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Mark Knight

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Everything posted by Mark Knight

  1. An absence of evidence does not equate to evidence of absence.
  2. As we approach November 2023, 60 years following JFK's assassination, I ask my fellow Education Forum members who are able to please contribute in order to fund the forum going forward. No, we are not exactly in DIRE financial straits, but I bring this up to prevent that from occurring. There is a sticky post on the first page of the EF JFK Assassination Discussion Forum that instructs members on how to donate to the forum. We appreciate each and every donation, no matter how large or small. Thank you.
  3. As we approach November 2023, 60 years following JFK's assassination, I ask my fellow Education Forum members who are able to please contribute in order to fund the forum going forward. No, we are not exactly in DIRE financial straits, but I bring this up to prevent that from occurring. There is a sticky post on the first page of the EF JFK Assassination Discussion Forum that instructs members on how to donate to the forum. We appreciate each and every donation, no matter how large or small. Thank you.
  4. I have had that suspicion for years. Probably the truth. Look at a list of JFK's enemies: * Pro-Castro Cubans. * Anti-Castro Cubans. * Mafia. * CIA factions. And likely others. Each could go to their sponsors after the assassination, claim credit, get paid, and disappear. And other than the ACTUAL assassin(s), evidence would lead to each of the factions. All but one , upon investigation, would be a trip down a rabbit hole. Which pretty much describes where we are today.
  5. Ben, Let's get back to dealing in facts, please. Richard Nixon was NOT impeached. The House was drawing up articles of impeachment, and the Senate was prepared to convict Nixon...Republicans as well as Democrats. But Nixon resigned. While you're entitled to form your own opinions, you are NOT entitled to conjure up "facts" not based upon evidence. Historically, William Jefferson Clinton was the first President since Andrew Johnson to be impeached. Nixon was no more impeached than Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and JFK were impeached. And I'm sure that information is widely available.
  6. "Idolizing a politician -- ANY politician -- is very much like believing the stripper really likes you." -- Some wise person, sometime in the past.
  7. When RFK Jr. is SPECIFICALLY discussing the JFK assassination, that would be relevant to this forum. When he mentions it peripherally in a general political speech, that speech is only peripherally connected to this forum and is better suited to the Political Discussions forum. Just because JFK was his uncle, that doesn't make HIS political speeches any more relevant to this forum than speeches by Trump, DeSantis, Biden, Christie, Haley, or any other politician. It's really a simple concept. It truly is.
  8. Revenge. It's the path to a multitude of rabbit holes. Mafia. Anti-Castro Cubans. Pro-Castro Cubans. "And the beat goes on; yeah, the beat goes on." Because, to a degree, all these revenge seekers have both motives and resources. If you want to tie up ALL the political assassinations on US soil in the '60s and early '70s in a neat little package, consider...Richard Nixon. After the '62 California gubernatorial election, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" was Nixon's pouty response. Yet 6 years later, he's POTUS. MLK's assassination didn't benefit the Democrats, but it helped Nixon's campaign by removing a charismatic pro-Democratic Party leader. RFK's assassination helped Nixon by...yep, you guessed it...removing a charismatic Democratic leader. After RFK's death, Gene McCarthy folded his campaign and the anything-but-charismatic Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic Party nominee, handing the Presidency to Nixon. Fast-forward to '72. Even though McGovern's campaign imploded, George Wallace's campaign as an independent raised the possibility that the three-way race might not be decided by the Electoral College, but by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. So George Wallace is shot. Cui buono? Who benefits? Nixon. But Watergate showed us that Nixon wasn't at the head of the pyramid. Once Nixon had served his masters' purpose, the skids under him were greased with the release of the flood of Watergate evidence, and Nixon's time as POTUS was done. Figure out who was behind all of Nixon's pre-Watergate "good fortune," and I believe you'll discover the persons behind not only the JFK assassination but the others as well. Because I don't believe that history occurs in a vacuum. I think the JFK assassination was their first "success" on US soil, and that emboldened them to continue right through '72, if not beyond.
