JFK assassination files released

[selmaborntidefan]

Penn and Teller on their old program on Showtime whose name I cannot say or use the initials of without another 30 day suspension nailed this topic completely. They showed how the "magic bullet" wasn't at all magic as well as how Oswald was able to get the shots off he did quite easily. Very worth the watch

That's how I know whether I'm dealing with a serious person or not.

I can ACCEPT the idea that someone believes Oswald acted on behalf of someone and did the shooting. I can even accept a conspiracy notion that allows all of the evidence to be presented. But when a person uses the phrase "the magic bullet," I know I'm not dealing with someone whose opinion deserves merit or consideration at all. I can accept the THEORY that there was Oswald and a "second gunman on the grassy knoll" if the other questions are reasonably answered coherently.

But this whole notion that two guys were riding along in the limo and not rotating their bodies or waving and were directly lined up and therefore "the Warren Commission said the bullet was magic" is someone about as ridiculous as those who say, "OJ's SON did it and he went to the crime scene and decided to take the risk of a trial." (OJ was so narcissistic there's no way in Hell he was risking jail for anyone else).

 

[CrimsonJazz]

Unfortunately I'm too familiar with them.

True story:
back around 2008 or so, Peter Ruckman "Jr" emailed me because he saw my list of college football games on DVD and wanted to acquire a few Florida State Seminoles football games. I responded and didn't hear back.

Do you know what happened to Ruckman Jr?

March 7, 2018
Authorities in northern Illinois say the son and two grandsons of a well-known longtime Pensacola pastor died in an apparent murder-suicide this weekend.

The Winnebago County coroner says 58-year-old Peter S. Ruckman died of gunshot wounds, along with 12-year-old John Ruckman and 14-year-old Christopher Ruckman.

Peter S. Ruckman is the son of Peter Sturges Ruckman, who was an internationally recognized pastor at Pensacola Bible Baptist Church. He died last year at the age of 94. The controversial, hard-line pastor created the Pensacola Bible Institute in the 1960s.

Holy cow, I hadn't heard about that. I can't help but wonder what sort of psychological issues this man had and just as important, when they began. I have a working theory, but no way to prove it.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

But when a person uses the phrase "the magic bullet," I know I'm not dealing with someone whose opinion deserves merit or consideration at all.

Just out of curiosity, is this because of how often it was used in Stone's film? There are, unsurprisingly, a lot of people walking around who believe that Stone coined that term, but as far as I can tell, we can thank Mark Lane for this in his 1966 book Rush to Judgement.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Holy cow, I hadn't heard about that. I can't help but wonder what sort of psychological issues this man had and just as important, when they began. I have a working theory, but no way to prove it.

I don't know. You know, I'm not a shrink even though I've taken a lot of psychology courses, and he seemed to antithesis of his Dad; he was very polite almost to a fault although admittedly emails don't necessarily show the reality of a person.

I

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Just out of curiosity, is this because of how often it was used in Stone's film? There are, unsurprisingly, a lot of people walking around who believe that Stone coined that term, but as far as I can tell, we can thank Mark Lane for this in his 1966 book Rush to Judgement.

Stone MIGHT have been the one to bring it into more common public usage, I'm not sure. I know that the Bill Kurtis special, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", which was pilloried even by conspiracy theorists, argues the magic bullet and quotes the discredited Robert Groden (who was vivisected on the stand in the OJ Simpson civil trial).

I think so much of this whole thing is "proportionality bias" or whatever; people really don't want to admit that a discharged Marine who had been a failure in life somehow managed to knock off the most powerful man in the world with a $12 Italian army rifle. I think Stone's whole schtick is that he has this idea that "conservatives" caused the Vietnam War, which is laughable given the Vietnam War was:
a) started
b) escalated
b) and abandoned

by DEMOCRATS. (Now, I'm not blaming any particular political party for the war itself, I'm just addressing Stone's biased nonsense). In my opinion, Stone is so scarred by Vietnam that he wants to believe that if Kennedy had lived then Vietnam wouldn't have happened. I just don't think the record bears this out. Granted - JFK might not have continued blunder after blunder through 1968, but Kennedy has been lionized in his death as something he was not, a largely leftist President. Teddy Kennedy's extremist liberalism is read back into JFK as if they endorsed the same things top to bottom. But as family friend (and political author) Teddy White noted, there was a right to left move across the Kennedy continuum from right-winger Joe Jr to "enlightened Tory" JFK to "centrist" RFK to "unabashed extremist liberal" Teddy. (It should be noted White himself identified as a liberal).

I think the movie "JFK" is Oliver Stone's therapy for his Vietnam service - as are "Platoon" and "Born On The Fourth of July." For that matter, so is his caricature of "Nixon." It makes the mind feel better that you had a savior out there but "they" killed him and "they" in these things is always "my political enemies."

90% of everything folks think are conspiracies are little more than the normal storms of life.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

Stone MIGHT have been the one to bring it into more common public usage, I'm not sure. I know that the Bill Kurtis special, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy", which was pilloried even by conspiracy theorists, argues the magic bullet and quotes the discredited Robert Groden (who was vivisected on the stand in the OJ Simpson civil trial).

