reopened.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)all the Congressional Reps and Senators who haven't been retired or killed are in the pockets of the people who don't want it investigated.
If anybody did have the balls to reopen it, legions of political hacks would denounce him or her as a conspiracy nut.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Is that why you don't try?
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)As you say: "When that 70% can agree on a single theory of how the crime occurred, perhaps their majority will mean something."
How about 55% in this Internet poll of DU users?
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)How about some details?
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)"If I put any effort into any posts..."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1135&pid=6383
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)as are your posts, so if you haven't read it, you've sure been mouthing off in it.
Or you could even bother to read the very short OP, which specifically defines choice (2) as, "President Kennedy was assassinated in a coup d'etat by elements within the U.S. military and intelligence complex."
Keeping the poll options short is a way to help minimize bias in the framing, but apparently 55% of DUers responding had no trouble understanding what this meant.
Here's some reading laying out said thesis:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4035106
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)How many shooters? Where were they positioned? How did they escape? And are you prepared to back these claims up with evidence?
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)If anybody did have the balls to reopen it, legions of political hacks would denounce him or her as a conspiracy nut.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)You must have consumed two books and an hour's video, which deal with your questions as well as the indispensable context, in about four seconds--with enough time left to reflex-post the standard diversionary bullshit.
These are questions the WC fails to answer on the basis of even the evidence it presents (e.g., the incredible CE399), let alone the evidence it distorts (e.g., Ford moving the back shot up to the neck, etc.) and the evidence it omits (e.g., all the doctors and medical personnel speaking of an avulsive wound at the rear of the head and a frontal entry wound at the neck). The WC hasn't made a case explaining the available facts in the first place.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)This is about your theory of the crime. You know, the one 55% here support. Do you not know your own theory well enough to explain it?
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)If the Warren Commission story fails, then those who point this out are not required to set up a complete alternative. (Although plenty have done so in plausible fashion, and again you should read Douglass, Newman and Di Eugenio for more; I'm willing to defer to those who have put in the decades of research and present it with evidence and logic intact, unlike the sophistry of plagiarist whores like Posner.)
If the WC fails, then there has been a cover-up with complicity from government agencies for 50 years. That becomes relevant.
If CE399 did not cause seven separate wounds, then I don't need to make a diorama of Dealey Plaza showing what did. That is a total diversion.
I want to see the release of the Ioannides and Angleton files, and the release of all the thousands of pages of material about Oswald that are still classified despite the ARRB act.
What's your theory about why, instead of a trial of Oswald, we saw a mafia killer sacrifice himself in a desperate act to murder Oswald on live TV, and then, in describing his "motive," made a barely-veiled threat to Jackie Kennedy to keep her fucking mouth shut?
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Cute. You're doing a real service to history.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's not a "theory" if it's obviously false, as the WCR is.
If you were accused of a murder, and had an airtight alibi because you were seen on TV in the audience at a live show of "Dancing With the Stars" (you like that show, don't you?) during the murder, that would mean the end of the "theory" that you had done it. You would be free to attack said "theory" without being required to produce the real killer.
Of course, I am proposing an alternative, and it seems 55% of DUers have no trouble understanding it. It is based on the fact that the WCR is false. Therefore the government has been engaged in a 50-year-cover-up. This brings up unavoidable conclusions about where the conspiracy was located, which happen to fit the historical context well.
You're also failing to understand this, although I've made it clear and any further attempts to educate you are superfluous.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)The WCR is not "obviously false." Oswald doesn't have an alibi.
And I hate "Dancing With The Stars." Maybe you should put up a poll about it.
As for your alternative: Again, how many of that 55% read the two books and watched the video you cite as the key to your theory?
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)In scientific epistemology we needn't provide an alternative theory to disprove or discredit or criticize an existing theory. We need only show the inadequacies of the existing theory and call for further investigations.
In criminal legal epistemology the defense need not provide an alternative solution to the crime. They need only show that the prosecutor's case is inadequate.
You create a false dichotomy, demanding a choice between the official theory and a superior theory, and ignore the fact that there's a third choice--honest agnosticism and recognition of the need for further investigation.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)That's a convenient position to take. It saves you the trouble of trying.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)that they live in a fantasy world.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)If anybody did have the balls to reopen it, legions of political hacks would denounce him or her as a conspiracy nut.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)We were talking about why those who are not satisfied with the WC are not agitating for new investigations.
You mischaracterized what I said, characterizing the issue as a failed investigation, not as a sense of futility among the electorate who know that their Congressional reps and Senators will just make a thousand excuses for why a new investigation is not necessary.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)Really, I am.
Still, I think if you could get 1000 of your fellow constituents to call and e-mail that POS on a daily basis, you'd have a shot of getting the case reinvestigated. Imagine if a million people jammed up the Capitol phone lines demanding a new investigation. After all, disagreement with the WC cuts across partisan and ideological lines.
Frankly, even I'd support reopening the investigation. Let's put all of the material on the table and get as close to the truth as we can, using all the brainpower and investigative tools at our disposal.
(I hope my bosses at TPTB don't have me killed for saying that. 
)
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)how many of those 55% read those two books and watched an hour's video before they clicked "CIA, etc" in your poll? I don't see a link in your OP to this information.
How can you say they support your specific theory if they didn't?
California_here
(13 posts)As we can see.
gopiscrap
(23,726 posts)
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Just saying.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)"Oswald alone" (as given in the Warren Commission report) and "CIA etc." are separate options. If Oswald was part of a plot as something other than the patsy, then you're rejecting choice (1) and picking choice (2) or (3).
B Calm
(28,762 posts)They were afraid Oswald was going to blab!!