  9. It's obvious to anyone who will open their eyes that the candidacy of RFJ Jr. is not SOLELY about releasing the JFK assassination records. If that was the case, then his candidacy would be a topic for the JFK assassination discussion forum. But he's not a single-issue candidate; nor should he be, if he expects to gain a wide swath of voter support. But as a candidate for the highest office in the USA, UNLESS he's directly discussing the JFK assassination, the discussion of his candidacy rightfully belongs in the Political Discussions forum area of The Education Forum. The Education Forum has areas to discuss many things, especially things important to teachers. The RFK Jr. candidacy is no more germain to the JFK assassination discussion than the discussions on teaching German or Spanish or French...which also have their own SEPARATE discussion forums on The Education Forum. That's really not such a difficult concept to grasp. For most of us.
  10. Seems everything needs a disclaimer these days. Oh...and "Objects in mirror may be larger than they appear." I suppose that includes chances of more war as well.
  11. As a kid in the 1960s, I was told that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "justified" due to the atrocities the Japanese committed against Allied POWs. I was told that they were justified to keep from fighting a war IN Japan with a projected heavy loss of Allied lives. But having lived through the Vietnam War years, I must question why the Allies were never caught committing any similar atrocities. Did they not happen? Or were they like Mi Lai in 'Nam, which only came out after someone "squealed" on Lt. Calley & Co.? THERE IS NOTHING MORAL ABOUT WAR. All the talk of the Geneva Convention aside, the entire point of war is NOT following rules and conventions. It's about "winning." Whatever that means. Most wars are begun about either territory, raw material access [sometimes the same thing], or about stealing some asset(s) from the region being attacked. Or it's about power over an adversary, as the Soviet missiles in Cuba would have given the USSR some knife-to-the-throat leverage over the US in '62. But wars are almost never begun to uphold a principle, although they're sold to the public as such. The possible exception to that might be religious wars, but even those have eventually ended up being about the spoils the winner may collect. Since I was a member of my high school's Class of 1972, I was one of those who questioned what we were being told "for our own good." Most of which, we've eventually determined, were lies, half-truths, or intentionally misleading statements meant to obfuscate what was really going on. [I wasn't a "dope-smoking hippie," but I sometimes could be found in the company of one or more of them.] And George Carlin was our guide through the BS, much as Jon Stewart is the guide for the current generation [at least those who will listen]. Is it ironic that a few of the comedians of a generation are the best at ascertaining the truth? I know that tradition goes back at least as far as Will Rogers in my grandparents' generation. If you can show me any war that was begun by the side that remained 100% morally right throughout the conduct of that war, I take my hat off to you. General Smedley Butler said, "War is a racket." "War; [good God, y'all!] What is it good for?" We all know the answer. It takes the lives of the strong young men of a nation, and it drains the treasuries of nations. It kills civilians as well as soldiers, because there has never, ever been a war without "collateral damage." So was dropping the bombs on Hiroshima any more immoral than any other aspect of war, which kills innocent civilians and destroys homes, schools, businesses, and hospitals? The photos we've seen of hundreds of bodies either burned or buried in huge trenches during war...have we established a scale of atrocities yet? NONE of it is good. We learned that 17 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis...so we attacked...[checks notes]...Iraq. And for good measure we added another war in Afghanistan, urinating away billions of dollars down a rathole similar to what the USSR did in the 1980s...but using more sophisticated and expensive weaponry to do so.
  12. The Torbitt document has never been verified. Like the datebook, its provenance has never been established.
  13. Here's a link to EVERY area of The Education Forum: Forums - The Education Forum (ipbhost.com) It's also the EF home page.
