Cliff Varnell

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

From 1993, this CBS poll went up around 11 points from the previous one in 1988 about if the public disbelieved the WC. And look how many thought it was the CIA.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/11/16/CBS-poll-Americans-believe-CIA-helped-assassinate-JFK/6101753426000/

 

 Great!  Here’s one poll showing numbers that go “through the ceiling.”  It’s always best when folks bring receipts instead of making unsupported claims.

The polling on younger people belies the claims that age is a factor in the recent slow leakage of conspiracy support.

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

It went up 15 percentage points, from 60% to 75%.

That's a 25% rise!

 

But not “through the ceiling.”

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Hey man, all I said was that Jim was right when he said that the conspiracy number popped up with the film.

That’s not what he said.  To claim the conspiracy number went “through the ceiling” is a mischaracterization of the data.

Sandy, support for Conspiracy did not “go through the ceiling” in 1991-2, it matched the highs of previous decades.  Just like the Gallup data indicates.  It spiked again 1998 - 2001.

How many picked nits fit on the head of a pin?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

If the Donk Dicatator-Puppet-in-Chief does a snuff job on the JFK Records, 

As opposed to Pet Theorists on-line who do a snuff job on the facts of the case?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Even if the JFKA research community had unified behind a single theory of the JFKA, and let's say your theory of the mechanics of the JFKA, it would not have mattered. 

So you’re saying that it’s just a theory that the bullet holes in JFK’s clothes are four inches below the bottom of the collars?

Promotion of false mystery has been a feature of the cover-up since 1966.

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I don't think so Cliff.

You said that the 1991 movie JFK  didn't increase the percentage of those who believe in conspiracy.

No, I said the Gallup polling showed a consistency in public opinion from 1976 to 2001.  I also pointed out that the spike in conspiracy belief following the release of JFK matched highs reached twice before.  Jim D. wrote:

“The number of people who did not buy the WC and thought it was a conspiracy went through the ceiling in the years  1991-92 due to the film JFK.”

This is an over-statement since the polling you cited shows that level of support in both the 70’s and 80’s, and spiked 6 points more in 1998.

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I showed that it actually increased by 15 percentage points IIRC. 1991 is not in this century.

And since that did not go “through the ceiling” the claim that it did is an exaggeration.

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You are entitled to your opinions and theories. 

The bullet holes in JFK’s clothes are four inches below the collars.

Is that a fact, or a theory?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Blaming the JFKA research community for the censorship and polluting of news from the deeply-resourced Deep State...seems rather a stretch. 

I haven’t seen that argument.  I’m blaming the JFKA research community  for ignoring historical facts — T3 back wound, throat entrance — in favor of rabbit holes like the acoustics, the NAA, the provenance of the Magic Bullet, the head wound(s), and any number of other dead ends.

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

In other words, you cherry-picked the poll that supports your position.

What I used is the average of multiple polls. It is known in the field of statistics that averages of polls give more accurate results. (Because of the "law of large numbers.")

 

Since my position is that public support for the LN ballooned in this century — as reflected in all the polls — it seems that you’re nit-picking a “gotcha.”

1 hour ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Sorry Cliff, Jim is right on this. The percentage who believe it was a conspiracy popped up by 15 points when JFK came out. That's a significant rise.

 

 

Gallup:

The JFK spike in the other polls matched highs reached twice earlier.

On the night of the autopsy, with the body in front of them, the autopsists seriously considered the possibility JFK was hit with a high tech round.

This fact has been ignored by the US Gov’t, the Mainstream Media...and the JFKA Masterclass Critics.

That’s my second beef with y’all.  The first is the collective failure to reach consensus on the root facts — T3 back wound, throat entrance wound.  This plays into the hands of the Cover-Up, creating a sense of false mystery surrounding cut and dried facts (e.g. The bullet holes in the clothes are too low to associate with the throat wound).

E. Martin Schotz wrote a scathing critique of COPA in 1998 — still applicable, in my book.

https://www.ratical.org/ratville//JFK/FalseMystery/COPA1998EMSapp.html

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Cliff,

      It's just a hypothesis, but I have seen a lot of misguided, derogatory articles about "conspiracy theorists" in the U.S. mainstream media since 9/11.  Those incessant M$M generalizations about "conspiracy theorists" are misguided precisely because conspiracy theories are not monolithic.  Some are accurate.  Others are kooky. 

