The JFK Assassination and American Conspiracy Culture by Jonathan Earle
The JFK Assassination and American Conspiracy Culture (Guest Post by Jonathan Earle at US Intellectual History Blog) Society for U.S. Intellectual History
"Teaching a course on conspiracy theories is always interesting in the Age of Obama, but this fall has been an especially propitious time to guide an intellectual tour through American political paranoia. One of the hallmarks of the class is demonstrating how conspiracy thinking was “baked right into the cake” that is our republic, from colonial witch-hunters to patriot paranoids, money cranks, crusaders against the Slave Power, UFOlogists and, of course, presidential assassins. My course is not meant to glorify this type of thinking, but to teach students to recognize it, how it changed over time, and (here’s the secret ingredient, to continue with my baking metaphor) to interrogate conspiracy theories with a special vigor and skepticism.
Even the most distracted of my students has noticed the conspiracy-relishing coverage of the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination on nearly every station on the cable dial. Coincidentally, this fall marked the 75th anniversary of the Mercury Theater of the Air’s broadcast of “War of The Worlds,” when Orson Welles and his talented players used the conventions of the new-ish medium of radio to fool at least some unsuspecting Americans into believing their Halloween broadcast was actually a Martian invasion.[1]
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""What are we to make of this event – rightly or wrongly, the most intensely-studied event in U.S. history – fifty years after the fact? On first glance, the assassination and its aftermath are a historian’s dream: millions of pages of testimony, thousands of eyewitnesses, multiple autopsies and ballistics reports; there’s even a Kodachrome film that frames the event down to the fraction of a second. Yet I can think of very few details from that day, even small ones, that remain completely uncontested by either buffs or scholars. I’m not sure this can be said about any historical event, even 9/11. Within three years of the assassination, 200 books had appeared; the bibliography is now well over 3,000 even without counting films, documentaries, blogs and newsletters. Finally, a very strong majority of these sources are saturated with conspiracy thinking. American citizens still mutiny against the official account that pointed to Lee Oswald (as he was known then) as a “lone gunman.” And to my eyes, a vast percentage of those focus on a single type of conspiracy, from both right and left: that a coup d’état robbed our nation of more peaceful and prosperous future.""
Rad more at http://s-usih.org/2013/11/the-jfk-assassination-and-american-conspiracy-culture-guest-post-by-jonathan-earle.html
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But yeah, Jimmy Carter and LBJ and the whole war on poverty thing how terrible was that? 
Care to comment on the professor's essay? Did you read it?
- more than 3 shots fired
Clearly did not happen.
- shots from more than one direction
Clearly did not happen.
- Oswald connected to ANY one of: Ruby, Banister, CIA, Milteer, Lake Pontchartrain, anti-Castro militias, the Mafia(s)
Mostly false (unless you count the fact that the CIA was aware of him as "connected"
and also would prove nothing if it were true, unless there was evidence of an actual plan or help given to him by any of these people.
- paraffin test on Oswald showed no signs of him firing a weapon that day yet according to WCR he fired 8 rounds from two different weapons
First of all this is false. Paraffin tests showed positive on his hands, negative on his cheeks. Also, paraffin tests are known to be unreliable. Given the ballistics matches, the fingerprints at the scene, the eyewitness, and the people on the floor below that heard three loud shots directly above them, the fact that unreliable paraffin tests only showed a partial positive proves nothing. The Warren Commission did a test where they fired Oswald's rifle three times in rapid succession, then ran the same paraffin test and got a negative result.
- 39 witness heard shots from the fence, police and sec service went immediately to the area
More witnesses heard shots from the TSBD, and no evidence whatsoever was found of any shooter in that area. People make mistakes locating sounds, particularly when there are echoes. The most reliable testimony from people who heard the shots came from the three men in the TSBD window, one floor down from Oswald, who reported three shots directly above them, as well as the sound of a rifle reloading and shell casings dropping to the floor. One of them even got some dust or residue on his hair which dropped from the ceiling from the gun blast.
