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New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

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Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#71

The problem with conversations about this topic and similar topics (9/11) is that almost no-one who cares about the topic deeply enough to have an argument about it online is interested because they're just super into ballistics and forensics and don't care about the political implications. It's all motivated reasoning because they don't like the _implications_ of the official story for whatever reason (or, alternati…

Eh, at this point with all of the myths and legends surrounding the JFK assassination, it would be novel if even something as banal as the friendly fire theory turned out to be true.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/accidental-assassin-jfk...

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#73
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were three shots, Occam's Razor says it wasn't Oswald alone. For it to have been Oswald alone, he would have needed to reload and re-aim in a superhuman way. So that isn't the simplest explanation. There are a lot of people who didn't/don't like the US, and a lot of people who like the US but didn't like Kennedy! It is not exactly outlandish to think that maybe >1 people wanted Kennedy dead.

And they shoot at the same time?

The shots occurred in a span of several seconds, not simultaneously.

I don't see anything implausible about a second shooter having Kennedy in his sights, waiting for the initial shots to be fired, and pulling the trigger once he heard the initial shot.

There are a lot of implausible aspects to all of this, but that... doesn't seem like one.

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#74
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowing the precise identity and number of killers won't give any extra useful detail. Yes it does matter, if the official story established by the Warren commission is not true, it does matter to know why was Kennedy assassinated and by whom exactly, because Kennedy's death has had so many worldwide implications, that this isn't even just about USA. If that story is ever debunked one day, factually, it will change…

> Kennedy's death has had so many worldwide implications Which implications exactly? > If the government lied about all that, then what other things the US government lied about? It will shake the very foundations of that country. I mean... we already know that the government has lied about countless things. However, Paul Landis is not claiming that the government lied. He's merely claiming that he himself withheld i…

[deleted]

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#75
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Knowing the precise identity and number of killers won't give any extra useful detail. Yes it does matter, if the official story established by the Warren commission is not true, it does matter to know why was Kennedy assassinated and by whom exactly, because Kennedy's death has had so many worldwide implications, that this isn't even just about USA. If that story is ever debunked one day, factually, it will change…

> Kennedy's death has had so many worldwide implications Which implications exactly? > If the government lied about all that, then what other things the US government lied about? It will shake the very foundations of that country. I mean... we already know that the government has lied about countless things. However, Paul Landis is not claiming that the government lied. He's merely claiming that he himself withheld i…

> However, Paul Landis is not claiming that the government lied.

who are you refuting? I never said or implied that Paul Landis claimed that the government lied at first place.

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#76
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they shoot at the same time?

The shots occurred in a span of several seconds, not simultaneously. I don't see anything implausible about a second shooter having Kennedy in his sights, waiting for the initial shots to be fired, and pulling the trigger once he heard the initial shot. There are a lot of implausible aspects to all of this, but that... doesn't seem like one.

But that needs a bigger conspiracy than just kill JFK.

Either there are two shooters working together from the beginning, or one knows about the other and the other does not.

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at it like the crazy general in Dr Strangelove that is trying to start a world war I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s kill the President” can be kept by so many people for such a long time. In my experience large organizations of people just don’t work that way

I highly doubt that a secret in the caliber of “let’s kill the President” can be kept by so many people for such a long time. Agree. However, what if that wasn't the conspiracy? What if the conspiracy was, "let's avoid war with the USSR"? If the US Government knew of or suspected USSR involvement in JFK's assassination: their choices were essentially "war with the USSR", "look like fools who bowed down to the USSR",…

This is very close to my feeling on the matter, and if I remember correctly there was even a case of cover up related to the fact that he visited the embassies (which can also be interpreted as not wanting to divulge their intelligence sources).

However, it seems like the well known facts about Oswald (the communist background) weren't a major issue at the time (at least from what I gathered), so maybe there wasn't anything to cover up

Anyway, if the US government doesn't want to stir the cold war issues around the assassination, is it a conspiracy or just common sense statesmanship?

[edit]: I think I misread you, I do not think the soviets were involved, I think this is an extremely risky move no one would do. I do think there were probably fears it would be perceived as a foreign assassination which drove some actions in the US government.

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#78
post #63
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, I don't see how it's relevant to current politics... A group with that much power - to kill a president then get it covered up - is not going to just fade away quietly. It'd have to be a powerful group and powerful groups have a habit of lasting beyond the lives of the members. If it turned out that there was a conspiracy it is actually quite likely that the group that or…

> A group with that much power - to kill a president then get it covered up - is not going to just fade away quietly. It'd have to be a powerful group and powerful groups have a habit of lasting beyond the lives of the members. > If it turned out that there was a conspiracy it is actually quite likely that the group that organised it are still active. I don't think these are correct assumptions. Sixty years is a long…

If the JFK and RFK assassinations were done by secret services it seems to make a lot of sense (psychologically) that they'd use people that were the "opposite" of themselves as patsies.

So some right-wing CIA people (and their Mafia/Anti-Castro helpers) used a left-wing communist Oswald as the patsy for JFK. There was a lot of motive for these people to kill JFK

And then some Jewish Israel Mossad people copycatted for the RFK assassination, using a Muslim Palestinian as their patsy. There was a lot of motive for these people to kill RFK. (And I shouldn't have to say this, but I'm Jewish, so this isn't an antisemitic thing.)

But I agree with the point that it mostly doesn't have much impact on the modern world. Whoever was involved in these assassinations doesn't hold power any more. They're dead.

No kind of reconciliation process is truly required to prevent this kind of thing in the future. The world has changed and that's why these kind of political assassinations aren't used in the west today.

Not because there aren't people that wouldn't love to have this tool. It's just not as viable as it was in the time before mass surveillance and uncontrollable information flows.

Try to imagine pulling off the RFK or JFK assassinations with a large number of uncontrolled smartphones posting and even live streaming to the internet.

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#79
post #14

I don't know why people are so obsessed with this conspiracy theory. Occam's Razor says it was Oswald. Why invest time speculating and arguing over it when there is no way to verify anything? This new revelation doesn't change anything, it's just hearsay.

Oswald was a marine sharpshooter, and it took him 3 shots with a scoped rifle (probably at point blank range, though I don't know the ballistics of that gun). That suggests it wasn't Oswald. Though even then Oswald clearly would have been standing next to the unknown shooter urging him to do it.

TIL what “point blank” actually means.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-blank_range

Re: New JFK assassination revelation could upend the lone gunman theory

#80
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kennedy's death has had so many worldwide implications Which implications exactly? > If the government lied about all that, then what other things the US government lied about? It will shake the very foundations of that country. I mean... we already know that the government has lied about countless things. However, Paul Landis is not claiming that the government lied. He's merely claiming that he himself withheld i…

Precisely. They list of groups that might have pulled the trigger on Kennedy is dozens long. Knowing which one did, decades later, really changes nothing.

Well why study history at all? Nothing in it has any more impact on us, no? Why try to determine who murdered a person even if it was decades later and the killer might be alive? It doesn’t matter anymore right?

I’m not in the conspiracy theorist crowd, but the “doesn’t matter anymore” crowd is disappointing.

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