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

[John Corbett]

It is both a hobby and an addiction to me that I have quit cold turkey for years at a time. I first became hooked back in 1991 shortly after the movie JFK came out which also coincided with my first ISP subscription, Prodigy. I was a newbie to both the JFKA and the internet at the time. I knew just enough about both to be dangerous. In the 1980s I had briefly become a CT but shed that affliction after just a few years. I was lucky because for most people, it is a chronic condition. I came to the online discussions with a willingness to learn and the ability to apply common sense which allowed me to hold own against the veteran CTs. The Prodigy group was a lively bunch and had a few participants whose names others may recognize, Michael T. Griffith, Tony Marsh, Jean Davidson, Bob Artwohl just to name a few. David Lifton even posted there occasionally. Bob Artwohl came to that group as a CT and ended up an LN. He's the only one I know of who ever switched sides in any of the discussion groups I have participated in. Our Prodigy group broke up when Prodigy announced they would no longer allow unlimited posts. There would be a limit each month after which one would have to pay a premium to make additional posts. I don't think anyone was going to stick around so we all said our good-byes and went our separate ways.

I would occasionally argue with friends on the subject of the JFKA but it wasn't something that came up very often. In 2008, I visited Dallas for the first time not counting changing planes at the Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport. I made it a point that I was going to visit Dealey Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum while there. It wasn't hard as I was driving up I-35 from San Antonio and I looked out to my right and there was the TSBD. I went on by and up north past the Trade Mart, exited where Parkland had been, turned east and stumbled across Love Field. From there I drove what I guessed approximated the motorcade route until I hit Harwood, turned right on Main on to Dealey Plaza. After spending several hours there including a visit to the 6th floor Museum, I headed over to Oak Cliff. I started at Oswald's rooming house and walked down Beckley to where I guessed Oswald might have turned to go to 10th and Patton.  From there I took Oswald's route to Jefferson and then headed toward the Texas Theater. As I walked along Jefferson, I remember hearing lots of salsa music being played. That was about the extent of my visiting the key places of the JFKA.

That visit rekindled my interest in the JFKA. When I got home, I found John McAdams' forum on google groups and the companion unmoderated alt.conspiracy.jfk which I soon learned had been given the well deserved nickname of "the nuthouse". It was a free for all with no rules. You had to be able to take it as well as dish it out if you wanted to hang out there. I spent much more time on the moderated group where my main foil was Tony Marsh who I remembered from the Prodigy days. I saw from the archives a number of other Prodigy members but none of them were still active after I joined. I think after 3 or 4 years there, I tired of it and dropped out. Several years later, I had a relapse and got involved again. I stayed with the McAdams forum until his untimely passing about 5 years ago and since he was the only moderator left on that forum, it was effectively killed. I think it was only a few months later that Google announced they were doing away with all google groups which ended the nuthouse as well. I dabbled into a few other online forums but decided it would be a good time to drop the hobby and spend my time on other interests. That worked for about 4 years until one day I got bored and start doing searches for JFKA discussion groups and happened to land in this one. So here I am. Again.

I can relate to Michael Corleone's line from The Godfather III. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"

[Richard Smith]

It fascinates me that one angry guy could create such a ripple in history and culture.  Oswald could have made a lot of choices that day including to stand on the street as a spectator.  Instead he decided to commit this terrible act.  The assassination is just one consequence.  I do believe that the JFK assassination let a genie out of the bottle in the US that emboldened many terrible acts.  School shootings, mass shootings, and other assassinations were largely unknown before 11.22.63.  Every angry loon takes inspiration from Oswald whether they know that or not.  That's the real legacy. 

[John Corbett]

It fascinates me that one angry guy could create such a ripple in history and culture.  Oswald could have made a lot of choices that day including to stand on the street as a spectator.  Instead he decided to commit this terrible act.  The assassination is just one consequence.  I do believe that the JFK assassination let a genie out of the bottle in the US that emboldened many terrible acts.  School shootings, mass shootings, and other assassinations were largely unknown before 11.22.63.  Every angry loon takes inspiration from Oswald whether they know that or not.  That's the real legacy.

It's fascinating to ponder what might have been if not for the random circumstances that brought JFK into easy rifle range of Oswald. My guess is Oswald would have find some other prominent person to kill and it wouldn't have had near the impact assassinating the POTUS did. It's anybody's guess how Vietnam would have played out. I could be wrong but I don't think JFK would have escalated it to the degree LBJ did. JFK probably would have been re-elected in 1964. I think the seeds of the civil rights unrest had already been planted and we would have had the riots we did in the second half of the decade. Beyond that, it's impossible to what might have happened. Looking at current events, I don't think Charlie Kirk would have been assassinated because I don't think there would have been a Charlie Kirk or a Tyler Robinson. I don't think any of the school shooters going back to Columbine would have ever come into existence. Would there have been other school shooters in other places. Who knows. There would have been a different reality that would completely change all events both large and small.

[Lance Payette]

At last, I've cracked the code! I understand the attraction of the JFKA, at least for me and probably for you! It's all so completely nutty that it's an antidote to the increasingly grim and depressing world in which we live. There is absolutely no reality to it! It's a welcome escape, like a perpetual Star Trek convention (in fact, eerily similar to a perpetual Star Trek convention). I thus no longer have any qualms or apologies, to myself or anyone else. Yes, I am escaping from reality! I'm donning my Klingon regalia, figuratively speaking, and hiding out in the alternate universe of the JFKA!

I had this epiphany while scrolling through threads at the Ed Forum. The most active include (1) Greg Doudna, who is sort of a scholarly Royell Storing and who, like Royell, is almost pathetically desperate to be taken seriously. He has at two long threads to the effect that Larry Crafard killed Tippit - and someone like Tom Gram, whom I had previously thought was fairly sane, agrees with him! (2) Someone named Anthony Venturella, who has the most hugely complex Lifton, Horne, et al. theory about two morgues and body alteration and whatnot and whose work is being hailed as the biggest advance in JFKA conspiracy theorizing since 1945. (3) The ultimate hoot, J. Keven Hofeling, Esq., a smalltime retired Utah attorney who ostensibly retired to "transition" to "IT, Cybersecurity, and AI consulting," who cannot say anything in less than 10,000 words with 14 charts and graphs, and who is on an absolute crusade to demonstrate the Z film was altered.

Fantasy Land, I tell ya! The problem with the Ed Forum is that the other 15 most active threads are all Trump-oriented, and I for one refuse to be sucked back into reality.

I do like Keven's self-important disclaimer at the end of every post, which would have had me laughing out loud even when I was a lawyer. The following language shall henceforth be implied in each of my posts. You must, of course, mentally substitute for the phrase "Law Offices of J. Keven Hofeliing, LLC" the phrase "Law Offices of Lance Payette, if said law offices in fact exist." (According to the Utah State Bar, Brother Hofeling has, like moi, resigned from the bar. Someone - me? - should perhaps inform Brother Hofeling that a "resigned" attorney - unlike a "retired" attorney - is "not an attorney" and that holding yourself out as such can get you into trouble with the Bar.)

[John Corbett]

I can only speak for myself but my three-and-a-half-decade participation in various online discussion groups is not in any way escapism. I find the world to be no more and no less depressing that it was when I began. I'm a believer that things are never as bad as they seem nor as good as they seem. For the most part, I have a positive outlook on the world around me while recognizing the flaws. My involvement in these ongoing discussions is because the JFKA is a fascinating story with lots of tenacles. That and I enjoy arguing whether it is the JFKA, politics, sports, etc.