H2O Man
(73,511 posts)The machine/ "invisible government"
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Call the schemers whatever you like. That makes a coup d'etat against the legitimate elected government.
JVS
(61,935 posts)Basically consider my vote a more expansive version of 2. 1 is certainly wrong.
dionysus
(26,467 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)as well as the Military Industrial Complex...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2749997
Presidents don't do that anymore.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)And I am familiar with the case for it.
It's not really necessary for a coup d'etat thesis. Kennedy needn't be a revolutionary, and he wasn't. It would be enough if he deviated sufficiently from the hard Cold War line to anger factions with a hegemony over the government who believed the anti-Communist struggle was a life-and-death matter for the nation. It could be as simple as not going to war over Cuba, or beginning a withdrawal from Vietnam. Even today it's very easy for right-wing maniacs to see "socialists" in totally system-reinforcing figures like Obama, and back then the right-wing maniacs were very much ensconced within the key agencies and on a permanent raging hunt for Communists among the "liberals," even when the latter were not particularly liberal.
A coup d'etat would still require direct control over the levers of the state and law enforcement apparatus. Thus involvement in the plot and more broadly in the cover-up by persons within CIA, Pentagon and FBI. This would be true even if banking figures were involved, which I very much doubt since they'd have to be really stupid and ideologically driven not to know that their interests weren't being challenged.
Vashta Nerada
(3,922 posts)I don't buy that Oswald was the lone gunman, if he even did it.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Thanks.
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)I suspect that there were folks that knew of Oswald's intentions, even if they didn't really believe him, or think him capable. For all we knew they were encouraging multiple crack pots. There may have even been another one there.
Liberal_Dog
(11,075 posts)I have listened to and read arguments on both sides and I have never really come to any firm conclusion.
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)I'm a little shocked that anyone still thinks Oswald acted alone...especially on this site. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I really think accepting the official story at this point in time, is staying ignorant of the facts on purpose.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's like saying that you're still shocked people believe in the Americanist mythology. Because that's the main thing holding up the denialism about the coup d'etat of Nov. 22, 1963.
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)that has all changed. countless researchers, witnesses, many have even died getting the information to the public and all have contributed pieces to the puzzle. Its still amazing to me that people are not curious enough to do their own research as to why and how the coup d'état happened in 1963 and still parrot the warren commissions findings. It is shocking since it is so readily available.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's shocking when you assume people go by logic and aren't influenced by ideology, conditioning and mythic preference. When you ask them to give up on their patriotic myths, many even smart people engage in massive denial. Smart people are well equipped for that. They respond by engaging in something called sophistry.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)at inventing elaborate rationalizations to support ideas that just ain't so, but which they find convenient for one reason or another.
In a lawsuit at least half of the highly-paid experts are wrong, and it's up to a lay jury to determine which ones.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)xiamiam
(4,906 posts)after their investigations in 1976
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)xiamiam
(4,906 posts)
El Supremo
(20,365 posts)
xiamiam
(4,906 posts)posting the above link because there is a photo of several of these guys in mexico
jerry kroth has a video which is the cliff notes version of the best alternative choice. It's simplistic albeit comprehensive.
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS396US396&q=jerry+kroth+what+really+happened
There are so many other sources of info but kroths version is a kind of primer.
operation 40 is a little more complicated and may require actual thought and research
either way, much better start to anyones research than the lone assassin theory
Seeking Serenity
(2,840 posts)Needed Kennedy out of the way to pave the road for The Beatles' triumphant welcome to America.
Pendrench
(1,356 posts)Seeking Serenity
(2,840 posts)I'm actually quite surprised no one else had thought of that. I never get anything first.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Oswald was the sole shooter, there are plenty of questions about who might have put him up to it.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)
ailsagirl
(22,887 posts)I mean, he had made plans to start bringing the troops in Vietnam home-- the nerve!! It was all set up for sometime in December, 1963. Once LBJ took office, the plan was quietly dropped. War is good, remember. 
The whole thing smells to high heaven-- it's so obvious to me that a "lone gunman" is BS.
We'll never know because the principals have long been dead-- we can only speculate. All I know is that the country has never been the same since. 
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Including the files on Ioannides and the Angleton "fake defector" spy program, in which the obvious intel asset Lee Harvey Oswald was almost surely involved.
HijackedLabel
(80 posts)My ex-girlfriend's great-grandfather was the grand dragon of one of Ohio's largest KKK chapters.
He took a radio to work the morning of the day JFK was assassinated. It was unusual of him to take a radio anywhere, so his wife asked him what he's doing with it. He told her someone was going to kill the President that day and that he wanted to listen to the news about it on the radio.
This was told to me by people in her family and is in no way a corroborated story. I am highly skeptical of most stories like this, but I had no reason to believe they were lying.
gopiscrap
(23,726 posts)moondust
(19,963 posts)It's not too hard to imagine Oswald in a scenario similar to Tamerlan Tsarnaev:
Becoming radicalized in U.S.-->goes to Russia and further radicalizes-->returns to U.S. unhinged and militant-->is presented with an opportunity to act on his radical hatred of U.S./Americans/capitalism-->boom.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)What you're imagining is indeed imaginable and has been imagined, mainly by the official story.
