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Wikipedia, Spartacus and the JFK Assassination


John Simkin

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Wikipedia has already removed my statement from this page. I wonder if Jimmy Wales will be pleased with the publicity this case will get in the UK media?

I for one am staggered by this turn of events. John Simkin's history resources are just about the most used and most valued resources amongst UK school teachers and their students. John was one of the pioneers moving school history away from an establishment sanctioned highly biased narrative of the past towards the source and skills based approach much UK practice is now happily informed by.

I find it extraordinary that a visitor to his site may see some sources on something controversial or contested and then assume that the author necessarily shares the views of the person(s) who wrote the source(s).

I find it bewildering, hugely disappointing and utterly philistine and totally anti educational that Wikipedia appear to wish to create an "approved" version of any history and presumably then intend to dress this "narrative" up as "fact".

I manage to convince 11 year old school girls that history is constructed reconstructed and contested in about 6 months of teaching. I then concentrate for the rest of the year on giving them the skills to evaluate interpretations and to develop their own interpretations of past events. Perhaps I would have less success with adult Americans? Given the evidence of the behaviour of these Wikipedia muppets I would certamly need more time B)

Andy,

You would have little success trying to teach anything to Americans that leaves them feeling "uncomfortable".

We have been brainwashed into believing nothing our country does, has done, or will do is wrong.

We have God on our side. We are a free country. And so on and so forth.....

We really could use a wake up call over here.

What we truly are is a country in decline without the ability to see the truth for what it is.

Reality, no matter how stark and unpleasant, is what we need to deal with. The sooner the better.

***************************************************************

Exactly! And, how do you manage to undo more than 50 years of dumbing-down that have left the majority of the citizenry between the major cities of this continent, with I.Q.'s barely above 70? People who believe that if they pray hard enough and long enough, all good things will come to them [all things material, that is; Designer SUV's, designer clothes, 72 inch screen TV's, $200.00 a pair sneakers], who take every word uttered by the talking heads of the three major commercial news and programming media, as the gospel truth, and who choose to stand by their president, right or wrong, just because "he IS our president, and we voted for him." How, in the name of Buddah, and how long a period of time, do you think it will take to fix that? This is the clearest case of neurosis/psychosis/hypnosis on a massive scale, and nobody has a damned clue. Least of all, those sheeple, whose main concern is who will be the next winner on American Idol. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. The sheeple sat transfixed voting for American Idol, while their gov. sold itself down the river. Douse it with kerosene, throw a match to it, and they'd be too slow and too stupid to even bat an eye. Guaranteed.

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  • 4 months later...
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I have a question about this page from a Wikipedia timeline of the Assassination:

----------------

Charges laid on the convicted assassin

At 7:05 p.m. CST Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with "murder with malice" in the killing of police officer J.D. Tippit.

At 11:36 p.m. CST Oswald was charged with the murder of President Kennedy [1] (there being no crime of "assassination" at that time).

On November 24, 1963, in a memo J. Edgar Hoover wrote for the record, Hoover stated, "The thing I am most concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so that we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin."

On November 24, 1963, at 11:21 am CST, Lee Harvey Oswald was shot and killed by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby, sparing Jackie Kennedy the ordeal of appearing at Oswald's trial.

On a November 26, 1963 memo from Courtney Evans, the Assistant FBI Director (Mafia Section), to Assistant to the FBI Director, Alan Belmont, the F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover hand-wrote in the memo's margin, "Just how long do you estimate it will take? It seems to me we have all the basic facts now."

On December 9, 1963, only 17 days after the assassination, the FBI report was turned over to the Warren Commission theorizing that only three bullets were fired during the assassination; that the first shot hit Kennedy, the second shot hit Governor Connally, and the third shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him. The FBI theorized that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all three shots.

------------

My question is what convicted assassin are they alluding to?

Here is the page I am referring to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_t...y_assassination

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  • 5 years later...
Guest Tom Scully

Ten days ago I posted some observations about wikipedia related to JFK Assassination research on an forum thread

started some time ago and titled, "Wikipedia" :

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3652&st=15#entry260130

There were no responses to my post except for a still unapproved post by Robert Morrow.

I believe strongly that assassination related articles/pages on the wikipedia site and on John's Spartacus site should

be reviewed and edited in preparation for heightened interest in the 50th anniversary year commencing as early as

this coming 22 November, little more than 50 days from now.

I've wondered why more of what is posted in these threads does not appear in revisions of related Spartacus pages

and I believe it is mostly because John's focus is on creating new articles. Yesterday I came upon a statement by John

on another site, candidly and humbly sharing his own observation that he reacts to criticism in a manner influenced by his

early life experience/social class.

Situations ofter arise in which it is appropriate to assume a defensive posture and embrace the axiom of the best defense is a

good offense. This is not such a situation. I want to support/assist the man who could risk the vulnerability arising from posting

on the internet in so personal and disarming self appraisal. I am not going to post unsolicited suggestions for specific Spartacus pages updates.

It is important that Spartacus and wikipedia articles (especially those relevant to the JFK Assassination) be accurate and up to date as never before. John and Spartacus would benefit from the efforts of a maintenance/update editor(s). This development arises

from the growth and success of Spartacus as a respected historical/biographical reference source.

I've had some success in convincing wikipedia gatekeepers of key assassination articles to approve and then defend edits I have lobbied in favor of. I've offered before to guide anyone who wishes to make an edit that will endure in a wikipedia article.

There are changes I am not making in key wikipedia articles because I do not want my user name to become more of a target than it already is.

Can we organize to make effective wikipedia edits? John, would you consider delegating Spartacus page edits or

encouraging a campaign to solicit suggested updates to Spartacus pages to be considered and implemented if approved, by the

end of March? (Six months from now.)

