I have had a JFKA epiphany!

[Lance Payette]

It seems to me that you are arguing against yourself, in contradiction to your previous complaints: that is, you've pointed out and complained before about these myriad and absurd Rube Goldberg-type conspiracy explanations as to what happened but now turn around and say they have no explanation as to what took place, that it's just an attempt to exonerate Oswald and not give a counter theory as to what happened.

So which is it? Absurdly complex explanations or none at all? Rube Goldberg explanations or simply defenses of Oswald?

To be sure there are people here who seem to be solely interested in clearing Oswald. A sort of Mark Lane approach (although he blamed the CIA for the crime). But they are a small minority not a majority. And certainly if you go to other assassination sites they are filled with explanations as to what happened. Incoherent and contradictory ones, ones made entirely up; but at least an explanation.

Please, you are comparing Pre-Epiphany Me to Post-Epiphany Me, scarcely a fair comparison.   This is like reminding a new convert he was thrown out of a bar last Tuesday.

You have highlighted the entire problem with Pre-Epiphany Me. I loosely referred to "conspiracy theories" without realizing they aren't theories at all.

There may be extensive issue-specific theorizing, such as (for example) "why CE 399 cannot have done what the LN narrative insists it did." But this theorizing is not fitted into any coherent theory of the JFKA. The theory, to use the term loosely, is more in the vein of "the LN narrative has to be wrong because CE 399 is bogus." When one asks, "Please explain how what you are saying about CE 399 makes sense to you in the context of your own theory about the JFKA," you get crickets because there is no theory.

What I refer to as Rube Goldberg contraptions are not coherent theories - that's precisely the point. They are mishmashes of who bought the Carcano and how it got into the TSBD, why Bill Shelley was really a CIA guy, how Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City, yada yada, but the elements aren't internally consistent and don't add up to a coherent theory of the JFKA.

Tom Graves, it seems to me, has a coherent theory with the KGB. Perhaps the most coherent theory, to give the devils their due, is Harvey & Lee. Armstrong did a staggering amount of research - the John Armstrong Collection at Baylor University is a priceless resource - and fitted it into a fascinating theory of two distinct Oswalds. I may think it's absurd in the extreme, but it is an actual coherent theory of the JFKA that the H&L folks promote and defend.

My post is actually an indictment of myself. By assuming these folks were interested in What Actually Happened and were arguing against the LN narrative in furtherance of some theory of the JFKA that they at least found coherent, I was giving them too much credit and just wasting my breath.

I'm making a pretty narrow point, whereas you seem to be accusing me of painting with a broad brush. In my original post, I specifically acknowledged the existence of coherent conspiracy theories. I addressed, however, the "very large and vocal segment" that simply wants to play Oswald defense counsel, has no coherent theory of the JFKA, and for this reason cannot be engaged rationally at the level of such theory. Like good defense counsel, they just sling mud and hope some of it sticks; whether it makes any sense is irrelevant. Some, certainly, aren't consciously playing Oswald defense counsel but are just mentally masturbating over issues like CE 399 because they don't know enough about the JFKA to do more than this and enjoy the game.

I would take issue with your last paragraph. In my experience, these folks are anything but a "small minority." They are a very substantial segment of the CT community, particularly on internet forums. YMMV, of course.

[Tom Graves]

I’m embarrassed to admit that this never clicked with me before, but my interactions here have been a genuine epiphany.

I always assumed the JFKA research community, LNers and CTers alike, was a quest for What Really Happened. Silly me.

I thus assumed that CTers’ efforts to poke holes in the LN narrative were in furtherance of some coherent conspiracy theory. Some favored LBJ, some the Mafia, others the CIA or KGB, and so on and so forth.

I now realize this was simply wrong. Some, like Tom with his KGB narrative, do have and promote a coherent theory. However, a very large and vocal segment of the CT community is not working in furtherance of ANY THEORY AT ALL. Like criminal defense counsel, all they want to do is create doubt about the LN narrative.

