The GOP is a like a bowler with a lucky shirt, an angler with a lucky lure. Every failure is wiped out with a single, coincidental success that will forever be attributed to magic. Bush's career is best described as a series of inexplicable coincidences. Truly magical!GOP economists manage to keep a straight face when they talk of stats and causality. If a magic wand is summoned, it is held behind a back. Like a bowler's favorite shirt, the GOP will summon up a tax cut whenever the occasion calls for big economic hoodoo of the GOP kind. Never mind that when it works, it's just a lucky coincidence! Goppers will, nevertheless, bow down to the god Almighty Moolah!
GOPPERS believe in the law of contagion. Whenever Moolah favors them, they choose to isolate themselves from possible sources of pleb contagion. They choose to live in the inmost ring of multi-ringed subdivisions, multiple layers of insulation against a real world outside. Living beyond the walls is risky. The great unwashed live out there. Barbarians camp just beyond the walls, just outside the gates. The law of contagion predicts that a fragile gopper might catch something. Poverty!
Like many primitive and superstitious peoples, goppers like talisman, effigies, tokens, or symbols. There is, however, no truth to the rumor that, in secret ceremonies, goppers trotted out a wind-up Al Gore doll and stuck pins in it. They did not stick pins in it though some might have wanted to. They pulled a string and it talked. And when they pushed a button, it wrote a paper called "Distributed Intelligence", interpreted by goppers to mean that Gore invented the internet. The real story is more prosaic. Gore's paper got written up and cited by numerous journals and PhDs. [See: Gore's Metaphor, John Lienhard, PhD.]
The moral of the story is --black magic often backfires on those who practice it. That one still embarrasses the poohbahs of GOP orthodoxy. Recently, Gore won a Nobel Prize. I suspect the GOP regrets having pulled his string. Someone suggested the GOP use Gore's Oscar as a suppository. It didn't happen, wouldn't fit! Some things are beyond the power of magic to remedy.
Sir Arthur C. Clarke said: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". That may be true if you are on the outside looking in. But if you should ever suspect the literal truth of it, try waving a slide rule at real problems like education, poverty, income disparities, our vanishing industrial base. It is about as effective as was Reaganomics or Bush-O-nomics!
I won't waste my time accusing the GOP of magical thinking with regard to "trickle down" theory. They know better but espouse it disingenuously amid hopes that it will fool millions of gullible who might believe it. That's how the GOP can afford to retreat into the inner sanctums of armed, gated communities. I suspect that there may be an "Owl God" somewhere in the center of those communities.
In still other instances, one almost wishes Bush believed in magic. His policies could not have been worse. Maybe he should try a few coin tosses, swinging pendulums, tarot readings, consultation of entrails, or visiting oracles and divinely inspired ventriloquists. Couldn't hurt. Magicians get it right every now again by chance. Bush never has!
One of magical thinking's all time classics is a knee-slapper called the "collapsing roof". According to E. E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Magic, and Oracles Among the Azande, it is claimed that due to a magic spell a roof fell actually fell on a person. It's a good story, but I have a simpler explanation: termites. Likewise, when the roof falls in on George W. Bush and his gang, I will suspect voodoo economics, like termites, will have eaten away our economic foundations.
The GOP is most magical, however, when it tries to explain the truly magical events of 911. Entire airliners vanished without a trace; steel towers defied the laws of physics. David Copperfield is eating his heart out. He only made the Statue of Liberty vanish and, later, a single airliner. Like every sleazy magician who defies his audience to come up with a "rational" explanation for the disappearance of a scantily clad assistant into a collapsing box, the GOP owes much to what is known in the trade as mis-direction. Only the terminology stays the same. The little white bunny disappears down a tiny hole never to be seen again.
That's what good magicians do. They get away with shifting the burden of proof and limiting the options. A gullible audience will buy it. After all, the audience saw the comely assistant climb into the box. They saw the bunny's nose quiver just before it went poof! Make your choice from a false dichotomy: magic or evil terrorists.From a sociological point of view, magic consists of making coincidences appear to be meaningful. Simply, magic is nothing more than a slick, plausible cover story that people are prepared to buy into and usually for emotional reasons. Filled with anger and fear, Americans might have believed anything and did! 911 is not the first time officialdom donned the garb of a slick magician. Long before the 911 Commission, the Warren Commission tried to get away with a "Magic Bullet" trick. It must have worked. Arlen Specter kept getting re-elected. He must have worn his lucky shirt.
