6 ms·

Funny enough, if you look at polling data of Americans... amongst people who actually lived during the JFK assassination & later investigation and kept up with

Funny enough, if you look at polling data of Americans... amongst people who actually lived during the JFK assassination & later investigation and kept up with all the details.... only about 11% believed the official narrative. More than 80% thought the official narrative was a lie. Nowadays (when most Americans have just read about it in history textbooks), it feels like most people believe the official narrative and dismiss conspiracy theories as "crazy".

rootusrootus 3y ago
> Nowadays This makes sense to me, because after all this time if we don't have anything which backs up the conspiracy theories it is sensible to believe that the results of the official investigation are largely accurate.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  [flagged]
- jjackson5324 3y ago
  The House Select Committee on Assassinations was established to investigate the assassinations of JFK and MLK. After their investigation, they concluded that the official narrative was most likely wrong and they found a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy. There were no investigations after that.. > Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy. Other scientific evidence does not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President. Scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy allegations. > The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-repor...
  - l3mure 3y ago
    For me the real kicker from the HSCA is George Joannides: > At the HSCA, Joannides had been specifically assigned to handle queries about the DRE and its relations with the CIA. The Agency had assured the committee that he had no connection whatsoever to the matters under investigation; that, in fact, he was merely an Agency lawyer and had not been “operational” in 1963. These assurances were self-evidently false. At one point, Joannides informed the committee that the identity of the DRE’s case officer at the time of the Kennedy assassination — Joannides himself — could not be determined. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jfk-assassination-documents-national-archives.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jfk-assassination-do...
  - pvg 3y ago
    The House Select committee didn't do a very good job and did not have access to accurate information. There has been, of course, plenty of investigating done on the assassination since then. A well-known overview is Gerald Posner's Case Closed, it goes over the deficiencies of that and many other assassination theories with a fine-toothed comb.
    - CyberEldrich 3y ago
      [dead]
  - pgreenwood 3y ago
    The HSCA conclusions were largely based on the now discredited acoustic analysis of the police channel dicabelt recording. If it weren't for that the findings would have largely supported that of the Warren Commission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_Dictabelt_recording https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_... A good summary of the evidence that Oswald acted alone can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8tO16xdrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8tO16xdrY
woodruffw 3y ago
> Nowadays (when most Americans have just read about it in history textbooks), it feels like most people believe the official narrative and dismiss conspiracy theories as "crazy". A significant confounding factor here is the encompassing and totalizing nature of modern conspiracy theories: there's a substantial difference in breadth, depth, and assumed priors between a JFK assassination conspiracy (painted against the backdrop of 1960s social and political upheaval) and something like QAnon. Put another way: American culture is prone to conspiratorial beliefs, but isn't (yet) prone to Big Lies.
- underlipton 3y ago
  >Put another way: American culture is prone to conspiratorial beliefs, but isn't (yet) prone to Big Lies. Lost Cause mythology, pretty much everything related to the popular conception of mid-century American society, "It's not a recession because hiring and consumer spending are strong," etc.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    I don’t think any of these things are conspiracy theories. Lost Cause mythology is definitely revisionist pseudohistory and not a conspiracy; I don’t know what the alleged recession conspiracy would be. (To my original point about breadth and depth: the adoption of non-conspiratorial but otherwise fringe views is a large part of what makes contemporary conspiracy both syncretic and naturally limiting — a “big tent” policy around conspiracies makes it hard to latch onto a single Big Lie.)
    - underlipton 3y ago
      >In the years immediately following the Civil War, there was a systematic and concerted effort to reframe the war in order to reunite the nation, quell bitterness, and assuage the ego of the defeated Southerners. Known as the “Lost Cause” narrative, this version of the Civil War downplays the conflict over slaveholder rights, amplifies the notion of “states’ rights,” and embraces the honorable valor of soldiers on both sides. https://blogs.iu.edu/establishingshot/2021/02/15/the-myth-of-the-lost-cause-in-buster-keatons-the-general/ https://blogs.iu.edu/establishingshot/2021/02/15/the-myth-of... Government, industry, and academia conspired to disseminate a narrative regarding the Civil War that they knew not to be factual but that served their sociopolitical purposes. This is the textbook definition of a Big Lie, and it was the standard interpretation of events for more than one hundred years in large swathes of this country. >I don’t know what the alleged recession conspiracy would be. Because it was successful. You didn't address the mid-century, so I'll expound: the Big Lie of a stable and affluent 50s, where the standard American nuclear family lived in a modest home in a nice suburb and espoused traditional values that kept the country on the straight-and-narrow (adopted most infamously in the various incarnations of "Make America Great Again", which were absolutely centralized campaigns by an identifiable set of figures) is oft taken to be the truth - never mind that this was the era of McCarthyism, war in Asia, "urban renewal", racial strife, PTSD-addled fathers and drunk housewives inflicting Baby Boomers with trauma that warps the American social landscape to this day, etc. There is a non-trivial part of America that wants to go back to an era that never existed, because they bought the Big Lie of its utopianism.
LtWorf 3y ago
Well I'm quite convinced that the crazy conspiracy theories are there to dismiss all of them in block. And of course some conspiracies ARE real.
- krapp 3y ago
  The crazy conspiracy theories are there because people believe in crazy conspiracies.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Kamq 3y ago
That seems to contradict the available data. Using gallup: https://news.gallup.com/poll/514310/decades-later-americans-doubt-lone-gunman-killed-jfk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/514310/decades-later-americans-... It seems that a majority doubt the official narrative these days (that LHO acted alone), but it was much lower in the past. There are, of course, limits to polling. People will tend to lie about things with social consequences, but you specifically call out polling data in your post.
- jjackson5324 3y ago
  > a majority doubt the official narrative these days (that LHO acted alone), but it was much lower in the past Ah okay, didn't realize a majority of people still doubt the official narrative. Thanks for the link. But yeah, it was previously at 11% believed official narrative and has now risen to 30% it seems.
  - Kamq 3y ago
    I just double checked and I read my link completely wrong. That's my bad. It seems you're correct. That'll teach me to post while doing other stuff
ericfr11 3y ago
So many Americans are prone to conspiracy theories. Most of the flat-earther, no-climate-urgency, election-was-stolen are Americans who have access to lots of facts, but still are in denial

