General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan I ask a question of the JFK CTers?
Suppose there WAS a conspiracy by the CIA or whichever group. My question is simple: So what?
I don't mean "so what" as in "the information isn't interesting," but "so what" in the sense of
"what is there to do with the information?"
I'm curious. If a CT is actually proven true and generally accepted as fact, what would you DO
with that other than make reference to it from time to time?
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Berlum
(7,044 posts)
Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)For 9/11 inside job was found, FEMA camps and chem trails were all factually verified. It would be their manna from heaven to sustain them for many years to come.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)There are still people who think 9/11 was a hoax.
And Sandy Hook.
Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)Increase 100 fold if they were ever vindicated in one of these major CT's.
Lex
(34,108 posts)History set correct.
I'm not a CTist but that's an easy question about what to done with new information about a murder.
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)It would have an effect on how we view some of our institutions as well. If the CIA did it, people might take a closer look at what that organization does and how much power they have today. I think that would be a very good thing to see. I think we have some rogue agencies in our government, and they have a lot more power than they should. I think shining a light on a lot of the secrecy in our government would be a healthy, cathartic thing for America and the world.
ancianita
(35,915 posts)be done in fact to make that integrity a reality. I'm thinking...
Warpy
(111,106 posts)would create a massive change in the way people think about the government. Most of those cowboys would be dead, but the revelation of the extent of NSA snooping tells us the mentality is still very much alive in the "intelligence" units.
None of the current CTs impress me much. However, I do think there was one. Oswald had means and opportunity. What he lacked is motive.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)so I doubt any revelations would change anything.
Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)He wanted notoriety. He probably imagined he would be feted in Communist circles in Moscow and Havanah for taking down the leader of "capitalist pig" USA.
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)2banon
(7,321 posts)which goes straight to the heart of the matter.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)Many crimes are committed daily that lack any reasonable motive.
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)
liberal N proud
(60,331 posts)History needs to be right!
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)I'm agnostic on the assassination, but don't we have evidence enough of TPTB committing horrific acts? Undermining democracy abroad during the Cold War, intimidating and bullying activists for over a century, collusion to sabotage the world economy, warmongering with deliberate deception, and handing over the reigns of the government to special interests and the rich.
I honestly think a presidential assassination is fairly minor compared to those crimes. And we actually have undeniable, blatant evidence of them.
2banon
(7,321 posts)So, actually on this one, it's not entirely all that insignificant on the scale of horrific crimes tptb have committed that needs light shone on and ultimately justice rendered, imo.
However, those of us who see it this way, must ultimately realize we're not going to get what is justly deserved. It ain't ever going to happen and we need to come to terms with that fact.
With deep sadness, I no longer devote much more than a passing interest in any new developments in this very significant event.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Everything else is "what if?" games.
2banon
(7,321 posts)Generally speaking, (don't even have to reference events of JFK) of course assassinations of key figures that hold power has an impact on the course of history. Certainly other factors do come into play and have their role to varying degrees and in significance, but impact it does indeed have in affecting change the course of what becomes history in a short passage of time.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)History is what did happen. Every action we take alters the present and influences the future. But once the action is taken, it is irrevocably history. We can speculate on the course of events had we made another decision, but what really happened is our history. We cannot change it, although we can imagine what might have been.
2banon
(7,321 posts)You do realize as true as your point is, does not negate the fact that the course of history was indeed changed when Kennedy was snuffed out. operative word is course, which was following a certain political and certainly significant historical trajectory or path, which we are compelled to conclude (by what actually followed) was significantly altered, affecting socio-economic and geopolitical events of major importance.
Of course we can only speculate, (your earlier point of "what if's) but those speculations are based on what we think we know vis a vis archived documents and other materials relating to Viet Nam most importantly, and perhaps improved relations with Cuba in Kennedy's second term..
We'll never know how it would have ultimately worked out, but those are huge matters, and if there was a chance in hell to have avoided monstrous events of Vietnam, and even a possibility of normalized relations with Cuba, suffice to say the world would have been a far better place if it were thus.