That single bullet, known as "Warren Commission Exhibit 399", was said by the commission to have struck JFK from the rear, exited, turned 90 degrees in mid-air twice, struck John Connally, exited again, and may have changed direction again so that it could wind up at Parkland Hospital so that it could be conveniently found! In short, it is supposed to have caused all of the non-fatal wounds in both President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connelly.
Now --that's either real magic or a very, very talented bullet. Being a reasonable person, I suspect real magic. I find it hard to believe that bullets possess "talent"! It is typical of magic, however, that the human trait of intention is attributed to inanimate objects, that, for example, a non-sentient object like a bullet can do tricks so that something consistent with a political agenda can happen. And like all good tricks, the magicians (possibly, oil industry tycoons, the CIA) who pulled off the JFK murder managed to pull that bullet --not out of hat --but off the dead President's gurney at Parkland Hospital. There was nary a scratch on it! Now ---that's magic!
19 comments:
If you do a little reading about Narcissists, such as "Why Is It Always About You?" by Sandy Hotchkiss and James F. Masterson, you find that 'Magical Thinking' is one of the characteristics of Narcissists. Bush, of course, is a Narcissist.
A classic example of magical thinking by a Narcissist was Stalin's unassailable belief that the Germans would not invade the USSR. There was overwhelming evidence that the Germans intended to do so, but he stubbornly resisted the idea until it actually happened.
You are correct. "Narcissim" is associated with "magical thinking". Thanks for the post.
Len, thank you for the books to read on Existentialism! Narcissim, is associated with magical thinking, I never new that, I always related magical thinking to mental illness and perhaps immaturity the need to grow up, but Narcissim, interesting.
I also am afraid the neocons will not be brought down till our complete financial collapse.
It's rather old news - and frankly I haven't explored it properly at all - but Sheila Samples participated in the 'Articles and Answers' website associated with this forum
http://articlesandanswers.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/login.php?sid=9a8f6e6411a7bafccfbe32986f6ef5ee
I was rash enough to dig into an email plugging it. BlueBloggin gave it the once over twice as well.
I rather chuckled over diane b's quip that Bush-Narcissim did not in fact reflect immaturity and mental dysfunction. A diagnosis does not necessarily contradict obvious symptoms - though I haven't pursued the particulars.
And...as anonymous pointed out, Stalin was convinced that Hitler would not invade the USSR. But while Hitler was invading Poland, Stalin waged a winter campaign against Finland. He underestimated them, perhaps a symptom of "magical thinking". The Finns put up stiff resistance, fighting on skis in snow covered forests. Incredible.
Good article, until the conspiracy theory stuff. This throws your credibility right out the window.
For example, implying that 911 was arranged by Bush and his cronies is a theory that would have involved a colossal operation involving thousands of people, many of whom would have died in the attack (for example wiring the WTC with explosives would have required the whole of WTC security to look the other way) and is in itself an example of "magical thinking" The simpler explanation is that four planes were flown by suicidal hijackers, and that the very structure of the buildings caused them to collapse in on themselves like a house of cards.
The magic bullet thing also can be explained by the fact that Governor Connolly was sitting not directly in front of JFK, but in a jump seat which was lower and a bit to the left of Kennedy's seat. The trajectory of the bullet is straight when this is taken into account.
Again, the JFK conspiracy theories all involve a large number of people, and would have relied on a large amount of chance and things like the weather. A better explanation is that some nut (that is, Oswald) who could not fit in in the US and enjoyed making trouble (he had been arrested repeatedly for fighting and spreading communist literature) saw that the president was driving past his window and took the opportunity to use his sniper rifle to make more trouble.
This conspiracy theory nonsense is a very damaging example of the "magical thinking" you describe, as it distracts from the REAL examples of corruption in the Bush regime, such as voting machine fraud, the curtailment of civil liberties and so forth.
No, I simply have never thought of Magical thinking as Narcissim, I agree Bush is Mentally ill, and also, is using magical thinking.
FuzzFlash sez....
LH: "Like many primitive and superstitious peoples, goppers like talisman, effigies, tokens, or symbols. There is, however, no truth to the rumor that, in secret ceremonies, goppers trotted out a wind-up Al Gore doll and stuck pins in it. They did not stick pins in it though some might have wanted to. They pulled a string and it talked."
You and Jonny Swift, Len, great stuff!