However, the actual facts say almost the complete opposite:
Marine recruited as intel operative at Atsugi AFB --> learns Russian "freelance" and claims "Marxism" as legend --> used in fake defector program, renouncing citizenship --> returns to U.S. with wife but encounters no obstacles getting new passport at height of Cold War --> works for military contractor --> hangs out with right-wingers and Russian anti-communist emigres with spook background --> sets up fake "Fair Play for Cuba" committee as sole member in New Orleans and his mailing address is the same office as the anti-Castro Cuban group --> sent to Mexico to continue establishing legend (if it was even him) --> set up as patsy for JFK assassination --> unfortunately survives --> murdered by mafia killer on live TV --> among the many suspicious deaths that follow, De Mohrenschildt eats a shotgun blast in a supposed suicide days before he is to testify on the assassination to the House!
moondust
(19,963 posts)I think a lot of CTs got started back at that time because people had trouble believing, in the wake of the McCarthy era, the narrative that one little guy would prefer to live in Soviet Russia over the U.S. (gasp!), actually try to move there and give up his U.S. citizenship (but failed), and in the process become so radicalized that he would return to his homeland and be screwed up yet competent enough to kill the all-powerful U.S. President all by himself.
That was back before global jihad and suicide bombers made individual terrorism an everyday news story; people didn't do crazy stuff like that in prosperous post-war America. These days the radicalization problem is more common with Americans turning up in terror groups in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc. It's much more believable now that Oswald may have essentially been an early version of Tamerlan Tsarnaev who happened to stumble into a more consequential target opportunity.
But it's still a matter of what one chooses to believe.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)You first gave a version of Oswald's life. It's the Oswald of the official myth, but believing it requires omitting the facts and throwing out the logic. I responded with these omitted facts. You now make parallels to unrelated cases, no longer dealing with Oswald. You can come up with a million examples of oranges, but it still doesn't turn the apple into a citrus fruit.
While it may be true that the world is full of "individual terrorists," it is also full of spies and spooks and intel assets and operators. The mythology of Oswald tries to make of him an individual terrorist. The actual facts of his life indicate he was a spy, and in the end an asset used to a particular end - a patsy.
mountain grammy
(26,600 posts)to questions I've had for 50 years, but, as usual, I'm only left with more questions.
I expect to go to my grave with the same confusion and disbelief I felt on Nov. 22, 1963. Fifteen years old, five years after losing my Dad and the world that was finally feeling normal came to a stop.
The one thing that has kept conspiracy on my mind is the direction my country has taken. I believe had JFK lived, as popular as he was becoming, the liberal brand would have remained with America for decades. His death, followed by Dr. King and RFK years later, robbed liberals of their leaders and their spirit.
reddread
(6,896 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)A majority (54% or 106 out of 200) in this self-selecting Internet poll of DU users is choosing the coup d'etat hypothesis, while an additional 19% also reject the Warren Commission findings of a lone gunman acting alone, which in turn have the support only from 27% of those who have answered so far.
This is about what one would expect given the recent nationwide random sample survey finding 59% of respondents believe in a "conspiracy" (which is usually what is asked, despite the vagueness and concerted tainting of that term).
The even higher number here, and their readiness to accept that it was a coup d'etat (rather than the many side-hypotheses invented largely since the Garrison trial to distract from the overwhelmingly likely role of the U.S. government) I shall attribute to the fact that this is a fairly oppositional (Underground as well as Democratic) and well-informed public.
The official story believers, of course, are free to attribute it to the idea that 73% of DUers are insane, mentally deficient, lonely wackos, psychologically longing for the reassurance of an ordered universe (in which evil rules!), susceptible to recognizing patterns (oh no! don't do that! stop thinking!), or Just Haven't Read the WCR Enough Times (because it gets even better the fourth go-around).
(1) Oswald. 52 (27%)
(2) CIA etc. 106 (54%)
(3) Other. 37 (19%)
5 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)If Oswald is the only shooter, it wouldn't matter if 99.9% of the global population believed he didn't do it. He would still be the only shooter.
And that is what all credible evidence says. Lee Oswald, acting of his own volition and without any help, killed John F. Kennedy.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Sure, as I've said 68 times on this thread, truth is not decided by a majority, and that was never my point. But you strawman this anyway, because as usual your only concern is to appear to be right, so any sophistry no matter how obvious goes.
The real point being: Oswald was never the only shooter, the WCR was always a poor coverup, and this was always obvious to those not over-infected with the tenets of Americanist ideology, in which the U.S. is somehow immune from normal history. And despite a 50-year-campaign by government and media elites to impose the opposite of the truth as the hegemonic opinion, they still have failed, at least on this matter, to mislead the majority.
However, they have spawned a cult of the middle-brow who derive pleasure from imagining they are skeptics. A cult of the moderately intelligent: the smart don't fall for it, while the really stupid don't like the awesome contortions required to believe it. So its appeal is restricted to a certain mostly white male segment who like the feeling of certainty conferred by the cult belief system's simplistic semantic rules, imagining themselves superior and non-conformist when all they're doing is aligning themselves with the authoritarian wisdom.
Bolo Boffin
(23,796 posts)It is a lovely flattering unction you have laid against your soul there, with pretty words and projection. None of that changes reality. You are wrong.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)The blowhard who framed a gay man for a show trial? Yeah that's not the guy I'm throwing in with, thanks.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Helms himself admitted to Congress that Shaw worked for the CIA in 1979, contrary to the agency's earlier denials (i.e., lies) during the Garrison prosecution that he had no such association. It's your bizarre choice to instead identify him solely as a "gay man."
http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09../fp.back_issues/25th_Issue/shaw.html
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)Remember he called the assassination a 'homosexual thrill killing.' And he chose Shaw because he supposedly used an alias in the gay community that supposedly sounded like the name of a supposed figure in one of the many shadowy conspiracy theories Garrison bought into. Shaw was as you know acquitted.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)about Shaw not being asset, which he was. Truthful information about this at the time of the trial might have pushed the verdict in a different direction. The jury believed there had been a conspiracy, but could not find Shaw guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)I can dig really deep into JFK and really suspect a conspiracy but always end up choosing Occam's Razor when it comes down to it. I say Oswald, with all else almost appearing to easy a lone gunmen is now harder to believe so I find myself thinking this is most likely the truth. We normalized the less likely and made the likely hard to accept. IMO.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)is a heuristic - a rule of thumb - for formulating hypotheses in the natural sciences. And it's not a law and by no means unerring; just a useful guide that does not obviate the need for examining evidence.