Forces that did not want that outcome exist then, as they do today. And we continue to live with it, what other choice is there? Which is in part, your point.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)I think that, allowing your premise as true, then it becomes (de-facto) history. And if the purpose of historical inquiry is not simply to present facts but also to search for an interpretation of the past, then it seems it would allow additional interpretations, and further provide additional context for evaluating contemporary institutions, politics, and beliefs. Much as if we found out precisely hwy and how and what happened to the settlers at Roanoke, or the fate of the Anasazi.
On the other hand, I'm not clever enough to pretend to know one way or the other what happened that day (and more importantly, why it happened), happened.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)That was House Select Committee's on Assassinations findings as a result of their investigation.
The problem was this committee was forced to shut down too soon as a result of a sudden "“budget crisis". As a result we do not know definitively who the gunmen were or the precise extent of the conspiracy. However dedicated researchers continued to uncover valuable information about suspects and the circumstances surrounding this event.
Years later we learned that the HSCA's investigation had been thwarted by the CIA.
"We also now know that the Agency set up a process that could only have been designed to frustrate the ability of the committee in 1976-79 to obtain any information that might adversely affect the Agency."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/biographies/oswald/interview-g-robert-blakey/#addendum
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Strip away the de-bunked "evidence", and the House Committee had zero evidence of a conspiracy.
Samantha
(9,314 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)be insisting on the long-form birth certificate.
Why insist on addition documents when you ignore the thousands that have already been released? What yet to be released document will possibly convince you? You are believing as an article of faith, not as a logical conclusion based on the evidence. Faith doesn't require evidence, just wishful thinking.
Samantha
(9,314 posts)How unfortunate that you are unaware.
Sam
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)That piece of shit LBJ had a car load of agents. That piece of shit LBJ hated JFK. That piece of shit LBJ was going to be impeached that following Monday, but instead he stole his place in history. I could go on, but it seems it's a lost cause here. Some here think fire can take down a 110 story building at 10 stories a second due to fire too.
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)but I'd never heard that before. What happened and why was he going to be impeached?
Samantha
(9,314 posts)Johnson was afraid he was going to be indicted on two scandals, one involving Bobby Baker (who supplied prostitutes to VIPs in Washington) and the other involving Billy Sol Estes (I believe he received favors for cotton subsidies -- huge ones -- facilitated by Johnson in exchange for large campaign contributions). Both of these two men were eventually indicated, but Johnson's fear leading up to the assassination was that one or both of them could take him down as he sat in the Vice President's Office. That office could offer no protection, but in Johnson's estimation, a seat in the Oval Office would leave him untouchable. (I am not sure he was correct in thinking that but I have read that in several places that was his opinion).
Johnson was an extremely corrupt man. Perhaps he was one of the most corrupt to ever be President. He has a record that most people are unaware of because historians mostly just talk about his progressive legislative achievements, such as the Civil Rights Act, Medicare. But he just picked up the torch from the late President Kennedy on those ideas and seemed to think that accomplishing planks from Kennedy's unfinished Presidency would put him in a very positive light in the history books.
Sam
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)I think the poster might have just used the wrong word, though. I knew Johnson was corrupt; I've heard stories through the years from people acquainted with the Johnsons and the Boggs family and some other Lou. and Texas politicians. Johnson had been a schoolteacher before he got into politics, so you only have to look at how wealthy he was when he died to know how dirty he was. I just didn't know he was being threatened with legal action.
Just knowing he was so corrupt was enough for me to suspect Johnson's involvement, or at least his foreknowledge, of the assassination when I first started reading about it. I don't think that very much happened in Texas in those days that Johnson wasn't at least aware of, and there's been a great deal of speculation through the years that the plan was hatched in coordination between the New Orleans mob and wealthy Texans.
