Thursday, November 14, 2013
The 50th Anniversary of the JFK Assassination
While I wasn't even born during this tragic and historic event I was born on 3/14/64 which would make me well along in my mother's womb on that fateful day of 11/22/63. The specials are starting to churn out with PBS leading the way. Watched NOVA's "Cold Case JFK" episode last night and just as I suspected all the more mainstream and respected programs are gonna go all establishmentarian on us, not really gonna give serious fodder to any conspiracy theories. On the show after that narrator George Clooney intoned "when Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed John Kennedy from the Texas School Book Depository" and I got to thinking but that was never exactly proven in a court of law now was it because nightclub owner Jack Ruby wasted no time in gunning him down. While growing up I had a slim purple bound volume of the famous Warren Commission Report on my bookshelf and was weeding out books one day and it was such an easy decision to just chuck the thing out. The House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978 went with it was probably a conspiracy and I'll go along with that but I haven't decided on which theory yet. I'm kind of guessing BB's establishmentarian POV here but let's open it up for debate anyway.
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First time I went to Texas we went to the place downtown where it all happened. The depository is a museum now and despite the fact that it's still a busy intersection in a big city it does have a little bit of the sacred-place aura.
ReplyDeleteI never cared to read Bugliosi's book on the matter, think "Atlas Shrugged" with footnotes. Been wondering btw how does an e-reader handle massive footnotes?
ReplyDeleteInteresting how just about any significant event spawns conspiracy theories. Kennedy's assassination was quite a shock at the time; I had finished up summer
ReplyDeletesemester of advanced inorganic chemistry, development of the English novel and
cattle genetics, visited the draft board, had an pre-commission interview with a
board of army officers, gotten engaged and was just back from a job interview.
It was like 9-11: everyone dropped everything and watched the little b/w TV.
OK...Ladybird did it.
You've always had a bias against conspiracy theories. I just like to consider them in depth before I automatically dismiss them. My general rule, not all conspiracy theories can be true but are there no actual conspiracies whatsoever? Both to me seem extreme positions so that's how I approach it. The other thing is I think whenever anyone brings up JFK conspiracy theories for some reason it's automatically conflated with the CIA did it whereas there are other approaches that make more sense.
ReplyDeleteNo bias, just too many to keep up with.
DeleteNo conspiracy, but a bit strange , Ken Starr, the Lewinsky prosecutor, trying to free a serial child molester. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteKen Starr, someone once told me he was at a party for Bill Clinton. Original Mission - to probe the Whitewater land deal, somehow got off track. I'm just sayin' but hey Jonah Goldberg got a career out of it.
DeleteJoe Kennedy so the story goes had the Mob's help in getting his son elected president then Bobby Kennedy as AG goes after the Mob like gangbusters. This at least is the emerging consensus among the more respected conspiracists not the Jim Garrison stuff.
ReplyDeleteCould be. Ol Joe was no angel.
DeleteBob Schieffer did another establishmentarian, mainstream, nonconspiratorial piece last night. The media today is biased towards government, go figure.
ReplyDeleteBut BB why give more weight to the Warren Commission Report than the House Select Committee on Assassinations Report? Usually in terms of simple chronology a later investigatory study is deemed more mature and wide-ranging in scope and analysis.
ReplyDeleteTwo-edged sword, IMO: the further an event fades into the past, the less
Deleteactual evidence, and the tendency to look at events in current terms rather than those at the time. On the other hand, sometimes something new shows up. We know stuff and we don't know stuff. The latter leads to conjecture. If conjecture leads to new evidence, great...if not, just another
conspiracy theory.
Well we still got a boatload of classified files relating to JFK to be released years down the road. Here's my take, release everything far enough into the future where it won't make any difference and many of us will be dead anyway or senile or have Alzheimer's.
ReplyDeleteWell, how's this for an imagineered theory? After faking her death in '62, Marilyn Monroe hid with Baffin island Inuits until John Kennedy faked his in '63. They were
ReplyDeletesecretly flown to SE Asia by pilot-agent Allen Lawrence Pope in a B-26 black CIA bomber to Bora Bora where they lived in an anonymous cocoanut plantation mansion for some years under the name O'Reilly. Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover
found out and tried to blackmail them. However a disaffected CIA agent arranged with G. Gordon Liddy to break into Watergate, ending the threat.
So back to the future. ALL JFK files have now been declassified and are open to the public. Marge says to her husband Hank it was a conspiracy after all. Marge now has cancer and Hank is trying to get the badger out from under his bed.