When used to explain political events, it's usually meaningless: just a magic phrase that means "I've stopped thinking because I have faith I'm right and my explanation is the simplest," even when it isn't.
Deception occurs in human affairs; it's quite rare in the rest of nature.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)I do it to myself mostly, like a dog chasing it's own tail. Then I end with this paradoxical thinking where I both believe it was a long gunmen and also a conspiracy. Drives me mad. I do have ADHD.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)I'm no expert, but I haven't seen any real evidence to support any kind of conspiracy theory (for lack of better term). However, if anyone has any links or suggested reading that presents such evidence, I'd be very interested.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Reviews by Jim DiEugenio
Oswald and the CIA
by John Newman (Author)
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/newman.html
JFK and the Unspeakable
by James W. Douglass
Reviewed by James DiEugenio
http://www.ctka.net/reviews/jfk_unspeakable.html
There was an online motherlode in DiEugenio's 10-part jackhammering of the odious concrete block from Bugliosi, but unfortunately this has been turned into a book and pulled. Here's an hour's interview:
DanTex
(20,709 posts)I actually own JFK and the Unspeakable and Bugliosi's book, both of which I bought a few years ago when I decided to try to learn about the topic, but then I got bored and didn't finish either one. There is so much written about it, and it always seems like to every argument on either side, there's a bunch of rebuttals, and then rebuttals to the rebuttals, and so on.
marlakay
(11,432 posts)I was watching a special the other night that had more photos of before JFK was president and if looks could kill Johnson looked that way in every photo.
joesdaughter
(243 posts)Last edited Fri Nov 15, 2013, 11:39 PM - Edit history (1)
I believe the FBI saw immediately that they were derelict in their monitoring of Oswald and the intellegence as to the vitriol that was being spewed by the President's enemies in TX. With crappy intel. and lousey threat assessment they spent most of their energies convering tails. Where Ruby really fits in is anyones' guess. Just my two cents. But "Jedgar" was an evil, sick man.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Only a plot with sanction from key elements of the government, from people in a position to cover up, could have done things like disappear all the medical witnesses testifying to a rear exit wound, lose Kennedy's brain and replace the photos of it, put the war criminal and Kennedy enemy Dulles on the "impartial" commission, plant a magic bullet and make that narrative stick, etc. The main obstacle has always been denial.
Oakenshield
(614 posts)Our Government is far too incompetent to keep a such a coup d'etat secret. It was Oswald. Alone.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Last edited Sat Nov 16, 2013, 09:00 PM - Edit history (1)
Even if this ridiculous generalization were true, it would almost certainly signify the exact opposite of what you think. Generalized incompetence makes a fertile environment for organized crime to set up and get away with whatever it likes.
Your category error here is "government," as if the entire federal structure were required to participate in a palace coup. A covert operation does not require the participation of "government" per se and in a sense is not a state act, but a crime by people within the state that can be against the state. By definition it would be the illegal act of few, not many.
Thus the question is not whether "government" is "competent," but whether the specific criminals are, and perhaps more importantly, whether they are in a position to cover up for any mistakes that they do make.
Chuck Smythe
(15 posts)I said that is all I have to say!
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)my opinion on who did the murder changes all the time.
I've read a fair share of books on the JFK assassination, and it seems to me that there are enough "facts" to support just about any possibility.
Probability...now that's a whole different thing altogether. And who knows the truth? Not I.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)His assignment to Atsugi base in Japan, which housed a large CIA facility.
Oswald's incredible ability with the Russian language. Several Russians, including his wife, said he spoke like a native, yet this high-school dropout reportedly taught himself Russian from books.
The fact that several persons -- including a former CIA paymaster, Oswald's Marine roommate, and fellow Marine Gerry Patrick Hemming -- have suggested that Oswald worked for U.S. intelligence.
The manner in which Oswald traveled so easily in and out of Russia as well as the unaccounted-for funds he used suggests intelligence guidance.
The ability of this American "defector" to leave the Soviet Union with his Russian-born wife at a time when most Russians were being denied exit permits.
The ease with which this would-be defector obtained passports both in 1959 and 1963.
The fact that Oswald wrote a lengthy report on his activities in Russia and, later, made a detailed report to the FBI concerning his Fair Play For Cuba activities in New Orleans.
Oswald's notebook contained the word "microdots," a common spy technique of photographically reducing information to a small dot.
Oswald's nonbinding "defection" to Russia fits perfectly the profile of an Office of Naval Intelligence program to infiltrate American servicemen into the Soviet Union during the late 1950's.
One of Oswald's closest contacts, George DeMohrenschildt, was himself an intelligence operative, first for the Nazis and later for the CIA.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for Oswald's involvement in spy work concerns a small Minox camera found among his effects by Dallas Police. Information developed by the Dallas Morning News in 1978 revealed the camera was not available to the public in 1963. It may have been spy equipment issued to Oswald. This evidence was so explosive that the FBI tried to get Dallas detectives to change their reports regarding the camera and also kept photos taken by Oswald hidden for nearly fifteen years.... Detective Rose told the Dallas Morning News: "[FBI agents] were calling it a light meter, I know that. But I know a camera when I see it.... The thing we got at Irving out of Oswald's seabag was a Minox camera. No question about it. They tried to get me to change the records because it wasn't a light meter. I don't know why they wanted it changed, but they must have had some motive for it." The motive may have been that the existence of the camera pointed to Oswald's intelligence connections.... The three-inch-long German-made camera was famous for being used by spies on both sides during World War II.