Oswald was from New Orleans and he had that checkered past with the CIA, Russia, and Cuba. I think his spying in Russia turned to spying at home. The Russians didn't trust him, and the whole pro-Cuba thing was, I believe, an attempt at reeling in home-grown communists. The Texas crowd believed to be involved were wealthy Birchers with ties to the CIA. The New Orleans underworld crowd were extreme RWers. Any underworld figures in New Orleans would have had ties with mob boss Carlos Marcello, who used to openly brag that he killed Kennedy. That axis of people, I believe, set up Oswald to carry out the killing.
I think Johnson knew that Kennedy was going to be killed; he probably even knew it was going to be that day in Dallas. There's no doubt that Johnson knew the major players who I believe were involved. I didn't know about the cases that were coming up against him, however. Just one more piece to add to the puzzle.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)
flamingdem
(39,308 posts)I thought it might be Fidel, now I doubt that.
monmouth3
(3,871 posts)
Kurska
(5,739 posts)I don't buy the warren commission though. I think there is a lot of stuff about the case that makes absolutely zero sense. The whole mess of Jack Ruby's mob ties is a major red flag to me.
That said, I don't know what actually happened and I have a feeling that no one every will. Or if they do they have no reason to tell the truth.
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)If it was found out that it was the CIA, do you understand the monumental questions that would then need to be answered? Does the President have any power? Did JFK go against a direct wish of theirs?
Understand, I am more of a Warren Report kind of gal, but no one would be able to say "so what" if we found out it was the CIA.
CFLDem
(2,083 posts)They're all dead by now.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)For the good of the country I'm going to let the election be stolen from me by that smirking bastard son of the CIA head.
Ya think he knew that there just weren't many people brave enough to stand up to the criminals? That's why we need to be told the Truth about everything over the last 50 years. Because it might just make enough of you brave enough to stand and fight the next Bush/Cheney cabal that tries to steal our government.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)years ago and the case had not been solved, or, the person accused, as happens often in this country these days, turned out to be innocent and the case became a 'cold case'.
Cold cases have been solved decades after the fact, with new technology etc. When this has happened it has cleared the names of innocent people and provided finally, a sense of justice being done, to the victims and their descendents.
Do you think we should just ignore the ramifications to the innocent and their descendants and allow the historical record which casts a nasty shadow over them, to stand?
Many people have been accused of being involved in the JFK assassination due to the weakness of the Government's findings, and of course the murder of the accused which struck many people as way too convenient and who can blame them?
Should history sort this out so that those upon suspicion has been case are finally exonerated?
Would YOU like to go down in history as a suspect in a crime as heinous as this? I know I wouldn't even if it mattered only to me.
The fact is a majority of the people do not accept the WC findings. That means the Government failed to make its case. If it had been before a jury, it would have failed.
Seems to me that TRUTH is important no matter how inconvenient it may be for a nation to feel confident in its government.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)after the first sentence. Sorry.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)That was an excellent answer to a question you pretended was sincere when you asked it.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)and instead hurl emotion bombs and I'm not buying it.
I just don't see what would be DONE with information about who actually killed Kennedy if it wasn't Oswald acting alone.
Disband the CIA? Yeah, right.
Take the pension away from the CIA conspirator's widow? Wait, she's probably dead, too.
Write a scathing article? Ummm...they did that with Abu Ghraib, and all that happened was we gave the CIA more drones.
See the point?
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)Sabrina says, "Would YOU like to go down in history as a suspect in a crime as heinous as this? I know I wouldn't even if it mattered only to me."
Because the favored suspect in this case here on DU is the most often the BFEE.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)The OP is arguing that questioning the Warren Commission's conclusion is pointless. Sabrina is arguing that questioning to find the truth is important.
If Bush I *had* been involved in a conspiracy to kill JFK and frame Oswald, it's the OP's position, not Sabrina's, that would keep Oswald framed and Bush I free from suspicion.
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)At all.
See how you used the word "if" there. "If" puts words in the OPs mouth they never said.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)where nobody at all, least of all The Midway Rebel, ever mentioned Bush1...
