The Kennedy Assasination

For me this was one of the major planks of the programme's argument removed.

their argument abt oswald was that he was lonely and attention-seeking, not that he "wanted to be famous" precisely: his saying "i'm a patsy" doesn't invalidate the attention-seeking claim particularly - ppl who are lonely and attention-seeking and often use strategies of provocation and denial to get that attention

(i agree they should have addressed that: but actually there were dozens of things they could have addressed and didn't)

(most conspiracy theory is decidedly unscientific)

Plus will there be a documentary programme in five years about how tonight's techno evidence was invalid because it was based on faulty calculations of the physical dimensions of the Dealey Plaza and/or the frame rate of Zapruder's camera or his precise vantage point when shooting his film? I don't necessarily trust these people to put these things together without some error of that type.

The subjects interviewed also made it clear that he wanted to perform an important act so he could be seen as some sort of marxist hero. Certainly attention-seeking, but not stupid , and definitely quite single-minded.

the argument that his head jerking back = he must have been shot from the front was always just rubbish anyway... the shot caused his head to explode, large amounts of bone and brains were given forward momentum but the nature of the explosion caused the rest of his head to jerk back = total momentum conserved w/o breaking the laws of physics

in bonar menninger's book i think the ballistics expert does experiments with a sequence of watermelons wrapped in duct tape on posts, to show that when you shoot them, some of them explode and falls towards the gun

i'm not saying they proved their point, i'm saying that their argument doesn't come to pieces when he acts weird or contradictory

Plus Jim Garrison was a total psychopath, and perhaps the worst part about Oliver Stone's film is that it paints a picture of Clay Shaw (by all accounts aside from conspiracy theorists) as a decent fellow who was caught in Garrison's crosshairs for some reason and had his life ruined as a result. The whole "he was a CIA operative bollocks" is a case of people not understanding what Shaw's involvement in the CIA was, and Stone using this tiny scraping of involvement has a way to show that Shaw was a criminal. Pure fucking evil, that was.

I really recommend that book "Case Closed", which is a considerably involving read.

Especially as the 'point' of the programme, the guy and his computer simulation, were unrelated to all the other evidence (except for a couple of connections, like the motorcycle cop who they tracked down).

It only makes you sigh 'oh well it was so partisan that it doesn't really settle anything'.

Isn't it also a bit like a bullet leaving a gun causes the gun to recoil backwards? (Physics was my least favourite subject at school).

A bullet travels so fast anyway that when it passes through something, it's not going to have the time to push it in the same direction that it's headed.

When people in films get shot (particularly when riddled with bullets from a machine gun) they are usually depicted being thrown backwards.
This happens for example in the Day of the Jackal when the policeman shoots the assassin. Is this completely inaccurate? Come to think of it there's the alternative depiction in many cases of the victim becoming like a rag doll, suspended in space while the bullets are being fired, then dropping directly downwards after the shooter has finished firing.

if a bullet passes right through something it may only impart a tiny amount of momentum to it, causing it to rock back, or just bow outwards

in this case, the momentum may have been imparted to chunks of his head only: THEY flew forward, but the way the brain exploded away from the bullet passing through it, plus the "jet effect" of exiting material from the hole, caused the head to rock backwards again, more sharply than the initial impact had caused it to rock forward

relying on the physics of movies and/or cartoons is possibly unwise - ppl aren;t actually being shot... if they have exploding blood capsules strapped to their tummies, then by definition nothing is passing through them and the explosion will force them backwards

Yet another theory never investigated by the Dallas PD or the Warren Commission is that Oswald assassinated JFK in a bid to highlight the unhappy plight of Texan cross dressers. Although it's got absolutely no basis in fact, it would go a long way to explain his widely misquoted assertation "I'm just Patsy".

jim garrison really should have stuck to playing bass with 'trane.

THE TRUTH IS HERE

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jean-jacquescosmos/Images/Abso%20Fab2.jpg

truly it is said "chutzpah thy name is gordon"

arnold ridley (private godfrey) played football, cricket AND rugby for england b4 WW1, and wrote more than 60 plays, several of which he starred in

anyway, didn't john peel shoot jfk?

jesus -- how old was he?
but will you read the plays?

The Kennedy doc was pretty much a rehash of Posner's 'Case Closed' bk: I didn't think the prog explained v. clearly the stuff abt the motorcycle cop's open microphone.

