Embarrassing questions

[David Von Pein]

Only DVP could be blind to the above sorcery.

Of course, Jimbo conveniently forgets about BOTH the WC and the HSCA. They BOTH endorsed the SBT, and they BOTH endorsed CE399 as that SBT bullet.

All were liars, right Jimmy?

In the CT world -- If at first you don't succeed (because you haven't got a speck of physical evidence to support your silly notions of a multi-gun conspiracy)--just call everybody connected with the case a xxxx, and then you're off the hook.

Great motto. Jimbo swears by it 24/7. If he didn't, then his prized patsy is a double-murderer. It's as simple as that.

Edited August 17, 2010 by David Von Pein

[Ron Ecker]

Somehow Dale Myers ignored all that when he said the SBT was not a theory but a fact. Can Dale explain how the bullet Wright turned over, a lead colored pointed hunting round, became a copper colored FMJ military round on its way to the WH? Or how the FBI was in receipt of the bullet at 7:30 when in fact it was not delivered until after 8:20. Or why not one person's initials who had the bullet in transit are on it. Including the FBi agent who gave it to Frazier at FBI HQ? The latter is a fact that Hoover lied about also.

Myers somehow missed all the above.

Since Myers starts off his whole spiel by putting the entry wound in the wrong place (well above the actual back wound), his presentation is nothing but garbage in, garbage out.

Is there anything more ridiculous than to still be discussing the SBT in the year 2010? Is there a forum elsewhere on Spartacus about flat earthism or astrology?

[David Von Pein]

Is there anything more ridiculous than to still be discussing the SBT in the year 2010?

Sure. I can think of lots of things (esp. seeing as how the SBT is so obviously true).

How about this for "ridiculous" in the year 2010:

Oswald didn't shoot JFK and Oswald didn't shoot Tippit either!

Talk about wacky.

Two questions for Ron Ecker (straight questions; I'm not trying to be sarcastic):

1.) Do you think Lee Oswald shot (or at least shot AT) JFK?

2.) Do you think Lee Oswald shot J.D. Tippit?

Edited August 18, 2010 by David Von Pein

[Ron Ecker]

Two questions for Ron Ecker (straight questions; I'm not trying to be sarcastic):

1.) Do you think Lee Oswald shot (or at least shot AT) JFK?

No.

2.) Do you think Lee Oswald shot J.D. Tippit?

No.

Edited August 18, 2010 by Ron Ecker

[Bernie Laverick]

DVP: Only the most gullible person imaginable could actually believe the FBI called Tomlinson and told him

to "shut up".

This is why I called him the Colbert of the JFK community.

Oh I get it Dave/Colbert. See, the FBI never did anything wrong in this case. Because your hero VB said they did not. Right. Therefore it must be true.

Therefore, Specter never tried to confuse or intimidate any witness e.g. like Jean Hill.

The FBI never tried to intimidate or manipulate any testimony either. So therefore Dean Andrews, Bruce and Lynn Carlen, Marina Oswald, and Nelson Delgado and W. Litchfield are all liars.

Except they all lied to the same effect. Just like all the other evidence I posted points to the fact that the FBI switched the stretcher bullet for CE 399.

In the world of DVP/Colbert and RH, the actual publicity for that snake Hoover is to be believed and all the innocent people he sen to jail and got deported are to be forgotten.

Jim, with all due respect is it really worth it? He's not going to answer honestly. In fact we can predict exactly what he is going to say. Yes he's slightly more eloquent than his alter-ego Francois, but not much. He will add absolutely nothing to this debate except distract you and others from sharing real information: that's why he is here. I must say that the quality of LN on this forum is absolutely appalling...

Arguing with professional idiots is just a complete waste of time!

[Ron Ecker]

Don't forget Hoover testifying to the WC that Oswald didn't shoot JFK on Houston Street because of "the fact there were some trees" in the way.

[David Von Pein]

Even the Warren Commission knew they [the wicked, evil Feds] could not be trusted.

And yet at the end of this day--like all others before it since early January 1979--we have the HSCA also verifying that Hoover's favorite patsy named Lee Harvey was guilty of murdering the 35th U.S. Chief Executive.

The like-minded evilness of BOTH the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee was simply astounding, wasn't it Jimbo?