    And, as Daniel Ganser has pointed out, "All theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories."

    As for the JFKA research, it's difficult to believe that that all of the misleading propaganda tropes denigrating "conspiracy theories" since 2001 haven't had a negative impact on the JFKA truth movement.

     

As I mentioned in an earlier post, on three occasions during the 90’s I opened up the sports pages of the SF Chronicle to read that Oswald acted alone.  Then I could go to the funny pages and read in Doonesbury that JFK conspiracy theorists were whackos.

Since none of that sort of drive-by smearing made an impact on public opinion, it’s hard for me to see anti-9/11-inside-job coverage impacting views of the JFKA to the extent of a 20% increase in LN support.

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Kirk,

     You've always been strangely ignorant about PNAC and the science research debunking the Bush/Cheney/Zelikow 9/11 narrative.   It's definitive.  The World Trade Center was demolished by explosives on 9/11.  It's the best kept secret in 21st century America.

     9/11 was PNAC's "New Pearl Harbor event" -- staged to mobilize popular support for the multi-trillion dollar Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz "War on Terror" in the Middle East.  (See General Wesley Clark's quote below about what Pentagon staffers told him in September of 2001-- shortly after 9/11.)

     Now we can add to that your ignorance about Udo Ulfkotte's career as a war correspondent in Iraq, and his detailed expose of CIA propaganda ops in Europe in the 21st century.

     Congratulations.  War is peace.  Slavery is freedom.  Muslims blew up the World Trade Center.

I’m with you on 9/11 but I can’t buy the hypothesis that the anti-Inside-Job bias in trad media spills over into people’s view of the JFKA.  According to the AP poll cited above, only 35% get a significant amount of their JFKA info from trad media.  

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Well, of course I do not have ironclad answers.

But if you read Wikipedia on almost any JFKA topic....

Wikipedia: 

Conspiracy theorists often argue that there were multiple shooters—a "triangulation of crossfire"—and that the fatal shot was fired from the grassy knoll and struck Kennedy in the front of the head.^[282] Individuals present in Dealey Plaza have been the subject of much speculation, including the three tramps, the umbrella man, and the purported Badge Man.^{[283][284][285]} Conspiracy theorists argue that the autopsy and official investigations were flawed or, at worst, complicit,^[286] and that witnesses to the Kennedy assassination met mysterious and suspicious deaths.^[287]

Conspiracy theories have been espoused by notable figures, such as L. Fletcher Prouty, Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Kennedy, who believed that elements of the U.S. military and intelligence communities had conspired to assassinate the president.^[288] Governor Connally also rejected the single-bullet theory,^[289][290] and President Johnson reportedly expressed doubt regarding the Warren Commission's conclusions prior to his death.^[291] According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his father believed that the Warren Report was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship" and that John F. Kennedy had been killed by a conspiracy, possibly involving Cuban exiles and the CIA.^[292] Communist rulers like Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev believed that Kennedy had been killed by right-wing Americans.^[293] Former CIA director R. James Woolsey has argued that Oswald killed Kennedy as part of a Soviet conspiracy.^[294]  

</q>

Hardly a virulent attack.

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

So...back in the 1960s, the CIA had 3,000 people in PR-propaganda. Who knows how many now, and how many are posting stories furiously on Daily Beast, Rolling Stone, Huffington Post and so. 

In 2013 the Associated Press and Gallup both ran JFKA polls.

Gallup found a 61/30% split in favor of conspiracy.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1813/Most-Americans-Believe-Oswald-Conspired-Others-Kill-JFK.aspx

The AP found a 59/24% split pro-conspiracy with 16% unsure.  

http://surveys.associatedpress.com/data/GfK/AP-GfK April 2013 Topline Posted FINAL_JFK.pdf

The AP poll also asked:

How much of what you know about the Kennedy assassination has come from each of the following sources. (Nearly all/most)

Movies or fictional TV shows — 9%

Newspapers, magazines, television news or websites operated by news organizations — 35%

History textbooks or other non- fiction books — 37%

Discussion with friends or family — 12%

Blogs or websites that are not operated by news organizations — 6%

4 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Sheesh, for a budget of $2 million (peanuts, as you know) the Deep State can flood social and alt-l  and alt-r media with whatever they want. I am sure they spend more than that. 