Been buzzin' the Oz blogs like a blow-fly lately. There are 16 sleeps before the citizens of our Great Southern Land get electorally medieval on El Rodente's arse. Prime Minister Howard is a Bush booster extraordinaire,(Iraq, global warming denier, the usual neocon crap). The opinion polls strongly favor the challenger and only a force majeure can save Howard's govt. The Internet via influential uncensored blogs are playing a major role in deconstructing govt. spin, and it's where I'm trying to contribute. Unbelievably exciting experience, a total trip and this time, we are winning.
The following clip contains many of my brothers and sisters;
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=MVzO017lcA4
Miss you guys and will be back with bells on when the job is done.
As good an example as any of magical thinking is that if America attacks Iran, all will be well in the middle-east - there will be no more I'm-a-dinner-jacket, no more Iranian nuclear weapons.
There will be ushered in a new regime that will love America and Americans, and there will be peace in the valley
So convinced are the American people of this, that 52% now favour an attack on Iran.
Bombs away!!!
I made a negative joke about Georgie Boy to the clerk, at my neighborhood market, and my, oh my, she did not like it. I gathered that she was one of his few supporters.
Anonymous said...
The magic bullet thing also can be explained by the fact that Governor Connally was sitting not directly in front of JFK, but in a jump seat which was lower and a bit to the left of Kennedy's seat. The trajectory of the bullet is straight when this is taken into account.
It was never an established fact that Connally was so seated.
No one had ever suggested that Connally had "shifted" his position to accommodate the magic bullet until after every absurd notion had already been disproved.
I anticipated a fallacious "refutation". Read my "addendum". There is absolutely no evidence that Connally was seated as you have suggested --nor is it evident in any of the film or photos. In legal language, your "theory" assumes facts simply not in evidence. The idea was advanced post hoc to shore up the flaws in another stupid "official" theory.
At last, those who put forward weird theories post hoc must keep in mind that by doing so, they assume the burden of proof. The rule is: those who assert must prove. If you assert that Connally was so seated, you must cite some evidence in support of the assertion. All I've seen on the internet is an animation but no proof. Anyone can produce an animation --after the fact --that explains anything. Warning: if you should try to cite the nature of the wounds themselves, you will have committed the circulus en probando fallacy.
Now, about 911, the magic thinking involves ludicrous conclusions that are arrived at upon no evidence whatsoever. Again --the dictum is: those who assert must prove. There no proof whatsoever in support of the official theory --nor is there any evidence. The evidence was all conveniently disposed of upon Bush's order. Now, by law, the destruction of evidence is a crime, in this case, a felony! And, I believe that the destruction of evidence under these circumstances, would be considered by a court to be prima facie evidence of a cover up of the very crime in question. Who covers up crimes? Guilty people do!
A final shot about "conspiracy" theories. Bush's theory is the first such theory. Why is he given a pass? Were this a court, his credibility as a witness is fair game.
Secondly, the only response Bush defenders have with respect to critics is to call them names. A man who has a case makes it. A man who doesn't just calls names. Name calling is a fallacy --the ad hominem. Merely calling someone a "conspiracy theorist" refutes nothing. It does, however, discredit the person who indulges it.
FuzzFlash sez....
Miss you guys and will be back with bells on when the job is done.
Bells, eh? You've been missed too, and I am sure that we all look forward to your out-of-the-box wit and otherwise creative ways of looking at things.
Christopher said...
As good an example as any of magical thinking is that if America attacks Iran, all will be well in the middle-east - there will be no more I'm-a-dinner-jacket, no more Iranian nuclear weapons.
Great point! Clearly --the American people have learned abso-fuckin-lutely NOTHING from the quagmire in Iraq. Cearly --the American people have refused to learn that Bush cannot be believed about anything. Clearly --the American people would prefer to indulge bullshit like the official conspiracy theory, the notion that Iraq had WMD and posed a threat to the world, and other crap like Iran has very nearly developed Nuclear weapons!
So convinced are the American people of this, that 52% now favour an attack on Iran.
Bush is telling even worse lies about Iran than the ones he told about Iraq. Damn!! We have learned nothing. We will have deserved our fate.
I’d like to comment on what “anonymous” said about 9/11.
In the months that followed this attack I became convinced that insiders in the Bush White House had “allowed” the attack to happen, and I regaled those few friends I have, with my views about it.
