For the half-century commemoration of the most recent presidential assassination, a dim memory even for those who were alive at the time, of course it's time to rehash all the wacky conspiracy theories, give the JFK truthers the ol' what-for. Fair enough.
Although the events of Dealey Plaza took place several years before I arrived on this crazy orb, with both parents being staunch Democrats, and one side of the family being Irish Catholic Texans, you can bet JFK was a huge deal in my family. As far as I ever heard in mealtime conversations over the years, the Warren Commission was more or less accepted as holy writ, done and done.
Although I certainly cop to looking for conspiracies and subterfuge in areas where perhaps none truly exist, I am somewhat more agnostic on JFK, in that while I don't believe we know the whole truth, I also don't subscribe to any pet theory. But I find the "authoritative" hand-patting and reassuring clucking at conspiracy theorists to be off-putting, and I think it has its roots in much the same mindset that my family's acceptance of the Warren Report had.
Typically, the would-be debunker "refutes" any and all theories by declaring that theorists suffer from some mysterious malaise that compels them to stitch together these silly, baroque counter-narratives, due to a basic inability to comprehend the randomness of the world and of catalyzing events. This is a trope of the debunker genre, to the extent that former Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi took over 1600 pages to verbally pummel the theorists, remind them of their dopey bullshit. This is the calling card of the debunker -- not only that shit happens randomly sometimes, but the implicit assertion, that a conspiracy couldn't happen, because we're America, because we're free, whatever.
For the most part this principle is actually true. I could never buy into the 9/11 truther guff for precisely that reason -- because with the number of people required to pull off something of that scope and scale, someone would have to blab.
Nonetheless, I would flip the calling card of the debunkers on them, and point out that the central flaw in their attempts is that very implication, that a conspiracy couldn't happen. The debunkers insist that the theorists "need" a story that satisfies their craving for "order," but conversely, it seems that the debunkers also have a "need" -- the need to point out that that sort of thing doesn't happen here, that we're too advanced and have strong institutions.
And that's simply not true, based just on the history that we empirically, irrefutably know. Any number of earlier civilizations have had many political assassinations, most of them inside jobs. We know that Roman emperors were routinely murdered, by close friends, by their Praetorian Guard, by any number of different means.
American history, particularly in the 20th century, is littered with any number of violent, secret activities. We know that we overthrew foreign governments, assassinated foreign leaders, started bullshit wars on false pretexts. From Operation Paperclip to Operation Ajax to Operation Northwoods, Americans in the highest echelons of power have actively conspired on some nefarious shit, time and again. Or that Prescott Bush, father and grandfather of presidents, conspired as a sitting US Senator to plot a coup to overthrow FDR.
So it's ridiculous to contend that a conspiracy to murder JFK couldn't have happened. There's no explanation for why the CIA followed Oswald around for years, from the Soviet Union to Mexico City to Miami to Dallas, and yet had no clue that he was about to change the world. There's no explanation for why, fifty years after the fact, there are still thousands of classified documents pertaining to the crime. In other words, if it's so bloody obvious that there's nothing to hide, then why do they persist in hiding it? Why did the US government itself find the likelihood of a conspiracy, if the idea is so stoopid?
The point is that nobody knows for absolute certainty what happened that fateful day. But the attraction of the debate has always been the meta-discussion, the implicit understanding that what is more important than who or how many people were involved in the assassination, is what it did to the mindset of the nation at large.
Although the events of Dealey Plaza took place several years before I arrived on this crazy orb, with both parents being staunch Democrats, and one side of the family being Irish Catholic Texans, you can bet JFK was a huge deal in my family. As far as I ever heard in mealtime conversations over the years, the Warren Commission was more or less accepted as holy writ, done and done.
Although I certainly cop to looking for conspiracies and subterfuge in areas where perhaps none truly exist, I am somewhat more agnostic on JFK, in that while I don't believe we know the whole truth, I also don't subscribe to any pet theory. But I find the "authoritative" hand-patting and reassuring clucking at conspiracy theorists to be off-putting, and I think it has its roots in much the same mindset that my family's acceptance of the Warren Report had.
Typically, the would-be debunker "refutes" any and all theories by declaring that theorists suffer from some mysterious malaise that compels them to stitch together these silly, baroque counter-narratives, due to a basic inability to comprehend the randomness of the world and of catalyzing events. This is a trope of the debunker genre, to the extent that former Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi took over 1600 pages to verbally pummel the theorists, remind them of their dopey bullshit. This is the calling card of the debunker -- not only that shit happens randomly sometimes, but the implicit assertion, that a conspiracy couldn't happen, because we're America, because we're free, whatever.
For the most part this principle is actually true. I could never buy into the 9/11 truther guff for precisely that reason -- because with the number of people required to pull off something of that scope and scale, someone would have to blab.
Nonetheless, I would flip the calling card of the debunkers on them, and point out that the central flaw in their attempts is that very implication, that a conspiracy couldn't happen. The debunkers insist that the theorists "need" a story that satisfies their craving for "order," but conversely, it seems that the debunkers also have a "need" -- the need to point out that that sort of thing doesn't happen here, that we're too advanced and have strong institutions.
And that's simply not true, based just on the history that we empirically, irrefutably know. Any number of earlier civilizations have had many political assassinations, most of them inside jobs. We know that Roman emperors were routinely murdered, by close friends, by their Praetorian Guard, by any number of different means.
American history, particularly in the 20th century, is littered with any number of violent, secret activities. We know that we overthrew foreign governments, assassinated foreign leaders, started bullshit wars on false pretexts. From Operation Paperclip to Operation Ajax to Operation Northwoods, Americans in the highest echelons of power have actively conspired on some nefarious shit, time and again. Or that Prescott Bush, father and grandfather of presidents, conspired as a sitting US Senator to plot a coup to overthrow FDR.
So it's ridiculous to contend that a conspiracy to murder JFK couldn't have happened. There's no explanation for why the CIA followed Oswald around for years, from the Soviet Union to Mexico City to Miami to Dallas, and yet had no clue that he was about to change the world. There's no explanation for why, fifty years after the fact, there are still thousands of classified documents pertaining to the crime. In other words, if it's so bloody obvious that there's nothing to hide, then why do they persist in hiding it? Why did the US government itself find the likelihood of a conspiracy, if the idea is so stoopid?
The point is that nobody knows for absolute certainty what happened that fateful day. But the attraction of the debate has always been the meta-discussion, the implicit understanding that what is more important than who or how many people were involved in the assassination, is what it did to the mindset of the nation at large.
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