Oswald by Kerry Thornley Part 2

I like audio. I like being able to sit here and just fucking talk and not worry that my hair's messed up or my fucking I'm sitting here in my underwear. Right, So I don't like doing video. I just don't. But it's become a necessary part of the fucking equation, I guess for people who do what I do. So I'm going to start doing these on video on YouTube again, probably next week. I was gone at today, but I don't fucking feel like it. So but subscribe on the YouTube,

you know. I hate to tell you I fucking hate video. It sucks, And then go subscribe there, right, fucking what am I supposed to do? Guys? So please go subscribe it to YouTube because hopefully they'll pay me, you know, like fifty bucks a month or something. That'd be great. But that'll start next week. I've been slacking, and I apologize for that, but we're gonna continue on today with uh oh, and I've got some other let me talk about this too. So so right now, I've got basically

three books in the works. Okay, I have Lee, Harvey Oswald and Black and White Volume two, which is on Oswald in the Marines and all the conflicts there. And then I've got the second edition of A Warning from History, which will end up being a volume one, volume two kind of thing when I get that done. And my plan originally was to knock out this volume two first of Lee Harvey Oswald and Black and White. I figure I fight, I mean, if I really buckle down, I'll

have it out by early March. But I find myself

being overwhelmingly pulled towards the Warning from History project. So I'm going to start probably later today getting my template formats done, and it'll be an interesting process because what I'm doing is I'm basically I'm adding all the documents right I'm updating some of the text, and I'm adding all the documents, and so it's gonna look very similar to Leharvy Oswald and Black and White Volume one, where you flip through it and you got all the documents

and pictures and all that stuff. So the changes I'm gonna make, I'm gonna adjust the fonts. If I were to keep the seventeen point font that I did in Leearvy Oswald and Black and White, this fucking thing would end up being like, you know, a thousand pages just because the font's so big. So I have to experiment with some font sizes because I'm trying to get the book down to about eight hundred pages two volume set

eight hundred pages. I think I went with like a fucking I don't even know what font size I used in the original version, but keeping roughly that original version font should keep me in the eight hundred page range, which is what I'm trying to do. It's gonna be around maybe it'll probably be a little more than eight hundred pages, but it's gonna end up being a two volume set. I don't have a choice. I can't. Amazon will not publish an eight hundred page book. They just

won't do it. Uh, so I'm gonna have to do two volume set. And so that's my plan for the year. These three books, right, the past couple of weeks are actually more like a past month. Every fucking day I come and I sit down, and I go to work on this book. And I just don't want to work on the book. I just don't. I just I don't know what the fuck my problem is. I just haven't wanted to fucking do it. I know what I gotta do. I know the exact you know. I got the next

like twenty pages already written in my head. It's got to do it. I just haven't wanted to. So that told me something, right, that told me I should fucking never never. Here's the thing when you're when you're when you're a writer, an artist, or whatever the fuck it is, you do like if you run into a roadblock, just come back to it, like, don't keep banging your head against a fucking wall, which is what I've allowed myself

to do for the past month. So I'm probably gonna end up switching over and either knocking out a Warning from History second edition first, or I might just string the whole fucking thing along and work on all three at once. I don't know the a warning for history stuff. I don't know how long it'll take me. I don't

think it'll take me too long. I think I could have that done in a couple of months, because basically I'm working with some new software, Affinity software, which is fucking phenomenal for publishing, and basically I can import each chapter right, and then I just have to read each chapter and kind of rewrite or adjust some of the text, update some of my perspectives because I have a couple of perspectives that have been updated, and then I have to just go in and pick out the points at

which I want to insert documents. And so I figured we'll have documents minimum every third page, but it's more likely gonna be every other page and on some pages, every page, right, And so it'll be a balancing act to try to get this thing to the right length in order to get it into a two volume set, you know, because if you get if it comes out too short, then you then I can't do the two volume set, Like if it comes out around six hundred pages, that sucks because then you get and you end up

with two short volumes instead of one long volume. And so these are all things that I'm kind of juggling in my head right now. But over the next week or two I will have I've already got like fifty pages of volume two Lee Harvey Oswald finished. It's already done, right, I could probably have that much of a Warning from History second edition done in like the next really about the next week or two. And so I think that's

what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna hop in. I'm gonna do all my formatting and get the project rolling just to kind of see how much time it's going to take me. And actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that I can probably knock it out a whole lot quicker because I don't have to

write anything new original except for some updates. The Le Harvey Oswell Volume two I still have to write out actually another two hundred pages, right, So I might be doing myself a favor by doing Neil Warning from History series first, which I plan on it being the definitive work. I mean, I reference a lot of documents, but you don't see them in the book. And so once people can see the documents and see the statements and see Lauren Hall's confession that he was at Sylvia Odio's right.