ReplyDeleteNov 19. 1863: five score and ten years ago, Lincoln gave the four score and seven speech. Another assassinated president...any conspiracy theory?
ReplyDeleteThere is actually a body of conspiracy theories about Lincoln's assassination but I'm only vaguely aware of it. As far as I can tell it had to do with the NWO although it wasn't called that back then. It's not my thing.
ReplyDeleteWe can be sure it was not that John Wilkes Booth had a thing for Jodie Foster.
DeleteI get your point BB that on occasion there are lone nuts who take shots at presidents. Of course in the Roman days things happened for a reason.
DeleteIt seems the Romans devised the practice instead of elections. Contrary
Deleteto complaints, we have yet to elect a Nero or Caligula.
I guess this subject is all tapped out. We can discuss Alec Baldwin...
ReplyDeleteenough already with all this BS ..
ReplyDeleteToday is postop day 5 and I am starting to believe that there is a possibility of light at the end of the tunnel. This has been miserable.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me last Friday the day of the Anniversary was there wasn't the wall-to-wall coverage I expected. There was plenty of other stuff on the menu to watch. I think the various conspiracy theories have ossified to the point where the media doesn't pay much interest anymore. Even if something were proven tomorrow I don't think it'd make the front page. Conspiracy theory jadedness call it.
ReplyDeleteI still think that picture of the baby saluting the coffin has to be one of the saddest things of all time. Just thinking about it can make me cry. How pitiful that must have been for her, with those children so young and the whole bubble not burst but shattered all around you.
ReplyDeleteI think what gave rise to all the conspiracy-theorizing is there had to be an existential reason for all of this and who am I to say they're wrong. Meanwhile Charles Manson is set to be wed.
ReplyDeleteNo conspiracy theory, but I went to school with and ice skated with one of his harem...mother ofPooh Bear .
ReplyDeleteChuckie is 79 now and clearly as crazy as ever.
Existential reason.... karma
ReplyDeleteWhat of the Kennedy Curse?
ReplyDeleteYou got a better explanation?
ReplyDeleteThen there was Ole Joe who the story goes was instrumental in getting a family member lobotomized.
ReplyDeleteThe Kennedy Curse probably resulted from living dangerously. Joe Jr.
Delete"He piloted land-based PB4Y Liberator patrol bombers on anti-submarine details during two tours of duty in the winter of 1943–1944. Kennedy had completed 25 combat missions and was eligible to return home. He instead volunteered for an Operation Aphrodite mission." ..
was never found after the B-24 jammed with 21,000 lbs of Torpex exploded
prematurely. John had his own precarious adventures at the same time,
PT-109. John Jr. apparently in the same mold, died in a plane crash, lost in the dark. Yeah, sort of a curse, I guess.
Consider the time. And since then the whole family has revolutionized life for people with developmental disabilities. Including starting Special Olympics.
ReplyDeleteI have to say there are so many Kennedys past and present I get confused. You actually need SparkNotes.
ReplyDeleteThe Dallas assassination is often discussed on other blogs; the upshot being
Deletethat one crazy dude acting alone is not reasonable. A very high percentage
of folks seem to come to that conclusion. I dunno, a careful study of presidential assassinations and attempts reveals little in the line of careful
group conspiracies....mostly just crazy dudes. I'd be tempted if Oswald had
used a drone, ya know?
The JFK case feels different though. I don't think the idea of a conspiracy has actually been disproved either.
DeleteUs ancients recall that throughout the 50s and 60s, the CIA was very active in
ReplyDeletescrewing around in other countries, creating coups, paying thugs, engineering elections and establishing dictatorships under the dictum 'They may be SOBs, but
they are our SOBs. Iran, Indonesia, Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala..they ran with
a free (but secret) hand. I suppose some would posit that the bunch would mess
in internal affairs as well....
As I've said BB I haven't yet settled on my own personal conspiracy theory but an agency of the gov't that was responsible for MKULTRA ya know?
ReplyDeleteDo you think the wide open concealed carry laws make things safer ?
ReplyDeleteCould've been worse, could've nicked a family jewel.
DeleteCellphones: that family with 4 kids that got lost in the Nevada outback couldn't get theirs to work...but the military (with NSA help?) tracked a weak signal. Two days,
ReplyDelete20 below zero. The guy burned his tires, heated rocks and put them in the car.