As for Oswald's personality - all the evidence which said he wanted to do and could have done it don't invalidate that he still could have been a patsy being played like a piano; if i was choosing a ptasy, I'd have chosen a guy like Oswald as he would be very believable, as he himself would have believed he'd have done it. He just wouldn't have been aware of the fact that there were others helping him. Anyway. I hope it wasn't just Oswald on his own. V boring if the case.

they didn't include the usual demolition of the tape-belt which appears to feature four shots, which is that it also includes a spoken message bleed-thru from another channel which shows that it was on and recording at another time entirely - ie those fuzzy static crackles aren't gunshots at all

they did show that the policeman whose belt it was supposed to be wasn't in the place he had to be for the shots to be the shots

Did Peter Jennings narrate UK version? The US version aired last thursday.

NYTimes's patented power-flattering condescension https://t.co/ybCfbEPyjr

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) October 26, 2017

The missing records include a 338-page file on J. Walton Moore, the head of the CIA office in Dallas at the time of the killing, and an 18-page dossier on Gordon McClendon, a Dallas businessman who conferred with Ruby just before he shot Oswald. Several files on notorious anti-Castro Cuban exiles were apparently withheld, including those focusing on Luis Posada and Orlando Bosch, who had been accused of a 1976 airline bombing that killed 73 people.

The still-redacted stuff is about CIA plots to kill Castro or undermine the government of Cuba, right? It'd still cause one hell of a backlash, especially if they were responsible for, say, that bombing.

huh, never heard the mark s "accident" theory before. as likely as any.

Yes, equally likely that the headshot came from a guy holding a rifle climbing onto a moving car from the street as from a guy in a stable elevated position behind the target. Who can say? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm still guiltily laughing at "what if his head just did that"

Also lol at an 18-page dossier on Gordon McClendon, a Dallas businessman who conferred with Ruby just before he shot Oswald. McLendon was a friend of Ruby's and owned a radio station that Ruby listened to. This is the extent of that "conference," which involved letting him into McLendon's radio station to deliver some sandwiches the night of Nov. 22. Hardly "just before."

hickey wasn't the one climbing onto the moving car, that was clint hill -- hickey was in the back seat of the following car, visible here toting his weapon as the limos speed to parkland memorial:

http://media.philly.com/images/jfk-hickey-with-rifle.jpg

hill (in raybans naturally) is the one on the trunk of the president's car in the foreground

I'm not surprised Luis Posada Carriles' name came up in these files. He's the Zelig of late 20th century right wing skullduggery.

xp That's actually worse. He would've had to stand up in the car and shoot to achieve the trajectory that the autopsy showed. I think someone might have noticed. (nb I have not read the book you referred to but I've read tons of others)

OK OK fine, somewhat less likely

if you've read lots of books, phil, then you should read this one too: it's fun

it's almost entirely about ballistics: howard donahue was a professional gunsmith and sharpshooter and technical trial expert on such topics in and near baltimore; he was insistent that the ballistics work for the warren commission and the house select committee -- trajectories and entry and exit wounds and details of how different kinds of bullets work on impact and what goes into bullets -- was mediocre and unprofessional, almost as bad as the ballistics work from almost all conspiracy theorists (half the book is dedicated to demonstrating -- very effectively -- that single bullet from oswald's rifle did indeed pass thru jfk's neck to hit governor connally)

and yr right, the idea hickey carefully and deliberately aimed from that vantage point is extremely silly: the entire point of the book is that it was a horrible accident

it's very o/g csi

y'all are convincing me more and more of the "oswald acted alone but there were multiple coverup conspiracies anyway because everyone was afraid of being associated with him / that an investigation would turn up other totally unrelated things" theory. that or the mafia.

I like the Harrelson as contract killer theory

harrelson is ted cruz's dad btw

also lol the william f.buckley jr, was the umbrella man has an impressive amount of truculent internet traction

I'm still guiltily laughing at "what if his head just did that"

― mh

same. after all this passes over, i think that's what i'm probably going to remember most out of all of this

YOU GUYS MICHAEL IRONSIDE WAS THE UMBRELLA MAN AND WAS SCANNING JFK

sunspots

would the earth being flat slightly alter the expected trajectory of a bullet? just asking questions here.

