Conspiracy Is Not A Theory - Conspiracy Is A Crime

 My first impression of Taki’s Magazine is of a conservative news blog trying to be hip.  Cool graphics, a host of big names featuring eye catching titles such as:  How Bimbos Saved the American Republic, A Pox On Your Blankets and not to be undone, The Men Who Taste Jews in Their Sandwiches.  Too cool for school, huh? 

I got wind of this site since a link from one of my articles landed in the comments section to an article by Steve Sailer entitled, "That’s What They Want You to Think".  The title gives it away, doesn't it?  Sailer apparently wants to be considered a serious journalist so this article is a bushwhack of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. The Lone Gunman comes up for air once again.  To be fair, Sailer will admit to conspiracy in the deaths of Caesar, Lincoln and Archduke Ferdinand.  But in the long run it doesn't matter as conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination becomes the stumbling block for further intellectual inquiry.  For Sailor, he goes one step further and declares conspiracy in Kennedy’s death to be outlandish and that’s a step too far.

The mind of Sailor works in mysterious ways.  He says that the epitome of conspiracy kookiness is Oliver Stone's JFK film:

"The flagrant stupidity of most conspiracy theories popular during my lifetime, as epitomized by Stone’s 1991 masterpiece/fiasco JFK (in which the entire military-industrial complex plots to murder John F. Kennedy by hiring some flaming French Quarter homosexuals), serves to inoculate the powerful against the suspicion that they have influence (or responsibility) regarding events."

Excuse me, but real conspiracy craziness is saying that cruise missiles cloaked in airliner holograms crashed into the Twin Towers on 9/11.  There is nothing crazy about believing in a conspiracy in JFK's death.  Certainly not for a man that had this number of enemies.  And Sailor's assessment of Stone's version of events in the JFK assassination and movie is completely ignorant.  If Stone followed the party line, or made prosecutor Jim Garrison appear to be a wrong-head fool, then the praise would abound.  But by thinking this way, the author displays a detrimental lack of fundamentals in the Kennedy assassination.  He looks at no serious flaws in the government's official story.  Instead, it's the critics that get the thrashing behind the woodshed. 

I don't get people like this.  It's as if their critical thinking skills have been suspended when it comes to this subject.  To be sure, the JFK assassination can be a Black Hole for speculation.  I know it’s a great thing to be considered fair minded and rational.  But many seem blinded by this impulse, trading in the truth for a spotless reputation.  Anomalies be damned.  A nineteen year old Marine can teach himself Russian, complete with a Baltic accent.  No problem.  And where is this kid going to hear Russian spoken with a Baltic accent to begin with?  No problem. We are told Oswald bought a money order to pay for his rifle on the morning March 12, 1963.  Yet, his work records indicate he never took any time off that morning.  No problem.  The money order didn’t have his fingerprints on it.  No problem.  The money order is missing all bank and USPS routing stamps.  No problem.  The money order is discovered in the National Archives and nobody can explain why.  No problem.  There are hundreds of other things I could bring up like this but you can read about those issues elsewhere on this blog. 

But Sailor just can't let a sleeping dog lie.  He goes on: "After all these years, it appears that the best explanation we can come up with is that Oswald and Ruby each acted alone. But just because that’s the best explanation doesn’t mean it’s a very good explanation. It’s merely somewhat less absurd than all the other specific hypotheses."

I see.  So having more than one gunman in Dealey Plaza is absurd.  The idea that all hypotheses are absurd is ludicrous and displays a lack of understanding regarding the basics of the case.  If one only pays attention to the numerous witnesses that heard shots coming from someplace other than the school book building (the Newmans, Zapruder, the Willis family, Nix, Powers, etc.) we get an inkling of a different story playing out.  Obviously, another shooter is a conspiracy.  Some people want to be the smartest guy in the room.  Unfortunately for Steve Sailor, in regarding the Kennedy assassination, that room is nothing more than a walk-in closet.

Conservatives and liberals make lock horns on many issues but they are in lock-step when it comes to the Warren Commission's conclusion of Lee Oswald as Lone Gunman.  The same conservatives that tell their readers in print and their listeners on the radio that one cannot trust what is coming out of Washington are the same people that have no problem believing the Warren Report.  There were no liars, criminals and plotters back in 1964?  I don't know of a single conservative in the media (radio, print or web) that believes in conspiracy in the death of John F. Kennedy.  And mainstream liberals are no better.  Chris Mathews on MS-NBC gives voice to the same view. 

Hence, all spout the partly line, "Kennedy was killed by a Communist."  But that is wrong.  Oswald never said he was a Communist but instead, a Marxist.  While the two political philosophies share a lot in common there is enough of a difference for Oswald to clearly state which side he (allegedly) was on.  (And there is much evidence to show what Oswald was on either side, but simply fronting for other parties.)  These critics of the critics don't even know the correct terminology right from the launch of their attacks, nor the implication of these two political doctrines. 

Conspiracy is not a theory–conspiracy is a crime.  A felony.  So prevalent it had to be documented as a crime in our criminal justice system.  Conspiracy is an integral element of human life and history.  Any book of history, the history of anything on a macro or micro scale, features conspiratorial components.  Plotting is what bad people do since they can’t do everything in the sunshine.

The phrase "Conspiracy Theorist" is a deriding term, a put-down, a form of punishment for not believing what your betters tell you and meant to ridicule any critic who is doubting an officially sanctioned narrative of an event.  While at the same time, bypassing the flaws in an account of how things happened, which are usually propagated by a governing authority.

You didn’t see anything here.  Now move along.

Addendum #1
Actually, there were some conservatives that believed in conspiracy in the JFK assassination but they are no longer on the air.  One was Rollye James, formerly on XM Radio.  Very much a libertarian she stayed on the constitutional side of most issues and is a lover of all things conspiratorial.  I miss her show greatly as she was nobody’s shill.  And the late Dale Sommers, AKA The Truckin’ Bozo, on the XM Radio’s Road Dog channel.  Sommers was fond of pointing out how Oswald left his rifle on the sixth floor and that a real Marine never leaves his rifle behind.  Sommers also served in military intelligence but I don’t know if that influenced his thinking on this issue.  I don’t know of any others that are on air nor do I know of any liberal radio hosts that support conspiracy in the assassination of JFK either.

Addendum #2
In regards to the “flaming French Quarter homosexuals” that Jim Garrison was investigating, we now know two salient facts.  Both were liars.  David Ferrie lied to the FBI about knowing Lee Oswald and Clay Shaw lied under oath at his trial about his involvement with the CIA.  Shaw also lied again in an interview published at the time.  They both lied about knowing Oswald.  Their involvement with behind the scenes Cold War intrigue is now well documented by witness testimony and latter-day document releases.