No frostbite, nada. God helps those who help themselves. Not sure about the
Goodyear warranty though.
Ayn Rand would be proud. J.D. Salinger would've drank a canteen of his own urine.
DeleteJohn Galt would have collected the snow and sold it.
DeleteA good Twilight Zone would have been if Ayn Rand had been stuck in such a situation would she have wanted outside help, what some of us call charity or would she have sucked in her gut and bravely stuck with her Objectivism?
DeleteSometimes theoreticians are not practical. Maybe she would have shooed off evil government agencies like the National Guard and the
DeleteSheriff Posse and called up Alan Greenspan. (who would gather cash
from her sycophants, convert it to gold bar and paid John Galt. Just guessing here...haven't read the book..
-sigh- once again in the Colorado triangle of Columbine, Aurora and this place innocents are getting shot. A couple months
ReplyDeleteback, Colorado recalled a democratic state senator who dareedto introduce a law
requiring background checks. Peace be onto those idiots who worship the NRA.
But again has any of this massive data-mining of the NSA prevented any of this?
DeleteThey get some . The lone wolves are quite difficult; they avoid communications for the most part. 9-11 fallout; could
Deletehave prevented it perhaps.
Seems to me the psychos are all teched up these days just like everybody else. Adam Lanza was always on the computer. Why'd the NSA miss him?
DeleteNSA is helpless when it comes to NRA.
DeleteAccording to the final report Adam Lanza used to communicate with his own mother solely through email even though they both lived in the same house. That ball was in the NSA's court not the NRA's.
DeleteNot sure what was in the e-mails. I think NSA only looks for terrorist action against the country as a whole, and these school kooks get overlooked. Dunno, ya think they should include and concentrate of
Deleteschool kooks? Saw a shooter confederation guy on Fox explaining that if
everyone was armed the problem would go away. Kinda cute- first graders with their assault rifles for Christmas.
All I'm saying is that with this massive intrusion into our Privacy on a daily basis you'd think they'd net a couple of school kooks yes. So thus far I don't see the practical value in all this. National Security Agency - does the word "security" only stand for counterterrorism?
DeleteNSA has been around quiteawhile
Deletedoing their thing. Tis only the e-generation that noticed?
As I've said ever since the Dawn of Time we've never really had our privacy. 'Tis a fairy tale.
DeleteIMO, modern e-media makes it too easy. If they still worked with card files, the database would be tiny.
DeleteThe modern rule here would seem to be the more technology advances the less privacy we'll have. Enjoy your smartphone but your life is an open book.
DeleteIn that case, which seems to have merit, the term smartphone becomes
Deletean oxymoron.
Yesterday I was in K-Mart and it was rather busy and this young couple was ahead of me on line. So the wife is doing the typical thing wives do these days when shopping and she kept scrolling up and down her smartphone screen. I'm not like this but I could have easily looked over her shoulder for some personal info. It's like everybody's a techno-exhibitionist these days.
DeleteI should have seen it coming; was in a conference with the room speakerphone back in 1990; we were talking with a chemicals salesman
Deletewho had one of the new gadgets they called cellphones. We were amazed that he could drive and talk simultaneously. Then there was a
loud "Oh shit!", the sound of cars crashing....and a shaken, "Can I get back to you?" Long retired, I remember the best things about those
meetings with conference calls -donuts-
There's some funny sales going on out there. I was in a supermarket the other day and they had a special sale on peanuts with a special display - "Buy 10 bags of unsalted roasted peanuts for $10." That's great if you have an elephant.
ReplyDeleteI've managed production and research, but the food business is a bit of a mystery to me. This AM, the graveyard waitress was dead on her feet at 4:45 when I arrived with my Sunday paper. Her father-in-law had gone into a coma Christmas Eve and she had not slept in 4 days. She tried to get the night off, but was threatened with immediate termination. She tried to swap a few hours with a waitress that she had
ReplyDeletecovered for, but got the cold shoulder. So, my order was mixed up, but understandably so. In my experience you build a team...what's up with restaurants
anyhoo? They cut hours, treat employees worse than dirt and expect smiling faces.
Is it that hard, Z-Man?
& remember I only got one day off for a groin pull and one guy kept making sexual jokes.
DeleteIMO, retail is tough work, maybe more so in the food business. I reviewed
Delete200 types of jobs based on work environment, pay, potential
and stress trying to find a fit for you. But golly, a groin pull call-in might
even draw jokes at the monastery, ya know?