All this stuff will congeal a lot better than just you know, quoting documents. So I have a lot of hope that the second edition will do really well. The first edition has sold, I don't know. I got to say I've probably sold upwards of two thousand copies thereabouts, which I think is okay. We'd done. We did a couple hundred pre orders for ebooks before the fucking book

even came out, which is crazy to me. I feel like if I were to go back and try to do some of the things I've already done, they would never work again. It's a miracle they worked the first time. Like getting one hundred fifty plus fucking pre orders for a book for a guy who's never written a book before, I think he's pretty fucking good. So that's kind of my plans for the year. Three books this year, that's

what's going to happen. It's the order that is up for debate, and the debate is ultimately with myself, right, So but yeah, let me just continue on with Chapter one of Oswald by Carrie Thornley. A dastardly individual who was in on the planning of the assassination shot JD. Tippett. Yep, So here we go, Chapter one, A prelude to understanding intellectual evasion and frantic despair. Oh, Kerry Thornley is quite hyperbolic.

In case you haven't never realized this, he has a quote here from Lee Harvey Oswald that I never heard before. I don't know where I fuck he got it. Quote. I wonder what would happen if somebody was to stand up and say he was utterly opposed not only to governments but to the people. Lee Harvey Oswald sounds like

something Kerry Thorny would make up. Aristotle said that if a man gets drunk, and, as a result of his drunkenness, flies into a rage and kills another, he is not to be excused in the least from the consequences of his act. For upon wilfully allowing his mind to be dulled or his rationality suspended, a man must assume full responsibility for whatever his uncontrolled actions then affect in justice.

To choose to abandon one's mind in any manner is much the same as leaping from a motor vehicle once it is in motion. What really happens is that the mind abandons the vehicle the body, and must therefore stand responsible for whatever damage the uncontrolled vehicle causes. That's kind of ironic, isn't it kind of ironic that I'm reading this paragraph here and we got this ice shooting thing

that everyone's getting wrong. Let me read this paragraph again. Injustice, to choose to abandon one's mind any manner is much the same as leaping from a motor vehicle once it is in motion. What really happens is that the mind abandons the vehicle the body, and must therefore stand responsible for whatever damage the uncontrolled vehicle causes, just like the vehicle that drove away in this ice shooting and smashed into another car in a telephone poll and could have

run over anybody on the street. Tragically, there are That's a conversation I've been having on X people are so stupid. I'm an ex cop, I've been through this personally. I know exactly what the fuck the law says on this, and what situations and police psychologies say on that situation, and the general populace is just so stupid on the matter. Tragically, there are more ways of dulling or suspending human rationality. Than drinking. Drinking, in fact, is one of the least popular.

Far more common than blind drunkenness is blind faith. And before that comes what is probably the number one intoxic in the world over, the true opiate of the people. Intellectual evasion and intellectual evasion is a politician's answer to an unpleasant question. An intellectual evasion is no answer at all, wrapped up in a package of answer sounding words. When a politician tells you not to worry about the national debt because we owe it to ourselves, that is an

intellectual evasion. When a door to door salesman offers you a set of encyclopedias absolutely free, provided you agree to pay ten dollars a month, that is an intellectual evasion. When a minister tells you to believe in God because the Bible says there is a God, and to believe the Bible because it's God's word, that is an intellectual evasion. And when a TV panel showed debater passes himself off

as culture because of his expertise an intellectual evasion. That is, when you'd better jump behind a lamp post there's a driverless vehicle barreling down the road. Lee Harvey Oswald, I submit arrived at the state of mindlessness that would have permitted him to commit murder through a process of intellectual evasion, a process which was partially underway when I knew him

