Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

politico.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 141 posts

Re: How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

#11

Post by jakeogh »

lstyls wrote: post #7
sharpercoder wrote: post #5

I saw a documentary which analyzed footage found around 2000 iirc (discovered old footage) of the murder. The conclusion was that due to the wound exit, the shooter could never have been Oswald. It convinced me. Who does the American public currently believe to be the shooter? Is there consensus for some theory?

> Who does the American public currently believe to be the shooter? What does this have to do with anything? Reality isn't a democracy. It's absolutely possible the shot came from Oswald. Tastelessness aside, try playing JFK Reloaded ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JFK_Reloaded ). Claiming the ballistics don't make sense is as debunked as claiming jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

They melted. There's no doubt about that. I should note that NIST disagrees with you if you mean they melted before the three buildings were destroyed... or after. http://archive.is/5dz5G more: http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/Prete...

Re: How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

#14

Post by jcranmer »

sharpercoder wrote: post #5

I saw a documentary which analyzed footage found around 2000 iirc (discovered old footage) of the murder. The conclusion was that due to the wound exit, the shooter could never have been Oswald. It convinced me. Who does the American public currently believe to be the shooter? Is there consensus for some theory?

> I saw a documentary which analyzed footage found around 2000 iirc (discovered old footage) of the murder. The conclusion was that due to the wound exit, the shooter could never have been Oswald. It convinced me.

According to Wikipedia, what you may be thinking of is a 2007 discovery of an previously unknown film of that day taken over a minute before the shooting.

That exactly three shots were fired is fairly well-established by the available evidence. That a single shot went through Kennedy's back and throat into Connally is incredibly well-established. This ends up meaning that theories with a second shooter create even larger holes than they're trying to close with the second shooter, sort of like 9/11 controlled demolition theories.

> Who does the American public currently believe to be the shooter? Is there consensus for some theory?

I believe the majority of Americans believe Oswald to be the sole shooter. While a majority do believe in some conspiracy theory, I think the bulk of the conspiracy theory tends to be that Oswald was the shooter for some nebulous conspiratorial group.

Re: How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

#16

Post by jayess »

sharpercoder wrote: post #5

I saw a documentary which analyzed footage found around 2000 iirc (discovered old footage) of the murder. The conclusion was that due to the wound exit, the shooter could never have been Oswald. It convinced me. Who does the American public currently believe to be the shooter? Is there consensus for some theory?

I don't know the film you're referring to, but 100% of the available physical evidence points to Oswald.

Re: How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

#17

Post by unbridledShrugs »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #4
wallace_f wrote: post #2

Hypothetically, if a group of people was willing to go to all the trouble of breaking laws to assassinate a President, what's forcing them to be honorable in producing and releasing information implicating themselves? It seems any excitement is contingent on believing not just in the conspiracy, but also in extreme incompetence, no?

> It seems any excitement is contingent on believing no just in the conspiracy, but also in extreme incompetence, no? This kind of belief is more common than you might expect. There's arguably a whole genre of "faceless enemy" in various worldviews that is blatantly corrupt/incompetent/inferior while also being overwhelmingly disciplined and powerful.

Well, put it this way... when an outcome is the product of a collective of individuals, some members of the group may be more competant than others, and different tasks might be carried out with varying degrees of success. Taking it a step further, a group comprised of multiple teams might have one very disciplined team for highly demanding critical tasks, surgical strikes, site reliability, and several weak teams for grunt work, digging ditches, scraping logs, whatever.

In such scenarios, you might see gaps open up in areas viewed as optional drudgery, or dull thankless conveniences.

Consider the Lufthansa heist depicted in the movie Goodfellas. It involved some highly motivated gangsters, who enlisted some sloppy flunkies for assistance. Guys like the getaway driver screwed up and got whacked for failing to dump the getaway car without incident, inviting paranoia that they might arouse suspicion. Then, as paranoia magnified over time, the displined core erased every untrustworthy witness.

The principal stakeholders in an operation will often possess power and skill, but their accomplices might not.

Re: How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

#18

Post by 2845197541 »

wallace_f wrote: post #2

Hypothetically, if a group of people was willing to go to all the trouble of breaking laws to assassinate a President, what's forcing them to be honorable in producing and releasing information implicating themselves? It seems any excitement is contingent on believing not just in the conspiracy, but also in extreme incompetence, no?

Theories don't all implicate the US government. There are notions of Russian/Cuban involvement, for example.

Re: How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

#19

Post by agumonkey »

clarkmoody wrote: post #9

One of the best Radiolab episodes I've heard was Mau Mau [1], which chronicled the uncovering of thousands of documents pertaining to the British Empire in Kenya. The extent to which history must be rewritten is stunning, only to be surpassed by the brutality of the English. Not that releasing the JFK assassination files would rewrite an extensive period of history, but the precedent remains: the grim truth of histor…

off-topic opportunity: should history be taught in school ? it's a weird blend of nationalist myth, folklore, ignorant (or not) lies and revisionnism.

ps: people I didn't mean to stay ignorant, but hinting at rethinking what we're teaching. History is extremely subtle and trimmed far too much for kids (hence the bad blend I described above).

Re: How to Read the JFK Assassination Files

#20

Post by mejin »

wallace_f wrote: post #2

Hypothetically, if a group of people was willing to go to all the trouble of breaking laws to assassinate a President, what's forcing them to be honorable in producing and releasing information implicating themselves? It seems any excitement is contingent on believing not just in the conspiracy, but also in extreme incompetence, no?

Based on other comments in HN it appears that a large amount of key documents have been "lost". I've never checked the source, but many threads about the files mention that.
Post reply on HN