I think so much of this whole thing is "proportionality bias" or whatever; people really don't want to admit that a discharged Marine who had been a failure in life somehow managed to knock off the most powerful man in the world with a $12 Italian army rifle. I think Stone's whole schtick is that he has this idea that "conservatives" caused the Vietnam War, which is laughable given the Vietnam War was:
a) started
b) escalated
b) and abandoned

by DEMOCRATS. (Now, I'm not blaming any particular political party for the war itself, I'm just addressing Stone's biased nonsense). In my opinion, Stone is so scarred by Vietnam that he wants to believe that if Kennedy had lived then Vietnam wouldn't have happened. I just don't think the record bears this out. Granted - JFK might not have continued blunder after blunder through 1968, but Kennedy has been lionized in his death as something he was not, a largely leftist President. Teddy Kennedy's extremist liberalism is read back into JFK as if they endorsed the same things top to bottom. But as family friend (and political author) Teddy White noted, there was a right to left move across the Kennedy continuum from right-winger Joe Jr to "enlightened Tory" JFK to "centrist" RFK to "unabashed extremist liberal" Teddy. (It should be noted White himself identified as a liberal).

I think the movie "JFK" is Oliver Stone's therapy for his Vietnam service - as are "Platoon" and "Born On The Fourth of July." For that matter, so is his caricature of "Nixon." It makes the mind feel better that you had a savior out there but "they" killed him and "they" in these things is always "my political enemies."

90% of everything folks think are conspiracies are little more than the normal storms of life.

Granted, there's no question that Stone was trying to answer the question: why? As I said in another post, Kennedy had enemies literally everywhere. There is no shortage of suspects who wanted the guy dead for their own nefarious purposes. Hell, for that matter, why is it always assumed that there was only one reason?

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Just out of curiosity, is this because of how often it was used in Stone's film? There are, unsurprisingly, a lot of people walking around who believe that Stone coined that term, but as far as I can tell, we can thank Mark Lane for this in his 1966 book Rush to Judgement.

Note: the Kurtis special was in 1988, three years before "JFK."

Here's what Daniel Petrocelli wrote about Robert Groden at the OJ civil trial. This is in regards to a photo of Simpson wearing the infamous "Bruno Magli" shoes. He notes that Groden had zero training in photography but had presented himself as an "expert" by.....examining ONE PHOTO of Lee Harvey Oswald that he decided was a fake (and by releasing the Zapruder film).

"When their initial photo expert went south on them after examining the photo in Buffalo, the defense had to find SOMEONE who would call it a fake. They found Robert Groden......"

"The defense was paying him $2000 a day to testify, and he was perfect for them: he was a man who never met a conspiracy he didn't like."

"The jury paid respectful attention as he handed out material and said, 'My conclusion is there is a high likelihood of forgery."

Groden then goes up to the front of the jury and shows them "the lines" that prove this is "most likely fake." Under cross, however, he was belted repeatedly over exaggerations on his resume, misleading comments, the fact he had obtained the autopsy photos (that he couldn't read) under questionable at best circumstances - and then Groden fudged the picture tube thing they were using to show the photos to try and make it fuzzier.

While the trial was on Christmas break, they got another photo taken the EXACT SAME DAY by a different photographer showing OJ wearing the shoes. THIRTY pictures, in fact.

Needless to say, all they had to do at that point was get Groden to call them all fakes to show how insane he actually was.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Granted, there's no question that Stone was trying to answer the question: why? As I said in another post, Kennedy had enemies literally everywhere. There is no shortage of suspects who wanted the guy dead for their own nefarious purposes.

This idea that American Presidents weren't loathed by a bunch of people needs to be let go.
JFK was no more nor less hated by the same number or at times groups of people.

We just know more about those groups because he was actually killed.

Do you REALLY think there would have been any fewer suspects if, say, Eisenhower was killed? You know, the guy who won WW2?
Every Nazi on the planet
Koreans
Commies
Supporters of Joe McCarthy
the Japanese
the Chinese
maybe a Mafia angry over the Kefauver hearings showing everyone "we can get to anyone"?

We only know about "all of his enemies" because he was killed. Remember, a bunch of the exact same people who think JFK was a conspiracy ALSO think RFK and MLK were conspiracy deaths, too.

And all of them picked the equivalent of Special Ed cases as their assassins is the crazy thing.

 

[tusks_n_raider]

I thought the Seinfeld where - of all things - Wayne Knight, who was in the chair in "JFK" - was hit by the magic loogie was one of the best parodies I've ever seen. What's funny is I must have seen "JFK" 20 or 30 times before realizing that.

I still think there had to be a 2nd spitter hiding in the bushes by the gravely road.

 

[crimsonaudio]

I still think there had to be a 2nd spitter hiding in the bushes by the gravely road.

"That was one magic loogie"

 

[Jon]

I used to love that show. I wish they would bring it back. When it came to setting off both sides of the aisle, no one did it better than P&T.

they were hardcore Libertarians at the time, if you didn't notice that not sure what to say.

 

[CrimsonJazz]

they were hardcore Libertarians at the time, if you didn't notice that not sure what to say.

Of course I did, it just made me love them even more. Sadly, that doesn’t appear to be the case now. TBH, I don’t know what label really applies these days.

 

[Crimson1967]

I have seen clips of that show on YouTube and it was pretty good.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I still think there had to be a 2nd spitter hiding in the bushes by the gravely road.

It was Roger McDowell!!!!

(You've probably seen the video, but Tom Glavine goes through when he was ordered to throw at Dale Murphy and relates a story about how years later Roger McDowell was hit pitching coach and explained what was going on on the other side).