in nineteen fifty nine. Evidence would indicate that Oswald's condition was what could perhaps best be called a state of despair during the time span that included twenty second November nineteen sixty three. According to the Warrant Commission, Oswald's behavior

after the assassination throws little light on his motives. The fact that he took so little money with him when he left irving in the morning indicates that he did not expect to get very far from Dallas on his own, and suggests the possibility, as did his note, as did his note prior to the attempt on General Walker, that he did not expect to escape at all. On the other hand, he could have traveled some distance with the money he did have, and he did return to his

room where he obtained his revolver. He then killed patrolman Tippet went bullshit, motherfucker, you killed Patrolman Tippet. You killed Tippet, You fucking liar. He then killed patrolman Tippet when that police officer apparently tried to question him as he had left his rooming house, and he vigorously resisted arrest when

he was finally apprehended in the Texas Theater. Although it is not fully corroborated by others who were present, to officers have testified that at the time of his arrest, Oswald said something to the effect that it's all over now. Despair it would appear existed, but it was not despair with resignation. Rather, Oswald exhibited something quite prevalent in our

culture today, frantic despair. One one hundred and seventy dollars, in addition to the thirteen dollars and eighty seven cents he took with him that faded morning, were in his possession. Yet he left one hundred and seventy dollars in a wallet in the dresser at the house where his wife was staying. All right, let me put this in perspective. One hundred and seventy dollars is a big chunk of money.

I don't leave the house with one hundred and seventy fucking dollars in twenty twenty six, Okay, one hundred That that much money is like times ten, that's like twelve hundred bucks. Why to fuck would anybody in nineteen sixty three go to work and take twelve hundred fucking dollars with them in their pocket. Why the fuck would they do that? They wouldn't. It's retarded. This whole story is retarded. Him leaving his ring and all that shit retarded, fucking

made up after the fact. Yet he left one hundred seventy dollars in a wallet in the dresser at the house where his wife was staying. In considering the possibility of Oswald's planning and escape to Cuba, the Commission points out that it is unlikely that a reasoning person would plan an attempt to travel from Dallas, Texas to Cuba with thirteen dollars and eighty seven cents when considerably greater

resources were available to him. The fact that Oswald left behind the funds which might have enabled him to reach Cuba suggest the absence of any plan to try to flee, and raise his serious questions as to whether or not he ever expected to escape. Yet we find Oswald killing a police officer and attempting to kill others to resist

questioning and arrest. Only an irrational man attempts to embrace contradictions, and Oswald certainly must be judged irrational if one is to go on the basis of these two drastically contradictory tendencies apparent in his alleged behavior on November twenty second. But, as I've indicated, assassins don't have a monopoly on on reason,

especially on that variety I've named frantic despair. Consider the philosopher who asserts that life by nature is wretched, and yet who devotes years to panic stricken efforts on behalf of preventing the nuclear destruction of mankind. Or look among the writings of the beats from the antics of Dean Moriarty on down the line. What term can better describe the behavior of these heroes than frantic despair? Nor is frantic despair in contemporary culture confined to those who passes intellectuals.

You'd be surprised at the number of these happy suburban wives who simply go berserk one night and run shrieking through the street without any clothes on quotes Bety Freedom from an interview with an unnamed doctor in her best selling book The Feminine Mystique. Miss Frieden substantiates in her book of View of the American Career housewife as typically a driven woman who is by and large both despairing and frantically unresigned in her often random efforts to achieve

identity and self esteem. Further, and perhaps significant in this context, her psychological struggles often seem to affect her children, with a tendency to react to life in a similar manner. So I think it may be safely concluded that the state of frantic despair is prevalent enough among individuals in at least our culture at this time to produce in

many situations in atmosphere or frantic despair. An atmosphere more to be expected a tribe of savages helpless against nature's whims than in a highly comfortable and industrial, industrial competent

civilization such as our own. And indeed, it has been recently demonstrated by means of a nation survey conducted by doctor Raymond B. Ktel of the University of Illinois, that the highly industrialized nations of the world, including America, have lower general levels of anxiety than do less developed countries such as India. So we may further conclude that the syndrome involving frantic despair is by no means a result of increased industrialization, nor is it universal in our culture.

