• OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            So nothing changed institutionally, and the people now still have the power to do all the stuff the older generation did, and choose not to because they just happen to be better people?

            I’m guessing this supposed change happened right around the time when documents would be too recent to be declassified, yeah?

            • oatscoop@midwest.social
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              7 months ago

              I’d argue it’s a result of the wider world figuring out how crazy they were and thus being subject to more scrutiny. Also, changing attitudes: there’s not quite the “nuclear war is imminent and we’re all going to die” mindset.

              All that, combined with it being easier to get away with the “loud and crazy” things because information was easier to control before the internet.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                7 months ago

                Are they subject to more scrutiny? What oversight do they have now that they didn’t have then? What protections do whistleblowers have when they come out? What consequences do they face if illegal activities are exposed?

                Not all of their shady activity was “loud and crazy.” The CIA covered up their involvement in Operation Ajax, the 1953 coup against Iran’s peaceful and democratic government, until 2013. There are countless examples like that.

                • oatscoop@midwest.social
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                  7 months ago

                  I’m not saying they stopped doing fucked up shit. I’m saying they stopped doing weird fucked up shit.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        7 months ago

        It’s impossible to prove because the CIA has the means to cover it’s tracks, but there are circumstantial reasons to think that’s what happened. At the most basic level:

        • CIA directer and founder Allen Dulles, who’s job involved assassinating world leaders around the world, had a major dispute with Kennedy not long before the assassination, which led to Dulles getting fired.
        • Despite the conflict of interests, Dulles was on the investigative committee into Kennedy’s assassination.
        • Said investigation involved all kinds of “mistakes,” including breaches in the chain of custody of key evidence (the bullet).

        The intelligence community had both means and motive to commit the assassination, and the ability to cover their tracks. That’s not enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, but it is enough to establish a reasonable possibility, especially considering the absence of serious, compelling evidence.

        • FauxPseudo @lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Is it falsifiable? Or is all evidence that it’s not true actually fodder for a bigger conspiracy that eventually triggers 1-e^tφ via Grimes’ conspiracy collapse theory?

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            7 months ago

            Theoretically, sure it’s falsifiable. Practically speaking, not really. Intelligence communities, not just of the US but also of any country, objectively have more capability to hide the truth than an average citizen has to expose it, especially when they have decades to have covered it up.

            If I write a word on a piece of paper and then burn the paper, then I would have a belief about what was written on it, but that belief would not be practically falsifiable because no evidence exists to prove what was on it. Science cannot reconstruct everything that has ever happened everywhere.

            The reason falsifiability is a standard in science is because science is concerned with making accurate predictions about the future. My broader theory is that the intelligence community was acting and continues to act according to it’s own agenda, wielding significant power that isn’t adequately checked by the civilian government. That’s definitely falsifiable. I predict that first off, no president will act against the interests in a significant, meaningful way, and if they did, they would die, and high ranking members of the intelligence community would be placed on the investigative committee and find themselves innocent. If that didn’t play out that way, it wouldn’t definitively prove that that didn’t happen with Kennedy because circumstances could have changed, but it would make it much less plausible (strict falsifiability isn’t really how science generally operates, theories just become less likely until they’re not worth considering).