What is the Kennedy Cult anyway?

[Michael Clark]

15 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

He said it was unknowable.

I make no claims.

I point out the obvious.

There is nothing to it.

Jim is denying the obvious.

When Salandria said conspiracy is obvious he's pointing to the clothing evidence.

There is a difference between "minutiae" and "root fact."

That JFK was shot in the back at T3 is as per Salandria a root fact.

He claims it's unknowable.

He claims it's unknowable and he basically doesn't give a xxxx.

Well, I have to say that you are choosing Jim as a target. You want him to say what you want him to say. That is probably part of the problem. If you made it your goal to get me to say that the earth is round, you would come up empty handed. There are plenty of people that will not say, at your behest or otherwise, that JFK was hit in the T3 Process, ether because they don't believe it, it is out of their area of expertise, it can't meet their desired level of evidentiary proof, they are L!ing, they are obfuscating, they want to get your goat, they are stubborn or are stupid. There is no reason to single-out Jim as your target as an individual whom you want to compel to say what you want them to say.

 

With deep respect,

Michael

[Cliff Varnell]

3 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

Well, I have to say that you are choosing Jim as a target.

I feel T3 deniers need to be called out.

I push back on the notion researchers own the evidence they research, as Jim implies.

3 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

You want him to say what you want him to say. That is probably part of the problem. If you made it your goal to get me to say that the earth is round, you would come up empty handed. There are plenty of people that will not say, at your behest or otherwise, that JFK was hit in the T3 Process, ether because they don't believe it, it is out of their area of expertise, it can't meet their desired level of evidentiary proof, they are L!ing, they are obfuscating, they want to get your goat, they are stubborn or are stupid. There is no reason to single-out Jim as your target as an individual whom you want to compel to say what you want them to say.

 

With deep respect,

Michael

Unlike all those other people Jim claims to be a historian.

That's an elevated level of accountability, no?

[Michael Clark]

15 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I feel T3 deniers need to be called out.

I push back on the notion researchers own the evidence they research, as Jim implies.

Unlike all those other people Jim claims to be a historian.

That's an elevated level of accountability, no?

Responisbily to History, yes; Responsibility to you, no.

He makes a good, Taco. You want a good burger. Lean on the guy who makes a good burger. Not all cooks are the same.

[Cliff Varnell]

3 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

Responisbily to History, yes; Responsibility to you, no.

Who said anything about a responsibility to me?

3 minutes ago, Michael Clark said:

He makes a good, Taco. You want a good burger. Lean on the guy who makes a good burger. Not all cooks are the same.

No, he claims to make a good everything.

btw, here's a couple more reasons why people won't acknowledge the T3 back wound:

1) Their friends say the back wound was at T1 and that's good enough for them.

2)  To acknowledge the T3 back wound ends the "Question of Conspiracy" parlor game, and people want to keep playing in order to inflate the significance of their own work.

[Michael Clark]

2 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Who said anything about a responsibility to me?

No, he claims to make a good everything.

btw, here's a couple more reasons why people won't acknowledge the T3 back wound:

1) Their friends say the back wound was at T1 and that's good enough for them.

2)  To acknowledge the T3 back wound ends the "Question of Conspiracy" parlor game, and people want to keep playing in order to inflate the significance of their own work.

Who said anything about a responsibility to me?

I think you are pretending that you didn't get my point.

 

No, he claims to make a good everything.

I get where your coming from. He seldom admits fault or is willing to concede ground. That's not going to change.

btw, here's a couple more reasons why people won't acknowledge the T3 back wound:

1) Their friends say the back wound was at T1 and that's good enough for them.

I am sure that you have convinced some people otherwise, and that is good enough for them.

2)  To acknowledge the T3 back wound ends the "Question of Conspiracy" parlor game, and people want to keep playing in order to inflate the significance of their own work.

I understand that you have what you believe to be the weaponized fact of conspiracy. I think I have eight of them. I'll use my eight, you stick to your one; if Jim has 400, leave him to his 400. I'll privately wish you would take on 5 more, and wish Jim would pair his down to a dozen-or-so; and we'll all just keep trucking-on. Just remember that we're riding in a convoy; 10-4, good buddy?

[Cliff Varnell]

1 minute ago, Michael Clark said:

Who said anything about a responsibility to me?

I think you are pretending that you didn't get my point.