  14. Ben, You raise some very valid points here. Does anyone remember the Torbitt Document?
  15. RFK Jr. says he’s not anti-vaccine. His record shows the opposite. It’s one of many inconsistencies | AP News
  16. This video could stand a major edit. There is nothing essential going on until 52 minutes, 8 seconds into the video. And the news conference ends at 2 hours, 8 minutes, 8 seconds in. So out of a run time of 2 hours, 13 minutes, and 35 seconds, there are 57 minutes and 35 seconds of NOTHING. The actual information is contained in 1 hour, 16 minutes of this 2-hour, 13-minute, 35-second video. [I feel as if I've wasted a lot of time figuring out how much wasted time is in this video. That 57 minutes wasted is 42.67% of the run time of the video.] So, let's cut to the chase: How does this tie into the JFK assassination?
  17. So what "biological agents" were we talking about in the early 1960s? Perhaps something as simple as corn rootworms that were bred to be pesticide-resistant? Remember, it took a couple more decades to get to the point of genetically-modified organisms we have today. Sugar was a major Cuban export, as well as tobacco in the form of cigars. I know very little of organisms that attack sugar cane, but having neighboring farms with a "tobacco base" in the 1960s and '70s, I know there were creatures that could kill your tobacco crop that might have been collected and bred in sufficient quantities to have been dropped into Cuba and overwhelmed normal eradication measures. In my mind, those are the kinds of "biological agents" that may have been proposed, or used, in Cuba.
  18. We all can fantasize about what we'd do, given the constraints. 48 hours prior: that's 12:30 pm CST on November 20, 1963. Going back to Dallas, Texas. With 1963 money in the pockets of your 1963 clothes. But what clothes? Blue-collar work clothes? White-collar? Would you have a car? Or would you have to buy one? If you bought one, what would it be? Would you want to stand out or blend in? Would it be a '58 Rambler or a '60 Chevy? Assuming you had money, a car, and clean working-class clothes to begin with, what would you do? Maybe get a "lay of the land," by driving in and around Dallas and Oak Cliff, so that you had a better context of the places involved. That might get you to dinnertime on Wednesday the 20th. What then? Maybe you stop at a phone booth [for privacy, so you won't be overheard] and anonymously call the FBI office in Dallas. But what do you say? Maybe something like, "I was in a park today [give them the name of a local park...just NOT Dealy Plaza] and I overheard two men talking. There were bushes between me and them, so I don't know what they looked like. But one of them said that someone was going to shoot President Kennedy on Friday when his parade [nobody would say "motorcade" until the media started using that term] went past Dealy Plaza. The other guy said that it seems like all hell would break loose if that happened, and the first guy said, 'That's the point.'" But then you tell the FBI that you want to remain anonymous because you're not sure if the two men saw you when you were leaving or not. Then hang up the phone. Then call the SS office in Dallas with the same message. You need somewhere to sleep, so you get a motel room. Then find somewhere to have dinner. After dinner, maybe visit the Carousel Club and see if you could get some sort of vibe about Jack Ruby...discreetly, of course. On Thursday, maybe do a walk around in Dealy Plaza, checking out the pergolas, and maybe even eyeballing the Grassy Knoll and the South Knoll areas. See if you can detect any signs of heightened security as a result of your phone calls. In the afternoon, park on Houston Street so you can watch Frazier and Oswald drive by on their way to Irving. You can't try anything too "vigilante" because 1) you might end up in jail yourself, and 2) whomever you choose to "stop" might not be the actual assassin. Maybe late at night, you break out one of the windows on the SE corner of the 6th floor of the TSBD, and then hightail it out of Dealy Plaza...?? [A BB gun [air rifle] might work...not too loud, and several well-placed shots would take out a pane or two.] Maybe that would cause the alleged sniper's nest to move elsewhere; maybe not. On Friday morning, try to position yourself in a place where you could see what Lee Oswald carries, if anything, into the TSBD. Then buy a movie camera and film, and find a spot in Dealy Plaza to view the motorcade passing. If the FBI and/or the SS change up their security measures through Dealy, you'd have it on film. And be ready to GTFO of Dealy afterward, in case your warnings weren't heeded, hiding your movie camera to make sure your film didn't get confiscated. The huge problem is, we don't know for sure from which direction the shots originated. we suspect this or that, but because the WC investigation wasn't as thorough as it could've been, we can't be 100% certain. So we don't know where any prevention measures might be effective. You might still witness the assassination in Dealy Plaza. Or the SS may have rerouted the motorcade. It's all still speculation on what might happen; there is no 100% sure "if/then" scenario we can play out.