14 years separated the WC from the HSCA, and each was helmed by totally different people -- and yet what do the Anybody-But-Oswald freaks believe? -- They believe that BOTH of those US Govt. committees were filled with nothing but liars and sacks of xxxx when they dared label DiEugenio's favorite innocent patsy a double-murderer.

Edited August 18, 2010 by David Von Pein

[Dean Hagerman]

(esp. seeing as how the SBT is so obviously true).

[Dean Hagerman]

More on VB's flawless FBI:

"In the famous Lindbergh kidnapping case, Hoover had his longtime assistant—some would say his flunky—Charles Appel say that Bruno Hauptmann's handwriting matched the samples on the ransom demands. Even though Hoover knew that Hauptmann's fingerprints did not match "the latent impressions developed on the ransom notes and the ransom money." Hoover later wrote that he harbored serious doubts about the state of the evidence against Hauptmann. And Charles Lindbergh indirectly commented on Hoover's role in that case by saying that, if not for the FBI's role, Hauptmann would have never been apprehended, brought to trial, and finally executed. Hoover always resented Lindbergh for making that revealing remark. (ibid, p. 163)

Jim

No doubt in my mind that Hauptmann was railroaded by the FBI like no other man in history

The same Hoover led FBI who DVP says can do no wrong and would never ever tell someone to "Shut Up"

[Dean Hagerman]

No Dean, the FBI would never try and intimidate a witness. Not Mr. Hoover.

I cant believe DVP backs Hoover and the FBI

When the FBI caught Doc Barker back in the 1930s they beat the living hell out of him for two days straight trying to get info on the rest of the Barker/Karpis gang

Watch DVP come back and say Hauptmann got a fair shake from the FBI and that they never harmed a hair on Doc Barkers body

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

I have published many articles and books that prove the fabrication of the film. I suppose I should not be surprised you haven't read them. If you had, you would know what you are talking about, which you obviously do not. Try "Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid", John Costella's tutorial on assassiantionscience.com, and THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX. I don't understand why you think you can post about complex matters like this without doing any homework. That's arrogance based on ignorance. Here's one about Douglas Horne's research:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5772.shtml

US government official: JFK cover-up, film fabrication

By Jim Fetzer

Online Journal Guest Writer

Apr 7, 2010, 00:19

MADISON, Wisconsin -- Douglas Horne, who served as the Senior Analyst for Military Affairs of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), has now published INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), a five-volume study of the efforts of the board to declassify documents and records held by the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, and other government organizations related to the assassination of JFK.

As a former government official, historian, and author, he is speaking out to disabuse the public of any lingering belief that THE WARREN REPORT (1964), THE HSCA FINAL REPORT (1979), Gerald Posner’s CASE CLOSED (1963), or Vincent Bugliosi’s RECLAIMING HISTORY (2007) represent the truth about what is known about the assassination of our 35th president, even remotely! Indeed, in relation to a new article, “Birds of a Feather: Subverting the Constitution at Harvard Law”, Horne has made a forceful declaration to set the record straight:

I know, from my former role as a government official on the staff of the ARRB (from 1995-1998), that there is overwhelming evidence of a government-directed medical cover-up in the death of JFK, and of wholesale destruction of autopsy photographs, autopsy x-rays, early versions of the autopsy report, and biological materials associated with the autopsy. Furthermore, dishonest autopsy photographs were created; skull x-rays were altered; the contents of the autopsy report changed over time as different versions were produced; and the brain photographs in the National Archives cannot be photographs of President Kennedy’s brain -- they are fraudulent, substitute images of someone else’s brain.

Over and beyond the medical evidence, however, Horne -- in Vol. IV of INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), has also demonstrated that the home movie of the assassination known as “the Zapruder film” -- and others that correspond to it, such as the Nix and Muchmore films -- have been massively edited to remove indications of Secret Service complicity in the crime and to add other events to these films in order to sow confusion and conceal evidence of the true causes of death of John F. Kennedy.

There are many proofs that the film has been fabricated—including that the driver brought the limo to a halt to make sure he would be killed; that his brains were blown out to the left-rear; and that a motorcycle patrolman accompanying the limo rode forward at the time of the stop to inform Dallas Chief of Police Jessie Curry that the president had been hit. But none of these events appears in the extant version of the film, which has been massively edited. That these events occurred has been established by more than 60 witness reports of the limo stop, where the wound to the back of his head was confirmed by 40 witnesses, including virtually all the physicians at Parkland Hospital, who described cerebellum as well as cerebral tissue extruding from the wound. The blow-out to the right-front, as seen in the film, therefore, is not authentic.

