The Death of Oswald, the Birth of Conspiracies

Consider this slightly post-dated, but I feel it's still worth mentioning.

This just passed 24th of November was the day way back in 1963 some no-name clip joint operator named Jack Ruby walked into the basement of a Dallas police station and popped some no-name nutcase named Lee Oswald who'd whacked Jack Kennedy. And Ruby with his loose mob ties, and Oswald with his loose commie connections could not possibly have done what they'd done without a huge apparatus pulling their strings. And with Oswald's death the era of conspiracy was mid-wifed by paranoia and cynicism into existence.

I won't waste breath -- or risk carpal tunnel syndrome -- trying to debunk the Kennedy/Oswald/Ruby conspiracy because the great thing about conspiracies is that they are completely un-debunkable.

In fact, I'm obviously on the payroll of some trilateral commission that's into the anti-conspiracy agitprop anyway.

And there is an upside to Kennedy/Oswald/Ruby. Some would say the moment Kennedy took a bullet is when America lost her innocence. I say that a nation stolen from her native people, built on the backs of slaves and coolies was never innocent. Instead, the 24th of '63 is when America's populace became self-aware of its own inequity. It made the public ready for and intolerant of true conspiracies: the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, Iran-Contra. The inept machinations of glorified civil servants.

The problem is that for the less than shrewd Kennedy/Oswald/Ruby has made them anxious to the point that they fear the monster under the bed when there isn't even a bed in the room. Any and every national tragedy is greeted with the belief that it is not just horrible happenstance, but in fact some fabulous government implemented Rube Goldberg-type device that self-executes with the precision of Canadian pairs figure skaters.

This despite the fact our government cannot either get out welfare checks or invade other countries without making an utter mess of things. They can, however, activate the hundreds if not thousands of people necessary to kill a president or destroy levees or topple twin towers without a single one of those duty bugs deciding they'd like to write a book about their part in the plan and pitch it on Oprah.

As a coping mechanism, or as a way to make a little hard count by shilling demons in the shadows, I try not to belittle the thought process of the conspiracy theorists. As a cocktail waitress in Vegas once schooled me: never get down on anybody else's hustle.

But I do believe there is a true downside to obsessing on conspiracies: it tends to obfuscate issues of greater importance. When people are focusing on who blew up the levees they're not focusing on the horrendous response of government agencies at the municipal, state and federal levels. When they are looking for who planted the bombs in Building Seven, the are not paying attention to the fact the government had every indication a terrorist attack was imminent and was too inept to do thing one about it.

It does no good to believe in what does not exist to the point one cannot focus on what is real. That would be the greatest tragedy of any "conspiracy."

If there's anything to be taken away from Kennedy/Oswald/Ruby, it's that it's all right to be paranoid. As long as you don't think the government's out to get you.

Comments

[Cerebus555]

I seldom pay attention to a lot of items written on this blog, but yours certainly got my attention. Well reasoned and well written

[winstonsmith999]

In my opinion, Oswald's murder is one of the key events in support of a conspiracy theory for the JFK assassination.
It took place as outlined in a declassified CIA memo (NYT 1973) on "involuntary" assassins.
This memo foresaw an event in which a defector, under CIA mind control (Project Artichoke), would be "induced ... to perform an act, involuntarily, against a prominent (deleted) politician or if necessary, against an American official", and then be "disposed of" while in police custody "[a]fter the act of attempted assassination was performed".
Sound familiar?
Curiously, this same memo also discussed the possibilities of this assassination being used "as a 'trigger mechanism' for a bigger project." This theme dovetails with more recently published documents from the period which reveal that the JFK assassination took place within the operational parameters of the top-secret Northwoods Project. This plan envisioned phony pro-Castro assassins (agents provocateur) staging violent acts on American soil, including assassinations, to trigger an expansion of the CIA's covert anti-Castro project.
We now know supposedly pro-Castro Oswald was intimately involved in the CIA's anti-Castro operations, consistent with his role as a provocateur. According to a front page article in the New York Times (8/24/93), the CIA feared Oswald was under surveillance by the FBI as "he met with the mobster the CIA had hired to kill Fidel Castro."
Participation in national security operations as a "Manchurian Candidate" assassin would explain why Oswald was allowed to go on to assassinate a President according to a CIA memo on mind control after meeting with a known CIA assassin (while under CIA surveillance) and in the exact role (a CIA pro-Castro provocateur) proposed in a known plan to justify the CIA's ongoing covert operations.
Oswald's actions in this role not only eliminated a President considered a threat to these plans but created a potential justification for them.
This theory is developed more fully here:
Mind Control: The Rosetta Stone of the JFK Assassination http://www.winstonsmith.net/jfkshortartretfromind.htm
Jerry Leonard

[buske]

The only serious ingredient in all of history is the conspiracy. Denying the existence of conspiracies is like saying humanity is lacking creativity.

