Posted On: Wednesday - March 19th 2025 6:34PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity History Dead/Ex- Presidents
Peak Stupidity agrees with those who detest the use of "conspiracy theory" for any events for which people suspect the standard historical narrative. It's not like most of these explanations necessarily involve people plotting it all out, in secret or not. Often, "conspiracy theories" are simply alternate explanations of important happenings. Yes, they can get pretty wild sometimes, but other times they are correct.
So, our term in use, until someone, ANYONE, thinks of a better one, is the acronym EXCUSEs - EXplanations of Causes of Unusually Suspect Events.
We want to get into some discussion about what it takes to make an EXCUSE fairly believable, but we'll start this out today with an example that is in the running for the most popular, along with 9/11, of course. That'd be the John F. Kennedy assassination and what may have really happened on that day over 62 years ago in an era when the now-ubiquitous cameras were few and far between. The Trump Administration released 80,000 pages of JFK assassination files in .pdf form yesterday, reported ZeroHedge.
Depending on what part of a statement by one Jefferson Morley you read, still 30% or 67% of the JFK files have not been disclosed. An easy-to-believe
The (1st) Kennedy assassination sure sparks a lot of interest in EXCUSEs, based both on that, per some of them, this marked the real end of the Republic and because there are so many possibilities. I've written that with so many motives, one wonders how there COULD NOT have been a better explanation than the one guy Harvey Oswald being a Commie loser who made a good shot. (John Kennedy didn't have any charts and graphs to point at that day in Dallas, unfortunately.)
ZeroHedge lists the following motives, admittedly as "just a few of the top theories":
•The CIA killed JFK because of its outrage over his failure to invade Cuba in the wake of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and his desire to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds."I guess there are plenty more in the ZH comments, but I will hasten to add:
•The Soviet Union killed JFK in retaliation for embarrassing the USSR in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
•Cuba's Fidel Castro killed JFK because of US assassination attempts on him, and/or because of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
•The Mafia killed JFK because of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's crackdown.
•Vice President Lyndon B Johnson conspired to kill JFK to take power.
•Israel killed JFK because of his opposition to the country's nuclear weapons development, potential sympathy with the Palestinians' right to return to homes they were expelled from in 1948, and insistence that the American Zionist Council register as agents of Israel pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
•Bankers killed JFK because he planned to put the minting of real money back in the hands of Congress.
I tend to believe more the explanations that involve prevention of future actions over the ones involving revenge. The latter would cover the 1st part of the CIA one, the Soviet Union one (though on the preventative side, they may have wanted to kill him to get more of a Commie sympathizer in office - didn't quite take... in some ways), and the Mafia one. For that Mafia explanation, why wouldn't they just go to the source and kill Bobby? It would have been easier... wait, maybe they did ...
I don't know enough at all about the means, that is, the details of the alternate explanations, to say much here. That's not what I'm getting into. The next post will get to the winnowing out of some of these EXCUSES based on lack of good motives and/or lack of good means.
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[UPDATED: 04/02:] Changed "methods" to "means" to match the normal expression "Means and motive".
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Comments:
Moderator
Thursday - March 20th 2025 9:10AM MST
PS: "BTW, one of the few US adults of that time who could not later remember where he was when JFK was shot was George HW Bush. Turns out he was in Dallas that day."
Early-onset CRS? (Can't Remember Shit.) Probably more than that.
Early-onset CRS? (Can't Remember Shit.) Probably more than that.
The Alarmist
Thursday - March 20th 2025 7:45AM MST
PS
BTW, one of the few US adults of that time who could not later remember where he was when JFK was shot was George HW Bush. Turns out he was in Dallas that day.
🕉
BTW, one of the few US adults of that time who could not later remember where he was when JFK was shot was George HW Bush. Turns out he was in Dallas that day.
🕉
The Alarmist
Thursday - March 20th 2025 6:59AM MST
PS
There’s a reason the Warren Commission called Oswald’s fatal shot the Magic Bullet, and it was because it was conjured out of nowhere into existence.
Who killed JFK? This topic starts to take on a “It was Colonel Mustard in the study, using a candlestick” quality.
My take is that Ben Gurion probably dropped the coin that pushed a lot of others over the tipping point, and a whole host of characters jumped when commanded without asking “How high?” because they all had axes to grind with JFK’s administration, not the least of whom being LBJ.
I could have made that shot from the repository, but JFK’s head would have flipped in a different direction. Just sayin’.
🕉
There’s a reason the Warren Commission called Oswald’s fatal shot the Magic Bullet, and it was because it was conjured out of nowhere into existence.
Who killed JFK? This topic starts to take on a “It was Colonel Mustard in the study, using a candlestick” quality.
My take is that Ben Gurion probably dropped the coin that pushed a lot of others over the tipping point, and a whole host of characters jumped when commanded without asking “How high?” because they all had axes to grind with JFK’s administration, not the least of whom being LBJ.
I could have made that shot from the repository, but JFK’s head would have flipped in a different direction. Just sayin’.
🕉
Moderator
Thursday - March 20th 2025 4:01AM MST
PS: Right, and thanks, SafeNow. Some people have "native" skills. Some, like me, feel good about getting the center 1 1/2" bullseye from 30 yards. No scope, just iron sights with our .22s, but we have at least been slowly moving back, 5 yards at a time.
Great answer for the "Where were you?" question. So, I guess the discussion among your group would be more along the lines of "Hey, man, nice shot!"* or "Nah, gotta be a conspiracy - even *I* couldn't have made that one."
How did Oswald, assuming the company line, stay in practice? Good question. See, now this gets down to the details and beyond the motivation alone.
* Kidding, but that's a song too, by the band Filter (1990s or so).
Great answer for the "Where were you?" question. So, I guess the discussion among your group would be more along the lines of "Hey, man, nice shot!"* or "Nah, gotta be a conspiracy - even *I* couldn't have made that one."
How did Oswald, assuming the company line, stay in practice? Good question. See, now this gets down to the details and beyond the motivation alone.
* Kidding, but that's a song too, by the band Filter (1990s or so).
SafeNow
Thursday - March 20th 2025 1:26AM MST
PS
I agree with every bit of Mr. Moderator's analysis. But I will quibble about calling Oswald’s shot a “good” shot; it was well north of “good.” I base this not just on the factors analyzed in the standard literature. I do have a personal perspective. I was on the rifle team in high school. (At the moment JFK was shot, I was in my high school’s basement, at rifle-team practice. How’s that for an answer to the “Where were you…” question.)
So here’s my point already. We had to PRACTICE. Marksmanship is a skill that is “perishable.” The literature dwells on Oswald’s shooting competence (or lack thereof) back in the Marines. And he hunted a bit in Russia. Let’s assume he once had native skill similar to a member of our small rifle team who had made the cut. But without recent, frequent practice, his shot was astonishing.
I agree with every bit of Mr. Moderator's analysis. But I will quibble about calling Oswald’s shot a “good” shot; it was well north of “good.” I base this not just on the factors analyzed in the standard literature. I do have a personal perspective. I was on the rifle team in high school. (At the moment JFK was shot, I was in my high school’s basement, at rifle-team practice. How’s that for an answer to the “Where were you…” question.)
So here’s my point already. We had to PRACTICE. Marksmanship is a skill that is “perishable.” The literature dwells on Oswald’s shooting competence (or lack thereof) back in the Marines. And he hunted a bit in Russia. Let’s assume he once had native skill similar to a member of our small rifle team who had made the cut. But without recent, frequent practice, his shot was astonishing.
What might it mean that Steve Sailer has declined to dive in and "commentate" about this JFK Files news-cycle blip?