rootusrootus 3y ago

> Nowadays This makes sense to me, because after all this time if we don't have anything which backs up the conspiracy theories it is sensible to believe that the results of the official investigation are largely accurate.

ekianjo 3y ago
[flagged]
jjackson5324 3y ago
The House Select Committee on Assassinations was established to investigate the assassinations of JFK and MLK. After their investigation, they concluded that the official narrative was most likely wrong and they found a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy. There were no investigations after that.. > Scientific acoustical evidence establishes a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John F. Kennedy. Other scientific evidence does not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President. Scientific evidence negates some specific conspiracy allegations. > The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-repor...
- l3mure 3y ago
  For me the real kicker from the HSCA is George Joannides: > At the HSCA, Joannides had been specifically assigned to handle queries about the DRE and its relations with the CIA. The Agency had assured the committee that he had no connection whatsoever to the matters under investigation; that, in fact, he was merely an Agency lawyer and had not been “operational” in 1963. These assurances were self-evidently false. At one point, Joannides informed the committee that the identity of the DRE’s case officer at the time of the Kennedy assassination — Joannides himself — could not be determined. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jfk-assassination-documents-national-archives.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jfk-assassination-do...
- pvg 3y ago
  The House Select committee didn't do a very good job and did not have access to accurate information. There has been, of course, plenty of investigating done on the assassination since then. A well-known overview is Gerald Posner's Case Closed, it goes over the deficiencies of that and many other assassination theories with a fine-toothed comb.
  - CyberEldrich 3y ago
    [dead]
- pgreenwood 3y ago
  The HSCA conclusions were largely based on the now discredited acoustic analysis of the police channel dicabelt recording. If it weren't for that the findings would have largely supported that of the Warren Commission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_Dictabelt_recording https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_... A good summary of the evidence that Oswald acted alone can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8tO16xdrY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8tO16xdrY

woodruffw 3y ago

> Nowadays (when most Americans have just read about it in history textbooks), it feels like most people believe the official narrative and dismiss conspiracy theories as "crazy". A significant confounding factor here is the encompassing and totalizing nature of modern conspiracy theories: there's a substantial difference in breadth, depth, and assumed priors between a JFK assassination conspiracy (painted against the backdrop of 1960s social and political upheaval) and something like QAnon. Put another way: American culture is prone to conspiratorial beliefs, but isn't (yet) prone to Big Lies.