Indeed, in an appendix to Vol. IV, Horne explains that a copy of the film has now been studied by Hollywood exerts, who found that the blow-out to the back of his head had been painted over in black in an amateurish effort to obfuscate the blow out, which can actually be seen in a few later frames, including 372 and 374. Those who have persisted in defense of the authenticity of the film have offered three major arguments -- (1) that the features of the extant film correspond to those of the original processed in Dallas, (2) that there was an unbroken chain of custody, which precluded the film be changed; and (3) that the Dealey Plaza films are not only consistent with themselves but with one another, where the Zapruder could only have been faked if the others had been as well.

The following extracts from INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), Vol. IV, demonstrate that all three arguments are fallacious: (1) there are five features of the extant film that differ from those of the original and (2) that different films were brought to the NPIC on consecutive days, which vitiates the chain-of-custody argument. The consistency of the films with one another (3) turns out to be an interesting question, since they all seem to have been edited to remove the turn of the presidential limousine from Houston onto Elm. More significantly, there are subtle inconsistencies between the films and, most importantly, the Zapruder film is not even consistent with itself, which proves that it cannot possibly be authentic! Horne’s new studies thus confirm the previous research that has previously been reported in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), “New Proof of JFK Film Fakery” (2007), and “Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid” (2008), where these two articles are on-line.

(1) Five features of the original do not match the extant film

INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV (2009), p. 1292:

Conclusions

In his long essay published in 2007 on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website, Josiah Thompson [NOTE: the author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967), an early study based on the Zapruder film] told us we should all trust [retired Kodak expert on celluloid] Rollie Zavada’s judgment and defer to his authority:

“Roland Zavada has a towering reputation in the field and no conceivable reason for cooking his conclusions.”

Now that we have concluded examining his report and Zavada’s changes of mind since that time, it is clear that he has cooked his conclusions. In particular, he has ignored—trashed—key testimony:

*That the exposures were not bracketed at the Jamieson lab when the three ‘first day copies’ were struck, meaning that the three ‘first generation’ copies today should not be bracketed copies;

*That a ‘full frame’ aperture (picture plus soundtrack) was used when duplicating the Zapruder film, meaning that the intersprocket images should be present on the ‘first generation copies’;

*That the edge printer light was turned off when the original film was developed, meaning that there a double registration of processing edge prints in the family scenes on the extant ‘first generation’ copies; and,

*That the camera original film was slit at the Kodak plant in Dallas, meaning that the 16 mm wide, unslit black-and-white copies in existence today cannot have originated from the camera original film, and are instead indirect evidence that a new ‘original’ was created as an unslit 16 mm, double 8 movie (just as Homer McMahon’s expert testimony to the ARRB indicates).

Furthermore, Zavada’s opposition to the shooting of a control film in Zapruder’s actual camera in Dealey Plaza—which was inexplicable and extremely frustrating when it occurred in 1997—now takes on a very different taint, one of possibly intentional sabotage of the authentication effort by the ARRB staff. An incredible charge, you say? Not necessarily.

Read more on pages 1292 through 1294 as well as 1243 to 1292. And this does not take into account that the numbers on the extant film are not punched in the same location as the original. Read Horne to appreciate the depth of Zavada’s deception.

(2) Different films were brought to the NPIC on consecutive days

Not only has Doug Horne demonstrated that the strips of film—the actual celluloid -- of the film that was processed in Dallas and the extant “Zapruder film” are not the same, but he has demonstrated that David Wrone has misled his audience and distorted the evidence about the chain-of-custody, where one film—apparently the original, was brought to the NPIC on Saturday, 23 November 1963, which was an 8mm, slit version, the processing of which Bruno Brugioni, Chief of the NPIC Information Branch, supervised, which even required opening a camera store to purchase an 8mm projector, which the NPIC did not possess, while a second, 16mm unslit version, was brought to the NPIC on Sunday, 24 December 1963, by Secret Service Agent “William Smith,” which was handled by Homer McMahon and by Ben Hunter, who had not been present the night before, and a very different film.

INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV, pages 1226 and 1227:

Analysis: First of all, we can now say with certainty that the NPIC never copied the Zapruder film as a motion picture, even though for years the NPIC notes had mislead some researchers into believing that it had. However, Homer McMahon’s rock-solid certainty that the film brought to him was an original, unslit 16 mm wide, double 8 movie -- and that it came from a classified CIA photo lab run by Kodak at Rochester -- implies that McMahon and Hunter were not working with the true camera original developed in Dallas, but were instead working with a re-created, altered film masquerading as ‘the original.’ I suspected in 1997, and I am more certain than ever today at this writing in 2009, that ‘Bill Smith’ told the truth when he said that the film he couriered to NPIC was developed in Rochester -- after all, how could he possible make a mistake about something so elementary, since he brought it from Rochester to Washington, D.C. himself? He was only lying about one thing: it could not have been the original film exposed inside Abe Zapruder’s camera, because we know from the Dallas Affidavit trail, and from the interviews Rollie Zavada conducted with the surviving personnel from the Dallas Kodak lab, that the original film was indeed developed in Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963. If McMahon was correct that he had viewed an original, 16 mm wide, unslit double 8 movie film the weekend of the assassination, and if it was really developed in Rochester at a CIA lab run by Kodak (as he was unambiguously told it was), then the extant film in the Archives is not a camera original film, but a simulated ‘original’ created with an optical printer at the CIA’s secret film lab in Rochester.

The critical information published in the ARRB call and meeting reports about our interviews with McMahon and Hunter in 1997 was published in full by Jim Fetzer in the year 2000 in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, but was subsequently ignored by Josiah Thompson in a 2007 essay posted on the Mary Ferrell website (note 14) and was intentionally under-reported and misrepresented by David Wrone in his 2003 book on the Zapruder film. This is what many advocates of a specific hypothesis or a historical position resort to when the heat is on and their longstanding positions on key issues are threatened by new evidence: all too often they either ignore the argument of their opponents as if they do not exist, or they will misrepresent them, intentionally setting up a false ‘straw man,’ and then knock it down. In the case of the serious chain-of-custody implications of the McMahon interviews, Thompson chose to ignore the problem in 2005 and again in 2007, while David Wrone has not only misreported/misrepresented their import, but he has overstated the case for authenticity, as I shall demonstrate below.

In his 2003 book THE ZAPRUDER FILM: REFRAMING JFK’S ASSASSINATION, Wrone fails to report the specific content of the Homer McMahon interviews (nor does McMahon’s name even appear in Wrone’s index), and then completely misreports what I have said about them (on page 127), as follows:

Similarly spurious is Douglas Orme’s charge (yes, he misspelled my name, too) that Time, Inc. allowed the film to be altered. In MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, Horne argues that Time, Inc. permitted the film to be taken by Federal Officials for doctoring. [This statement was followed by endnote 36, which simply refers to page 319 of MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, without telling the reader what is on page 319. Page 319 is the interview report I wrote of the Homer McMahon interview of July 14, 1997 at the National Archives.] Like Zapruder, however, Time knew it had a treasure in the Zapruder film, and it would do nothing to endanger the flow of revenue it expected from those 26 seconds of film. [boldface added by author]

Shame on you David Wrone! There are so many things wrong with this short paragraph that I hardly know where to begin. First of all, and most importantly, Wrone never mentioned in his text that the Head of the Color Lab at NPIC, the world’s pre-eminent photo interpretation lab in 1963, claimed that he had [had] delivered to him by the Secret Service, prior to the President’s funeral, a 16 mm wide, unslit original double 8 film of the Kennedy assassination that was developed in Rochester, the location from which the courier brought him the film!!! So David Wrone’s first sin is that of intellectual dishonesty -- hiding facts from his readers which might have contradicted his own thesis that the extant film in the Archives today is authentic and unaltered. His second sin is that of putting words in my mouth: it is simply not true that I said anywhere in Fetzer’s book that Time, Inc. had allowed the film to be altered! The editor of the anthology, Jim Fetzer, published only my call reports and meeting reports of what the witnesses told the ARRB staff, and no one used that language in their interviews with us. So Wrone set up a straw man here which he attempted to knock down with a private enterprise profit motive, while all the time ignoring facts about C.D. Jackson’s long standing associations with the CIA and the national security establishment during the decade of the 1960s. If Wrone had been intellectually above-board, he would have talked honestly about the content of the McMahon/Hunter interviews, and then stated why he did not find these eyewitness recollections persuasive, if that was the case; instead, he took the coward’s way out and intentionally failed to report what McMahon had said. . . .