A criminal defense attorney doesn’t need a theory as to who DID rob the bank or commit the murder. He just needs to create doubt that his client did. Any silly argument is worth making if there is the slightest chance the dummies on the jury might buy it. This is why lawyers refer to the “straight face test” – can you at least assert your nonsense with a straight face?

I now see why my efforts at the “epistemological” level go nowhere. I keep asking, “How does what you are saying making any sense at all unless the conspirators were utter bumbling fools?"

I never get any answers because, for the Oswald Defense Counsel Team, what they say doesn’t have to make sense! It doesn’t have to further any coherent conspiracy theory! Whether what they say would require the conspirators to have been utter bumbling fools is irrelevant!

This has been a true epiphany. I now realize that this is why I end up consigning this class of CTers to the bin of people not worth my time. Unless all I were interested in were defending the LN narrative like a religious zealot, why would I waste my time with folks who genuinely don’t care whether what they say makes any sense?

This does raise a second-level epistemological concern: Why would anyone waste so much time playing defense counsel for a guy who’s been dead almost 62 years? If your efforts aren’t in furtherance of a coherent alternative theory, what’s the point? Obviously, I expect no answers to THOSE questions either.

Epiphanies at age 75 are few and far between, but this was one.

Dear Lance,

One of the few things I'm sure of is that a KGB* "mole" in the CIA sent an unwitting former sharpshooting Marine U-2 radar operator to Moscow in October of 1959 in a planned-to-fail mole hunt.

I'm also sure that the Kremlin in early 1959, having realized that the USSR and the Warsaw Pact couldn't defeat the USSR and NATO militarily, decided to try to get us to destroy ourselves by waging disinformation, "active measures, and "Inside Man" / "Outside Man" strategic deception counterintelligence operations against the CIA, the FBI, and the intelligence services of our NATO allies.

That strategy seems to have worked out very well indeed.

I'm equally sure that the KGB* has made so much hay from the anomaly-replete JFK assassination since Day One that it has been able to use the anti-CIA / anti-government conspiracy theories it's created over the past six decades to zombify our body politic to such an extent that one of its "former" officers, Vladimir Putin, was able to install an expendable "useful idiot" as our "President" in 2017 and 2025, and that this so-called "President" of ours has recently found his KGB* influenced Rasputin in the form of Laura "Loony Tunes" Loomer.

*Today's SVR and FSB

-- Tom

[Tom Graves]

"Coherent Conspiracy Theory"?  How about any Evidence to rebut Knott Labs Forensic SCIENCE finding the SBT, "IS IMPOSSIBLE"? Without even the possibility of the SBT, there are multiple shooters = Conspiracy. As it NOW stands, this is a Slam Dunk!

Did you know that Knox Labs started their "study" by using a digital game video, and that their positioning of JFK and JBC in the limo in the final product was grossly incorrect?

[John Iacoletti]

I’m embarrassed to admit that this never clicked with me before, but my interactions here have been a genuine epiphany.

The use of the term "epiphany" just reinforces the idea that LoneNutterism is a religious ideology.

I thus assumed that CTers’ efforts to poke holes in the LN narrative were in furtherance of some coherent conspiracy theory. Some favored LBJ, some the Mafia, others the CIA or KGB, and so on and so forth.

Yes, silly you.  It's a false dichotomy.  First of all, nobody has to "poke holes" in a narrative that is already full of holes.  Secondly, recognizing those holes and other weaknesses and disbelieving the fanciful conclusions that result does not constitute a "conspiracy theory".

Basically this is just yet another attempt at "my unproven theory is automatically correct unless you can prove something different".

A criminal defense attorney doesn’t need a theory as to who DID rob the bank or commit the murder. He just needs to create doubt that his client did. Any silly argument is worth making if there is the slightest chance the dummies on the jury might buy it.

You unambiguously reveal your bias here. An accusation is all that is necessary as far as you are concerned, and guilt can be assumed.

