JFK Assassination 40th Anniversary Thread - Page 6

"The piece you seem to be missing is believing with apparent blind faith that they are telling you the truth - that the evidence is not altered/replaced"

Wrong. That is not how the scientific process of historical methodology works. You do not make assumptions without having any factual basis for such an assumption just because the scientific tests of the evidence don't yield the answer you like. You must *prove* there is evidence of alteration, coercion etc. and the fact is that no such evidence exists in the factual record. OTOH, the documented record of lies and distortions by conspiracy buffs speaks for itself, because I can point to specific evidence when citing their distortions, and that can not be done with regard to your assumptions of "coercion" and "altered evidence."

There's a lot I could say about your comments about religion, but that is best left for another forum.

And BTW, it is not healthy to "question" when such "questions" do not have a legitimate basis for being asked, as in the case of "Why was the motorcade route altered?" or other examples of the "Have you stopped beating your wife?" kind of questions that buffs usually start with.

I think there was one radio station that in the early hours of the assassination may have had a legit recording of gunshots but the tape was erased over later that same afternoon. However, the reporter who made it and heard it that afternoon told either Jim Moore or Gerald Posner (I forget which) that there were three shots on that tape. Granted, that is hearsay testimony and not definitive, but I think it validates what the majority of earwitnesses thought which was three shots.

This was a banner weekend for adding to my JFK broadcast archive with seven hours of 11/22/63 radio coverage from WBAP-Dallas and seven hours of 11/22/63 coverage from KLIF-Dallas. I never tire of having multiple broadcast versions of a famous event in history.

Brian, they were streamed live so the only way I could get them was to put a tape player up to the speakers and have absolute silence in the rooom for seven hours two days in a row which I did. Sound quality isn't perfect but good enough to have all this documented on cassette.

WBAP, which aired their JFK coverage has all their 9/11 radio coverage (ABC Radio and TV audio pickups) available for downloading in fifteen minute increments at their website.

That isn't so. All releveant documents were declassified under the 1992 JFK Assassination Materials Act. There's nothing left hidden of a relevant nature. HSCA material was to be hidden until 2039 but that was perfectly normal for a lot of committees (if you ever bothered to check how much government work, Executive and Legislative Branch going back to the 40s and 50s stayed classified for decades and sometimes still is, you'd see that JFK material is hardly unique).

No. All relevant materials are out except for matters of intelligence gathering and protecting the names of innocent people. There is nothing of an essential nature that one needs to figure out who killed John F. Kennedy that is classified today (and for that matter, it's been that way since 1963 on the matter of establishing who killed him).

Why does *anyone* believe that intelligence agencies are connected? Because of relevant evidence or because a bunch of conspiracy authors with political axes to grind like to throw out empty speculation? I think anyone who thinks that intelligence agencies are connected are frankly people with political axes to grind who find the idea of a communist being responsible for Kennedy's murder to be politically incorrect from their standpoint, which is why they will twist everything they can to find a more politically correct target, which for people of those beliefs, must always be the United States government. That ultimately says a lot more about them then it does about the nature of the evidence.

Relevant evidence in finding out who killed JFK has to do with (1) eyewitness testimony (2) medical and forensic evidence (3) physical evidence (4) ballistics evidence etc. And there is nothing from that category that is not accessible.

"But if you do believe the intelligence agencies had a part in the conspiracy, that calls into question the validity and handling of all evidence."

I reiterate: *What* presumption can there be for such a belief without a major political axe to grind? Especially given the total absence of relevant evidence other than political bias to suggest such a thing.

"The US Govt presents all sorts of "evidence" (WMD, Yellowcake?) that isn't necessarily true."

This is a bit of bizarre post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc reasoning
to suggest that the US government is capable of murdering its own president for no definable reason other then the fact it plays into the bizarre thinking of certain people in the fringes of the political spectrum.

"When evidence is held under a water-tight veil of secrecy while an investigation is being done, what exactly is happening to the evidence?"

First off, with regard to the JFK assassination, the burden of proof is on *you* to tell us what is missing with regard to the relevant matters of physical evidence, ballistics, forensic evidence etc. that tells us only one answer: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. And until you do, you have no legitimate basis to make an unfounded accusation, because the operative word for that is McCarthyism.

"Many questions remain impossible to answer and enough "coincidence" in circumstance to cause reasonable doubt."

Like what? This is just a soundbite that doesn't use substantive evidence to make the point.

"And your assertion that conspiracy believers are sympathetic to Communist doctrine is laughable."

That isn't what I said. I said that the idea of someone of the Far Left being responsible for the murder of JFK is for some people a politically incorrect motive if in their minds it meant the death of someone who supposedly embodied the hopes of progressive liberalism (never mind that the real JFK was a centrist). For those people, they have to look for something sinister that validates their perspectives that the Far Left can not be responsible for such a heinous crime, and that we must find a conspiracy centering on the kind of people they wish were responsible.

If Lee Harvey Oswald had been a Klansman or a simple Goldwater supporter, these people who have made a cottage industry out of the assassination would have accepted the physical evidence for what it reveals.

"Of course the burden is on me. The govt can float anything out there and put the burden on me to prove them wrong. For example: President/Yellowcake/Niger/Satate of the Union."

Since you are starting from a bogus premise to begin with, that makes your attempt to carry it further to the argument that the government would kill the President even more dubious.

"Float out some bullshit and see if any of the masses is willing to call them on it. I figure in 1963, there weren't many willing."

That's nonsense. The cottage industry of conspiracy buffs making a buck on the assassination and deliberately distorting the evidence in the process has been there non-stop since 1964 when a crackpot named Joachim Joesten became the first to push a conspiracy book. Since Joesten was pushing the disgraceful notion that murdered police officer J.D. Tipppit was part of a conspiracy, his ideas didn't go far, but most of his techniques were borrowed verbatim by Mark Lane, the first of the major conspiracy authors, whose style has been emulated by all buff authors since then.

And incidentally, you like to talk about the government's credibility problem. Let's talk about the credibility problem of conspiracy buffs like the granddaddy himself, Mark Lane who among other things was exposed by the New York Times' Neal Sheehan (no shill for the government he) as a liar who pushed phony stories of non-existent US atrocities in Vietnam based on the "confessions" of men who never served in Vietnam. That's what is known as a substantive case of deception that makes conspiracy buffs suspect using the logic you apply (using a bad premise) to accuse the US government of murdering a president.