Then one day a friend suggested to me that because such a conspiracy would have involved thousands of people, it isn’t credible that not a single one of them would have come forward with insider information by now, not even anonymous insider information.
At first I put this to the back of my mind, for it undermined all I believed about 9/11 being a White House inside job, or about it being “allowed” to happen.
But as the months went on, it kept nagging at me until I could deny it no longer.
I thought about all the other nefarious activities of the Bushies, about how they’d cherry-picked the evidence to support invading Iraq, and the torture at Abu Graib, and all of that.
Then I went back further down the years to things like Iran-Contra. Always there was someone, some principled person who worked inside the system, who felt morally compelled to come forward with what they’d seen or heard about the conspiracy from the inside.
This is something conspicuous by its absence in regard to the 9/11 White House “inside job” theory
And as I began to look at the theories put forward to support the 9/11 "inside job" scenario, I saw that they ignored other information that contradicted them, that the “inside job” theorists were cherry-picking their information.
After putting in much time examining all the conflicting information, I concluded that 9/11 wasn’t a White House inside job. And I shamefacedly admitted to my little friends that I’d been wrong.
But there can be no doubt that George Bush and his cronies told lots of outright lies about what happened on the day of 9/11. But I think this was simply to cover up governmental incompetence and negligence which the hijackers successfully exploited. And perhaps it was to cover up the involvement of “allies” like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This would explain why the Bush White House put so many obstacles in the way of the Keane-Hamilton commission completing its job.
So I agree with you, Len, that there has to be some kind of public commission of enquiry, open to all, which will openly try to get at the unvarnished truth of what happened that day. Americans have the right to know what their government did, or failed to do.
And, Len, I should add that just because I disagree with you about your interpretation of the events surrounding 9/11, it doesn’t mean I don’t admire all the research you do, and all the time and work you put in, to educate people like me about important aspects of American history, and about the manifold and egregious skulduggeries perpetrated in Washington’s and the White House’s corridors of power.
Keep up the good work.
Christopher said...
But there can be no doubt that George Bush and his cronies told lots of outright lies about what happened on the day of 9/11. But I think this was simply to cover up governmental incompetence and negligence which the hijackers successfully exploited. And perhaps it was to cover up the involvement of “allies” like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Christopher, what "they" did to you, they've tried to do to me. In other words, whenever any doubt is expressed, the "burden of proof" is shifted to those who are skeptical.
Don't fall for that shit!
I was on a championship debate team. We NEVER ever let the "affirmative" team get away with that. The Bush team, advanced a theory. It is, therefore, incumbent upon them to put forward relevant evidence in support of their case. In debate terms, they are the "affirmative". In law, the prosecution is the "affirmative" and must prove its case. The defense (negative) need only shoot down the "official theory" the one put forward by the prosecution. Johnny Cochran shot down the "official theory" brilliantly with a single sentence: "If it does not fit, you must acquit"!
Brilliant!
The Bush team FAILED to make a case. It merely asserts and implies.
THOSE WHO ASSERT MUST PROVE!
Bush team has failed to make or support their case.
But it is worse than that: they ACTIVELY tried to quash all investigations. That includes orders that evidence be destroyed. Bush, the record will show, leaned on the members of the 911 commission. Evidence was ORDERED loaded up on trucks and hauled away.
There IS a case of obstruction of justice to be made. Clearly --911 was a crime and ground zero a crime scene. The removal and disposal of ANY of that wreckage was a CRIME!
If the specifics of the crime of 911 are never proven against Bush, there is a prima facie felony case to be made against him right now for obstruction of justice.
Now --when the case that Bush obstructed justice is made and the subpoenas served, we might very well get to the bottom of 911.
Bush defenders may call me a "conspiracy theorist" if they like. I don't care. Such an attack is an ad hominem fallacy. It discredits them --not me. It ignores the fact that the only conspiracy theory at issue is that of Bush. And Bush has utterly failed to support it. It is time that Bush put up or shut up. It is time that he supported his case with a single verifiable fact. He won't and can't.
Those who have a case, make it! Those who don't simply call other people names. Like "conspiracy theorist", a worn out label that has lost its effectiveness.
The Warren Commission, however, did put forward a "theory" and events have proven it full of holes.
I lived in Texas for too long. In retrospect, it is clear to me now, that I most certainly met and interviewed at least TWO men who probably conspired to murder JFK. I will not outline the specifics on this comments section. But one day, I will wrap it up.
Christopher, you say...