Note: The above text is excerpted from the book, Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)The camera belonged to Ruth Paine's husband Michael: http://jfkassassination.net/russ/minox.htm
And the Minox camera was in fact available to the public--here for instance is a magazine advertisement from National Geographic, from October 1963:
And another from Road and Track from 1955:
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Deconstructing the propaganda or just another damn commie?
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=18765
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)last surviving member of the Warren Commission, said that the WC told the truth, but not the entire truth. People may interpret that statement different ways....my interpretation is that there was some information the WC didn't reveal, but that information didn't contradict the WC's finding that Oswald acted alone.
Then there is the make-up of the WC itself. To be sure, there was ex-CIA Director Allen Dulles...no doubt he was making sure no information was released implicating the CIA (and himself) in major crimes. Crimes that were later revealed by the Church Investigation.
However, keep in mind that the Warren Commission was headed up by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Although a Republican, he was about as liberal as one could get. Brown vs. Board? Earl Warren rammed that decision through. Miranda decision? Warren again. Eisenhower said that appointing Warren to the SC was the biggest mistake he made. There is nothing in history to suggest Earl Warren was corrupt, dishonest, or lacked integrity. Quite the opposite, in fact, IMO. There's no reason to conclude Chief Justice Warren would for a second coverup the existence of a conspiracy, or lie to Congress and the People. My thought is that the Warren Commission released all the information they could. That which they couldn't release pertained to details that couldn't be released due to National Security.
Of course, there was some information that was withheld from the WC, information about the numerous CIA assassination attempts on Castro. RFK knew of those attempts, in fact he was very "hands on" looking over the CIA's shoulder pushing them for such actions. When the WC was wrapping up their investigation, Earl Warren contacted RFK and asked him if there was anything the Commission was over-looking, if RFK had any further information, etc. RFK denied that he had any further information pertinent to the assassination. It can be debated whether he lied, of whether he thought information he knew wasn't material to his brother's death, thus didn't need to be given to the WC.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Dulles effectively ran the Commission's investigation. The other members deferred to him constantly and he got to censor on the CIA's behalf. Two-thirds of question time was used by Dulles, McCloy and Ford. Warren was a passive chair, initially unwilling to do it when Johnson asked him, detached from the proceedings, and old. The presence of Dulles is absolutely shocking: head of state assassinated and you put one of his main political enemies -- a man JFK had fired and disgraced, a war criminal of epic proportions -- to investigate? True that Dulles's perfidy was partially exposed by the Church Committee, hardly the case that this could have ever been exhaustive. (What came out should have been enough for a noose for a lot of high criminals, but wasn't.)
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)After the Bay of Pigs fiasco (after which JFK fired Dulles), JFK sent RFK into the very bowels of the CIA to figure out what went wrong. RFK came away very impressed with the CIA's capabilities, especially regarding psy-ops, disinformation, and assassinations. RFK was looking over the CIA.s shoulder, urging them along in the assassination attempts on Castro, and disinformation campaign against his government. Dulles was already gone...RFK was for all intensive purposes micro-managing the campaign. In the 1962-63 period, RFK had an insider's knowledge of the inner workings of the CIA. It is reasonable to assume he kept JFK abreast of everything going on. Dulles was no longer in the CIA, it is doubtful he was a participent in a conspiracy when he was. After he was fired, he wasn't present at the CIA to organize a conspiracy, and RFK was there constantly. Dulles wouldn't have been allowed in the door. IMO, on the WC Dulles was merely making sure none of the crimes committed during his tenure, for which he was directly responsible, were not revealed. There is no reason to believe he would cover up crimes committed by the CIA after he left, when RFK was deeply involved. The opposite, in fact.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)RFK was very familiar with the workings of the CIA. Thus (I'm speculating) he knew there was no point in providing information to the Commission, 'cause Dulles's presence showed that the fix was in. If RFK was planning his own investigation, he'd know better than to share his leads with the Commission, because doing so would only give them a map of where the treasure was buried--what evidence to disappear, what witnesses to intimidate. So his best choice is to keep his mouth shut.
Consider that if he had been allowed to run for President in November of 1968 he would have been President in January of 1969, and then could have reopened the investigation.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)RFK didn't enter the 68 primary until late, so reopening the investigation was a low priority. Of course he could have run in '64 too.
And you are ignoring the fact that Warren made it a point to ask RFK if anything was being left out. RFK could have spoken up then, with the backing and protection of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He replied there was nothing more to add. What he was hiding was MONGOOSE and other illegal CIA operations, which he and JFK were in to up to their eyebrows. And the CIA didn't reveal their Oswald files...which could be hiding the content, or HOW THEY WERE OBTAINED.
None of this implies a CIA conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, merely a CIA conspiracy to conceal illegal operations similar to what the Curch investigation revealed. We shall find out in 2017 when the files are released.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)I don't think you read my post. I explained why RFK might not want to provide his information to the Warren Commission--out of a very reasonable fear that the leads he provided would give them an opportunity to destroy evidence and intimidate witnesses.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)There is no evidence of a conspiracy, therefore it is illogical to claim there is one. Logic tells us that lack of evidence most likely means lack of conspiracy.