Note 14: The name of the lengthy 3-part essay is “Bedrock Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination,” and is based upon a somewhat shorter version delivered by Thompson on November 19, 2005 at a conference sponsored by Jim Lesar’s Assassination Archives and Research Center (ARRC) and the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law.

(3) The Zapruder film displays inconsistencies with other films and with itself

INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV, pages 1336 to 1337:

The Alteration of the Zapruder Film was Rushed and Imperfect

Because there are physical limitations to what can be altered in a film -- particularly on a tight schedule and when faced with time pressure--the alteration of the Zapruder film was imperfect, and it therefore had to be suppressed as a motion picture even after its gross alteration to conceal what the forgers had been unable to remove. My working hypothesis postulates that because the cabal that killed the president (and which was feverishly covering up the crime that weekend) did not yet know, on the weekend of the assassination, what type of investigation(s) would be conducted of the crime, or by which governmental bodies, speed was of the essence. By late Sunday afternoon -- after discussing the limitations to the film’s alteration with the technicians at “Hawkeyeworks” in Rochester -- they would have known that while the car stop had been removed from the film, and the exit debris leaving the back of President Kennedy’s skull had also been removed, that a serious problem remained: the so-called ‘head snap,’ or violent movement of the President’s head and upper body to the left and rear, in response to the frontal head shots. This was a simple and persuasive demonstration of the law of conservation of momentum that even a layperson without a physics degree could viscerally understand, and the public could not be permitted to see it, or the lone assassination cover story would not sell . . .

The film’s imperfect alteration was revealed in other ways aside from the ‘headsnap.’ As later discovered by Josiah Thompson, Ray Marcus, and other researchers, and as written about in scores of books now and as mentioned in hundreds of lectures, the extant film contains evidence of a very serious ‘timing problem’: President Kennedy and Governor Connally react to separate shots that occur too close together to have been fired in succession by the rather slow mechanism of the alleged murder weapon. The Warren Commission staff expressed great concern about this internally, and ultimately dealt with it dishonestly by concluding that the same bullet had hit both men, and that Connally had unaccountably exhibited a ‘delayed reaction’ to his very severe and painful wounds. What we do not know today is whether the ‘timing problem’ is an artifact of frame removal, or whether those frames of the film prior to the headshot were not tampered with, and reflected the true reality of the assassination farther up Elm Street in the vicinity of the Stemmons Freeway sign. Either possibility is [better: could be] true. Given what we know about the robust evidence in favor of alteration of the Zapruder film, it would be imprudent for JFK researchers to continue to claim that the ‘timing problem’ is the primary evidence of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. It isn’t. Given the overwhelming evidence that the camera original has been altered, the ‘timing problem’ should now be demoted to simply being ‘possible evidence’ of conspiracy. Eyewitness and earwitness testimony from Dealey Plaza alone, and the behavior of the impact debris after the head shots, are the true ‘bedrock evidence’ that proves conspiracy, not the ‘timing problem,’ which is inevitably suspect now, because of the overwhelming evidence that the camera original Zapruder film was altered on Sunday, November 24, 1963.

One final and undeniable mistake by the forgers was their failure to black out the real exit wound(s) in the posterior skull in all frames. I believe one of two exit wounds can been seen today, with proper magnification, in frames 335 and 337 of the extant film [NOTE: and in frames 372 and 374, where a comparison between David Mantik’s study of “Area P” in the lateral cranial X-rays and the blow-out to the back of the head can be viewed in “Dealey Plaza Revisited,” Chapter 30 of JOHN F. KENNEDY: HISTORY, MEMORY, LEGACY (2009), which can be downloaded here.] The best images of this to date have been published in HIGH TREASON (the color plate in the cloth edition, opposite page 387), in [Harrison Livingston’s] THE HOAX OF THE CENTURY: DECODING THE FORGERY OF THE ZAPRUDER FILM (on page 264) and in [Robert Groden’s] THE KILLING OF A PRESIDENT (on page 38). While the forgers were ‘successful’ in superimposing rather poor aerial imaging artwork of an enormous head wound on the top and right side of President Kennedy’s head in the Zapruder film -- a head wound which is grossly inconsistent with the localized posterior blowout observed at Parkland Hospital, and only roughly consistent with the autopsy photos taken after clandestine post mortem surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital -- they failed to properly execute their most basic task, which was to hide all evidence of posterior exit wounds in the back of JFK’s head. Persons in the government were clearly aware of this problem, for the last frame of the Zapruder film published in volume XVIII of the Warren Commission’s 26 supporting volumes was frame 334, the frame immediately prior to those which show one of the two exit defects in the back of the head. ‘Coincidences’ like this are not worthy of belief, and the fact that the Warren Commission stopped publishing at frame 334 strongly implies that someone on the staff—presumably Specter and Rankin—knew they had a problem in frames 335 and 337, and so simply decided not to publish those frames. For them, discretion was the better part of valor. . . .