  19. I'm agnostic as to whether there's any "there" there in the Harvey and Lee story. Here's why. I was born and grew up in a county in southern Indiana. I married a girl from the next county to the east, and we lived most of our married life in the second county to the east of my home county. A few years into our marriage, my wife was a patient in the local hospital. When I was getting her registered, the registrar asked me if I'd ever been a patient in the same hospital. I had not, and when I inquired why she was asking, I discovered that there was ANOTHER Mark Knight, down to the same middle initial, who had a substantial outstanding bill. Only after giving her my Social Security number did I establish in her mind that I was a different Mark Knight. So I started asking questions. I discovered there was another Mark Knight, same middle initial, who had graduated high school the same year I had graduated, but in the county in which I was then living. We had grown up 25 miles apart, we weren't related as far as I'd been able to determine to date, and neither of us has ever met the other. But his credit problems came up every time I applied for credit, and I've had to dispute numerous items on my credit report over the years. So as far as Harvey and Lee go, perhaps there's nothing nefarious involved. Maybe there are just a lot of coincidences such as what I discovered with my own "namesake" in southern Indiana. To this point, I remain unconvinced that the Harvey and Lee case involves a great depth of subterfuge.
  20. [Redacted by Request] was not banned from the Education Forum by the forum administrators.
  21. As far as Oswald's rights, Miranda v. Arizona wasn't decided until 1966. That meant that, prior to 1966, many defendants had their rights violated during police questioning because those rights weren't specifically enumerated until Miranda. Interrogations in 1963 were quite different. Remember, DPD tried to get Buell Wesley Frazier to sign a confession against his will, and when he refused, there was nearly a fistfight.
  22. Does anyone besides me find it odd that a resident of Ireland [or any other nation NOT called the United States of America] is involved in debating who should become President of the US? I don't begrudge anyone from having an OPINION, but actual advocacy for a particular candidate on a forum not meant to be a debate on current politics? It would be akin to someone from the US inserting their preference for a particular political candidate to become the Irish head of state...which, as a US citizen, I consider to be "not my concern." As a moderator, I somewhat object to references to a temporary suspension of posting privileges as a "ban." A ban would be if your membership in the EF was revoked. And after more than one moderator has explained the thought process behind a suspension, to say that the moderators have never explained why they took the actions they did is a blatant untruth. You may disagree with the actions of a moderator; that is your prerogative. Just don't say that, because a moderator wasn't swayed by your reason for disagreement, that the moderator failed to explain why they took action. When the mods finalize and fine-tune the penalty point system, I have suggested that the guidelines be posted in the pinned Forum rules. For now, I will advise you that 10 penalty points results in a 1-day suspension of posting privileges; 20 points results in a 2-day suspension; and so on. We're trying to fine-tune the system so that we can have a system with consistency and parity. HOWEVER, "frequent fliers" in the penalty box do tend to accumulate higher point values when they are penalized. But we also are setting up a mechanism under which points do expire. So if a member has a five-point penalty from 2014, for example, and none since, the 2014 penalty will go away if no other offenses occur. The EF has never been a democracy. Moderators have always had authority to enforce forum rules. And that will continue into the foreseeable future.
  23. My PERSONAL take on RM's post here is simple. The information, as released, is like a 2,000-page bill before Congress. RM is reporting what's actually IN the bill. And I consider that a HIGHLY valuable service.
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