Many conspiracies are good natured. Like the American Revolution.

[Rule Of Law]

Or if people are still open minded, watch this and come to your own conclusions...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4315024059102108031&q=jfk+alex+jones

[Rule Of Law]

If the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, and Iran-Contra had not been made public in their entirety, would you believe that they happened? Or would it all seem like some unsustainable conspiracy yowling?

[juangault]

The comment about America being built by slaves and coolies, like a whiff of really bad breath, tends to water down whatever else is said in reason. While it's true there has been a remarkable amount of inequity in the building of this nation, there is also inequity in those who create wealth, and those who acquire wealth, through means that are less than noble. What if someone came along and duplicated what a plant does, fix carbon into usable stuff. What would happen to someone who actually said they invented an alternative to oil?

[CouldBeYou]

Mr Ridley - Your point is proven!!

[visionar7]

THis administration doesn't want you paying attention to conspiracies...like it's fringe lunacy; when in reality conspiracies happen every day; especially with politicians;like Tom Delay...all those in the watergate breakin....and Bush's supposed dead friend Ken Lay at Enron.....Lunacy...I don't think so! They just want you to think you'd be a whacko to think it's possible when in fact...they are all crooks who spinthe truth to suit themselves or their agenda...........like Ruby killing Oswald because he loved JFK ...funny years earlier Jack Ruby worked on Nixon's campaign....(he was one of them-republicans-not at all a Kennedy fan)

[visionar7]

this administration doesn't want you paying attention to conspiracies...like it's fringe lunacy; when in reality conspiracies happen every day; especially with politicians;like Tom Delay...all those in the watergate breakin....and Bush's supposed dead friend Ken Lay at Enron.....Lunacy...I don't think so! They just want you to think you'd be a whacko to think it's possible when in fact...they are all crooks who spinthe truth to suit themselves or their agenda...........like Ruby killing Oswald because he loved JFK ...funny years earlier Jack Ruby worked on Nixon's campaign....(he was one of them-republicans-not at all a Kennedy fan)

[visionar7]

It's amazing how the admin doesn't want you paying attention to conspiracies...like it's fringe lunacy; when in reality conspiracies happen every day; especially with politicians;like Tom Delay...all those in the watergate breakin....and Bush's supposed dead friend Ken Lay at Enron.....Lunacy...I don't think so! They just want you to think you'd be a whacko to think it's possible when in fact...they are all crooks who spinthe truth to suit themselves or their agenda...........like Ruby killing Oswald because he loved JFK ...funny years earlier Jack Ruby worked on Nixon's campaign....(he was one of them-republicans-not at all a Kennedy fan)

[waiguoren]

Vincent Bugliosi first came to national attention as the lead prosecutor of the Manson Family. His book on that case, "Helter Skelter" is the largest selling true crime book of all time, and it is outstanding. He also wrote a compelling volume on the O.J. Case, and a book that should be required reading on the stolen election of 2000, in which he lays out a detailed critique of the Supreme Court's errors in that debacle.

Now here comes his latest. A 1200 page tome weighing in at six pounds called "Reclaiming History" on the JFK murder in which he comes to the same old conclusion that Oswald did it, and did it alone. Bugliosi says he spent 20 years on the book.

Why anyone would slog through it only to find the same old stale conclusion is beyond me. Geral Posner did about the same thing a few years back, and was thoroughly unconvincing.

[JoJo60]

Lincoln was murdered by a member of a consiracy, some of the others were tried and executed.
Kennedy was killed by a shot to the forehead, Oswald was directly behind him.
Those who knew James Earl Ray will tell you that he was a nickle dime punk who probably did shoot at King but would not have had the resourses to pull off the escape without help.
Sirhan was a brain washed Muslim terrorist.

Am I wrong on any of these?

[dianacastillo]

sorry in the last post I was refering to the 911 conspiracy theory and the website I put incorrectly, its http://www.911weknow.com

[dianacastillo]

The only conspiracy theory is the official story , its so full of holes its incredible how dumb the public is . See proof here: http://www.weknow.com

[leeskyblue]

Yes, if you are still arguing about the Kennedy assassination, then you need to get a life. That said, fact is that thousands of ignorant and incompetent people have been given huge government grants and now have to justify the expense. Of course there are thousands of cases of harrassment of ordinary citizens, much of it covered up by the secrecy provisions of the Patriot Act. You may think you have "nothing to hide" but your life is affected by higher taxes and higher prices and diminished opportunities caused by old boy networks of larcenous, or even mentally unbalanced, or just plain incompetent people who have been allowed money and power.