underlipton 3y ago
>Put another way: American culture is prone to conspiratorial beliefs, but isn't (yet) prone to Big Lies. Lost Cause mythology, pretty much everything related to the popular conception of mid-century American society, "It's not a recession because hiring and consumer spending are strong," etc.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  I don’t think any of these things are conspiracy theories. Lost Cause mythology is definitely revisionist pseudohistory and not a conspiracy; I don’t know what the alleged recession conspiracy would be. (To my original point about breadth and depth: the adoption of non-conspiratorial but otherwise fringe views is a large part of what makes contemporary conspiracy both syncretic and naturally limiting — a “big tent” policy around conspiracies makes it hard to latch onto a single Big Lie.)
  - underlipton 3y ago
    >In the years immediately following the Civil War, there was a systematic and concerted effort to reframe the war in order to reunite the nation, quell bitterness, and assuage the ego of the defeated Southerners. Known as the “Lost Cause” narrative, this version of the Civil War downplays the conflict over slaveholder rights, amplifies the notion of “states’ rights,” and embraces the honorable valor of soldiers on both sides. https://blogs.iu.edu/establishingshot/2021/02/15/the-myth-of-the-lost-cause-in-buster-keatons-the-general/ https://blogs.iu.edu/establishingshot/2021/02/15/the-myth-of... Government, industry, and academia conspired to disseminate a narrative regarding the Civil War that they knew not to be factual but that served their sociopolitical purposes. This is the textbook definition of a Big Lie, and it was the standard interpretation of events for more than one hundred years in large swathes of this country. >I don’t know what the alleged recession conspiracy would be. Because it was successful. You didn't address the mid-century, so I'll expound: the Big Lie of a stable and affluent 50s, where the standard American nuclear family lived in a modest home in a nice suburb and espoused traditional values that kept the country on the straight-and-narrow (adopted most infamously in the various incarnations of "Make America Great Again", which were absolutely centralized campaigns by an identifiable set of figures) is oft taken to be the truth - never mind that this was the era of McCarthyism, war in Asia, "urban renewal", racial strife, PTSD-addled fathers and drunk housewives inflicting Baby Boomers with trauma that warps the American social landscape to this day, etc. There is a non-trivial part of America that wants to go back to an era that never existed, because they bought the Big Lie of its utopianism.

LtWorf 3y ago

Well I'm quite convinced that the crazy conspiracy theories are there to dismiss all of them in block. And of course some conspiracies ARE real.

krapp 3y ago
The crazy conspiracy theories are there because people believe in crazy conspiracies.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Kamq 3y ago

That seems to contradict the available data. Using gallup: https://news.gallup.com/poll/514310/decades-later-americans-doubt-lone-gunman-killed-jfk.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/514310/decades-later-americans-... It seems that a majority doubt the official narrative these days (that LHO acted alone), but it was much lower in the past. There are, of course, limits to polling. People will tend to lie about things with social consequences, but you specifically call out polling data in your post.

jjackson5324 3y ago
> a majority doubt the official narrative these days (that LHO acted alone), but it was much lower in the past Ah okay, didn't realize a majority of people still doubt the official narrative. Thanks for the link. But yeah, it was previously at 11% believed official narrative and has now risen to 30% it seems.
- Kamq 3y ago
  I just double checked and I read my link completely wrong. That's my bad. It seems you're correct. That'll teach me to post while doing other stuff

ericfr11 3y ago

So many Americans are prone to conspiracy theories. Most of the flat-earther, no-climate-urgency, election-was-stolen are Americans who have access to lots of facts, but still are in denial