INSIDE THE ARRB (2009), Vol. IV, pages 1317 to 1320 (in part):

If the Zapruder Film is an Alteration, Doesn’t This Mean That Other Films of the Assassination Must Have Been Altered Also? Also, Are There Inconsistencies Between Other Films and the Zapruder Film?

Absolutely—alteration of the Zapruder film does indeed imply that in a perfect conspiracy, that other films would have been altered also, and in the same way as the Zapruder film. If they were not altered and the Zapruder film was, this would have left undeniable evidence in the photographic record that “the” pre-eminent record of the assassination is indeed an alteration. In fact, what we do find in the evidence is one suggestion of identical alteration; and numerous indications of disagreement between various Dealey Plaza films and the Zapruder film.

The Turn from Houston Onto Elm May Have Been Removed from the Zapruder Film, the Nix Film, and the Muchmore Film

First, let us examine the suggested identical alteration of the Zapruder film, the Nix film, and the Muchmore film. Neither the Nix film, the Muchmore film,nor the Zapruder film show the Presidential limousine turning left from Houston Street onto Elm Street. Orville Nix told Mark Lane (on film) in 1966 that his film has initially been ‘lost’ by the processing plant and that when the FBI returned his film to him, some of the frames had been ‘damaged’ and were missing. The originals of both the Nix film and the Muchmore film (taken from the opposite side of thje plaza from which Zapruder was shooting his film, and from much farther away) are missing today. How convenient. The absence of first-frame overexposure in frame 133 of the Zapruder film suggests, but in my view does not prove, that the limousine’s turn from Houston onto Elm was removed when the film was altered and recreated, using an optical printer. The fact that the originals of the Nix and Muchmore films are missing is extremely suspicious; they may have been removed from circulation to prevent detection of their alteration -- specifically, removal of the limousine’s turn onto Elm from Houston and of the car stop during the assassination. If ever found, one of the first things that should be checked is to see if the limousine’s turn onto Elm Street in these two films has been excised--either crudely, with splices, or via reprinting those films in an optical printer.

Clint Hill’s Interactions with Jackie Kennedy on the Trunk of the Limousine Appear to be Inconsistent in the Nix Film and the Zapruder Film

There is also significant disagreement between the Nix film and the Zapruder film. In Harry Livingstone’s 2004 book about the Zapruder film, he discusses differences between the images of Clint Hall and Jackie Kennedy on the trunk of the limousine in the Nix film, versus what is shown in the Zapruder film. Livingstone correctly points out that in the Nix Film, Clint Hill appears to place his left arm around Jackie Kennedy’s right shoulder and push her back into her seat -- where as in the Zapruder film, he barely touches her with his right hand, and is not seen embracing her with his left arm at all. (See pages 250-251 of Livingstone for the pertinent Nix frames, and the MPI video of the Zapruder film for comparison. A projected version of the portion of the Nix film showing Clint Hill on the trunk of the limousine can been seen in the 1973 film “Executive Action,” and it can be seen in its entirety in the Groden DVD JFK Assassination Films: The Case for Conspiracy.)

Is the “Headsnap” Different in the Zapruder, Nix and Muchmore films?

