From: 6489mcadamsj@vms.csd.mu.edu (John McAdams)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: conspiracy
Date: 23 Jan 1993 19:46:44 GMT
Organization: Marquette University - Computer Services
Reply-To: 6489mcadamsj@vms.csd.mu.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: vmsd.csd.mu.edu

In article <93020.033218U54778@uicvm.uic.edu>, <U54778@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
>>>
>>
>>This kind of abuse doesn't help your credibility.
>>
>
>Well, when you reach a certain level of exasperation because the
>other side of the debates seems lost in their own fever dream,
>sometimes you have to do something to wake them up.
>

Lost in a fever dream best describes the conspiracy theorists.

>
>Which sources are you talking about?  You have never referenced any
>source in any of you posts that I have seen.  All I have read are
>your superiorly informed opinions and attitudes.  No sources given.
>If you give me a source for your great insights, I will gladly
>read them.

Well the last book I've read is Jim Moore's CONSPIRACY OF ONE.  And I've read
occasional articles by David Belin and I saw the Dan Rather special on CBS in
the 70s and the Nova piece just a couple of years ago.

But I'm not a collector of assassination trivia.  I claim to know about the key
pieces of evidence in the case, but not about every red herring every
conspiracy theorists every brought up.

BTW, I'm a political scientist, not an historian.

>Very much so.  I have criticized them in this very newsgroup.  I have
>also found many postings filled with suppositions and inuendo, very
>short on facts or references but I have never read any so lacking
>in these aspects as your postings.
>BTW, which "facts" have you "followed up" and found "fabricated".
>References, please?
>

How about Rober Sam Anson's claim that Zapruder heard a bullet "whiz by his
head."  Turns out that Zapruder never said such a thing.

How about the claim that the gun discovered on the sixth floor of the School
Book Depository was "really a Mauser?"  Actually, the officers who discovered
it said it was a Mauser because, they said, "it looked like a Mauser."  And
indeed a MC does look like a Mauser.

How about the claim that Oswald is actually standing on the front steps of the
School Book Depository, and is visible in a photo taken at the time of the
assassination?

How about Mark Lane, who interviewed a man in a railroad signal tower above
Dealey Plaza, and he claimed to have seen a "puff of smoke" from the area of
the grassy knoll at the moment of the assassination?  Apparently, Lane believes
that modern assassins use muskets.

How about Anson's claim that some mysterious figure was responsible for
"fingering" Oswald in the theater?  How come he never mentions Johnny Calvin
Brewer?

How about the claim that Oswald's rifle wasn't capable of hitting the
president?  If it wasn't, why would a conspiracy plant such a weapon? 
Presumably the conspiracy had the resources to plant any weapon they wanted?

How about the claim that the head shot came from in front?  Not only does the
Zapruder film show Kennedy being hit from behind, all the medical evidence is
that he was.  I know people like you believe it was all faked, but I don't
believe that.


>>There is nothing here about Warren being instructed to "cover up" evidence of
>>an assassination.  You interpret this as Warren being told "you need to lie to
>>prevent nuclear war."  It could just as well mean "you need to get the truth
>>out to prevent nuclear war."
>>
>Straight from the genius school of the literal interpretation of the
>bible.  If some researcher found a note that blatantly stated that
>so and so was to be covered up, I probably would discount it from the
>start.  At least, a lot more evidence backing up the same would have
>to be produced before I would consider it genuine.
>My point is only idiots would rush to believe that such blatant and
>obvious commands would be committed to paper.  One has to look
>closely at what one does find to see where the hidden trends of
>directions manifest.  Or is this outside the domain of the historian?
>Are you trying to tell me that historians always read documents
>as blankly literal?
>

My, my.  You're saying I shouldn't take these memos at face value?  I should
look for "hidden trends of directions"?

First you said that these memos admitted to a coverup.  Now you telling me they
don't really, they just contain "hidden trends" that indicate a coverup?

But why should we try to find hidden trends when they make perfect sense taken
at face value?  If one *starts* with the assumption that there was a coverup,
then one can find "hidden trends" that tend in that direction.  But if one
starts with the view that these people felt Oswald did it then one can see the
message as "get the truth out."

IOW, these memos are no independent evidence of a coverup.  Reading them that
way requires that you *already* believe in a coverup.

>>Johnson's famous quote that he believed there was a conspiracy, *if* he
>>*really
>>had* "always" believed that, would indicate that he saw the Warren Commission
>>as a coverup.
>>
>>But a coverup of a *communist* conspiracy, not a right wing conspiracy.  How
>>does Johnson's thinking there was a communist conspiracy indicate that there
>>really was a right wing conspiracy?  If you really *believe* it, you have to
>>believe there was a communist conspiracy.  If you doubt Johnson's judgment on
>>this question, you have every right to doubt that there was *any* conspiracy.
>>
>>More importantly, if Johnson saw the WC as having the job of covering up a
>>left
>>wing conspiracy, it doesn't follow that any member of the commission did.
>>Nothing in the Earle Warren quote above indicates he saw it as a coverup.
>>
>Right wing!! Left wing!!  I'll state here and now that I believe it
>was the chicken wing of the Dept. of Farms that contrived the killing.
>

My, my, how evasive.  The most common type of conspiracy theory is that JFK was
killed by a right wing conspiracy because he was becoming too cosy with the
communists.

It's possible he was killed by communists instead.  But I have trouble
believing that both communists, and people who felt JFK was not anti-communist
enough could have cooperated in a conspiracy to kill him.

Some conspiracy theories, IOW, are inconsistent with other conspiracy theories. 
One can believe that communists killed Kennedy (LBJ may have), or one can
believe anti-communists did (Oliver Stone does).  But not both.

BTW, Johnson may have believed that others were "behind" Oswald, but he seems
to have believed that Oswald actually did the shooting.  If this is so, then
*no* evidence of a second assassin on the grassy knoll needed to be
covered up.  *No* photos of Oswald needed to be faked.  *No* autopsy evidence
needed to be meddled with.  The only thing that needed to be "covered up" is
Oswald's involvement with communist agents of some sort.

I guess this coverup worked.  Except I have as much trouble accepting the KGB
trusting Oswald with the assassination as I do with the CIA.

>
>This reminds me of an amusing session with a right wing friend of mine.
>He got totally twisted up on the description of Russia's last hardliners
>coup because the news item called them "right wingers" which references
>them as the authoritarian part of their society while he insisted that
>you can't call "communist enforcers" rightwing because they are enforcing
>"left wing" ideologies keeping the context within political
>demarcations.  Which way are you oriented, John?
>

Not that this has the *slightest* thing to do with the assassination, but your
friend is right.  "Hard line Marxists" would be the best term.  There are most
certainly authoritarians of both the left and the right.  Those in Russia were
on the left (at least those that staged the coup).

>5) When you have done this little task of homework, then I will feel
>   that you have a modicum of knowledge needed to debate these
>    matters.  Anyone can give his/her 5 cent opinion.  This newsgroup
>    shouldn't exclude anyone wanting to express whatever is on their
>    mind but if you are going to debate as if you so knowledgable
>    that you have the true interpretation of this event, then you
>    have to come up with more than just opinionated hype!!
>    Until then, it's been a real slice, John. Bye-bye.
>

This may suprise you Alan, but some people actually have a life.  They don't
live on assassination trivia.  I feel not the slightest obligation to read
everything written on the assassination before I express an opinion.  I will
feel perfectly free to chime in when somebody says something I know to be
untrue, or to question the basic logic of the argument.

.John



Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk