by robertdreed » Tue Aug 23, 2005 9:52 pm
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"I'm sensing a pattern with you R.<br><br>You defend using Snopes as a source, but you claim to not have the ability/time to sift through things when it comes to JFK? <br><br>But you DO have an opinion on string theory, holographic universes, the exact number of Jews who were burned by the Nazis, late 17th-century political disputes, or whatever."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Okay, first off: I think Snopes.com is useful for debunking some urban legends- chihuahua in the microwave sort of stuff. On politics, they're marginal at best. Incidentally, I just checked, and they have nothing to say on mysteries surrounding the JFK assassination. <br><br>I have opinions on the JFK assassination. I'm not presently wedded to any firm conclusions. ( I don't have any firm conclusions about "string theory", either. )<br><br>I think you've missed the gist of my previous message. Ill try to sum it up.<br><br>1) I find that it's a lot easier to develop a case on fresh offenses like obstruction of justice or criminal corruption than it is to reopen a closed case in a shooting homicide based on fragmentary forensic evidence. I think that there's a case to be made for obstruction of justice in the JFK case. But almost all of the suspects have by now passed away. The case is almost 42 years old. Not that I'm not interested, but...<br><br>2) If I meet up with someone and begin talking about political corruption and conspiracy, I've noticed a tendency to have the conversation inevitably circle back to the JFK assassination. I prefer not to get bogged down in a debate with someone who's read Gerald Posner's <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Case Closed</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. I have fresher fish to fry. <br><br>3) For that matter, by now I've had waay too many conversations with people whose knowledge base on American political corruption begins and ends with the JFK assassination, more often than not based primarily on a viewing of Oliver Stone's movie. And I've found that the prevailing stance of such people is hopeless cynicism. They're often somewhat incoherent, to boot...rest assured, there are George W. Bush fans out there who think that Kennedy was snuffed by an insider conspiracy. <br><br>4) Even among adherents to the idea that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy, there's no consensus on the exact identities of the perpetrators. A precise indictment is lacking. <br><br>A personal contribution to JFK assassination lore: I was reading one of the books on the Kennedy assassination several years ago, checked out from a local library. I'm not even sure which one it was- I think it was <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Betrayal</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, by Robert Morrow. At one point in the book, the anti-Kennedy sentiment of the anti-Castro Cuban exile paramilitaries is discussed- some of them are known to be quite bitter about Kennedy's lack of follow-through on the failed Bay of Pigs amphibious invasion. And scrawled in legible handwriting across the pages was a passionately phrased notation, written in the first person plural, about Brigade 2506 extracting their justified revenge against JFK for his betrayal of the exiles. <br><br>Even though anyone could have written that, I still wish that I had photocopied those pages. I've since returned to the library in an effort to find the book that was so inscribed, but it's apparently gone missing.<br><br>In my conspiracy studies, I've grown increasingly aware of the role of the "middlemen" in such schemes. They often hold a measure of power and autonomy that their ostensible superiors can't control. Thus, I think it's entirely possible that a Brigade 2506 veteran took JFK out in a front head shot from the infamous "grassy knoll." And under the circumstances, the Cubans may have had enough pull that they were granted impunity retroactively by the Warren Commission cover-up, simply because investigating them would have opened up too many cans of worms.<br><br>I'm also open to the idea that it was a hit ordered from the top levels of the right-wing Military Industrial Complex. But that gets into thorny territory, because it suggests the operations of a tightly unified cabal of people, and in that case their exact identities become crucial. Was Lyndon Johnson involved, for instance? I require more evidence than a photo of LBJ turning his head in the direction of a Texas Ranger supposedly winking at him, as a supposed acknowledgement of the success of the conspiracy. Maybe the Ranger was blinking...people blink, you know. Why let some patrolman in on the Crime Of The Century? <br><br>And the same goes for people like Allen Dulles, and Arlen Specter, and Gerald Ford...are they all consciously covering for a right-wing conspiracy? They may have been pressured into rushing to judgement, but not necessarily in conscious collusion with a right-wing cabal. A different "national security" rationale may have been offered to them, that they signed off on. I don't find sufficient evidence to support the idea that they were covering up for highly placed individuals in the US government. (Although my mind is still open to that possibility, on a case-by-case basis.) <br><br>I can't say the same of J. Edgar Hoover, who looks a lot more culpable to me. Reversing the frames of the Zapruder film...that's a no-no. <br><br>At some point, most all the JFK conspiracists I know of need to allow that their conclusions are imprecise, at best. <br><br>I don't want "imprecise." I want to connect specific offenses to specific individuals. And it's a lot easier to do that with fresher material. It's also more effective to consider the full breadth and scope of crimes committed by an ongoing conspiracy than it is to concentrate on one decades-old offense, demanding that it be the lynchpin of a prospective indictment. <br><br>At this point, who would a JFK murder conspiracy indictment actually target- as opposed to merely casting aspersions? Consider the recently alleged data point that George Bush, Sr. was in Dallas on the day of the JFK shooting...so what if he was? What else you got? <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 8/23/05 8:15 pm<br></i>