Maybe they flooded JFKA newsgroups and forums with “CTs” whose job was to uphold at least one Lone Nut talking point — that the back shot transited, for instance?

JFK Revisited cites the T3 back wound and the throat entrance wound.

That’s two wounds in soft tissue with no exits.

6.5mm Full Metal Jacket rounds don’t leave shallow wounds in soft tissue.

Why did JFK Revisited spend so much time on the Magic Bullet when it was impossible from the get-go?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I largely agree with JD.

The really short story:

Every government in history wants to control media. 

Legacy media is generally controlled in the US.

The government is now maneuvering to control social media, and in many situations already is. 

The surprisingly fact is that such a large segment of the US public does not buy the lone gunman theory. 

This is largely due to the efforts of the JFJA research community, armed with perhaps 1% of the resources of legacy media and government. If that.

The way Oliver Stone's films were savaged, and now the RFK2 campaign....dudes, if you do not think there is a Deep State blob at work in DC.....

 

Ben, how do you account for the fact that the LN scenario never garnered more than 15% approval from 1976 to 2001 — during the height of MSM support — but shot up into the low 30’s in both 2013 and 2017 when far more people followed the subject on-line?

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I was not going to comment on this originally since the thesis is so obtuse.

And DiEugenio still doesn’t comment on the issue at hand.

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

.  But when I see someone I like and respect like Pat Speer falling for it, I almost have to.

The number of people who did not buy the WC and thought it was a conspiracy went through the ceiling in the years  1991-92 due to the film JFK.

 Not according to the Gallup poll.  The support for the conspiracy view was steady from 1976 to 2001.

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The chart, if anything, underestimates that. There were polls that were about or close to 90 per cent against the Commission.  And in fact, sub questions were highly in favor of a CIA plot.

No doubt.  

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

But what happened is the the Powers that Be were not going to let that continue.  Especially with the 30th coming up.

But it DID continue — for at least another decade!

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

So two powerful people, the late Harold Evans and Bob Loomis of Random House, timed their backing of Posner's book with that anniversary.  Posner got a PR tour, the likes of which had never been seen before.

And as of 2001 it had no impact on public opinion according to Gallup.

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

 (And since then the only one that came close  was the one for Sy Hersh and his JFK hatchet job four years later.)

That began a clamping down on anyone who was against the official story.  We know this from Alec Baldwin and his experience at NBC.  He wanted to pitch a program around the JFK case, but the executives knew what he had in mind and they said words to the effect, we have become settled in with the Warren Report.

Now, in addition to that clamping down, there has been a large amount of media consolidation since 1991. This was begun under Clinton and his Communications Act which significantly altered the ownership limitations of broadcast and print media. Today, something like six companies own  like 90 per cent of all broadcast media. 

And in the 10 years of media consolidation after the release of JFK there was no substantial change in public opinion, according to Gallup.

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

When Oliver Stone came out with his film in late 1991, he was all over the major media. He was on Nightline twice, and he was on the Oprah Winfrey Show which was huge.  There were several talk shows devoted only to the JFK assassination. There were independent producers who did specials on the subject with hosts like James Earl Jones and Robert Conrad. Our side was getting a lot of time with people like Jim Marrs and Cyril Wecht.  It was really kind of unprecedented.

Slowly but surely those avenues were closed off due to the Powers that Be and the media consolidation. 

This doesn’t account for the dramatic surge in LN support 2001 to 2017.  Again, 25 years of the MSM pimping the LN from 1976 to 2001 had no impact on public opinion.

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I can tell you that is the case since I know it firsthand.  How many major shows had Oliver on in 2021?  None.  And we had a pretty big PR firm working for us.  They tried.  We were deliberately  vetoed, as with Alec Baldwin.  I cannot go into the bloody details, but I can assure you that was the case.

