The tiresome 'Lone gunman' theory

[John Wilson]

I have read about the JFK slaying in November '63 quite a bit, seen the wonderful if Hollywood movie and have studied the topic whilst in the post-school 6th form as a project, so I know a smattering. This doesn't make me as qualified to comment about it in depth as many of you people, but I'm enthusiastic nevertheless.

It always makes me wince, growl and lastly laugh in despair when the "authorities" (?) wheel out those lame US and/or UK 'documentaries' which, disdaining any objectivity in their desperate zeal to clamber up the Warren Report's backside, fall over themselves to 'disprove' the conspiracy theory of there having been more than one gunman killer.

Multiple bullets are shoe-horned into timeslots that don't fit (Zapruder film), explanatory plot holes are clumsily bunged up with oodles of plaster of Paris and all of the characters are hastily crammed into places they never were at a time they couldn't have been?

One that I watched, I can't remember it's daft title, but it contained something dramatic in order to perhaps shock us into obedience(?), even had the gall to keep blatanly making definite 'factual' statements which denied anything other than the square peg into the round hole, ie. Oswald was a Communist, came back to the USA, bought a gun, got a job overlooking the Plaza and fired his amazingly accurate shots into the President from afar...in record time.

CIA spin?

Why on earth do they even bother? Most Americans (and world populus?), according to endless polls, do not believe the fantastic Warren Report?

Edited October 6, 2009 by John Wilson

[Mark Knight]

The full truth of what occurred on November 22, 1963 in Dealy Plaza may never be known. The facts are that JFK was shot and died from his wounds, and John Connally was injured by gunfire while riding in the same car. Of those facts we are certain. But no one can with 100% certainty place Lee Harvey Oswald in the southwest [or any other] window of the TSBD at 12:30 pm on the date in question...nor can anyone with 100% certainty place any rifle in Oswald's hands at the time and place of the shooting. Yet there are those on this forum and elsewhere who will argue to the death that Oswald was certainly the assassin, to the exclusion of every other human being in the Dealy Plaza vicinity on that date at the time the fatal shots were fired.

I find that a curious position.

[Guest]

I find that a curious position.

What I find a more curious position is that despite the facts that there have been lots of occasions when lone gunmen have tried to take out an American president, and that as a lone gunman Oswald had plenty of form, the vast majority of American citizens still believe he was innocent - maybe this is testimony to the power of the movies over education?

I was just about incidentally to suggest that no one seems to believe that John Hinckley Jr was a patsy but a quick google reveals the utterly depressing conclusion that some do!

http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=14872

A more interesting and challenging line of research might well be how and why it is that American late capitalist society is so dysfunctional as to create such alienation that produces both 'lone gunmen' and this pathological determination to explain historical events using fantastic conspiracy theories.

[John Wilson]

I find it curious that people can not think that there was more than one person organising and perpetrating the JFK killing?

Not because of the film, not because I'm on meds and not because I'm liable to believe absolutely anything that 'fits' a theory I want it to.

I believe that because one man could not logically have acted alone to achieve what Oswald did in the months and years building up to Deeley Plaza- after the fact especially.

There are too many strange events, curious happenings and convenient deaths etc that occurred to dozens/hundreds of people before November 1963, when Oswald was under arrest, and after his death, which in itself speaks volumes, to me.

[Denis Pointing]

The full truth of what occurred on November 22, 1963 in Dealy Plaza may never be known. The facts are that JFK was shot and died from his wounds, and John Connally was injured by gunfire while riding in the same car. Of those facts we are certain. But no one can with 100% certainty place Lee Harvey Oswald in the southwest [or any other] window of the TSBD at 12:30 pm on the date in question...nor can anyone with 100% certainty place any rifle in Oswald's hands at the time and place of the shooting. Yet there are those on this forum and elsewhere who will argue to the death that Oswald was certainly the assassin, to the exclusion of every other human being in the Dealy Plaza vicinity on that date at the time the fatal shots were fired.

I find that a curious position.

Edited December 20, 2009 by Denis Pointing

[Paul Baker]

I agree John. Simple common sense can be tiresome.

[Denis Pointing]

I agree John. Simple common sense can be tiresome.

LOL Yes Paul, your right of course. I guess "common sense" isn't really so very common at all, is it?

Edited October 7, 2009 by Denis Pointing

[John Wilson]

Hi Dennis

Yes I agree there is a grey area of belief? As for the majority thought process, annoying as it is to the authorities, the views of the great unwashed DO matter (polls etc), or why else would the powers that be spend so much money and time in manipulating them every election?

[Denis Pointing]

Hi Dennis

Yes I agree there is a grey area of belief? As for the majority thought process, annoying as it is to the authorities, the views of the great unwashed DO matter (polls etc), or why else would the powers that be spend so much money and time in manipulating them every election?

Hi John, yes of course what the majority of people believe is very importaint. My point was that something isn't necessarily true or untrue just because the majority of people believe it to be so.

[William Kelly]

I find that a curious position.

What I find a more curious position is that despite the facts that there have been lots of occasions when lone gunmen have tried to take out an American president, and that as a lone gunman Oswald had plenty of form, the vast majority of American citizens still believe he was innocent - maybe this is testimony to the power of the movies over education?