The very fact that it can be discerned with such striking clarity here in modern day America would seem to indicate that it is in sharp contrast with what most of us regard as the logical reaction to this environment. We would seem safe, then, to conclude that the state of frantic despair is something that must be arrived at

by a special route. And if the writings of Sarta Jeanette Kerouac, Colin Wilson, and the reports of Betty Frieden are to be credited, and in this instance their popularity itself can be considered as a probable accreditation, it might well be that this special route is being followed by an ever widening group of people. It is my opinion that the state of frantic despair is most commonly arrived

at by means of intellectual evasion. And on the basis of my acquaintance with Lee Harvey Oswald, and on what I have learned about him since then, I've decided that he did arrive at the state of frantic despair by such means, and in the state of frantic despair, probably attempted to assassinate General Walker, and probably did assassinate President Kennedy.

I've gone into this subject in some detail at the risk of belaboring a point here and there, because it is also absolutely essential in explaining how the Ohs were I knew could have in just four years and five months or so, arrived at a point where he was

fully capable of cold blooded murder. For the Oswald I knew was a wholly different sort of fellow in some essential respects from the angry little man who later was to dwell upon the possibilities of one standing up and announcing his utter opposition to everything, governments, the people, to the entire land, and complete foundations of his society. Chapter two,

Private Oswald and the Importance of being persecuted. In Thornley's view, Oswald labored under a persecution complex which he strove to maintain. The report of the Warrant Commission. No clear picture of my first sight of Oswald remains in my memory. He did not make a lasting first impression on me, for in appearance he was practically nondescript. I transferred into his outfit Marine Air Control Squadron nine in either late winter or early spring of nineteen fifty nine. It was early spring.

I remember only that it was after New Year and before Easter. Previously I had been with another unit located at the same place and directly next door to m ACS nine, So at the time the change was a mere minor one more important to the Remington raiders in the administration sections than to me. Okay, this is significant. Let me because I'm gonna have to go double checked this. I'm gonna have to go double checked this because I have his roster and it says here that he was

at Oka. See he was less than like in Temecula, California, and a bunch of shit like he was in California for most of his on paper marine life. But you know, I busted him December nineteen fifty seven, graduating from Biloxi in a basic electronics course. After that he'll go, he'll attend the Aircraft Control and Morning Operator course that Oswald took, right, But none of that's on his fucking roster. But that's

exactly what he did. It's funny because when you read the roster, it's like there's no nothing about aircraft control and warning operator at all, and then all of a sudden, he's a fucking allegedly a radar operator. So I got to clarify something. None of these guys were really radar operators. They worked in the radar operator room, but to be a radar operator you had to do a thirty three week course. None of these focks did this, not carry Thornley,

not Oswald. None of the guys who were in Oswald's group, they weren't radar guys. They mostly worked the plotting board and they did I don't know other shit in the radar room. See, this is all supposed to be top secret, like we're not supposed to know any of this stuff. But I do know for fact, because it's in their own goddamn marine documentation that the guys who sat behind the radar booths took a thirty three week course. None of our guys in the cast of characters did that.

But yeah, where the fuck was was Thornley right before he was at MACS nine. I have to double check. When I think of Oswald's name and connection with those days, I hear it being shouted by an authoritative voice that seems worn thin by her, And in my mind's eye, I see an out of focused picture of a jar head private with a swab in hand, slopping soapy water

over the wooden plank porch of the operations hut. The private has the bill of his utility cap pulled down over his eyes, apparently so we will he will have to see a little of the unpleasant military world around him as possible. Yep. So Oswald was always in trouble

like he did. He was never behind a radar operator unit because he was always fucking on admin duty because he was in trouble, and he was seeing emptying garbage cans and mopping shit up and stuff overlaid on this picture, as in multiple exposure, I see the same private with a broom, with the rake, with the lawnmower, and with a grass edger. Associated in my mind with these visions is a vague feeling of sympathy that might find expression in the question why are they always picking on that guy?