What does this have to do with the surge of public support for the LN 2001 to 2017?

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Now, further proof of this is that such was not the case abroad. We were well reviewed in Europe by a margin of 15-5 according to our clipping service. In the space of just a few weeks the following happened:

1. We were in 3 feature stories in the major Australian  newspapers, and they interviewed me live on Channel Nine, the biggest broadcaster on the continent.

2. About a week after that, i got a call from Izvestia, the biggest broadcaster in Russia and did a Zoom interview with them.

3.  About a week after that, the Rome Film Festival flew Oliver into Italy since they showed both versions of the film on the same night, about a mile from each other  One of the viewings, I do not recall which one, was so well attended they had it in an open air venue.  Oliver and I were on the feature pages of the Rome dailies the next day.

And I do not have to repeat what happened up in Quebec.  Wall to wall interviews by Oliver and me, even some before we got there.  Sold out attendance at all three venues, the last at 99 bucks a pop.

For Oliver to get any kind of breakthrough at all in America he had to turn to the alternative media and do many, many of those in order to build some coverage.  He did a lot of work, like 3-4 shows a day.  

I’m personally gratified that JFK Revisited acknowledged both the T3 back wound and the throat entrance wound.  That was a major breakthrough.  In 2018 DiEugenio said the location of the back wound was “unknowable.”

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

So anyone who somehow tries to say this is a failing of the critical community, that is just in my view axe grinding for your own agenda.

Ah, this is like Old Home Week!  Before Jim D. put me on ignore in 2018 he accused me of having a sinister “agenda” every time I disagreed with him.

Given his acknowledgment of the T3 back wound in the 2-hour Stone doc, looks like he succumbed.

3 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Cliff,

     I mentioned Operation Timber Sycamore as an obvious example of "Mockingbird" M$M censorship in the 21st century.   

     I also mentioned Udo Ulfkotte's work as 21st century documentation of the fact that GHWB and the CIA never really abolished CIA psy ops (Mockingbird) in the M$M.

   As for the JFKA, look at the ridiculous non-coverage of JFK Revisited in the U.S. M$M.

All well and good but you’re not addressing the issue at hand — the sharp increase in support for the LN between 2001 and 2017.

There is no data to indicate it was a function of age.

You’ll be hard pressed to find significant MSM/Op-Mock coverage over that time to account for this sizable shift.

Does the flood of ambitious T3-Denying “CTs” on the ‘Net this Century explain it?

I bet.

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Cliff & Kirk,

     I disagree with the premise that GHWB and the CIA actually terminated Operation Mockingbird (in practice, not name) after the Church Committee hearings in the 70s.

I never advanced such a premise.  From 1976 to 2001 — during the Op Mock hey-day — support for the LN view remained in the low teens.

With the advent of the internet LN support ballooned.  Why?  Because “simplicity and repetition” are not in the JFKA Critical Community playbook.

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

    How many stories in the U.S. mainstream media covered CIA Operation Timber Sycamore-- launched in Syria in 2014?

What does that have to do with 21st Century coverage of the JFKA?

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

    How many M$M stories covered the history of the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Necon Project for a New American Century?

    Before his untimely death, German journalist, Udo Ulfkotte, published a bestselling 2014 expose on the subject of CIA Operation Mockingbird, (in Europe) called Gekaufte Journalisten, which I have mentioned in a post or two on the subject here.  The English translation of Ulfkotte's book was first published in paperback in 2019, as Presstitutes.

     Ulfkotte's description of the CIA's pervasive 21st century activity in the mass media directly mirrored the earlier William Colby/Carl Bernstein descriptions of CIA influence in the U.S. media-- controlling narratives and suppressing accurate coverage of military and intelligence ops.

And the 21st Century coverage of the JFKA, to which you ascribe the spike in support of the LN in national polls, was what?

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA: A Confession from the Profession: Ulfkotte, Dr. Udo, Schlademan, Andrew, Leonard, John-Paul: 9781615770175: Amazon.com: Books

     The best example of Operation Mockingbird in the 21st century, IMO, has been the pervasive mainstream media cover up of PNAC's "New Pearl Harbor" 9/11 op-- the so-called Great American Psy-Opera.

