both Democratic and Republican administrations acting in cooperation with each other have hidden these facts.
By similar logic, there were no stolen FBI files because
there could never be cooperation.
Posted on 06/12/2007 3:40:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
Vincent Bugliosi's remarkable 20-year work on who killed John F. Kennedy has just been published. Containing about a million and a half words and thousands of footnotes, "Reclaiming History" is probably the most detailed examination of one moment in time ever written. It reconfirms that a man named Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing the American president.
As one who never doubted the original U.S. government report that Oswald acted alone, I am deeply grateful to Bugliosi for the service he has rendered our country. But I also regret that he had to.
Why did he have to? Because it was necessary to definitively refute all those who believe, despite bipartisan government reports and excellent books such as Gerald Posner's "Case Closed," that there was some conspiracy to kill President Kennedy and that Oswald was not the only shooter.
There is not a shred of evidence that there was a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy, but that is entirely irrelevant to those who choose to believe that there was one. The lack of evidence only reinforces their belief that a conspiracy has been hidden.
One would think that someone would have come forward in the last 44 years to tell the world about the conspiracy. He or she would become a major figure in history, not to mention the likelihood of becoming very wealthy. But somehow, despite the fact that the government can rarely hide for months even what it wishes to hide, both Democratic and Republican administrations acting in cooperation with each other have hidden these facts.
As Bugliosi pointed out to me, it would in fact have had to be a double conspiracy -- first, the plot to assassinate, and then the plot by a much larger group, including many honorable people involved in the investigation, to cover up the original conspiracy.
Likewise, given the vast amount of planning and implementation -- and the large number of people -- that would have been involved in arranging the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center towers and part of the Pentagon, not one person has come forward -- not one American or foreigner, not one leftist or rightist -- to reveal a U.S. government plot to murder thousands of Americans and bring down two of the tallest buildings in the world.
Why, then, do people believe in these and other conspiracies? (Of course, there are known conspiracies -- Osama bin Laden and others conspired in the 9/11 plot -- but there are no successful hidden conspiracies. I cannot think of one in my lifetime.) There are at least six major reasons:
1. Many people find it impossible to believe that a few utterly unimpressive individuals can do so much damage. Lee Harvey Oswald, a man who can best be described as simply a loser, could change history all by himself? It doesn't seem to make sense.
2. Many people want to blame those they loathe for as much of what they do not like as possible. Just about everyone who believes in hidden conspiracies attributes those conspiracies to those they hate. People who hate President George W. Bush blame him and his administration for 9/11. Egyptians who hate Israel have blamed AIDS on Israeli prostitutes. Indeed, attributing to Jews hidden conspiracies -- the "world Jewish conspiracy," the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" -- is the oldest and most common belief in a hidden conspiracy.
3. One should never underestimate the power of boredom -- and the subsequent yearning for excitement -- to affect people's thinking and behavior. Belief in a hidden conspiracy is far more exciting than accepting prosaic truths. Figuring out the "mystery" of who killed JFK is a much bigger thrill than accepting that one jerk was responsible. Deciphering who was "really" responsible for 9/11 is a lot more interesting than accepting that 19 Arabs with box cutters did it.
4. People who feel powerless over their own lives are far more likely to believe that some invisible force controls their fate than people who believe that they are the masters of their lives.
5. There is, apparently, a great yearning among many people to believe that there is hidden knowledge and that they have access to it. It makes them feel special, perhaps even superior to the rest of us who do not have access to this hidden knowledge.
6. In Western societies, it appears that secular people are more likely to believe in hidden conspiracies than the more religious. It may be that the religious already believe in an invisible power that governs the universe -- God -- and therefore seem to have much less of a psychological or emotional need to believe in invisible powers on earth.
Whichever reason or reasons apply, the bottom line about those who believe in hidden conspiracies is this: They choose to believe in them. Their psyche, their emotions, and/or their political agenda bring them to their belief in a hidden conspiracy. Never the facts.
Amen...
7. Some people have brains the size of a pea.
By similar logic, there were no stolen FBI files because
there could never be cooperation.
> but there are no successful hidden conspiracies. I cannot think of one in my lifetime.)
Freemasonry anyone? or The Illuminati? The 5 Jewish Bankers? Pinky & The Brain? The Bonesmen? /s
Maybe..but Oswald was exactly the type to try to assassinate a political leader. Inexplicably grandiose.. fanatical..his whole life seemed to be about getting some recognition using the most pathetic means, probably because he was so mediocre they were the only means he had.