As time went on, I came to gather other more vivid impressions of Private Oswald, but the image of him

as a poor persecuted soul never entirely vanished. Oswald kept afresh when he was ordered to do something, he would answer sir in a tone that conveyed clearly that he had fully expected to be ordered to the task, but that he sure didn't have to pretend that he liked an liked it any It was the kind of tone that most people would use while saying, wouldn't you know it after a particularly bad piece of luck, And if by some chance you didn't see that Oswald was obviously

being singled out for special treatment, he would mention it to you in the form of a bitter aside to his conversation, usually adding his opinion that those in command were of not too perceptive conviction that he was a communist spy or something, and therefore felt he had it coming. But as his words in tone would have now been made clear, Oswald was willing to be grimly amused by the whole thing. I'm certain that in his own eyes,

Oswald was the most important man in the unit. To him, the mark of destiny was clearly visible on his forehead, and that some were blind to it was his eternal source of aggravation. It was far more comforting for him to know that there were those who would gladly kill him than it would have been for him to think that he was just another faceless marine in the ranks that morning muster. For deep within he feared that he really was that faceless nobody, and the hostility of others

when directed him alone, was his most convenient reassurance. That he was instead a very unique somebody, somebody who could provoke anger and perhaps a little fear in those in an unjust system had placed him. Above was the self image he required and strove to perpetuate. And as I've indicated, in contrast to Oswald's self image was his appearance. He was not much taller or much shorter than most other people, nor was he much fatter or much leaner. His hair

was brown, medium brown, his eyes were blue gray. If anything, he was a bit smaller than most men, a bit lighter in weight. That was all, considering that he had such a poor foundation on which to build a striking appearance, Oswald did pretty well. First, he usually remembered to set himself off by maintaining a tight and angry little smile at all times. Also managed to look a little sloppier

in his dress than any other marine. But beyond that, under the circumstances there was not much else to be done. For the most part, he had to rely on his words to emphasize his individuality, a subject to be handled in detail in a separate chapter. While all I've said about him up till now is true, I wish to stop short of giving the impression that Oswald's persecution complex was a central aspect of his personality at that time. It was not. It was instead something usually observed out

of the corner of an eye. While considering the whole man. In my own professional opinion, he was not paranoid, but as I told the Commission, I did think there was in him a tendency toward paranoia that, in certain circumstances might become more pronounced. This last, however, was simply an uninformed guess on my part. One may now wonder how it was that Private Oswald was most typically observed at some menial job, if it were not true that he was a real object of persecution, due perhaps to his

subvert leanings. This, I submit, Oswald brought on himself. Elsewhere I will go into the techniques he use for now. Allow me to say that he went out of his way time after time to do whatever he could to displease the officers and staff NCOs that were in charge of him. Unfortunately, there were times, though, when Oswald was given genuine reasonab believe they were after him. The most dramatic example came to my knowledge second hand, so I

may not have all the details correct. I have checked into the origin of the story enough, however, to ascertain that it does have a basis in truth. It was apparently in Macs nine, and probably before I arrived there, that a young lieutenant happened to notice in the mailroom one day a newspaper addressed to Oswald, which was in the Russian language and by some reports, had been mailed

from the Soviet Union. According to the story, the lieutenant grew very excited over his discovery and possibly made an open issue of Oswald's probable sympathy to the Communist cause. Most of the troops, who had learned to take Oswald in perspective, were very much immune used at the lieutenant's

having pushed the panic button. Oswald, of course didn't think it was so funny, But apparently the lieutenant's warnings were ignored by the command, which had perhaps learned to take enthusiastic young lieutenants in perspective, so private Lee H. Oswald was the outfit eight ball. He was what in the army they call a yardbird and in Marine Corps shitbird.

He was a born loser, and he was fully as bitter as mess Hall coffee about it and concerning the cause of the situation, Oswald chose to believe the explanation that was to him the most attractive, that his unique status as a sub subversive, and perhaps his superior intelligence, was the reason for his special treatment, and that this, in the face of evidence yet to the contrary, required a process of intellectual evasion. Yet at the time Oswald

was far from despairing. His service in the military Corps or in the Marine Corps was about to end, and beyond his coming day of discharge, a whole new world awaited him, a world that would be somehow different from what he'd known in the past. Perhaps he would go to the Soviet Union and play an important role in the building of a new humanity. Perhaps he would go to Cuba and join Castro in the fight to free the rest of the Caribbean from the clutch of imperialists.