Further, logic tells us that the failure of one component of a conspiracy, will lead to its failure. And the bigger the conspiracy the greater the number of components that can possibly fail. A two-person conspiracy has a high probability of success. A twenty person conspiracy has a high probability of failure. A conspiracy involving CIA, FBI, Dallas PD, Oswald, doctors, autopsysts, Mafia, and who knows else is guaranteed to fail.
Also, it seems apparent that Oswald didn't even decise to kill Kennedy until the day before. He hadn't decided to the weekend before, as he left his rifle at the Paine house, which necessitated a special trip thursday night to get it. The trip to the Paine house thursday meant he couldn't retrieve his pistol from his room at boarding house. He would have brought it to work on thursday morning had he been planning then. The motorcade route had only been decided a few days earlier...my belief is that Oswald learned of the route going past the Depository during work on Thursday, and made the decision to assassinate Kennedy then. Whether Oswald is supposed to be an assassin or patsy in a theoretical conspiracy, its a pretty crucial role and one not left to fill the day before. Thus logic tells us there was no conspiracy.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)because it was too complicated, with too much to go wrong.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)I think most people know about it...journalists were waiting on the ground for it to begin.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)Don't forget he was a major force advocating the internment of the Japanese Americans in WWII. Also, in the 1920's and 1930's as district attorney he aggressively prosecuted radicals and labor leaders in an era when such cases were often frame-ups.
Some of his liberalism may have been motivated by a very guilty conscience.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)And another 25 before the supposed release of all remaining classified documents. If it's a lone gunman acting alone: what's to keep secret? What are they hiding about Oswald, thousands of pages worth? Why no release of the Ioannides files?
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)So, why is Creative Speculation kept as a dark, dank, cast away, ostracized, alienated, openly reviled and hated Group off to the side on DU? I have to ask, because there is at least some truth to most conspiracy theories. Any intelligent group of people would want to explore to see what more might be there. Apathy never solves a damn thing. Apathy is boring. Exploring should be encouraged, not openly berated, imnsho.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)"Conspiracy theory" is an attack term. It is a tactic to silence opinion and examination through ridicule. It has turned into a cultural hegemony, where people really fear the accusation and almost literally and reflexively run away from certain lines of thinking, even those thoroughly grounded in the prior history of the deep state and of deeply criminal war-making organizations such as the CIA, Pentagon and the major Wall Street banks and hedge funds.
At the same time, the term means absolutely nothing. It's perfectly alright to apply the many volumes of conspiracy law to the actions of a non-state, non-corporate business mafia. It's only denigrated as "conspiracy" in the academic and media discourse if American government, corporations like Monsanto or Bank of America, or other major U.S. institutions are implied to be responsible. You can still ask whatever you like about the possible dastardly deeds of foreigners like Putin or the Iranians, or at least be allowed to examine claims case by case without demands that you be disqualified automatically as a speaker and insulted as deranged, etc., and without automatic association with a whole library's worth of completely unassociated ideas that are thrown at you (Apollo Hoax, chemtrails, whatever). As for "creative speculation," not interested in a subforum where the name already trivializes and dismisses, says it doesn't matter.
Meanwhile, our history is denied and so we are doomed to keep getting fucked in much the same ways.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)November 19, 2013
Exclusive: Media specials are on tap for the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s murder, but none will explore the troubling new evidence that has been declassified in recent years – and that undercuts the Official Story of the Lone Gunman, writes Jim DiEugenio.
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/11/19/where-new-jfk-evidence-points/
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)k&r
fadedrose
(10,044 posts)Did they fully investigate him or did they just accept his telling them that he felt sorry for Jackie Kennedy. He probably did, we all did, but nobody else went into a crowded police station and managed to pull out a gun and shoot Oswald. He had no business being in there.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)Dallas, Dealey Plaza, and the Sixth Floor Museum. I wasn't prepared to change my mind to Oswald...and yet I did.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)For what it's worth, I think Oswald could have acted alone, but I'm more inclined to believe there was a conspiracy. Either way, there's a contingent here who attempt to belittle the majority of us who believe there was some conspiracy afoot. We have DUers who want to force Kennedy assassination threads into the CS group, and they don't get what they want, and that's just too damned bad. We're still permitted to discuss a Democratic President being assassinated, despite the best efforts of a few.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)A majority believing something that's demonstrably untrue doesn't magically make it true.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)Advocacy of evidence is fine. It's too bad you engaged in nothing of the sort with some of your posts.
Calling people ignorant and uninformed, rather than dealing with the assassination itself: bullying.
Acting as though the intelligent, well-read, thoughtful people on this site who believe there was conspiracy are somehow wild-eyed conspiracy theorists is an instance of bullying. So is the more-or-less constant attempt to get Kennedy/Oswald threads moved to the whack forum. You did a fine job arguing your point in some of your posts in this thread. In others, you attempted to belittle people who believe differently than you do.
My point is, I've gotten satisfaction. I require nothing further. I'm not prevented from talking about this in general discussion. As such, I don't think we'll have much more to say to one another.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)My posts have been limited to the facts save in the case of a reply to a certain poster who thinks that ad hominem and guilt by association are acceptable tactics of argument. I haven't attempted to belittle anyone save those who choose to belittle others first, thanks.
And no, people who reject all of the physical evidence are in fact wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. They're no different than birthers. Doesn't matter if you show them forensics and ballistics and medical evidence, they claim it was faked and falsified and planted. This is pretty much the definition of wild-eyed conspiracy theorising. It's like claiming that the moon landings were shot on a soundstage in the Nevada desert and the chemical analyses of moon rocks were all faked by NASA.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Including when you and the rest of your little gang of denialists pretend to do it as "advocacy of evidence." Unlike children, adult bullies know to advertise their behavior as something necessary and wonderful. Sort of like how the U.S. empire you want to absolve of its 1963 coup d'etat claims to wage its semi-genocidal wars for "democracy."
