Why do JFK assassination forums draw so many nut cases?

[Tom Graves]

Question: Why do JFK assassination forums draw so many nut cases?

Answer: Because the anomaly-replete assassination is fertile grounds for KGB-encouraged anti-"Deep State" / anti-"National Security State" / anti-"Administrative State" tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories.

[Martin Weidmann]

Question: Why do JFK assassination forums draw all of the nut cases?

Answer: Because the anomaly-replete assassination is fertile grounds for KGB-encouraged anti-"Deep State" / anti-"National Security State" / anti-"Administrative State" tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories.

Said the biggest nut case of them all!

[Tom Graves]

Said the biggest nut case of them all!

Which is your JFKA bête noire, Weidmann?

Peter Dale Scott's "Deep State," Jimmy DiEugenio's "National Security State," or Steve Bannon's "Administrative State"?

It doesn't matter which one you choose -- Vladimir Putin loves them all for their nation-rending qualities.

[John Corbett]

The JFKA hobby/industry is fueled by a desire people have to want a more interesting answer than that some little nobody named Lee Harvey Oswald learned the POTUS was going to be riding past his workplace in a slow moving open top car and decided to take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity to become somebody famous. For maybe the first time in his life he succeeded.

The fact is that JFK's fondness for appearing in public before adoring crowds riding in a slow moving open top limo made him an inviting target for a malcontent like Oswald. It was JFK's bad luck that his motorcade by random chance got routed right past that malcontent's workplace making it very easy for him. If it hadn't happened in Dallas, it might have been some other little loser in some other city who took advantage of JFK's willingness to expose himself to danger.

For some reason, people don't want to accept the obvious answer, the answer the DPD had come to on day one. I was in 7th grade in Omaha on that day was in math class, our first period after lunch when our principal made the announcement over the loudspeaker that the President and the Governor had been shot in Texas. Our teacher, Sister Gerald, immediately turned on her radio. It seem like just a short time later the announcement was made that JFK had died. Classes were called off for the day and we all went across the street to the church where Father Evans led us all in praying a rosary. We were then dismissed and I went home. I was surprised when a short time after that, I learned the suspect was already in custody. That's when I learned he had also killed a cop. I knew nothing about the details of the assassination but from the moment I saw Oswald on TV, I never had any doubt he was the assassin. Even when I was briefly brought over to the CT side, I never doubted Oswald was the gunman, even when I believed there was a second gunman.

A CBS documentary in 1988 was the first time I learned some of the basic details of the assassination. The layout of Dealey Plaza, the motorcade route through it, and the position of the TSBD. It was the first time I saw the Z-film. That's when I really started to study the JFKA and learned more than just the basics of it. The more I learned, the more I became convinced Oswald was the one and only gunman and that there was no credible evidence he had even a single accomplice. I continue to hold that belief almost 40 years later.

[Lance Payette]

Said the biggest nut case of them all!

Dadgum it, Martin, you beat me to it. The irony of the questions TG poses is almost beyond belief.

"I am not one of those goofy JFKA conspiracy theorists because the goofy conspiracy I posit subsumes not only the JFKA but pretty much the entire history of the United States for the past 75 years."

Oy. 

[Tom Graves]

"The conspiracy [that Tom Graves] posits subsumes not only the JFKA, but pretty much the entire history of the United States for the past 75 years [sic]."

Dear Macho Genius Fancy Pants Rants,

Not necessarily the JFK assassination, itself, but a lot of our history ever since the early 1960s when risk-taking General Oleg Gribanov sent GRU Lt. Col. Dmitry Polyakov and KGB Major Aleksey Kulak (J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA) to the FBI's NYC field office to volunteer to spy for it at the U.N., and sent false-defector-in-place Yuri Nosenko to the CIA in Geneva in June 1962 to discredit what a recent true defector, KGB Major Anatoly Golitsyn, was telling father-figure-requiring James Angleton about probable moles in the CIA, the FBI, and the intelligence services of our NATO allies -- which intel Angleton unfortunately shared with his confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, Bruce Leonard Solie in the Office of Security (look him up).

-- Tom

[Lance Payette]

Dear Macho Genius Fancy Pants Rants,

Not necessarily the JFK assassination, itself, but a lot of our history ever since the early 1960s when risk-taking General Oleg Gribanov sent GRU Lt. Col. Dmitry Polyakov and KGB Major Aleksey Kulak (J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA) to the FBI's NYC field office to volunteer to spy for it at the U.N., and sent false-defector-in-place Yuri Nosenko to the CIA in Geneva in June 1962 to discredit what a recent true defector, KGB Major Anatoly Golitsyn, was telling father-figure-requiring James Angleton about probable moles in the CIA, the FBI, and the intelligence services of our NATO allies -- which intel Angleton unfortunately shared with his confidant, mentor, and mole-hunting superior, Bruce Leonard Solie in the Office of Security (look him up).

-- Tom

Not sure how I got elevated to Macho Genius, but at least you're on the right track.

You omitted "(*Today's FSB/SVR)." Are you slipping?

The original post poses a legitimate question: Why, indeed, are so many nutcases attracted to JFKA forums? The thread has quickly shifted to "Why do people participate on JFKA forums?" - an entirely different question. There are internet forums on topics far more obscure and mundane than the JFKA that are way more active than any JFKA forum. It's a niche interest where even the non-nutcases tend to be fanatics.

But let's get back to the original question: Why ARE so many nutcases attracted to JFKA forums? I won't name names, but on this forum and the Ed Forum are a number of very prominent participants whom I would characterize as actual, bona fide nutcases. People who clearly are not thinking rationally and who assert absolutely preposterous things with complete sincerity. I am constantly agog.

Scroll through the pages of threads here. The silly threads that say nothing and go nowhere get by far the most posts and views. It's almost depressing to a Macho Genius such as myself whose witty, insightful contributions go nowhere, but I perservere because I'm so pleased with myself.

I think the preponderance of nutcases has two primary explanations:

1. Internet forums in general attract extreme personalities and wackos. You can pretend to be anyone you want to be and say anything you want to say. That's why, I believe, they have to be regarded as Monty Python skits and not taken seriously. It's the wackos, of course, who take them most seriously because that's part and parcel of being a wacko. (I'm the irritating and insufferable Minister of Silly Walks of the JFKA, but at least it's a persona I've intentionally adopted and I'm fully aware of what I'm doing.)

2. It's the - yep - conspiracy-prone mindset. Every area of weirdness, including the JFKA, attracts a large number of those who fit this psychological profile, most of whom are not nutcases. But, alas, in a crowd of folks with the conspiracy-prone mindset you are going to have an unusually large lunatic fringe. This is true across all areas of weirdness.

Put 1 and 2 together, and I believe you have your answer.

Let's take this thread to the next level: Who ARE the consensus nutcases here? Should we just start naming names, or would it be better to do a poll?