The ‘headsnap” in the Nix film appears to be slightly slower, and less violent than in the Zapruder film; in the Muchmore film, there appears to be no ‘headsnap’ visible at all, but this may be inconclusive because of the camera angle at the time of the headshot(s) and because the line of sight to the President’s head is obstructed by Dealey Plaza bystanders immediately afterwards. (See episode 3 of “The Men Who Killed Kennedy” for footage oft he headshot(s) in both the Nix and the Muchmore films; both films can also been seen in their entirety in Robert Groden’s DVD JFK Assassination Films: The Case for Conspiracy.) The perceived differences between the headshot(s) in the Zapruder, Nix, and Muchmore films suggests that when debris exiting from the back of President Kennedy’s head was removed from the three films, that it was not done uniformly, resulting in three slightly different versions of the motion of the President’s head caused by the fatal shot(s). This has not been conclusively proven, but is worthy of further investigation. . . .

Concluding Reflections

There is much more, but the Addendum, “The Zapruder Film Goes to Hollywood,” pages 1352 to 1363, is of special interest, where highly qualified experts on film restoration viewed a digital version of the forensic copy of the Zapruder film obtained from the National Archives and found that the massive blow out at the back of the head had been painted over in black, which was a stunning confirmation of the observation of Roderick Ryan, reported in Noel Twyman, BLOODY TREASON (1997), that the bulging out of brains -- called the “blob”—and the blood spray visible in frames 314 and thereafter had also been painted in, where Ryan would receive the Academy Award in 2000 for his contributions to cinematography, where his area of specialization was special effects.

As of this date, seven Hollywood film experts -- eight, if we include Ryan -- have agreed that the fakery used to cover up the blow out to the back of the head by painting it over in black was very primitive and highly amateurish, a finding that they have based upon a 6k version of the forensic copy of the Zapruder film obtained from the National Archives. David Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., has verified these artifacts using the 4x5 slides created by MPI when it produced a digital version of the film -- which are archived at The 6th Floor Museum -- the inadequacies of which are explained in “Which Film is ‘the Zapruder Film’?,” by me and Scott Lederer, THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003), page 31. The creation of this visual deception was an elaborate undertaking, but it contained the elements of its own refutation.

“Chapter 14: The Zapruder Film Mystery” is an astonishing achievement. For Horne to have assimilated and synthesized such a complicated and technical assortment of arguments and evidence impresses me beyond words. This chapter alone is worth the price of the whole. No matter what reservations or differences I may have with any other parts of his work, what he has done on the film is extraordinary. He was my featured guest on “The Real Deal” on Wednesday, 13 January 2010, archived at http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com. It is also archived http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/01/do . . . b-part-iii.html as part of a three-part blog on Horne, INSIDE THE ARRB (2009). Those who want to pursue this historic development in JFK assassination research are welcome to pursue these leads.

James H. Fetzer, McKnight Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota, Duluth; Founder, Scholars for 9/11 Truth; Editor, Assassination Science; and Co-Editor, Assassination Research, maintains a blog on 9/11 and other “false flag” attacks.

François Carlier's mind set appears to be indistinguishable from that of Chip Berlet. My arguments about him apply to François.

Supporting links may be found at the original place of publication: http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6047.shtml

A deluxe version (with graphics) may be found here: http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/06/conspiracies-and-conspiracism.html

Conspiracies and conspiracism

By Jim Fetzer

Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jun 28, 2010, 00:28

MADISON, Wisc. -- A new study from Political Research Associates. entitled Toxic To Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating, by Chip Berlet now proclaims that conspiracy theories are “toxic to democracy” because they share some portion of moral responsibility for irresponsible acts, such as the shooting of the abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller, which some have associated with Rush Limbaugh and other pro-life zealots. By adopting a sweeping stance that does not discriminate between different cases on the basis of logic and evidence, Berlet discredits himself. Since conspiracies only require collaboration between two or more individuals in illegal acts, they are as American as apple pie.

Perhaps Berlet didn’t get the memo, but according to the government, the US was attacked on 9/11 by 19 Islamic fundamentalists who used box cutters to hijack four airplanes, outfox the most sophisticated air defense system in the world, and commit multiple atrocities under the control of a guy in a cave in Afghanistan. When I published a critique of the “official account,” which suggests the facts contradict it, I used the title, THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY, in the knowledge that either way a conspiracy was involved -- either one told by the government using THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, or something far more sinister, which involved key members of the Bush administration with a little help from their friends. (See, e.g., “9/11 and the Neo-Con Agenda” and the PowerPoint presentation, “Was 9/11 an ‘inside job’?,” which is archived at 911scholars.org.)