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)You're funny. You know what bullying is? Accusing people you disagree with of being CIA plants and paid spreaders of disinformation, employing the tactics of broad brush, guilt by association, and ad hominem. And you know where ALL of that has been coming from? Supporters of conspiracy. So yes, that's really most amusing.
See, it's like this. Rational inquiry examines the evidence, and leads from there to a conclusion. Conspiracy thinking starts with a conclusion and ignores all the evidence that contradicts it. I used to believe there was a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, myself. Thought so for years. But then I finally got around to reading things that presented the evidence and discovered that pretty much every single pro-conspiracy author selectively represented, distorted, or omitted well-established evidence.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)Last edited Wed Nov 20, 2013, 03:13 PM - Edit history (1)
The secret files are irrefutable, undeniable proof of that. When the investigators conspire to keep the facts from us, how can we help but suspect that they conspired to keep the truth from us? And if they conspired to keep the truth from us, then the proposition that the truth they are hiding is another conspiracy is a perfectly reasonable line of inquiry.
Samantha
(9,314 posts)I believe there was a second shooter on the Grassy Knoll, and his name was Wallace. I believe the people who wanted Kennedy dead did not want to leave any opportunity for a failure of the mission. Oswald was considered to be not reliable, and so they covered their flanks with an additional assassin.
I believe there were a combination of people who wanted Kennedy out of the Oval Office. Johnson definitely wanted the seat for himself. His attorney Clark protected Johnson's interests. Listening to the coalition of the Big Oil guys in Texas and the war mongers in Washington, both of whom despised Kennedy, brought together a determination to remove Kennedy and install Johnson. I believe Clark organized the details of the plan and set Oswald up to take the fall for the rest involved.
Sam
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I do not know.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)A lot of the public backstory about Oswald doesn't make sense if you look at it closely. I think that Oswald was a genuine hardcore communist who fled to the Soviet Union and was recruited to return to America and spy on emigre groups and anticommunist activities. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, we now know without question that the Soviets had a number of moles and sleeper agents in the U.S. for this purpose.
In mid-September 1963 it is announced that Kennedy will visit Dallas in November. Less than two weeks later Oswald attempts to get a Cuban visa to visit the Soviet embassy, but is turned away by a local Cuban official. The fact that the Soviets and Cubans quickly amended that refusal to permit him entry indicates that he was of SOME kind of interest to them, and the fact that he had already left after the initial refusal was a bit of bad timing. A month and a half later, he put his bullets into the President.
We know that Oswald had previously tried to assassinate another military official. My theory is that Oswald learned about Kennedy visiting Dallas and wanted to assassinate him as well. This was, after all, the same President who had "humiliated" the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis only a year beforehand. He tried to visit the Soviets to get authorization for his idea, but was turned away by an uninformed local apparatchik. Without authorization, he put his plan into place and shot Kennedy.
Why the conspiracy? It was the height of the Cold War. If the President of the United States were killed by a Soviet agent...even one acting without authorization...there would have been a war. And in 1963, that would would have gone nuclear within hours. The U.S. government had a choice...execute the guy who killed the President and cover up the truth, or "avenge" him and kill 100 million-plus Americans in the process.
Oswald was executed, the truth was buried, and Armageddon was postponed.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)You say, "A lot of the public backstory about Oswald doesn't make sense if you look at it closely..."
Indeed, unless you see that his actions for many years were not those of a "hardcore communist" (whatever that is, or whatever such actions would look like) but of a U.S. intelligence asset.
It is implausible that the "defector" who tried to renounce his citizenship later returned to the U.S. with a Russian wife and got his papers after a few hours waiting for routine paper work - unless, of course, he was part of Angleton's fake defector program. Next thing you know he had sensitive jobs with military contractor photo labs and hung out with White Russian emigres and anti-Castro Cubans while pretending to be pro-Castro. This too is the profile of an agent, not a communist.
The Mexico visit of Oswald is a black hole of disinformation. It's questionable if he was ever there - the CIA claimed surveillance cameras that would have recorded his entrance to the embassy happened to be out of service just then.
Cuba and USSR have absolutely no motive to kill a U.S. president.
The same JCCS you have implausibly covering up the murder of the president by foreign enemies are the people who wanted a pretext to bomb Cuba and thus proposed "Operation Northwoods," and who were trying to make Kennedy enter a nuclear war in October 1962. Of course they would have exposed it, if this had been a foreign operation -- and it wouldn't have necessitated a nuclear war, although again, lots of these maniacs wanted one, which demonstrates that they were crazy enough to kill even a fellow cold warrior if they found him too liberal and soft and suspect of desiring peace.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)This is really one of those things that could go either way.
I find it implausible that a communist who believed in the cause SO MUCH that he left the country and moved to the Soviet Union would return after less than two years, citing a "lack of places to spend money, party, and go bowling" as an excuse. There was clearly something else going on there. There's also the fact that his "handler", the guy assigned to monitor him, befriend him, and teach him Russian, was Stanislau Shushkevich, who'who's career literally exploded after the assassination of Kennedy, was heavily educated at the states expense and became a top Soviet researcher, before becoming a prominent politician in the USSR, and even later became the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet in Belarus...basically the nations first "president" after they became independent from the USSR. It's incredible that a lowly radio factory worker managed ALL of that after working with Oswald...the man was clearly being rewarded for SOMETHING.