My point is that as a historian Jim has a responsibility to back up with statements with fact, not invective.

1 minute ago, Michael Clark said:

No, he claims to make a good everything.

I get where your coming from. He seldom admits fault or is willing to concede ground. That's not going to change.

btw, here's a couple more reasons why people won't acknowledge the T3 back wound:

1) Their friends say the back wound was at T1 and that's good enough for them.

I am sure that you have convinced some people otherwise, and that is good enough for them.

2)  To acknowledge the T3 back wound ends the "Question of Conspiracy" parlor game, and people want to keep playing in order to inflate the significance of their own work.

I understand that you have what you believe to be the weaponized fact of conspiracy. I think I have eight of them. I'll use my eight, you stick to your one; if Jim has 400, leave him to his 400. I'll privately wish you would take on 5 more, and wish Jim would pair his down to a dozen-or-so; and we'll all just keep trucking-on. Just remember that we're riding in a convoy; 10-4, good buddy?

I feel like a solo rig from the opposite direction.

Proving conspiracy in the murder of JFK is no big deal.  Salandria said that debunking the SBT with the clothing evidence was no big deal -- he was most proud of pulling out of the Critical Research Community.

The Salandria School is a study of the obvious.

And no one owns the evidence.

[Michael Clark]

5 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

My point is that as a historian Jim has a responsibility to back up with statements with fact, not invective.

I feel like a solo rig from the opposite direction.

Proving conspiracy in the murder of JFK is no big deal.  Salandria said that debunking the SBT with the clothing evidence was no big deal -- he was most proud of pulling out of the Critical Research Community.

The Salandria School is a study of the obvious.

And no one owns the evidence.

Roger-that my friend. It's time for shut-eye on the Right Coast.

Good night.

[Mervyn Hagger]

Thanks for giving us all examples of why all things Kennedy became a cult, and why, as Jason Ward pointed out, after 50 years of hot air, nothing has changed the official version of history that began with the WR. However, like Jason and Larry Hancock and Gary Murr, a few intelligent people do poke their nose around the door to see what the cult members have uncovered, because like all interests that take over lives to the exclusion of everything else, sometimes cult members do discover items of interest. Unfortunately, being cult members they don't know what to do with their discoveries other than argue among themselves. It is all like that Monty Python movie 'Life of Brian' where some follow the gourd and others follow the sandal as prized relics that they worship. (I await an outburst of indignation by the self-identifying cult members.) (LOL)

[James DiEugenio]

Mervyn, you know your arrogance is really something to behold.  Every once in awhile we get someone who jumps on here and is ready to say that the whole critical community is full of baloney, has accomplished absolutely nothing in fifty years. and has not impacted anything.

The reality is the contrary.  If one takes the best of the research community, the achievement is nothing short of estimable.  In the face of the entire American media/political/institutional establishment, that small group of writers/researchers working with little money, little recognition, and facing walls of resistance, did the impossible.  They tore down the Warren Report.  And they did it on the Warren Report's own terms.  That is, by using their own evidence, they showed the emperor had no clothes. Their critiques and utter destruction of the report was so compelling and so complete that the other side had to enlist the power of the national TV networks to stop the hemorrhaging. We know this today because we have it in documents. And if you go to Kennedy and King.com you will read annotated essays on what CBS and NBC did to genuflect before the altar of the Power Elite and the CIA.

The reason Richard Sprague was jettisoned, was because he had taken the arguments of the critical community to heart and found them convincing.  In fact, after an 8 hour photo demonstration by people like Groden and Sprague, 12 of the 13 HSCA lawyers now disbelieved the Warren Report. (See, The Assassinations, edited by Lisa Pease and James DIEugenio, p. 57)  

As we can now see, the ARRB was being played by the intelligence community.  Because they had only a four year lifespan, and very little in the way of investigative resources, the CIA and FBI waited them out.  They did not do nearly the comprehensive job that their report tries to say they did.  And it appears Doug Horne was correct about them except he should have written more about it.

In the face of all this, the critical community has achieved a lot.  I mean a lot.  Even though the ARRB was thwarted at many turns, the information we now have on things like New Orleans, on the CIA and Mexico City, on the autopsy, on the destruction of certain files, on the negligence of the Secret Service, on the cover up by the FBI, on the murder of Tippit etc etc etc, all of these things are quite significant.  And they are real advances over the first generation of critics.  All one has to do is compare the later work, with the earlier work and do an analysis.