I was just about incidentally to suggest that no one seems to believe that John Hinckley Jr was a patsy but a quick google reveals the utterly depressing conclusion that some do!

http://www.informationliberation.com/index.php?id=14872

A more interesting and challenging line of research might well be how and why it is that American late capitalist society is so dysfunctional as to create such alienation that produces both 'lone gunmen' and this pathological determination to explain historical events using fantastic conspiracy theories.

Andy,

You make the same mistake that Allen Dulles does at the first meeting of the Warren Commisison when he tried to pawn off a book on American assassins that makes this same case for lone nut gunman as peculiar to American society. But by mentioning the Lincoln assassination, McCloy points out that this WAS a conspiracy.

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/08...aley-plaza.html

Of course real inquisitors into crimes and historic events try to determine the truth, and not just whether it was the work of a lone nut or a conspiracy.

You didn't have to google the internet to find an article on Hinkley, there's one right here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...hl=John+Hinkley

THREE Lone Nuts were arrested, not just Hinkley.

And the the attack on the President was preceeded by a black propaganda op that anticipated an attack on him, and blamed it on Castro, which implies that someone knew that an attack was in the works.

I find it curious that 20% of the British believe that Princess Di was murdered, the same percentage of Americans that believe JFK was the victim of Lone Nut Oswald alone.

I think it would be more interesting and challenging research to try to determine why the British have a pathological desire to brand all Americans the same, and our dysfunctional society late, when we are really the most varied society in history and just getting started.

BK

[John Wilson]

Hi John, yes of course what the majority of people believe is very importaint. My point was that something isn't necessarily true or untrue just because the majority of people believe it to be so.

True, Dennis. I don't necessarily go along with "Might is right".

I suppose if I were a professional politician, I would probably also be irked by the uneducated masses, most of whom believe anything they're spoonfed and 'told' to believe, or are brainwashed by the media and Politicians who reveal just enough of what we should know?

[Guest]

I think it would be more interesting and challenging research to try to determine why the British have a pathological desire to brand all Americans the same, and our dysfunctional society late, when we are really the most varied society in history and just getting started.

BK

It is your capitalism that's 'late' (hopefully).

I would be amazed of that figure of 20% were true regarding belief in Princess Diana conspiracy theories as they are without doubt the daftest of the genre.

The critical error in much conspiracism would appear to me to be the readiness to fall into the classic historian's fallacy. This occurs when researchers assume that the social actors of the past viewed events with the same perspective and same information as those, like you, who subsequently analyse them - in doing so you may miss a thousand conflicting possibilities and signs. The world is full of unexplained data which in retrospect may seem significant but equally may not have been.

I think the true sceptic might accept that the most plausible theories about the past contain the fewest number of new assumptions. In the example that you cite - it is more probable that Princess Diana (not wearing her seatbelt) was the victim of a severely drunk and irresponsible driver than it is that the Duke of Edinburgh hatched an elaborate plot with the rest of the British establishment to bump her off.

I hope you don't think I am anti-American. This only occurs semi-annually during Ryder Cup weeks and I think I have it under control.

[Ron Ecker]

The bullet that Hinckley shot Reagan with was every bit as magical in its course as the one that Oswald shot JFK and Connally with, the one that Sirhan shot RFK with (point-blank behind the ear), and the one that Chapman shot Lennon with (firing from one side and hitting the other). There seems to be an endless supply of magic bullets in the arsenal of the CIA. (Or I should say, of some such organization.) That's why these lone nuts never kill their prey with a simple, straight-on shot. Using ordinary bullets, none of them could hit the side of a barn.

[Denis Pointing]

I think it would be more interesting and challenging research to try to determine why the British have a pathological desire to brand all Americans the same, and our dysfunctional society late, when we are really the most varied society in history and just getting started.

BK

I dont believe that statement is really accurate Bill, the Brits I know are always surprised at the great diversity between Americans. I've been fortunate enough to travel America quite extensively and the people are vastly differant from state to state rather than just north to south as in Britain. The only generalisation I would make is that wherever one goes in America you cant help but be amazed how extremely patriotic you all are. The 'ole glory' flag is everywhere, I've seen people raise the stars an stripes in their gardens before going to work every morning and they actually salute it!!!

And when your anthem is played you stop dead, put your hand on your heart and sing ...out loud!!!

We Brits really do find this extreme patriotism incredibly strange. Fact is we Brits know by now (we have been around a lot longer) that the government, any government, is only there to screw the people every which way it can, as hard as it can, as often as it can. So we tend to equate patriotism with naivety, ignorance and gullibility. Having said all that we really are very fond of you 'yanks' you know. Well.... apart from Belvilaqua, Heally and a few others. HA HA

Edited October 7, 2009 by Denis Pointing

[John Wilson]

I like American people in general (not their Govts or 'agencies'... or teen horror/girly chick flicks! ) and am proud to be good internet friends with several.

I do find the seemingly blind reverence for a flag disturbing, no matter who it is, 18thC britain, 1930's Germany or present-day USA? (No anology between the three)