You’d be hard-pressed to offer any untainted evidence that Oswald shot anyone. He was just a low-level spook, and if Hartmann/Waldrom are right, was being set up to take the fall for Castro’s assassination, which was why he was in Mexico trying to get into Cuba. The mobsters then turned it on the CIA, and used the Castro patsy as a Kennedy patsy. It’s a fascinating story, full of evidence and reasoning. Poking holes in it leads to other theories, but none to Oswald.

I don’t care what you think about 9/11, or what Johnson thinks. I just notice how people are afraid to doubt in public the official conspiracy theory.

If you remember the JFK argument we had, all I was arguing was that Oswald shot JFK. That and I don’t see any reason to think our government put him up to it. That’s my opinion. Beyond that, if the mob put him up to it, I don’t really care (this is your generation’s obsession, not mine). I don’t have a high opinion of JFK, either.

I didn’t lump you in with Truthers. Johnson wasn’t doubting 9/11, he was suggesting a particular theory, as I remember. Is there some problem with me criticizing theories about 9/11?

And, as Russ Baker pointed out and which I wrote about in the Blue Bayou post on which you commented, the Oswald/Sirhan/Ray lone-nut sequence in our history is a giant cop-out. Allowing yourself to believe those fantasies keeps you mainstreamed.

Evidence and reasoning is all around you. I encounter that condescension everywhere. I asked if you had read some of the better works on the JFK assassination – you know, the ones with evidence and reasoning? No. You want e&r, but are not willing to look for it, again, becuase of that mainstream comfort.

BTW, you demonstrated two of the main fallacies of the herd mentality – one, black/white – that those who don’t buy into the 19 incredibly-lucky-that-day and easily uncovered Arab theory of 9/11 must automatically join those who somehow know that Bush or Cheney did it. You’re saying that it is wrong to doubt. I doubt. Beyond that, I do not know. I want to live 50 more years to know more. It takes quite a few deaths of powerful people to uncover this stuff.

The other is that if JFK was indeed killed via conspiracy, that he must have been a victim of evil. Those who follow that line of reasoning (Oliver Stone) naturally conclude that he was a saint. Even Russ Baker believes this to some degree. JFK was a cold warrior. He started the Vietnam war, was supervising a planned invasion of Cuba, and simply got caught in other circumstances stemming out of the Cuban invasion – namely, Bobby’s vendetta again the mob, who the CIA had enlisted to assist in assassinating Castro. Oswald’s role in this … well, its’ fascinating, that’s all.

That’s the current theory, the one I buy into until something even better comes along. It explains the cover-up. It explains most everything, and keeps JFK in the ordinary human realm. Just goddammed unlucky. But “Oswald did it” makes it easy to just ignore the other things going on. Too easy.

Which makes your assessment of why I believe Oswald shot JFK wrong. I also don’t believe America is fundamentally good. Our government has done lots of horrible things. I just don’t assume that’s the case in every possible instance. I like to have some evidence or reasoning first.

The country is soling influence in Latin America, hard to know what kind of measures will be taken to bring recalcitrants back into line. Check out Latinobarometro sometime for polling results on US popularity down there – there’s a very high correlation with absence of US influence and high levels of democratic rule.

I don’t know about the the corruption of the America empire any more than this: It is no different than empires before, including the hubris in presuming that we are better than those who came before. Power corrupts everyone. We’re corrupt, but so what? Knowing it doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?

I’m not a “truther”, just a doubter. I’m not wasting any time on that. I just think it’s absurd to think that a crime of that magnitude could be solved in a few days. Nothing is ever that clear cut. Too pat. Wish I was going to live longer.

JFK – I don’t know – have you ever read some of the better works on that subject? There’s a swarm of people around Dallas and New Orleans at that time, and covert operations and mobsters running right and left, crossing each other. Oswald himself is far too complicated to be a lone gunman. I think you just want to believe the Oswald theory because it’s easy and points to the goodness of America, which is not an empire. But shit happens, you know. JFK was no saint, no hero, and his biggest drawback was Bobby.

You’re betraying the two-faced nature of the “9/11 Truth” movement. On one hand, they’ll say they’re just asking questions, that we don’t know everything, that they just want more investigation. On the other, they’ll spin grand theories based on distortions, half-truths, and faulty logic. When someone criticizes the latter, they revert to the former, which is what you just did. It’s not honest argument.

Now, you’re right to say that we can’t know everything about 9/11 right away. But 9/11 conspiracy types are arguing for a version of that event that is supported by no evidence and bad logic. We don’t know everything now, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t say certain ideas about the event are wrong.

* You’re interested in new theories about JFK to the extent that they have something sinister about them. Boring theories like Oswald as the assassin don’t give you a chance to comment on the nature and corruption of the American empire, so you don’t like them. But we’ve had the JFK argument before.

We know looking back through history that various empires existed. Did they call themselves that at the time? Hardly matters.

Plus, he ventured awfully close to 9/11 conspiracy theory.

That’s an odd statement from such a thoughtful man. The very idea that the facts, causes and participants of such an event could have been discovered and exposed within days of the event is farcical. At least permit us the fifty years or so that it has taken to get a better understanding JFK’s death.* In a government that operates in extreme secrecy, it is hard to imagine that a crime of that magnitude is given transparency while so much else is kept under wraps.

*(I am still open to new theories, as there are many, the Oswald one having the least traction.)