A thousand opportunities awaited the man who bore the mark of destiny, he had only to choose among them. It may have been about then that Oswald and another Maacs nine marine, Nelson Delgado, in the words of the war Report, sometimes imagine themselves as leaders in the Cuban army or government. A good summary to this chapter is also contained in that report. He used his Marxist and associated activities as his excuse for difficulties in getting along in the world,

which were usually caused by entirely different factors. His use of those excuses to present himself to the world as a person who was being unfairly treated is shown most clearly by his employment relations after his return from the Soviet Union. Of course, he made his real problems worse to the extent that his use of those excuses prevented him from discovering the real reasons for and attempting to overcome his difficulties. All right, I fucking hate carry thorn Landy.

I fucking hate this guy, like fuck this dude three, Comrade Oswald and the holy cause of mankind. I think the best religion is communism, Lee Harvey Oswald. That's a quote. Allegedly, we were sitting around in the afternoon sun I was reading a paperback book. Oswald was reading a notebook, possibly studying his Russian Nelson Dugatta was there involved in a religious discussion with another man. Two or three others were sitting around on inverted buckets, cleaning their rifles or shining

their shoes. Duty was easy in MACS nine. Many of us were watchstanders, and sometimes we had afternoons off. We could not leave the base, but we could sit outside the recreation hunt and enjoy the California sun. Shoot the bull about whatever crossed our minds. Reader, take care of our personal effects. MACS nine was located at a subsidiary base of El Toro. It was near the tiny town of Austin, and with a light breeze, the sharp smell of citrus trees would come floating down the rows of

quancet huts. Gradually, I lost interest in my reading and became engrossed in the bull session on religion. Noticing my interest, one of the men asked for my views. I explained that I was an atheist, so I said Oswald, glancing up from his notebook. I think the best religion is communism. Yeah, Oswald's a red, said one of them to me. No, I'm not a communist. I just think they have the best system. Why. I wanted to know, because they have a purpose, and the Communist way of life is more

scientific than ours. You don't have to believe in as much of fairy tales to accept it. My first really vivid memory of Oswald centers around that brief sequence. In further conversations, my initial judgment concerning his interest in Marxist and based on his words that afternoon, was reinforced. He was a man in search of an integrated scientific view of life. He found in Marxism the only ideology that didn't demand the same kind of blind faith that their

religions demanded. He found in Marxism that the only philosophy of modern times that claimed a vital, relevant connection to life on this planet. Significantly, he was not entirely satisfied with Marxism. Against my charges that it was also rooted in faith and certainly not scientific in many important respects, he could only say, but what else is there? At that time I could not give him a satisfactory answer. I could only indicate my belief that ultimately one must

work out one's own personal religion or philosophy. For a man who was out to change the world. A personal philosophy was not enough. Oswald needed a head start. Oswald needed a movement he could join and help bring the fruition in his lifetime. In essence, he did not have the courage to stand alone and yet, to create one's own view of the world, one must stand alone and think. I've never personally known an individual more motivated by what appeared to be a genuine concern for the human race

than Lee Harvey Oswald. Lee was moved by what people usually call the purest humanitarian sentiments. Oswald was a philanthropist. After our first exchange of ideas, sparked by the discussion on religion, we got into quite a few extended discussions. Sometimes we both took the side of atheism and argued with the more excitable Christian fundamentalists in the outfit. At other times we directed our rhetoric at each other. The result was that there developed between us a sense of

kinship tempered with the sharp differences. We were never close friends. Oswald was not the sort who formed close friendships. Yet I think in some ways I came to know him very well because of our disagreements. His concern for other people, not as individuals, but as a mass was real. Oswald was unselfish. He was so unselfish that he couldn't seem to concentrate on his own affairs. He would rather be

busy solving the problems of mankind. I would suggest that he might have been bored with his own life as it stood. The problems of others. The famines, the plagues, the revolutions, and the wars were far more interesting challenges to his imagination than, say, whether or not his shoes

were shined before tomorrow's inspection. So he invariably turned out for inspection with unshined shoes, and when he was punished for it, he prefarred to believe that he was being picked on by malevolent beings who hated him for wanting to solve the world's problems, for wanting to liberate those

malevolent beings. A person's in authority wanted to continue to exploit that Oswald observed that his own affairs were boring might have been the major contributing factor to his secret fear that he was just another faceless everyman in the ranks. And as I have shown, the resulting apathy toward mining his own business probably led directly to his special treatment, which in turn provided him with a counterfeit evidence that he was a special man instead of a faceless every man.

