Are we self-aware enough to answer: "Why do I care about the JFKA?"

[Lance Payette]

Every time I re-engage with the JFKA community, I find myself asking why anyone cares about this stuff? Why do I? Are we self-aware enough to answer this question?

The most honest answer of which I am capable is something like this:

1. I made the mistake, way back in 1980, of making Lifton’s Best Evidence the first JFKA book I had ever read. It was so utterly bizarre that it fed right into my proclivity for all forms of weirdness. So I percolated for years, reading the occasional conspiracy tome like High Treason and regarding JFKA conspiracy theorizing as a minor cog in my overall weirdness studies. Without Best Evidence, I probably never would have given any more thought to the JFKA than I give to the Lincoln and McKinley assassinations.

2. After traveling to Minsk in 2007 to see my fiancé, whose sister had worked with Oswald, I became fascinated by Oswald the man and still am. What was he all about, what was really going on inside his head? The more I learned, the more the LN narrative seemed plausible but not airtight by any means.

3. I became more actively involved with the JFKA just about the time I retired as a lawyer. The only satisfaction I derived from 40 years as a lawyer was exercising my analytical and writing skills and kicking the butts of people who thought they were smart. Truly, that was all; the "practice of law" meant zilch to me. Internet forums, including JFKA ones but mostly religion ones, provided a nice substitute.

4. I was eventually banned from all – yes, ALL – religion forums and reduced to things like the Ed Forum. I got lucky with the Postal Money Order issue right off the bat and had the ego satisfaction of being deemed a “JFKA researcher.”

5. I never really cared anything about JFK or who killed him. Oswald? Fine, but why? The Mafia? Cool! The CIA? OK, whatever. For me, involvement with the JFKA is just an opportunity to exercise my analytical and writing skills and engage in a bit of mental jousting.

6. My little factoid-busting exercises have been a hoot, an enjoyable substitute for writing 60-page appellate briefs. Most of them have been fantastically more time-consuming than they’re worth, and I accept that they are of no great interest or value. But they’re fun and amusing for me.

That’s it for me – no higher motive or agenda.

Let’s turn to you, my fellow LNers and CTers. What’s your honest explanation for your interest?

The JFKA is so chockful of twists and turns and mysteries that I can see it as purely a hobby. Some people collect stamps, read whodunnits or do crossword puzzles, you fiddle around with the JFKA. Perhaps like me you just enjoy the jousting. Is that it?

No, that can’t be it for most of you. On both sides, LN and CT, there seems to be an emotional involvement, sometimes a near-religious fervor. This isn’t  a criticism, just an observation. LNers seem offended that anyone would challenge their sacred LN narrative; CTers seem offended that anyone would fail to see what they see. If this is you, how do you explain this obsession and emotional involvement?

Lastly, it seems to me that for many of you the JFKA is something larger than it is for me. (I was 13 when JFK was assassinated, so I was probably as aware as most of you. It didn't mean squat to me, just a few days with no school.) Perhaps you have an exalted view of JFK, cherish his memory and think he deserves an historically accurate account of his death. Perhaps you think the JFKA has greatly influenced the subsequent history of the country and reverberates even today. Perhaps you hope that those you believe were responsible for the JFKA will be held accountable by your efforts to change the verdict of history.

(Isn’t it curious, on all the JFKA sites, how many foreigners are extremely active and seemingly obsessed with the JFKA? Is it for one of the reasons suggested above, or is it something else?)

Anyway, have you ever stepped back and asked yourself, “Why do I care about this stuff?” What’s your answer?

I can mentally justify my intense involvement with theology and anomalous phenomena (Near-Death experiences, for example) because the convictions I reach about these subjects have huge ramifications for how I live my life and how I view reality and possibly eternity. But the JFKA? I'm unable to see it as having much importance at all beyond mental exercise – a real-life whodunnit. Since it pretty clearly means much more to many of you, I’m curious to hear your explanations.

[John Corbett]

For me, this is a hobby. I can't explain my fascination with it anymore than a stamp or coin collector could explain their interest in their hobby. It just interests them which is a good enough reason. The more I studied it, the more interesting it became because of all the supporting characters and their involvement. I doubt anyone but a real assassination buff could tell you who people like Bonnie Ray Williams, Roy Truly, Howard Brennan, Johnny Brewer were just to name a few. The more I studied it, the more impressed I became with the work of the WC. While they didn't answer every question, the answers they did give us were spot on. I was already an LN by the time I began to seriously study the assassination but I wasn't a believer in the SBT and spent a few years trying to come up with an alternative. It was a fool's errand. The SBT was the only explanation that made sense given the available evidence.

I doubt I have changed many minds in the 35 years I've been involved in this hobby but maybe the few I have influenced have influenced a few others and so on. I'd like to think that at the very least I have given others something to think about even if they don't agree with me.

[Mike Orr]

I think that when people feel like they have not been told the truth , it makes them want to find out the whole story whether it is what they want to hear or not .

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

1. In my youth (I am about your age), I probably was fascinated with the idea of a government JFKA cover-up. And the JFA research community was dominated by lefties, so there was a tsunami of ideologically-fueled literature in that regard. I read a lot. 

2. Who doesn't like a good detective story?

3. Later, I became disenchanted with the whole JFKA genre, which had become a platform---I posted often "the ideology writes the agenda, and the agenda writes the narrative." One reason I was banned from Ed Forum. This ideology as history reached an apex of sorts in James Douglass' writings, and dominates the Ed Forum to this day.

4. I see both LN'ers and CT'er weighing evidence from their premises. Arguing like lawyers in court, or PR touts, not like independent analysts.

5. Even later I became outright disgusted with the JFKA research community, which for years had made Vietnam the central issue fueling the JFKA, then decide it was really Israel, working with James Jesus Angleton, who had waxed JFK.
The agenda writes the narrative.

6. But in pondering matters, and the plasticity of JFKA narratives, I reexamined the case, and concluded the WC had in fact settled on the LN narrative early on, under instructions from LBJ to avoid a nuke war with Russia. A reasonable  enough caution.

7. Ironically, the JFKA field being run by lefties, the JFKA narrative inking LHO back to G2 and KGB had rarely been examined---the very narrative LBJ had nixed back in 1963-4.

---

Based upon my (admittedly layman's) review of the Z-film, and related testimony, and Gov. JBC's injuries, I concluded to my satisfaction that there is a high probability of two shooters behind the JFK limo, and a smoke-and-bang-show perp at the GK.

So, three perps. More than that? Not necessary. Could have been LHO, and a couple hotheads from G2 or Alpha 66, and G2 had penetrated Alpha 66. That's my best guess.

Like you, the JFKA for me now is just something to write about.

I take no umbrage at other viewpoints.