Is anyone willing to argue that this is not important, not effective, not needed at this time?

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Ten days ago I posted some observations about wikipedia related to JFK Assassination research on an forum thread

started some time ago and titled, "Wikipedia" :

http://educationforu...=15#entry260130

There were no responses to my post except for a still unapproved post by Robert Morrow.

I believe strongly that assassination related articles/pages on the wikipedia site and on John's Spartacus site should

be reviewed and edited in preparation for heightened interest in the 50th anniversary year commencing as early as

this coming 22 November, little more than 50 days from now.

I've wondered why more of what is posted in these threads does not appear in revisions of related Spartacus pages

and I believe it is mostly because John's focus is on creating new articles. Yesterday I came upon a statement by John

on another site, candidly and humbly sharing his own observation that he reacts to criticism in a manner influenced by his

early life experience/social class.

Situations ofter arise in which it is appropriate to assume a defensive posture and embrace the axiom of the best defense is a

good offense. This is not such a situation. I want to support/assist the man who could risk the vulnerability arising from posting

on the internet in so personal and disarming self appraisal. I am not going to post unsolicited suggestions for specific Spartacus pages updates.

It is important that Spartacus and wikipedia articles (especially those relevant to the JFK Assassination) be accurate and up to date as never before. John and Spartacus would benefit from the efforts of a maintenance/update editor(s). This development arises

from the growth and success of Spartacus as a respected historical/biographical reference source.

I've had some success in convincing wikipedia gatekeepers of key assassination articles to approve and then defend edits I have lobbied in favor of. I've offered before to guide anyone who wishes to make an edit that will endure in a wikipedia article.

There are changes I am not making in key wikipedia articles because I do not want my user name to become more of a target than it already is.

Can we organize to make effective wikipedia edits? John, would you consider delegating Spartacus page edits or

encouraging a campaign to solicit suggested updates to Spartacus pages to be considered and implemented if approved, by the

end of March? (Six months from now.)

Is anyone willing to argue that this is not important, not effective, not needed at this time?

If you feel any article on Spartacus needs editing, send it to me by email.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A few of things that disturb me about Wikipedia:

When you look at the page "dedicated" to JFK conspiracy theories the first external link listed is for McAdams site which of course is dedicated to the "LN Theory".

There seem to be some very dedicated "LNers", (check BrandonTR, whom Mr. Lifton takes umbrage to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrandonTR), who post lengthy "corrections" almost on a daily basis. It would require hundreds of hours of study to review all changes they made and confirm the comments they insert to justify them. Whomever took that task on would need to be unemployed or extremely under-employed.

I have a good friend that has a wikipedia page dedicated to him with a rather lengthy bio and explanations of certain incidents. He was rather shocked when he found out about it's existence and read it. The entire page is written in a very childish manner and filled with innuendo, inaccurate information and outright falsehoods. Because of his circumstances, he asked me and his daughter to try to correct it. Personally, I declined because of the necessity to rewrite the entire entry. I've checked the page periodically and despite his daughter's best efforts it doesn't seem to ever get fixed. His autobiography has been available for 20 years, is still available on Amazon and from his publisher, Simon & Schuster.

It's far to easy for the disinformation gang to take over on wikipedia - why would anyone waste valuable time trying to correct things that will obviously be "un-corrected" in due course?

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Guest Tom Scully

.........

It's far to easy for the disinformation gang to take over on wikipedia - why would anyone waste valuable time trying to correct things that will obviously be "un-corrected" in due course?

It is not a waste of time to attempt to make an edit stick in high traffic, hyper controversial wikipedia article segments. The incentive to attempt to do this seems obvious. Why does it cost almost nothing to put an advertisement up on a billboard on a back road, or a radio advertisement on a broadcast in an isolated town of a few thousand population?

http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

Lee_Harvey_Oswald has been viewed 137355 times in the last 30 days. This article ranked 1388 in traffic on en.wikipedia.org.

So, it is a worthwhile goal to attempt change, and you have to pick your shots. Some improvement, in front of 1,500,000 readers per year is superior to no improvement. If you succeed in effecting a change, it does stick.:

Now:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

....In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, firing three shots, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations carried out by the FBI and Dallas Police Department, yet rejected by much of the U.S. public over the years.[1] In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Oswald fired the shots which killed Kennedy, but differed from previous investigations in concluding he 'probably' did not act alone.

Before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lee_Harvey_Oswald&oldid=372733968

....In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations carried out by the FBI and Dallas Police.

Not enough seem to understand that the most difficult changes to make are in the highest traffic, most controversial wikipedia articles, but if you have the patience and determination to do it, and you follow the steps required (debating on the "talk" page of the wikipedia article with the most entrenched "minders" of said article (478 individuals have signed up to receive email notification of any edit in the LHO article), it is possible, as in the above example, to make a change, and after that, those same minders defend and preserve that change to the article. BrandonTR happens to have that level of determination, and he follows the protocol. Mr. Lifton would be less frustrated and probably more successful there if he learned and followed the protocol and is determined enough.

So many state an opinion that wikipedia is trivial, irrelevant, and unimportant, but then they don't act as if they believe that. If you think it is such a small thing, ignore it. Top traffic pages on wikipedia or on any other web site are valuable real estate for the same reason that the real estate in Time Square in NY City is; the high visibility.

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Tom,

I'm not suggesting that wikipedia is trivial or irrelevant. What I'm suggesting is, in the case of the JFK assassination, that there is a well organized and well funded campaign to preserve the government's version of events.

I'm an IT guy and I understand the protocol, but unfortunately I have only so much spare time so I have to pick and choose my battles wisely. If there are people out there that are "minding the store" on our side and have the patience and wherewithal to fight this fight then I applaud them.

My question at the end of my post was much more about my frustration than anything else.

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