Earwicker wrote:Incidentally Sparky - do you think there is such a thing as a 'standard' or 'official' theory with regards the assassination?

In this case, no. As your inverted commas indicate, the term 'official' has become nebulous in this case. Positing a definitive Establishment narrative of the murder amidst fog and contradiction between the US Government investigations set up seems impossible, particularly since the Establishment itself is ill-defined. What I had not realised was how the 1970's report came out in favour of there being a second gunman based on the apparently dubious analysis of that escort bike cop's radio recording. As that documentary suggests, it is quite incredible that an investigation set up with the wish to put to bed conspiracy theories ended up muddying the waters further. But shamefully, the impression I have is that this was more due to incorrectly applied science and obsession on the part of a member of said investigation.

Perhaps more importantly, this question of whether the story is official or not is irrelevant: the majority of Americans and probably mankind believe that Oswald did not kill Kennedy, or at least not by himself.

connor wrote:sparky (and big_dave) do me a favor and read the very short Jefferson Morley piece that I linked to above. I'd genuinely like to hear your reactions.

Will do. I don't see myself going to sleep in the near future given the car hooters, fireworks and other aural celebrations in my neighbourhood tonight.

Given the wealth of documentation around the CIA's wacky drugs, guns and murder schemes, I would certainly not say that their staunch citizens were incapable of such a plot. But the case for Oswald committing the murder all on his lonesome as put to me is compelling.

Anyway, I'll read that article now.

Evidence suggests the sun rises and sets. Do I have to add that to the front of everything, and "in my opinion" to the end of everything before I pass the libertarian think-police litmus test?

How about we set about changing that with our messageboard posts.

Also, the Zapruder film is now a forgery. Whahahaha.

big_dave wrote:Evidence suggests the sun rises and sets. Do I have to add that to the front of everything, and "in my opinion" to the end of everything before I pass the libertarian think-police litmus test?

How about we set about changing that with our messageboard posts.

Also, the Zapruder film is now a forgery. Whahahaha.

I missed it before, but you are aware that RR is right: no one "saw" or "heard" LHO shoot JFK.

How does someone "hear" him shoot JFK? "Listen to that rifle shot! Sounds like crazy ole Oswald!"

No one saw Oswald firing a rifle from the book depository. No one. I'm not saying that means he didn't do it, I'm just saying you're full of shit.

connor wrote:Anyways, here's a Jefferson Morley piece entitled "What JFK Conspiracy Bashers Get Wrong". The dude's one of the very, very few mainstream journalists (Washington Post, Washington Monthly) still looking into this story.

This was fine in terms of persuading one to not shower JFK conspiracy theorists with contempt, but the article seems to me just to say "We cannot know for certain on the presented evidence." Which is fair enough. But it does nothing to unambiguously debunk the forensic evidence that trace the bullets in Kennedy to a rifle that is similarly linked to Oswald.

Which leads us back to the idea that this evidence was invented. However, given the number of different people who needed to be involved in this forgery, the number of people who have looked into this evidence and found no definite contradiction of this evidence; and given the fact that they opened the files with all this evidence in an apparently exasperated attempt to say, "look, damned if we know if we're hiding anything", I think that the speculation is idle.

The argument for Oswald's links to the CIA is more compelling, though the opinion of those talking on both sides of the old Iron Curtain seem to be that he was a fuck up, albeit one with a good aim.

The chaotic nature of these theories is underlined by the fact that Lyndon Johnson, the most publicly direct beneficiary of his assassination, is said to have believed in a conspiracy by Castro. Which is also indicative of the farcical nature of these shenanigans.

connor wrote:

big_dave wrote:Evidence suggests the sun rises and sets. Do I have to add that to the front of everything, and "in my opinion" to the end of everything before I pass the libertarian think-police litmus test?

How about we set about changing that with our messageboard posts.

Also, the Zapruder film is now a forgery. Whahahaha.

I missed it before, but you are aware that RR is right: no one "saw" or "heard" LHO shoot JFK.

How does someone "hear" him shoot JFK? "Listen to that rifle shot! Sounds like crazy ole Oswald!"

No one saw Oswald firing a rifle from the book depository. No one. I'm not saying that means he didn't do it, I'm just saying you're full of shit.

OK.

Somebody in a room that only Oswald was in, was seen and heard to have shoot JFK*

Witnesses say that they saw a rifle in the window, and Oswald was seen to have carried in a rifle (disguised as pipes or curtain rails, as I recall) into the room. Although many witnesses said otherwise, many nearby said that the sound of shots came from the book depository.

Oswald shot at JFK. He was apprehended immediately afterwards. No other gunman has been found. We have to split hairs on a bitchy-bitch-bitch level to make a deal out of this on the internet. Am I supposed to stress a difference between Lee Harvey Oswald and The Man In The Room That Apparently Only Lee Harvey Oswald was in, before I post about the subject?

If there is something here I would say that a CIA attempt to corrupt and destroy evidence and badger witnesses is a better story. As is the idea that there was an additional gun man. I would not be adverse to the idea that the bullet on the gurney was a plant, but that does not prove that LHO never fired. That would the CIA covering its own shame.

Connor. Good luck in turning this debate into the realms of the sane, but I do not give that good odds. We already have someone saying that the Zapruder film is a hoax, constructed frame by frame. Beautiful. Call George Adamski and ask him how it was done. 50% of JFK's head stuck to a plane of glass.

*this does not mean that no other shots were fired.

Good night.

Rick Reuben wrote:

connor wrote:There is of course that video in which a Secret Service agent is ordered by a superior to back off JFK's limo as he attempts to jog beside it a little earlier that morning. The jogging agent gets visibly pissed and throws his hands up in a very "what-the-fuck" gesture.

Yup. You can watch that here:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/262729/jf ... _call_off/

No thoughts, comments, reactions to this very provocative piece of video?

I suppose the agent could have been trying to catch a glimpse of Jackie O's beaver and was sternly reprimanded.