Why did Oswald kill JFK?

[Tom Graves]

Graves loves to inject that strawman into every conversation.

John Iacoletti, the anti-Trump guy who doesn't realize he helped put him in office by wittingly or unwittingly encouraging, for many years, body politic-destroying tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories which are based on the irrational premise that JFK was NOT killed by the sharpshooting, psychologically disturbed, self-described Marxist known as Lee Harvey Oswald, and therefore must have been killed by the evil, evil, CIA, the evil, evil FBI, or the evil, evil [fill in the blank]. 

Vladimir Putin cherishes you for what for what you do, John!

Keep up the good work, Comrade!

[Jim Hawthorn]

How many bad guys do you figure were involved, altogether, in the planning, the "patsy-ing," the shooting, and the all-important cover up?

Couple hundred?

Remember, the assassination plot and the aftermath cover-up are two totally separate things, executed by two separate entities.

[Mark A. Oblazney]

Thanks, DVP! I just came out of the woodwork because I was getting all excited that I had finally encountered a rational conspiracy book in The Oswald Puzzle. It is a very worthwhile book that even a Lone Nutter can love, although as I've said it goes completely off the cliff (IMO) at the end, with LHO having no knowledge or role at all in the JFKA. I think this is what a CTer pretty much has to do to posit a conspiracy that is consistent with the actual Oswald and his actual life. That's why I liked my little theory - it's not only consistent with the real Oswald but entirely consistent with the Lone Nut perspective and all the evidence supporting it. (Purely speculative, of course.)

I had never heard of this forum. I was doing something and Google brought it up. It appears to be distinctly more LN-friendly, eh? Talk about going off the cliff - if someone had told me utter wackos like Sandy and Niedernut would one day be MODERATORS, I would said that was impossible. You demote Sandy and replace him with ... Niedernut and over-the-hill Bulman??? Holy God, why not just pull the plug?

Your view of Oswald's motivations seems entirely in line with mine. I think by the time of the Thursday visit he definitely thought Fate had put JFK directly in his sites and it was Marina's rejection that convinced him the JFKA was his destiny. It may not have been an entirely rational thought process, but surely those were the key factors.

ok, mssr. graves, I voted ‘none of the above’ because I didn’t see putin’s name up there,see?

[Tom Graves]

ok, mssr. graves, I voted ‘none of the above’ because I didn’t see putin’s name up there,see?

Dear zblázněný Mark,

I regret to inform you that your and Trump's hero, Vladimir Putin, didn't even start supplying weapons and funds to the Baader-Meinhof Gang in "backwater" Dresden and smuggling high-tech military stuff into The Worker's Paradise until about twenty years after the JFK assassination.

-- Tom

[Mark A. Oblazney]

Dear zblázněný Mark,

I regret to inform you that your and Trump's hero, Vladimir Putin, didn't even start supplying weapons and funds to the Baader-Meinhof Gang in "backwater" Dresden and smuggling high-tech military stuff into The Worker's Paradise until about twenty years after the JFK assassination.

-- Tom

yeah, that baader-meinhoffen gang, along with black flag and huskier du, they be my kinda music, OG. rock on+

[Tom Graves]

yeah, that baader-meinhoffen gang, along with black flag and huskier du, they be my kinda music, OG. rock on+

Funny, I thought you were more into The Plastic People of the Universe.

[John Corbett]

A problem trying to figure out the "Why?" question involves how he pulled it off, the ad hoc nature of the act. Using a cheap rifle - he had money to buy a better one - a weapon that he retrieved only the day before the assassination (that he apparently didn't practice with for weeks). He goes back to his rooming house for his revolver. He leaves behind incriminating evidence. Et cetera. There was little planning, little forethought involved: it was last minute. As you know, it's argued that had Marina agreed to move back in with him and find an apartment then he may have not gone through with the act. Something that simple.

How do we fit this spur of the moment act into this explanation of a larger purpose behind it? Viz., his hatred of the US, his support for Castro, his opposition to America? Someone driven by those grievances doesn't act, it seems to me, so hastily. He plans things out.

This is where Ruby's act was so awful, so indefensible. Besides the vigilantism of it, the denial of Oswald's rights, it denied the world a fuller explanation. Had Oswald lived I don't think any of us would be here. He would have admitted - implicitly if not explicitly - to the crime. He wouldn't be able to answer all of these questions about the rifle, the photos, his post-assassination behavior. But all of that was denied by Ruby's act. Ruby wanted to punish Oswald, hold him accountable when in reality he helped him avoid accountability.

Let's face facts. We are all guessing what Oswald was thinking both before and after the shooting. None of us will ever know. I'm happy to play the guessing game. My guess is Oswald was a lonely, pissed off little loser who hated the USA and blamed the world for his lowly lot in life. He was a little nobody who wanted to become a somebody. He tried and failed to do that when he missed General Walker. Just 7 1/2 months later, fate handed him a once in a lifetime opportunity to become a big somebody and he took full advantage. Once he had finally succeeded at doing something important for the first time in his life, I don't think he had a plan beyond that. He had to know he wasn't going to get away with it but he was going to make it as difficult as possible for the society he despised to administer justice to him. If the cops were going to try to arrest him, he would try to take as many of them down as he could, possibly with the idea of committing suicide-by-cop. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. As Royell Storing likes to say, prove me wrong.

As for Ruby's killing of Oswald, that was deplorable (wink, wink). I can't justify it legally or morally but that doesn't stop me from saying I'm glad he did it anyway. The 48 hours Oswald lived after killing JFK were probably the happiest of his life. For the first time in his life, he was a somebody. He was the center of attention and the whole world was watching. I think he was looking forward to his trial and the daily notoriety that would bring him. A well placed shot by Jack Ruby denied him all that and hopefully inflicted excruciating pain for the last two hours of Oswald's life. If the price for denying Oswald what he sought is that we'll never know why he did it, that's a price I'm glad we paid. Oswald might still be spending time acting defiantly in the Texas penitentiary. I have no doubt there would be lots of people who would be advocating for his parole, just as they have done for Sirhan Sirhan. Jack Ruby spared us all that nonsense. Thanks again, Jack.