So personally, I don't appreciate it when some newby comes on and tries to insult that record and tell us all that we are somehow all a bunch of blind idiots. And meanwhile, he does not even know what city Oswald left for Europe from.

Cannot wait to read your book about how Armstrong and Rader conspired to kill JFK.

Edited May 20, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Getting back to my original point.  The guy who I think summarized best Kennedy's foreign policy and his battle with the Power Elite was Prouty.

He said the unusual thing about JFK was that he was willing to accept defeat without putting up a fight. 

And he did this twice.  Once at the Bay of Pigs and the second time in Indochina.  He was so determined not to use American might in the Third World that we would accept defeat instead.

Again, if one compares this to Nixon for example, its quite different.  He told Kennedy to go ahead and declare a beachhead and invade in 1961.

About Vietnam, there is a remarkable entry in the Haldeman Diaries where the author writes that Nixon knew the war in Vietnam could not be won, but, of course, we must not let on that we know that.  The USA had to keep up appearances because RMN would not be the first president to lose a war.  This was reinforced in Ellsberg's book Secrets, where Nixon told Kissinger that the difference between him and Henry was that RMN did not give a damn about civilian casualties.

In other words, even though Nixon knew the war could not be won in 1968, he was willing to go ahead and sacrifice tens of thousands of American troops, and hundred of thousands of Vietnamese in order to pursue his whole Peace with Honor chimera.  Which, as Jeff Kimball has established beyond doubt, was really nothing more than getting a Decent Interval between when Americans left and before Saigon fell.  Something that RMN and Kissinger both strenuously denied they were doing.  But now, thanks to Kimball, we now have the proof in their own writings and words. 

These are simply established facts. Why someone would want to deny them is weird.

Edited May 20, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Paz Marverde]

22 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mervyn, you know your arrogance is really something to behold.

👍

[Ron Ecker]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Cannot wait to read your book about how Armstrong and Rader conspired to kill JFK.

I remember listening to Armstrong's "The World Tomorrow" on radio. If only I had realized what he was actually talking about, I would have tried to warn the Secret Service.

 

[Mervyn Hagger]

10 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

I remember listening to Armstrong's "The World Tomorrow" on radio. If only I had realized what he was actually talking about, I would have tried to warn the Secret Service.

 

Ron, that's what happens when you listen to James, everything becomes a distorted mess,  and he is the expert who even quotes himself. LOL

[Michael Clark]

43 minutes ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Ron, that's what happens when you listen to James, everything becomes a distorted mess,  and he is the expert who even quotes himself. LOL

Mervyn, I just looked over your co-authored essay. I have to say that you would be an expert in the area of disjointed messes; that is what your essay looks like. Jim's work is actually quite the opposite of your characterization. I am guessing that you are trying to transfer the critical hurt which you suffered, in evaluations of your work, onto Jim. It doesn't stick.

Here is a link to Messy-Mervyn's Pile of Platitudes....

http://foundthreads.com/PDF FILES/02-LILBURNE-JEFFERSON.pdf

[Paul Brancato]

33 minutes ago, Mervyn Hagger said:

Ron, that's what happens when you listen to James, everything becomes a distorted mess,  and he is the expert who even quotes himself. LOL

Mervyn - you’re frustrating me. You said your original attack on this forum was stirring up the hornets nest. But you keep doing it,  choosing to take sides as to who here is worthy and who isn’t. I keep trying to see what you have to say and contribute in good faith, knowing that your attitude towards the ‘fanboys’ doesn’t necessarily diminish you’re own field of knowledge. But I definitely agree with Jim and others that you get in your own way by diminishing others. You know so little about 55 years of JFK research, and because you cannot see past your own prejudice clearly enough to see the huge differences between JFK and LBJ and RMN you’re not even interested enough to dig a little. In good faith I’ve suggested several books to you. 

Yeah, authors quote themselves. Hancock does it too. Why is Jim your whipping boy? I object to the phrase ‘listen to James’ because that’s not what serious people do. This is not a church. We question authority here. But speaking for myself I also respect people that have dedicated their lives to fighting against the official silence and lies. Btw the way, that includes you Mervyn, which is why I’m trying to get through to you.