It was a cycle which would have tended to gain momentum as it went along a flywheel or a whirlpool. As I told the Warren Commission, he looked upon the eyes of future people as some kind of tribunal and he wanted to be on the winning side, so that ten thousand years from now people would look in the history books and say, well, this man was ahead of his time. He was concerned with his image in history.

Such of you necessarily implies that Oswald was convinced of the invincibility of communism world victory, and I am not sure that he was entirely pleased with such a prospect. First that he denied being a communist bad possible importance here. But on the other hand, in the circumstances, it might have been going even too far for Oswald to stand up and say he was utterly committed to achieving a

total communist victory. What causes me to have a second thought about his commitment to communism is enthusiasm for a book unpopular with the few self admitted communists. I have known for obvious reasons. The book was George Orwell's nineteen eighty four, a severe criticism and fiction form of socialist totalitarianism. All right, so let me fucking bring this up. I don't remember remember ever seeing any reference period ever to Oswald saying anything about nineteen eighty four, only that it

came from Carry Thornley. I know that allegedly a copy of nineteen eighty four was taken from Oswald's fucking boarding house when he was allegedly arrested, right, but that boarding house Oswald never stayed at, Cary Thornley did, so Carry Thornley obviously would have put to George Orswell's nineteen eighty four there, and so it can Does anybody know of any other references to nineteen eighty four and Oswald that would indicate this came from anywhere other than carry Thorntley.

Is there any substantiating information that indicates anything about nineteen eighty four with Oswald that doesn't have to do with Kerry Thornley. I think the answer is no, But if anybody has anything different, please let me know. As soon as he learned that I had not yet read this book. He urged me to do so at once. In fact, it might be very well that he had loaned or

gave me paperbound editions upon his enthusiastic recommendation. I read nineteen eighty four and for a while decided Oswald was not truly in sympathy with Marxism. It had to be a joke. I concluded that explained his tight little smile. He was laughing to himself. I was sure he saw all the fallacies and socialism that George Orwell saw, And on this final point, I'm still not convinced I was wrong.

That might be the truest thing Kerry Thornly ever said. Unfortunately, however, one gaping hole in socialism that both Orwell and Oswell fail to see was the impossibility of supporting an industrial civilization utilizing fear instead of profit as a motivation. Inventors don't invent because they are ordered to or because they are told to it is their duty. Engineers don't engineer, and innovators don't innovate on command. Scientists don't make discoveries

according to master plans or regulations. If this concept is grasped, the vanity of Marxists boasting about the inevitability of the triumph of the dictatorship of the patroletariat is seen also apparent as the absurdity of those who imagine the world and the grips of all powerful Communist conspiracy. If the Communists are to win, they must continue to gradually renounce

the original goals set forth by Marx. If this is done, the Soviet Union will have to become a free nation, and both a free exchange of ideas and a free exchange of goods. But Oswald could not have understood this, for he saw the future of mankind as a dark one, filled with the poverty and oppression of nineteen eighty four, controlled by an all powerful state, which would be equipped somehow with the infernal inventions necessary to check and double

check upon its subjects. How such a state could maintain itself, who would tax for its wealth? How it would persuade intelligent beings to keep its complex machinery and condition, was a problem to which he gave little or no thought.

He was therefore a victim of somewhat groundless fears. He further observed that the mixed economy of the United States, to which he mistakenly referred to as capitalism was moving toward totalitarianism, and if he had wanted to examine the evidence carefully, he could have seen that the present day Soviet Union was even closer to Orwell's nightmare. But he didn't want to examine the evidence if the conclusion it necessitated might, as he seemed to suspect in this case,

proved depressing. He wanted to believe that somewhere there was total freedom, so that this is exactly what he did believe, and of course the only possible place for such freedom had to be on the other side of that communications barrier, the Iron curtain. If freedom was not there, it was nowhere, and he wanted to believe it was somewhere. Further, freedom was nowhere, as Oswald recognized the possibility, for he was not by any means completely out of touch with reality.