But a prosecuting attorney doesn't need (or care about) the truth.  What s/he cares about is manipulating that dumb jury with theater and rhetoric and hope that they will do what they are told without thinking about it too much.

I now see why my efforts at the “epistemological” level go nowhere. I keep asking, “How does what you are saying making any sense at all unless the conspirators were utter bumbling fools?"

It goes nowhere, because it's a sleazy lawyer trick.  Make up a ridiculous strawman "conspiracy" that nobody actually put forward, and sit back at say, "look at these silly conspirators.  Aren't they silly? Therefore, Oswald did it".

And then whine when nobody plays your dishonest rhetorical game.

Perhaps you could explain why anyone would waste so much time playing prosecuting counsel against a guy who’s been dead almost 62 years?

[John Iacoletti]

To be sure there are people here who seem to be solely interested in clearing Oswald. A sort of Mark Lane approach (although he blamed the CIA for the crime). But they are a small minority not a majority. And certainly if you go to other assassination sites they are filled with explanations as to what happened. Incoherent and contradictory ones, ones made entirely up; but at least an explanation.

Oswald doesn't need to be cleared since no compelling evidence-based argument has ever been made for his guilt.

But not everybody is going to be interesting in making up another unprovable story to replace your unprovable story.  Sometimes the most honest answer to an inquiry is "we don't know and we likely never will".

The LN-faithful just want there to be other incoherent and contradictory theories so that they can shift the focus off of their own incoherent and contradictory theory.

[John Iacoletti]

When the internet became a reality, I was a Gee Whiz conspiracy enthusiast. On any number of forums, I questioned how any fool could possibly believe the JFKA was ANYTHING BUT a conspiracy. My first posts on the Ed Forum - I can't recall exactly when that was, but perhaps 2016 - were solidly in the conspiracy vein. Not whacked-out CTer because I'm simply not whacked-out, but solidly CT-oriented. Like most CTers, I had no coherent theory - but by God there OBVIOUSLY had to have been an elaborate conspiracy and cover-up.

I was a smoker until I wised up and saw the light.
I was a non-Christian until I wised up and saw the light.
I was a meat-eater until I wised up and saw the light.
I was a Democrat until I wised up and saw the light.

There are fewer thing more annoying (and less persuasive) than personal testimonials from true-believer converts.

I have utterly no emotional or quasi-religious attachment to the Lone Nut narrative.

You absolutely do, though I'm not surprised you are in denial about it.  Otherwise you would have spent at least as much time (or any time) sanity-checking the "Oswald-did-it" theory as you do trying to knock down CT windmills.

If presented with genuinely compelling evidence, I would cheerfully return to Conspiracy World in a heartbeat.

Great, then you should understand that if you were able to present genuinely compelling evidence, your story would be accepted too.

[John Iacoletti]

There may be extensive issue-specific theorizing, such as (for example) "why CE 399 cannot have done what the LN narrative insists it did." But this theorizing is not fitted into any coherent theory of the JFKA. The theory, to use the term loosely, is more in the vein of "the LN narrative has to be wrong because CE 399 is bogus." When one asks, "Please explain how what you are saying about CE 399 makes sense to you in the context of your own theory about the JFKA," you get crickets because there is no theory.

We all are guilty of going off into the weeds when it comes to minutia.  In the end, it doesn't matter if CE 399 could have done what the LN narrative insists it did, because whether it did or not, it tells us exactly nothing about who or what killed JFK.

[Jon Banks]

Oswald doesn't need to be cleared since no compelling evidence-based argument has ever been made for his guilt.

But not everybody is going to be interesting in making up another unprovable story to replace your unprovable story.  Sometimes the most honest answer to an inquiry is "we don't know and we likely never will".

The LN-faithful just want there to be other incoherent and contradictory theories so that they can shift the focus off of their own incoherent and contradictory theory.

^I Agree 100%

The most honest answer is that we may never completely know the truth about what happened.