Posted on 11/23/2003 6:40:47 AM PST by GaryL
CNN reporter Kelly Wallace stands in Dallas' Dealey Plaza and points to the Texas School Book Depository window where, she says, Lee Harvey Oswald is "thought'' to have shot President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 -- 40 years ago Saturday. Then she and the anchor chat about the various conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination and conclude that the truth will probably never be known.
That's nonsense. And worse, it's popular nonsense. The truth is known. Oswald, acting alone, murdered JFK. We know this with as much certainty as we know anything in history. And just as we don't speak of the "alleged Civil War'' or the "supposed sinking of the Titanic,'' so to give credence to the lingering and numerous wild theories about the assassination of JFK is an unwise pandering to folklore and uncritical thinking.
Rather than continue to ask if there is any validity to these imaginings, we should wonder why they are so popular in the first place.
Several answers come to mind. People equate skepticism with independence. If the government says the sky is blue, a certain slice of the population would begin to doubt it. People also seek meaning in their lives. The idea of random tragedy, of a lone lunatic being able to destroy a man such as John F. Kennedy, is difficult to accept. They would rather cling to enticing accidents of history -- did you know that Richard M. Nixon was in Dallas the day before the assassination? -- than face a world where bad things happen for no reason at all.
Credulous media coverage by shallow reporters makes the situation worse. Balancing unequal arguments seems like fairness to them. Thus the Warren Report is weighed against Oliver Stone's fevered fantasies, just as science is pitted against UFO fanatics or, occasionally, the historical record of World War II is forced to justify itself to Holocaust deniers.
There is a human need to see order in chaos. We see it in every corner of human experience. It's what causes us to see animal figures in the stars. But the beauty of Western Civilization is that we have a commitment to empirical reality, and dry fact tells us that, despite the desires of our hearts, Elvis is not alive. The Jews don't run the world. And Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone.
The Italians have a word, "dietrologia,'' which translates as the tendency to find shadowy motives behind the obvious. That is what is going on here. Oswald was a skilled marksman. He shot Kennedy at what amounted, for him, at close range. The endless skepticism and analysis are a waste of time, and, worse, they distract attention that might otherwise be devoted to the actual trials and triumphs of Kennedy's short-lived, long-ago administration. Forty years is long enough for wild speculation to be indulged. It's time to stop humoring the conspiracy buffs.
Barr had a blind test done and it was a match. The site linked had a test done and they said it was a match. Officialdom says it isn't a match. Surprise! They have motive to say it's not. I don't believe there are that many liars in the world. I trust independant investigators before I trust the government when it comes to the JFK assassination.
Fair enough, this is the kind of thing which can be resolved, the two prints ought to be available for all to see. I'm not a fingerprint expert, so I would hope that Mr. Darby has found some other professional fingerprint analysts to agree with him.
The History channel's expert found 34 points. Barr had, what, 18 points, and the site linked had 14 points.
I searched the Web and could not find clear pictures of the two prints which were supposed to be matched, just a superposition of the two which is much less interpretable. But you have still not explained why the involvement of Mac Wallace implicates LBJ.
Mac Wallace murdered a man in 1951. LBJ got him out of a jail sentence (for murder!!!). Billie Sol Estes alleged that Mac Wallace murdered Marshall for Johnson. It fits because Marshall was getting ready to to charge Johnson with fraud in the cotton markets.
What is the documentation of the connection between LBJ and Wallace? Is it also the say-so of a single individual, or are there multiple sources who say Wallace worked for LBJ?
Linked earlier here by texasbluebell. Read it.
But not jabbed into his armpit. Try it. The way to carry "curtain rods" (or a rifle) like this through a crowded lobyy and up an elevator is to cup the end into your curled up fingers with the other end sticking out the top just behind your armpit and the center cradled against your body with your elbow clamping down on the center part forcing it against your body.
They were too busy condemning a Republican for simple burglery. LOL
Good gosh, why do you argue the simplest of points?! The driver said the package was "24 inches" and fit entirely between his palm and his armpit and that is the way he carried it. He said he was positive about that. If you can't accept this, you can't accept anything and it casts a shadow on everything else you argue about.