- witnesses reported 2 men fleeing from the backside of the fence
There were lots of people running around, and with hundreds of people in Dealey Park, you get a lot of different versions of what happened. One woman even said she saw people firing back up at Oswald. Some witnesses said there were only 2 shots, others heard up to 8 shots. Dallas Morning News reporter Hugh Aynesworth, who was an eyewitness himself, reported that even in the immediate aftermath there were people giving conflicting reports, and even some people making things up.
That's why it is necessary to look at the hard evidence, not just one person out of hundreds who claimed to see something. No shooters, guns, casings, bullets, or any other believable evidence of shooters in the grassy knoll have ever been found. If there was a gunman in the grassy knoll, then (a) he missed and (b) his bullets and shell casings disappeared and (c) his shot was timed to occur almost exactly the same time as one of Oswald's three shots and (d) he managed a completely clean escape.
- Abraham Zapruder testifed under oath twice that the head shot came from behind him and that he felt "they were ganging up" on Kennedy
Zapruder's feelings are irrelevant. The hard evidence, including his film, demonstrate conclusively that the shot came from the back. Like others, he probably felt the shot came from behind due to JFK's head snap, which upon closer inspection, actually moved forward in the frame immediately after he was shot, and the backwards movement of his torso was due to a neuromuscular reaction to being shot in the head. There are no credible experts who believe that the head movement could have been due to momentum from a bullet, this is pure Oliver Stone stuff.
- John Connally and his wife don't believe that the bullet that went into JFK's neck was the same bullet that hit Connally from the rear.
Their feelings are irrelevant. The hard evidence demonstrates conclusively that it was the same bullet. In fact, the trajectory of the bullet was such that it had nowhere else to go but into Connelly. If it didn't hit Connelly, then it vanished into mid-air.
- Oswald joined the USMC as soon as he could, achieved security clearance, worked with the U2 program, and was trained in Russian by the military before "defecting."
Proves nothing. Neither the CIA or KGB wanted Oswald because they both viewed him as a unreliable nut. Which he was.
- Oswald was involved with anti-Castro militia in the New Orleans / Lake Pontchartrain area
"Involved" is completely overstating the case. He had spoken to some anti-Castro people, as an attempt to "infiltrate". Again, this is irrelevant and proves nothing, unless there is evidence that any of these groups helped Oswald or paid him or gave him orders or anything like that, which there is none.
- phone records obtained by RFK showed that Oswald had called mafia members in the days leading up to the murders
That was Jack Ruby, not Oswald, and he was contacting them because of a labor dispute with the strippers' union. Ruby was not a mob hit man, he was a strip club owner who knew some people in the mob -- presumably if the mob wanted to kill Oswald, they would send someone with some experience in that department, who knows that you don't carry out a hit in a room full of cops on live TV. Or better yet, they would have had him killed before he was caught, immediately after the shooting.
- LBJ did not agree with the conclusions of the WCR
Irrelevant in the face of the hard evidence. A lot of people disagreed with the WCR.
Yes, the evidence is crystal clear. The witnesses, ballistics matches, fingerprints, shell casings and rifle found at the scene, the autopsy which clearly shows entry wounds in the back (a result which was unanimously confirmed by 15 pathologists in 4 subsequent investigations). As well as the fact that out of all TSBD employees, only one of them fled the scene. Also, no TSBD employees saw anyone that was not an employee in the building that day. And then the lack of any hard evidence at all to support any alternate theories.
The only possible conspiracy theories are those that have Oswald and Oswald alone shooting JFK. Any multiple shooter theory is ruled out by the evidence. And conspiracies involving Oswald are extremely unlikely, because despite decades of investigation, there is zero evidence to support any of them, beyond just his unusual life story. And for most proposed conspiracies (CIA, KGB, anti-Castro), there is strong evidence that they are false.
Octafish! 