     But the M$M has also continued, to a lesser extent, to suppress honest coverage of the debunking of the Warren Commission Report.  The limited M$M coverage of Oliver Stone's landmark documentary, JFK Revisited, is the most obvious example.

“Continued to a lesser extent” — thank you!

That was my point.  Even though Op Mock activity in relation to the JFKA was “lesser” than the 90’s, LN support spiked in this Century.

Fonzi and Salandria showed how to destroy the LN — and they’ve been ignored.

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Kirk,

     Surely, you jest.

     Did you study the U.S. mainstream media "coverage" of JFK Revisited after it premiered at Cannes?

     I started a thread here that summer on the subject, in which I theorized that M$M coverage of JFK Revisited would provide an opportunity to discern whether Operation Mockingbird was still operational in the U.S.

      The answer was a resounding, yes!  Coverage of JFK Revisited was widely blacked out in the most prominent mainstream U.S. news sources, including the New York Times.  When the Washington Post did mention JFK Revisited, the ersatz review (by a historian from LSU named Alecia P. Long) was ridiculous.

      Kirk, are you aware that the CIA issued an Executive Order in 1964 ordering all agency personnel to do whatever was necessary to promote public acceptance of the Warren Commission Report?

      Are you familiar with the distorted M$M coverage of the JFK assassination since 11/22/63-- including the promotion of the Lone Nut/WCR narrative and the M$M defamation of Jim Garrison?

      The guy who wrote the book on that historical subject is Joseph McBride.

This is Gallup during the heyday of Op Mock — 13% buy the Lone Nut scenario as of 2001.  There was scant change between Dec ‘76 and March ‘01.

By 2017, 33% buy the Lone Nut myth even though Op Mock in the MSM was largely muted over that time, and the Internet usurped traditional media as the main source of news consumption.

So are we to conclude that a lack of JFKA coverage in the MSM stimulates the Lone Nut narrative?

Looks like the CIA wasted a lot of time and effort promoting the WC, doesn’t it?

Two wounds of entrance in soft tissue , no exits, no rounds found in the autopsy.

There is a “high strangeness” aspect to these root facts of the JFKA.  The whole “ice bullet” issue is off-putting to people of a certain age.

In my experience younger people take the high tech scenario more seriously.

delete

7 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Yes, devolution.

Here we have a rare opportunity to discuss the impact of 60 years of CIA-funded disinformation in the U.S. mainstream media promoting the WCR, yet 90% of the thread ends up focusing on more of the endless, redundant forum minutiae about ballistics, autopsy evidence, etc. 

As I’ve argued, the CIA disinformation campaign was in high gear in the 90’s when polls show support of the Lone Nut scenario at its lowest.  There was a 20% drop in support for the conspiracy position between 2001 and 2017, with an even greater drop among the college educated.  This cannot be attributed to “CIA-funded disinformation” in the mainstream media, of which there was far less than the 90’s.

Your take on 21st Century CIA disinformation in the MSM is over-stated.

7 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Geez... Don't we all know by now that JFK was murdered by a head shot from the Grassy Knoll area?

Care to show where that event implicated persons of interest?

The night of the autopsy the prosectors observed shallow wounds in soft tissue and voiced speculation implicating the CIA operation MKNAOMI.

Point out where this has been over-discussed, Will.  Name the JFK Conference where it’s been discussed at all, or the books that have covered the subject.  Or in six hours of Oliver Stone documentary.

7 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

The only guys who still dispute that are Fred Litwin and the professional WCR ad men.

The view that JFK was hit with a high tech weapon is attacked far more than supported on this forum. 

On 9/22/2023 at 9:03 AM, W. Niederhut said:

It's kind of a shame that this thread devolved into yet another debate about JFK's shirt,

There’s been no debate about the clothing evidence in this thread.  The bullet holes in the clothes are too low for the SBT — an unchallenged fact.

Devolved?  The title of this thread is a sarcastic back-of-my-hand to the JFKA Critical Community for its collective failure to grasp the significance of physical evidence in a cold case murder investigation.