The goal of the propaganda is not to convince anyone of anything...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023359801
The Midway Rebel
(2,191 posts)This is DU where Sabrina 1 regularly stands up and cheers for Octafish's BFEE killed JFK posts.
Do try to keep up as they say around here.
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)What would be done THEN? What action could be taken?
ancianita
(35,915 posts)things that he, Congress and the Attorney General should do. But realistically, such a letter wouldn't see the light of day, so...I'll just play president myself.
I'd hold a series of public hearings.
The first hearing would be a kind of Reconciliation Hearing: to explain all the new names, actions, dates, their roles, decisions in government and budgetary cost to the country since the assassination. It would be announced in the hearing that they have been indefinitely detained at an undisclosed location, with decisions about their standing to be determined by me.
(It could happen with greater official legitimacy if such public hearings were to create the official space for rebuilding this government's governing integrity.)
The second hearing would explain the ramifications of the first hearing, a kind of Ramifications and Solutions Hearing: that the CIA and FBI or whichever groups and names given in the first hearing were involved, would undertake in a clear timeline of stringent top-to-bottom review by me in staff-line leadership, agent vetting, public liability, ethics standards of information/intel gathering/sharing and the legal consequences of their breach; with instructions for restructuring those areas, and ongoing weekly 'reporting' of the restructuring.
(This could be happening under Obama, anyway, given the 'melding' activity he's conducting between the military and the CIA...)
The third hearing would present the results of the restructuring process, a kind of Path Forward mapping, with evidence of their improved quality, performance and overall integrity all the areas restructured in the interim between hearings two and three. This hearing would also, as a matter of national security, mandate the successful completion American Civics by 11th grade in all American public and private schools, with subsidies for states to establish it as a permanent, not optional, part of American children's schooling.
These hearings would be the public interface of a government regaining its integrity as a government of, by and for the American people. A kind of "cleaning up its act" transition period in American history.
For any of us to stand around and shrug and say that we'd do nothing is to prove that we are a pacified people whose agency has been stolen from us by stealth, that we not only don't know who took it,but we have too little of legal and professional intelligence and tools to get it back. Look, you're asking individuals who lived through that period, whose very sense of their agency in this so-called democracy got bulldozed by forces they couldn't even name. Asking them to have the expertise now to know what to do is a little unfair.
But I gave it a shot...I played president...so let's not go splattering my brains and character all over the place by impugning my legal or geopolitical knowledge, okay?
ancianita
(35,915 posts)it's gotten. 
Not putting down all the cool stuff here about Johnson and other players, either...at all.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)And that the fascists have won.
And I would work very very hard to change that.
You ???
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)How many "RIP America" or "RIP democracy" threads and posts are there a year here?
If you wanted to work very hard to change that, you'd be doing it already.
deutsey
(20,166 posts)For me, there is an ancient struggle in human civilization between democratic and oligarchic tendencies.
Ancient Athens was wracked by such struggles which led to political executions and purges of democratic proponents; Ancient Rome had the Optimates (elite political faction) and the Populares (popular faction...Caesar was part of a line of Populares leaders--such as the Gracchi brothers--who were assassinated for their reforms intended to spread resources and political power...see Michael Parenti's "Assassination of Julius Caesar" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Assassination_of_Julius_Caesar:_A_People%27s_History_of_Ancient_Rome ).
In American history, Smedley Butler exposed a coup plotted by wealthy Wall Street types in the '30s to overthrow that "socialist" FDR and install a fascistic government.
I think those same interests were afraid JFK was going to become another popular FDR-style leader in his second term. Plus, he was working behind the scenes with Cuba and the USSR to avoid another missile crisis (as well as planning to withdraw from Vietnam), which the burgeoning military-industrial complex/cold warrior worldview saw as traitorous.
So, in other words, I think seeing JFK's assassination as something more than just the act of a lone nut puts class struggle in sharper focus within the context of our own experience.
