Sunday, October 23, 2022

The obvious is not always obvious



This may seem excessive, but I'll take the risk anyway. This will be another post about the JFK assassination. Why write it? Number one, it is of interest to me. Second, there may be something important that is getting overlooked. So, as amazing as it may have sounded to me, I rented the Oliver Stone movie, and watched it all again. Yet, I do not write to critique the film. There is no need. In the Bugliosi book, it was mentioned that Stone received so much criticism at the time, that he admitted he was making a "counter-myth" that was to compete with what he called the myth of the Warren Commission. If Stone is already admitting lying, then there is no need to beat that dead horse. The movie has no credibility, even in Stone's own words.

Again, this isn't a critique of the film. But there was something that caught my attention while watching it. In the trial scene, Garrison mentions the alternative is "fascism". Ka-ching! So all of this was about fighting fascism? Funny way of doing it, in my opinion. Creating a pack of lies in order to fight "fascism". All the while, he is extolling the value of "truth". It just seems a funny way of defending anything. In fact, it would seem a risky way, because if the lies were discovered, the opposite of what was intended could result. Or at least, that is what I thought.

People still believe in the conspiracy theory. So, I am fascinated by that. Why believe in something, for which there is no evidence? What's going on here? The whys and wherefores of that may be the bigger story. So, here I am. It would seem to belabor the obvious, but if it was so obvious, why do people reject the obvious?

I could segue into a personal story, but I won't. The personal story is a painful and embarrassing one for me, and this isn't going to be that kind of post. But I'd like to use the experience anyway to try to show how you can be blinded to the truth. That blindness can lead to some unfortunate outcomes, as it did in my own experience. If it happened to me, it could happen to others. It can also happen on a mass scale. That is why I offer it. But not in a way that could be the most effective. I would tell the entire story to be the most effective, or in the hopes that it would be. Let it suffice here that I was blind to something that should have been obvious. It caused an cascade of errors. Such is life. All you can do is learn from experience, and try to do better in the future.

Could the broad public be blind to something here about this assassination and its aftermath? So many seem to believe this conspiracy. Well, the conspiracy is true or it isn't. I've looked at it and I think that it isn't true. Not everybody would agree. There are still people out there who seem to believe in it. Some prominent people like Dick Morris. He called the assassination a coup detat. Dick Morris advised a President. So, here is a person who has been connected to the highest councils in our government. He believes it. Why wouldn't others? But I won't be influenced by that.

All I've read about the assassination, and of the following murder of Oswald, there's no mention of the obvious. The obvious regarding Oswald was his motive. As Sigmund Freud said, there are two primary urges, to wit: 1) the sexual urge, and 2) the urge to be great. Oswald's motive was to make a name for himself, and so he did. And Ruby's? Ruby was motivated by grief, and an urge to avenge Kennedy's death. In both cases, an opportunity presented itself. Motive and opportunity existed, and that is why it happened. It is the simplest explanation and the most obvious. Keeping to the Occam's Razor principle, it is the most likely to be correct.

Occam's Razor was not known to me back when I was making my mistakes. Perhaps for a lot of people, it is the one thing that principle is the least obvious. There has to be more to it than that!!! Nothing so momentous could possibly be so simple. But on the other hand, why not?

But why mention it at all today after all this time? It happened almost sixty years ago.

If Stone made a movie that was counter factual to fight fascism, then it could that the same kind of mistake is being made today. If there is a real need to fight fascism, wouldn't it be better to think rationally about how to fight it? Stuff like making up a pack of lies won't work. It will only lead to bad outcomes. Or is something else afoot?

If you are going to fight a war, then you need the truth. If you are lying, then what exactly are you fighting?

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