I've listened to Michael Parenti talk about the odd connections and facts about the JFK assassination:
michaelparenti.org
youtube.com
I've looked into the various theories around who killed Kennedy and its really fucking complicated. On the plus-side you have credible culprits admitting to having a role in the assassination from big-time Latin American CIA Operative E. Howard Hunt, to Southern mob-boss Carlos Marcello and to even mafia hitman James Files confessing to having killed Kennedy. The last confession is probably the least reputable while the first two are rock solid imo.
But pinpointing the "why?" of the Kennedy assassination is pretty difficult: was it that he was perceived as being too soft on communism? Or he was an embarrassment? Was it because he ended the oil-depletion allowance that made the Texas oil-barons into billionaires? Cuban missile crisis? Or was it because he allegedly wanted to stop the Israeli nuke program?
I haven't found any evidence that Kennedy wasn't reactionary and imperialist to the core as many boomers want to believe but there is evidence that he ran up against vested interests. On the other hand, the conspiracy theorists tend to ignore the ways that he aided vested interests and loyally served capitalism…
As for the "right-wing coup" thesis or the "Kennedy wanted to stop Vietnam" that even some left-wing scholars like Peter Dale Scott believe in, I just don't find it all that credible. Kennedy was the true father of the Vietnam war, he was a go-slow candidate on civil rights, and he was the most conservative post-WWII president on the economic front elected up to that point. If it was a right-wing coup, how did the plotters benefit from getting the arguably the most left-leaning president in post-war history in office? Yeah, I know Johnson was an imperialist pos but it doesn't make much sense unless perhaps there was some other factor at work.
Sometimes I often think that Occam's razor is the best approach here…which would mean that Oswald assassinating JFK as the lone shooter is the explanation that makes the sense. According to science done by mainstream authors there is good evidence for a shot from the back–but I'm not a ballistic expert, so I can't say either way.
With all the odd details surrounding the case, and the alleged shooter, you almost have to believe that there was a conspiracy to make the American public believe there was a conspiracy that was carried out by planting false evidence. A good example would be the murder of David Ferrie and his boyfriend on the same day in two separate locations.
Honestly, I guess really only boomers have a reason to care about this stuff but I'm curious about how JFK's assassination may have effected the trajectory of the Cold War and American history. If factions in the ruling class carry out silent coups, even in bourgeois democratic states, it would be interesting to analyze what factors cause them to do this and what the effects of these actions (especially if they go unpunished) might be.