Gaeton Fonzi was an investigator on the Senate Select Committee on Assassinations. His book “The Last Investigation” provides countless examples of why no one has come forth to spill the beans; they were mostly all whacked!
Then there is the fact that certain evidence was put under a seal that is not to be broken until we are all dead.
bttt - Such mentalities are quite accurately psychoanalyzed here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1846016/posts?page=77#77
One historian, I wish I could remember who, made the analogy that the Holocaust made sense — it was a great crime, conducted by a mighty gang of criminals.
The JFK assassination, on the other hand, doesn’t have that kind of symmetry; how could a crime that so deeply affected so many be the act of one lone dips-—t?
No one questions that Charles Guiteau acted alone in killing President Garfield, or that Leon Czolgosz acted alone in killing President McKinley, because neither of those men inspired as many people as Kennedy did.
Lincoln’s assassination was indeed the product of a small conspiracy, one that saw Booth shot and six of his confederates (pun intended) hanged. But it was a conspiracy that largely failed — the plan was to decapitate the government by killing the president and cabinet, but most of his comrades flaked out, and at the end of the day only Lincoln was dead and Seward injured.
Conspiracy theories rise from emotional needs more than cold reason. We want to believe in supervillains. Sherlock Holmes needs a Professor Moriarty. Looking at the horror of 9/11, we don’t want to believe that it could be the work of nineteen idiots with box-cutters, no matter how much help they had in funding and planning.
But history is like that. Terror comes from where we don’t expect it, BECAUSE we don’t expect it. They know that.
The acoustic evidence is from a dictabelt tape that was, it was later found, not recorded at Dealy Plaza. Chase the echoes all day long, but they’re irrelevant.
I have no need to fill. I just believe LBJ had a track record in Texas, the most to gain, and the means to put a plan into action. He also would have had the ability to put a considerable number of degrees of separation between he and an actual hit. I also look at what he did between Nov 22, 63 and the election less than 12 months later. He diverted the country’s attention as if he were the man behind the curtain. He pushed civil rights legislation, which he believed in about as much as any dixiecrat. He put pressure on the Warren Commission through J. Edgar so as to have their findings made public before the election. He also found the big diversion - The Gulf of Tonkin incident.
“The Truth?......You can’t handle the truth!”
We haven’t and never will live in a world of FULL DISCLOSURE.
Except for the fact that a fingerprint of Mac Wallace was found on a box in the school book depository after the assasination. Who is Mac Wallace you ask? He was a hit man who did jobs in Texas for Edward Clark who headed a law firm in Texas that handled LBJ's affairs.
Reference: Blood, Money and Power, How LBJ killed JFK by Barr McClellan.
Occams Razor suggests LBJ had the most to benefit from JFK's death. If you don't think LBJ had the mindset to issue the command or the lust for power to be president, take a stroll through the 3 volume set of Robert Caro's magnificant biographies of LBJ: Path to Power, Means of Ascent, and Master of the Senate.
I think LBJ had the means, power, and desire to knock off a sitting president in his own home state. He then got to control the investigation as president. He picked the Warren Commission.
Go ahead and put me down for as one of those looney conspiracy theorist, but this one make the most sense to me as to why, who and how was JFK killed.
Really? How many people did LBJ have murdered in Texas, killings that would have required dozens, scores or hundreds of people to commit or cover up?
The odds of keeping a secret are proportional to the number of people in on the secret, squared. The broader the conspiracy, the less plausible. All the leading JFK conspiracy theories involve hundreds of people, and most of them involve thousands.
also look at what he did between Nov 22, 63 and the election less than 12 months later. He diverted the country’s attention as if he were the man behind the curtain. He pushed civil rights legislation, which he believed in about as much as any dixiecrat.
My nostrils catch a whiff of anti-Southern prejudice there. JBJ was never a "Dixiecrat" in the formal sense, someone who joined Strom Thurmond's campaign in 1948.
LBJ took on the mantle of the martyred Kennedy, and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson had the "just folks" approach to let him in the door, and then he could twist an arm. No one ever manhandled a member of Congress like LBJ did.
Kennedy made speeches. Johnson made laws. To be sure, he f'd up a great many things, from Vietnam to welfare, but in making black folks full citizens, he was the right man in the right place at the right time.
Believe in whatever fantasy that works for you... I’ll settle for reality.
Some are true, some are partly true, and some are not true at all. You can not say all are not true.
Posner makes that analogy in Case Closed. The interesting thing I note is that often great events hinge on miniscule items. When I read histories of the second world war I get that impression a lot. One thing you could specutlate on is say a bug had gotten in Oswalds eye at just the critical moment and Kennedy had lived on. How would history have been different?
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