Wm F Buckley is the slender man

the ballistics stuff is SO boring to me, idk why. i mostly assume the warren version of events the day of. other than that i tend to suspect that giancana (rico, cuckoldry) nudged people in the cia (cuba, liberalism, owing a favor) and people in the cia nudged oswald (world-historical ambitions, gaddafiesque third-way philosophy: clio's classic patsy), whom they thought of the same way the kgb did-- a long-term puzzle and maybe-asset they'd kept around in case someone figured him out or thought of a use for him. i think it mostly happened, like, at parties.

I think that's how it started – in the wind.

these are serious fucking guys

very very few people know this, okay

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/45709243.jpg

studio picture, detailed biographical data, russian information, and PRETTY sure of the fact that oswald killed the president alone

i kinda think the single bullet theory is crap but at this point any argument about that sort of thing is basically just gonna be "look at this website -- THIS guy agrees with me"

Never would've allowed open windows overlooking Dealey. Never!

Our own snipers would've covered the area.

If a window went up, they'd have been on the radio!

We'd be watching the crowd: packages, rolled-up newspapers, coats.

Never would've let a man open an umbrella.

Never would've let the car slow down to ten miles an hour.

Or take that unusual curve at Houston and Elm.

You'd have felt an Army presence in the streets that day.

But none of this happened. It violated our most basic protection codes.

And it is the best indication of a massive plot in Dallas.

Who could have best done this?

Black Ops. People in my business.

whenever my dad hears about any conspiracy theory, he leans back in his chair and doesn't say anything for a long time, then tries to make eye contact with someone, and if someone looks back he says "follow the money" and then nods at the other person in the room until they nod back

i'm not sure what to think about the kennedy assassination so instead i choose to just visualize my dad trying to do that to this thread

?utm_source=POLITICO.EU&utm_campaign=8d2e928e71-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_10959edeb5-8d2e928e71-189694745

A rep theatre here is playing a restoration of Emile de Antonio's Rush to Judgement...screening Nov. 22, of course.

Make sure the doors to the box seats are locked!

"Other than that, how was the movie, clemenza?"

60th anniversary...Two choices at semi-local reps tonight: Rush to Judgement or the one where Joe Pesci wears a fright wig. The second is 20 minutes closer, so tempting, but I've never seen Rush to Judgement, so that wins.

Has anyone seen the Stone documentary?

This is a great read, a good update from last week

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jfk-assassination-documents-national-archives.html

i wonder will we ever get any closer to knowing what killed him

One or more bullets, I'd say.

one theory, poorly backed up

personally? hiccups

We nearly lost Bush the Lesser to a pretzel.

Better luck next time.

this woman knew Oswald when she was a child, and she believes the patsy theory

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/22/lee-harvey-oswald-museum-jfk-texas

ive heard two version each compelling in their own way:

hiccups after eating a pasty

hiccups after eating a patty

Oswald is entirely believable as a fall-guy. What's missing is conclusive evidence for another culprit. Plenty of hints and suspicions, but nothing you can hang your hat on.

a lot of people think you cant get hiccups eating a pasty, it breaks into too unfine a crumb and sure you can choke but hiccup your skull apart? unlikely.

proponents of this narrative however offer the nutribullet theory

You’re close but that’s not it, it was neither a pasty nor a patty but a pastry

*hic* bin ein Berliner

we are close

maybe too close

well dmac you don't have a choice anymore. you're a significant threat to the national security structure. they'd have killed you already, but there's light on you. so they'll destroy your credibility. they already have in many circles.

The de Antonio film was okay, but there was a monotonous, stilted style to all the interviewees that made them seem a lot less credible than they otherwise would have. A couple even came across as shifty-eyed. Best counter-evidence (which I knew already) was how close Ruby was to the Dallas police.

Spent 20 minutes on this with a grade 5/6 class today (complete with two old Life magazines I brought in, one of which they managed to rip while it was passed around...my own fault). They were quite engaged. I used show my own students the Zapruder film, the kind of thing I don't do anymore--too graphic. Today, though, they talked me into showing the Oswald-transfer clip, where you really just see a lot of commotion. When I went to play it, though, it was blocked by my board. Changing times.

Ruby's interview with Earl Warren was fascinating and bizarre.