Then I went back further down the years to things like Iran-Contra. Always there was someone, some principled person who worked inside the system, who felt morally compelled to come forward with what they’d seen or heard about the conspiracy from the inside. This is something conspicuous by its absence in regard to the 9/11 White House “inside job” theory.
Respectfully, you should reconsider those views. Here's Daniel Ellsberg:
It is a commonplace that "you can't keep secrets in Washington" or "in a democracy, no matter how sensitive the secret, you're likely to read it the next day in the New York Times." These truisms are flatly false. They are in fact cover stories, ways of flattering and misleading journalists and their readers, part of the process of keeping secrets well. Of course eventually many secrets do get out that wouldn't in a fully totalitarian society. But the fact is that the overwhelming majority of secrets do not leak to the American public. This is true even when the information withheld is well known to an enemy and when it is clearly essential to the functioning of the congressional war power and to any democratic control of foreign policy.
The reality unknown to the public and to most members of Congress and the press is that secrets that would be of the greatest import to many of them can be kept from them reliably for decades by the executive branch, even though they are known to thousands of insiders.
Here are some other 911 links that may cause you to consider further: 1 2 3 4
Christoper, your observations are appreciated and I am glad you brought up Iran/Contra, another instance in which the truly guilty got off scot-free. Following is from Lawrence Walsh's final report:
The underlying facts of Iran/contra are that, regardless of criminality, President Reagan, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence and their necessary assistants committed themselves, however reluctantly, to two programs contrary to congressional policy and contrary to national policy. They skirted the law, some of them broke the law, and almost all of them tried to cover up the President's willful activities.
--Concluding Observations, Lawrence Walsh, Special Prosecutor
Iran/Contra was a right wing conspiracy which, in fact, succeeded. Clearly --Walsh believed Ronald Reagan up to his ass or eyeballs in it. He either order or approved it. He won sympathy amid early rumors of Alzheimers.
Does it get any more cynical than that?
Thanks for understanding my increasing frustration with the crooks who have taken over our country. I am just sick and tired of liars and crooks ALWAYS getting away with having hijacked what might have been the world's greatest Democracy.
Fuzz, thanks for the link to the vid re: Howard. You guys down under have had a cross to bear. Is there any end to this?
We're doing ok down under, Len. We've got an idiot leader but he's not in the same league as your guys. The sun still shines here, the beaches are clean, there are no guns, everybody knows everybody and we're so far away from the rest of the world everyone has to get along. We've got 20 million people in a country the size of western Europe so no-one is crowded. I can drive 2kms and see peaceful open countryside that looks the same for a thousand kms. Hong Kong it aint. It's hard to feel bad when you are surrounded by sheep, paddocks and kangaroos. Somehow it just doesn't seem too threatening. We'll survive the local idiots.
The US is a lot sadder. All the incredible achievements and history of the US reduced to ideological props for a bunch of carney hucksters and flim flam men. A great nation buried under lies and gratuitous wars. It's all very sad especially since it has a way to go. My heart goes out to decent Americans. You deserve better. There's a decency in your people that shows up in poll after poll: they would rather spend their money on schools than wars, they don't believe in torture. It's just that they are so dishonestly led. Maybe when the economic effects of these guys crunches home they'll be moved on. Still, when you have likes of Guiliani as a serious Presidential candidate, you know you've got problems. Keep your spirit up, Len. There's a lot of good still out there.
damien said...
My heart goes out to decent Americans. You deserve better. There's a decency in your people that shows up in poll after poll: they would rather spend their money on schools than wars, they don't believe in torture. It's just that they are so dishonestly led.
You are correct. There are millions of good people in America, victimized by Bush.
Although I often lose patience with people who just will NOT get it, I think that what you say is true. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother to blog. It's been a tough several years for bloggers and I often see signs of discouragement.
Even so, there will be no end to American suffering until the people themselves begin to take responsibility for the consequences of their own beliefs. No con man would succeed without a willing sucker. Sadly, millions will believe whatever makes them feel good about themselves and their country, whatever confirms a closely held prejudice. For example, a convinced bigot will simply not hear or consider empirical verifiable evidence that challenges the very basis of a cherished belief. A fundamentalist who holds dear the belief that a savior will descend one day to save them all from the effects of global warming will simply discount empirical evidence to the contrary.
Keep your spirit up, Len. There's a lot of good still out there.
