General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Justice for JFK [View all]stopbush
(24,409 posts)Perhaps I'm passionate about this subject because I ardently believed in the JFK CTs for decades. About ten years ago, I had a discussion with a person who supported the findings of the WCR. This former military person said that he couldn't believe in the conspiracy theories for the simple fact that human beings simply can't keep a secret, and to imagine that the number of people supposedly involved in the shooting had kept quiet for over 40 years defied all belief.
But the other thing he said was more disturbing, which was that he and his fellow Republicans drew great pleasure from the fact that so many Ds believed the conspiracy theories, because to believe so means that you believe that a Democratic president was killed by the huge cabal of fellow Democrats who worked in the agencies that were supposedly responsible for JFK's death, including the belief that JFK's own VP was involved in the killing. "The Ds truly eat their own" was his thought, "as if killing JFK was the only option open to anyone who wanted to remove a serial philanderer from office."
He asked if I had ever read the WCR. I said I hadn't. "Wow, you have a pretty strong opinion about something you've never read," he said. "Why don't you read it and make up your own mind, rather than taking the word of a bunch of authors looking to sell books and make a buck?"
He had a point. So I did go and read the thing. It changed my mind, though I resisted it strongly. I kept reading the conspiracy books, maintaining what I felt was a "healthy skepticism." Then, Bugliosi's book came out, and I thought that I needed to make the effort to read it. It helped to confirm my switch from an ardent CTist to a believer in the EVIDENCE. And why? Because as Bugliosi points out, at its heart, the JFK assassination is a SIMPLE crime with glaring consequences; that there is only one set of facts in the case, and those facts are overwhelming in their convicting Oswald of the crime(s). And, as Bugliosi points out, even the most-ardent CTist is dealing with evidence that was gathered by government agencies. The only difference is that none of the CTists have ever had a chance to examine the evidence first hand, or to conduct 25,000 interviews, or to have access to the documentation that the WC had...which makes even the most-ardent and compelling CTist little more than a footnote in the overall scheme of things.
Finally, when one looks at the JFK killing from the non-CT perspective, it's a bit appalling to realize how many good people get their names and reputations dragged through the mud with no evidence to support the dragging. For instance, the Dallas police and other law enforcement agencies involved in the case are regularly trashed for their incompetence and even complicity in the case. Yet if you were to stipulate that Oswald did kill JFK, the remarkable fact emerges that those "incompetent" law enforcement officials had the killer under arrest within hours of the shooting. You have the fact that the police not only recovered both murder weapons, but that within hours, the FBI had already traced ownership of the weapons to Oswald through the company that sold Oswald the guns through the mail, even though Oswald had used the alias of A Hidell to buy the guns. Were this any other case, people would marvel at the brilliance of the police work in capturing the criminal, though said capture doesn't exonerate allowing Oswald to be killed right in fucking police HQ, nor does it excuse the (obvious in retrospect) piss-poor job that was done to protect the president's life.
But does that justify coming up with wild theories than JFK was killed by the SS agent driving his limo? Or that LBJ was involved? Or that the FBI, CIA and the other law enforcement agencies involved be accused of taking part in the assassination? And to make such accusations so flippantly?
I don't think so.