From: parys@ccsua.ctstateu.edu
Subject: Re: conspiracy
Followup-To: alt.conspiracy
Keywords: conspiracy
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science, New Haven, CT
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 20:30:18 GMT

IIn article <009670AD.534B5F20@vms.csd.mu.edu>, 6489mcadamsj@vms.csd.mu.edu (John McAdams) writes:
> 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
>close








 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
> 
> 
>