Thanks damien, but I am probably more full of fight than ever. At last, my position with regard to 911 is this: until someone has actually melted steel with kerosene, photographed it, documented it with instruments, written up a peer reviewed article about it and, in other ways, documented the findings, subjecting them to repeat, test and verification, I simply will not tolerate their shit on this board! For the proponents of the "official conspiracy theory", it is put up or shut the fuck up time!
Now -about JFK, the same thing applies. Until I have seen published, documented and verifiable evidence, admissible in a court at law, that John Conally's seat had ever been moved or so situated, as has been alleged, by anyone at anytime prior to the trip down Elm St, I am simply not interested in hearing ANY stupid defense of another stupid fairy tale, another stupid "official conspiracy theory".
Now --about the "jet effect", another post hoc "theory" publicized more recently by Gerald Posner in a book called "Case Closed". Posner violated Occam's razor with another post hoc patch around the "official theory". In this case, the specious theory --the "jet effect" --is then used circulus en probando to explain an effect that is more simply explained.
The best refutation of Posner is found in Michael Shirmer's Skeptic magazine,Vol 6 No. 4, 1998. Shirmer publishes articles on both sides. In my opinion, the defenders of the Warren Commission come up short, by comparison, on two key issues: JFK's backward head snap on frame 318 and the infamous magic bullet.
The Warren Commission, flawed in so many other ways, either stands or falls on either point. If JFK's head, indeed, falls backward as a result of a gun shot from the grassy knoll, the Warren Commission report is finished! Kaput! "It does not fit" the facts!
Likewise, the magic bullet! The very presence of the bullet ON THE GURNEY at Parkland is highly suspicious and unexplained by Warren. Should the Commission's version of this bullet's history be false, the conclusion --that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone killer --utterly falls!
In my opinion, the "negative", ie, those debunking the official version, carry the day. Readers can read the entire issue and judge for themselves.
Readers of this issue will find detailed and verifiable descriptions of repeatable and witnessed experiments that prove that Posner's "jet effect" simply does not exist. It does not explain, as a shot from the knoll simply explains, the observable fact that JFK's heat lurches backward upon being struck by the bullet.
Secondly, readers of this issue will see drawings that purport to show the position of John Conally, such that a rear shot follows the path that conveniently accounts for as many as seven wounds in JFK and the Texas Governor. The truth of a conclusion is assumed. In a circular argument, the conclusion derived is thus cited to support "conclusions" not otherwise supported, in this case, an improbable and otherwise unsupported "magic bullit" theory.
Should either commission point be wrong, the report should be utterly discarded and the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone be classified utterly false and unsupportable.
Additionally, both Posner's "jet effect" and the Jump Seat theory are Post hoc violations of Occam's Razor. As Dr. John Lienhard of the University of Houston College of Engineering put it: "...we should make no more assumptions than we really need to explain anything -- that the simplest explanation is best."
This concept is "Occam's Razor." An early Latin version of it reads: "entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem" ie, "entities should not be muliplied beyond necessity". When this razor is applied to both Warren Commission and 911 orthodoxy, it is clear that advocates of "officialdom" have multiplied "entities", "hypotheses" beyond what is necessary to explain. There is a simple explanation for JFK's head going backward. He was shot from the front. There is no need to complicate matters.
There is no need to posit a "jet effect" unless, of course, there are other, hidden reasons for one's belief in it. There is good empirical evidence to discard the very existence of "jet effects". I have some experience with firearms, rifles specifically. I have never seen anything --alive or inanimate --fall forward upon being struck by a bullet fired from the front. I dare say, it has never happened.
Until such "falling forward" can be demonstrated to have happened at least once in history, there is absolutely no reason to believe it happened in Dealy Plaza that fateful day. Why do some people cling to the superstition that it did.
Simply --Americans are still unprepared to make peace with the logical consequences. If Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire the fatal shot, then JFK died as a result of an evil conspiracy. It means that his murder was, in fact, a coup d'etat, just as Jim Garrison alleged and supported. It means that since that fateful day, the US government has been illegitimate. It means that, in America, the assassins of "Presidents" need not fear being brought to justice. It means that, in America, justice is bought and paid for, in effect, there is NO justice.
Americans must train themselves to be skeptical whenever government posits complicated conspiracy theories when simple ones will do. In the case of 911, the government has put forward a number of conspiracy theories in the called 911 report, now eschewed by the co-chairs. All of this could have been avoided had Bush investigated 911 instead of obstructing it.
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