I find it more plausible that Shushkevich convinced him to return to the U.S. as an agent, where he infiltrated the White Russian and anti-Castro groups to keep tabs on them for the Soviets. Again, there is NO QUESTION that the Soviets used spies this way, and a large number of them were identified after the fall of the USSR.
I agree with you that neither of those countries had anything to gain from killing Kennedy. Based on his past and the stories about his ego and temper, I'm more inclined to believe that he devised the plan on his own in his role as an agent. In fact, I think that if Oswald had made it to the Soviet embassy, they probably would have told him NOT to go through with it, and Kennedy would have survived. I think he went rogue after he was turned away from Cuba.
I don't believe that the CIA or any other agency of our government killed Kennedy. But I also don't believe the governments story that he was just a lone nut. There's also little evidence to suggest that there was any serious desire to start a nuclear war over Cuba...in fact, most documents suggest an overarching desire to AVOID nuclear war on the part of the U.S. government. While many factions DID want a war with Cuba, the objective evidence suggests that they were looking for something more along the lines of a Vietnam style conflict rather than a full nuclear exchange.
A foreign nation being responsible for the death of a U.S. President would have been a scenario far worse than anything proposed in Operation Northwoods, Mongoose, or any of the other U.S. plots to "liberate" Cuba. There is no real question that it would have led to a full scale nuclear exchange between the two nations. Facing a future like that, it's entirely plausible that the pro-war hawks were smacked down and the truth covered up.
Of course, we're just playing "dueling conspiracy theories" here. Neither you or I have any evidence to definitively prove the other wrong.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)The Ioannides, Angleton and all remaining Oswald files should help move it a long, don't you think?
I find it implausible that a communist who believed in the cause SO MUCH that he left the country and moved to the Soviet Union would return after less than two years, citing a "lack of places to spend money, party, and go bowling" as an excuse.
Indeed, and therefore it's much more plausible that he was not acting as a communist but as an agent in the false defector program.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)The problem, of course, is that even the truth couldn't dispel the conspiracy theories at this point. There are so many conflicting and competing theories swirling around Kennedy's death that the confirmation of one of them, or a "truth" that exposed all of them as incorrect, wouldn't do much to alleviate the argument.
Let's say, for instance, that the government released documents TODAY stating that I was right. That the U.S. government had no role in Kennedy's death, that Poppy had no role in it, and that the death was the result of a rogue Soviet agent, and the cover up an attempt to protect the nation from a devastating war. Would you believe it? Would you set aside all of your own theories and suddenly start believing the government? I doubt that most would.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I'd be skeptical prima facie of a single document, say, from the Pentagon. If such a scenario as yours were true, there would be hundreds or thousands of documents showing it. If all of these were released unredacted and academic historians came to a consensus as to their authenticity, that would be very persuasive.
I think 55% of DU respondents agree with me that the "swirl" of conspiracy theories is largely a matter of distraction, a cottage industry, disinformation, and denial of the "unspeakable." There is one scenario that stands out as compelling and comprehensively explaining all of the outstanding facts. And that, if we were talking about any other country, would be considered a not-infrequent and not at all implausible matter of realpolitik or "statecraft." It's only because it's the United States that there is such resistance to acknowledging the barely-hidden coup d'etat.
madokie
(51,076 posts)the only person who claims he didn't remember where he was or what he was doing on that fateful day yet there is a picture purported to be him in dallas when this happened.
I don't buy his cock and bull story for one second
zappaman
(20,606 posts)That's why that picture is real!
He wanted to be there to make sure instead of having a cover story and being far far away!
Makes perfect sense in CT land!
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)We'll just agree to disagree.
wandy
(3,539 posts)They have always wanted it to be a one party system.
Think Nixon. Think Karl Rove's 20 year republican rule. Think gerrymandering. Think the new and improved, supreme court sanctioned Jim Crow.
Their current fear is that if the ACA works, and it will, they will have a hard time returning to power.
Camelot must have scared the living daylights out of them.
Ace Acme
(1,464 posts)I don't hear any of them calling for closure of any of our 700 overseas military bases.
Deep13
(39,154 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)
truth2power
(8,219 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)"This (Friday) is the 50th anniversary of 11/22, which locked-in the permanent warfare state. I'm ignoring the media & doing my own mourning ritual: the performance of my elegiac 1-man show in JFK's memory. But the bits of media noise that make it through are SO irritating... old hat, bullshit, mockery... Cooper's shit about Greer as a shooter; the Mortal Error bullshit; people blaming Castro; people like the HSCA blaming mob participants while ignoring CIA and LBJ; the pukes who run the 6th Floor Museum; the Mayor of Dallas running a bullshit festival; people saying 'we'll never know'; cliches like "that fateful day"; fake uncertainty. It's just gross. Like walking though acid rain on a cold, gray day."
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)56 percent of DU respondents are of the opinion that President Kennedy was assassinated in a coup d'etat by elements within the U.S. military and intelligence complex, 16 percent do not agree with the full Warren Commission version but believe in a scenario other than coup d'etat (or are not sure, as some have responded), and 26 percent support the conclusions of the Warren Commission.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)But what would a former member of the Church Committee know about this stuff? He authored a novel in 1985 with William Cohen (that one, the later Clinton defense secretary) about how JFK was killed in a coup d'etat that originated with CIA characters in the anti-Castro milieu. Novels are safe, anyway.
The 61% who don't buy the Warren Commission are fringe and crazy, but the elite can say these things long as they stick to novels.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Appears everyone's voted who's going to vote here.
319 respondents, the % split is 55 Coup - 28 WCR - 17 Other.