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I went through a bit of conspiracy theory phase, back in my late teens, so it was the usual Kennedy stuff and whatever else was floating around in the 1980's.

But then I got to focus on my history degree and learned to do better with critical thinking.

So, no JFK conspiracies anymore.

Conspiracies exist, but they're also a fallback to bring order to something traumatic: it can't be a lone gunman, that's too random. Much better to have a conspiracy of dozens.

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There's a reasonable case Oswald didn't act alone. It's just that the best case he didn't act alone involve his associations with Cuban intelligence. Not American. Hence why far fewer people care about it, and hence why the US gov refuses to declassify the last of the records related to the murder. Because, if he indeed was murdered by Cuban intelligence, one of the key perpetrators of this crime is in fact still alive -- although he's 92 now, and has no chance of ever being held accountable for that, nor his many other crimes:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16059536-castro-s-secrets

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Nov 27, 2023·edited Nov 27, 2023

I believe Oswald acted alone, but I also believe the FBI were hardly bending over backwards to identify and neutralise threats to JFK.

I also think if JFK had lived he would not be having such a hallowed reputation. He wasn't half as progressive as he was made out to be afterwards, he got the US mired in Vietnam, and he was a pretty awful person to his wife and family.

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I wonder if the awful stuff with his home life & health would have come out in his lifetime if he hadn't been shot. The 1964 campaign would have likely been insane and I question if his body could have lasted until 1970.

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I'm on the record for hate reading every goddamn word of 11/22/63. (Stephen King is an awesome guy, but I hate his writing) But he researched the hell out of the assassination in order to write the book and came away without any doubts that Oswald did it, came up with it all by his lonesome, and that Oswald was crazier than a bag of stray cats on LSD.

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Salvador Allende's nephew was my human rights professor in college. I'll never forget when he broke down and admitted his family still doesn't know whether he committed suicide or was murdered, and I remember thinking at the time, "Why does it matter? They caused his death."

But now I do think it's important, the same way I still think we need to know what happened to JFK. In dealing with that first, human layer, the few people remaining who did know and love him deserve closure. Secondly, we deserve the truth so that we can learn from it.

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I understand his family thinking this, but there's still zero reason anyone who isn't literally a Marxist-Leninist should romanticize Allende. He was an awful commie dictator, and -- as has been exposed by the Mitrokhin Archive, and which you can read for yourself in The World Was Going Our Way -- was literally a KGB agent who had already destroyed the Chilean economy and Chilean civil society long before Pinochet came to power. If he hadn't been overthrown and died so early -- for which Americans had nothing to do, as our actual coup attempt on Chile happened years earlier, was aborted, but then attempted by the recruit anyway, only to end in failure -- he'd be remembered the same way that Maduro and Ortega are now:

https://kyleorton.substack.com/p/myth-1973-american-coup-in-chile

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By pure coincidence I was talking with a friend about the Lee Harvey Oswald episodes of Quantum Leap and found out that Donald Bellisario, the shows creator, met Oswald when they were in the Marines in 1958. As someone who met Oswald and is familiar with the sniper training Oswald had, he has no doubt that Oswald worked alone. Now you can take it however you want but it is interesting to have the take of someone who knew Oswald. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/09/18/Donald-Paul-Bellisario-is-the-only-Hollywood-producer-so/9471716788800/

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The only conspiracies I've enjoyed reading about are the one involving UFOs, the paranormal, etc. because they are fun to me. They're weird fiction, and I love weird fiction.

I read and enjoyed the Illuminatus! trilogy in high school as well.

But that's about it. I've never actually believed any of them. Why construct a cabal when incompetence and coincidence can explain the things?

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We loved that damn three-hour-twenty-four-minute JFK movie Oliver Stone made. The part where Donald Sutherland breaks down for Kevin Costner the military and financial motivations behind the wide-ranging conspiracy to "stop" the peace-loving Kennedy was utterly believable to me. It just suckered me right in.

Thirty years later, the most compelling counter argument to the conspiracy theories is the notion there are too many incompetent idiots in government to maintain a coherent cover up story for so long. Which also makes perfect sense to me. Because I'm a sucker.

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If you want to see that movie broken down so you really understand what a load of nonsense it is, look here:

https://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100menu.html

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I agree that the government has too many idiots that can't make toast correctly without enough paperwork, let alone cover up some vast conspiracy. And yet the CIA wanted the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro. [Look up Santo Trafficante Jr. in Wiki.] I'm marking the idea of JFK's assassination being a Government/La Cosa Nostra production as Plausible.

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Nov 27, 2023·edited Nov 27, 2023

Counter point: The CIA wanted Castro killed but they were so damn incompetent every plan either failed or was untenable to start with. A lone rifle man would probably have been smart, but these guys were too high on their own fumes to be smart.

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founding

We'll likely never know who really was behind the plot (and I'm very convinced there was one,) cause everyone's likely dead by now. But we were coup-ing all over the place at the time so I'm not shocked that probably happened here too.

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"For example, there will always be a part of me who will suspect W. Bush and Co. of being deliberately incompetent regarding 9/11." Can you share more about this? I was young when 9/11 happened and I'm not sure how to research what you are referencing.

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