Then he wanted at least to be on the winning side. For on the winning side he could extend his influence in opposition to the all powerful state. He could work for the creation of an anarchist society where there would be no state to oppress humanity. Marxism here reasserts itself as a ready made vehicle for Oswald's ambitions. For if this did indeed turn out to be a world wherein one must either oppress or be a victim of oppression,

Oswald would prefer to be an oppressor. And if he could oppress in the name of freedom, if he could oppress in the public interest, if he could oppress the eventual good of all people, that Oswald would be a totally fulfilled man. He would be having his cake and eating it too. I say all this with a great deal of conviction, but I must point out that it is my conjecture based not so much on words I remember having heard Oswald utter, as on my general subjective

impression of his attitude. I must further point out that much of my conviction here is reaffirmed not only by Oswald's writing, but that had been published since I knew him, but my own line of thinking, which was in part stimulated by my arguments with Oswald, which resulted about one year later in my seriously contemplating joining the communist cause.

This guy is so fucking full of shit. It was only upon the basis of the fallacy of the motivation by fear, which is the same day as motivation by law. Having been pointed out to me that I came to reconsider not only the validity of communism, but the validity

of all socialist thinking and state planning as well. Now that Oswald's belief in the old victory of Marxism in either a malevolent or benevolent form, depending very much on Oswald's future success in achieving power within the party, has been some extent established as probable, I shall return to my earlier assertion that he had what the Warrant Commission

calls an extraordinary point of view of history. Perhaps the words of his arch hero Fidel Castro influenced him here, or perhaps Castro was merely expressing a view especially common with, though not exclusive to, the Marxist mind. Men may condemn me, but history will justify me. For some of us who find ourselves stranded one day without a God, there occurs a strong temptation to find a substitute, since it is

impossible to live without certainty. We encounter one occasion after another in life when we must stake our lives on our judgment, and if our judgment is wrong, if we take the wrong course at the wrong time, we are doomed. And when a mistaken choice does not result in our destruction, we are aware that it can still leave us with a ruined life. So as living beings, we must yearn

for certainty. And if we do not care to think, do not care to remain totally rational in all our waking hours, we must counterfeit for ourselves a sense of certainty, or go insane or commit suicide. I think that Oswald's counterfeit sense of certainty is issued from believing in history as much as many believe in God, except that his belief rested not on anything so obviously absurd as blind faith,

but on intellectual evasion, a subtler sort of faith. And I further believe that for his lost religion he founded other need fulfilling substitutes. In Marxism, for example, I think he traded an original sin for historical necessity, since both take from the man the responsibility of the evil and suffering in the world, while at the same time paradoxically placing the burdens squarely on his shoulders in an almost

unaltered form. Though I have not the vaguest idea as to what need these curious doctrines fulfill, so in conclusion, I will say that despite his reservations. When Lee said, in effect that his religion was communism, he meant every word of it, and tragically, his religion was communism, not because of any great superiority on the part of that ideology, but for the lack of a better alternative, conspicuous, conspicuously

available to him in the United States of America. And that is the end of chapter three, and that brings us the chapter four Ozzie Rabbit and the Power of Laughter. All right, the Ozzi Rabbit thing. Ooh, that's kind of complicated, and it kind of helps us pin down which Oswald was where when, because well, we'll talk about it on the next episode. But the Ozzi Rabbit stuff comes up because Oswald's middle name was Harvey, and Harvey was the name of the rabbit in that movie that came out

in the sixties or the fifties. So that's why that all ties in and comes up. And it's kind of you can kind of tell which of the Oswald's was where based on their reactions to being called Harvey. But we'll talk about that on the next time. Guys, please go out and buy my book. If you haven't bought my book, go buy the fucking book, and that's going to do it for today. Follow me on X Bloody History sixty three X is full of a bunch of morons, so guys please come on there and surround me because

I can't be surrounded by morons any longer. So thanks everybody. I will talk to you soon.