There are people I know who believe that the Gub'mint has aliens in cold storage at an Air Force base. There are folks who honestly think that they have been taken up into spaceships and had colonoscopies done by little green men from the sixth planet of Betelgeuse. There are people who believe that Uri Geller can bend spoons by mind power (what a useful talent to have, by the way. Everybody needs more bent spoons).
I think- no, I KNOW FOR CERTAIN- that these people are terribly misguided, even perhaps a little dotty. But their peculiar beliefs do not affect me, and I don't spend any time at all trying to talk them out of holding them.
I think that a mildly skeptical attitude (like mine, for example)towards the circumstances surrounding one of the great crimes in this Nation's jistory is a harmless thing, even if some of the "conspiracy theorists" cite the weakest of evidence, or none at all. Even if a bunch of con artists are making a buck off the more credulous among them.
It is just unimportant, like an Art Bell show, or a WEEKLY WORLD NEWS story about an Elvis sighting in Peoria.
(sarcasm/off)
............ I really like Ted Kennedy!
No he wouldn't know the exact length without measuring it.
He was willing to say that he could have been mistaken about how Oswald carried the rifle into the depository (The Trial of L.H. Oswald. Dir. Ian Hamilton. Showtime Entertainment, 1986.
We could be mistaken about anything. I saw him say he was positive the bag fit entirely between his arm and his palm.
This is from the link I posted earlier. Funny, he doesn't sound so sure.
He sounded sure on the History Channel. I guess he's just another liar or someone who doesn't know what he's talking about to you guys though. Let's see, the witnesses near the knoll were liars or inept, the doctors at Parklnd were liars or inept, the driver co-worker is a liar or inept, the fingerprint experts are liars or inept. The only truth-teller in 1963 was Hoover, huh? lol
For decades Democrats have been winning in the public arena by appealing to emotion. Republicans have always tried to appeal to logic and reason and not always successfully. I too, felt that the Posner book was the straw that broke the camel's back of the conspiracy theories. No one should have their mind clouded by the awful ideas that the conspiracy theorists put forward -- when they do think that way they are setting themselves up for recruitment by the Democrats. Look at the arguments used against our actions in Iraq. They are similar -- based on a conspiracy by Halliburton, or a plan to impose martial law, or other nonsense.
Know the truth and the truth shall set you free someone once said. If you don't know the truth you are setting yourself up to be a possible slave to demagogues. "The government wasn't telling the truth in 1963, therefore they are not telling the truth now -- Vote Dean!"
Armpit I meant.
Bull! LBJ was a socialist RAT!
Dean better watch it. The Clinton machine looks a lot like the LBJ machine.
Let's see: The entire Warren Commission were liars or inept, the House Committee were liars or inept, the entire FBI were and are liars or inept, the entire Secret Service were and are liars or inept, the entire Dallas Police Department were liars or inept, The entire CIA were liars or inept, the entire executive branch of the government were and are liars or inept, The National Archives were and are liars or inept, most news organizations were and are liars or inept, all current and ex-Presidents were and are liars or inept, and so forth. The only truth-teller is a lonely man from 1963 who didn't remember the exact details of a paper bag that may or may not have been with Oswald at the time, but 40 years have given his memory a razor-like edge. OK. Riiiight. [backing away slowly]
The following is a selection of the testimony of Wes Frazier, Oswald's coworker who drove him to the Depository on the morning of November 22, 1963. This is at 2H228-229. ------------------------------------------------------ Mr. BALL. Did it look to you as if there was something heavy in the package? Mr. FRAZIER. Well, I will be frank with you, I didn't pay much attention to the package because like I say before and after he told me that it was curtain rods and I didn't pay any attention to it, and he never had lied to me before so I never did have any reason to doubt his word. Mr. BALL. Well, from the way he carried it, the way he walked did it appear he was carrying something that had more than the weight of a paper? Mr. FRAZIER. Well, I say, you know like I say, I didn't pay much attention to the package other than I knew he had it under his arm and I didn't pay too much attention the way he was walking because I was walking along there looking at the railroad cars and watching the men on the diesel switch them cars and I didn't pay too much attention on how he carried the package at all.
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