For those of us who do remember where we were on that afternoon of Nov 22, 1963 when we heard the news, nothing since can be taken at face value. Up until then, hardly any “conspiracies” were theoretical. They were usually perpetrated by known conspirators, who did in fact collude in nefarious actions. Et tu Brute? “Sic Semper Tyrannis”. Since 11/22/63, anything slightly off kilter has the potential to bloom into a “conspiracy theory”. Why? Because we watched JFK get assassinated and to this day we question the facts of what really happened in front of our own eyes. Even the word “conspiracy” can’t any longer stand alone, but must be followed by “theory”. Although now and then it will be preceded by it, as in “the theory of a great right wing conspiracy”.
Part of the problem is that the Zapruder film we try to analyze as fact has been doctored.
Just out of curiosity, I did an experiment by going onto Wikipedia where I proceeded to enter the name of any king that came to mind. Then I would read a little bit of what was on that page, then I would randomly pick another name that was on the page and I would click on it. This would open up another page, a would read a little more than I would randomly click on a name. I did this maybe 8 or 9 times and I noticed that these rulers and nobles seemed to have a habit of fighting and often assassinating each other. They often even killed their own relatives. My family may have been peasants but at least we didn’t kill our own relatives.
Power corrupts—absolute power corrupts absolutely.