According to Berlet, belief in a conspiracy turns out to be the manifestation of a “belief system” that violates the principles of logic. Having taught logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning for 35 years, however, the violations of logic seem to be committed by the author. Berlet commits many fallacies in the course of his study, including some stunning, easily disprovable generalizations about reasoning:

“Conspiracism is neither a healthy expression of skepticism nor a valid form of criticism; rather it is a belief system that refuses to obey the rules of logic. These theories operate from a pre-existing premise of a conspiracy based upon careless collection of facts and flawed assumptions. What constitutes ‘proof’ for a conspiracist is often more accurately described as circumstance, rumor, and hearsay; and the allegations often use the tools of fear -- dualism, demonization, scapegoating, and aggressively apocalyptic stories -- which all too often are commandeered by demagogues.” (Toxic to Democracy)

No one would deny that a certain proportion of the American public may be vulnerable to “conspiracism” in this sense, which represents the modus operandi of Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing zealots, who find conspiracies to be a ubiquitous part of public life, from left-wing efforts to spend the country into oblivion to encouraging illegal immigrants to flow into the country unabated to questioning whether Barack Obama has the qualification for office of being “native born.” These are the kinds of “conspiracy theories” that are dime a dozen, which find gullible followers across the country by the bushel basket.

But so what? If conspiracy theories like these are supposed to be “toxic to democracy,” then democracy needs to be made of sterner stuff. Circumstance, rumor, and hearsay, after all, tend to be the starting point for more serious studies of specific events. The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a case in point. Who has not heard swirling rumors about Halliburton having cut corners, the BP practice of putting profits before safety, and the further catastrophes that await those who reside along the coast of the states that are most directly affected? Puzzlement over phenomena that do not readily fit into our background knowledge and preliminary understanding is the point of departure for scientific investigations that may better reveal the truth.

Suppose we were prohibited from speculation and rumor in relation to the events that have made the most difference to American history in recent time? The most important aspect of reasoning is comparisons between different theories to measure which best explains the data. Indeed, Jesse Ventura’s AMERICAN CONSPIRACES advances no less that 14 illustrations of the collaboration between two or more individuals to bring about illegal ends, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (where four co-conspirators were hanged from the same gallows at the very same time), to the big-money conspiracy to overthrow the government in 1934 on to Watergate, the Jonestown Massacre, the Iran-scam that gave the presidency to Ronald Reagan, drug-dealing by the CIA, and many more -- a list that can be readily expanded by the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X (see, for example, "JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t").

Berlet claims (what he calls) conspiracism “must be confronted as a flawed analytical model, rather than a legitimate mode of criticism of inequitable systems, structures, and institutions of power.” He claims it suffers from four debilitating features as “metaframes” of the model:

* dualism, according to which the world is -- presumably simplistically -- divided into the forces of good and the forces of evil;

* scapegoating, according to which an individual or group of people is wrongly stereotyped with negative characteristics;

* demonization, according to which an individual or a group is taken to be the personification of evil; and,

* apocalyptic aggression, which occurs when scapegoats are targeted as enemies of the “common good” and may be subjected to violence.

What is fascinating about these categories is how well they fit many of the government’s own campaigns to convince the American people to support an unpopular course of action. After 9/11, for example, the world was divided into the forces of good (the Americans) and those of evil (the Mulsims). Members of the Muslim community were said to be fanatical and violent, contrary to the principles of the Koran. Nineteen alleged hijackers and al Qaeda were scapegoated as responsible for those atrocities. And wars of aggression would be launched against Iraq and Afghanistan, which continue to this day.

Berlet tells us that what “conspiracy theorists lack is the desire or ability to follow the basic rules of logic and investigative research.” We can all remember being told Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, but eventually even George W. Bush acknowledged that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. We were told that Iraq was in cahoots with al Qaeda, but investigations by the Senate and the Pentagon showed that that was not the case. And when Ed Haas of “The Muckraker Report” questioned Tex Tomb of the FBI about why 9/11 received no mention on a “wanted poster” for Osama bid Laden, he was told the reason was the FBI had “no hard evidence” connecting Osama bin Laden to the events of 9/11. But if Saddam was not responsible and if Osama was not responsible, then who was responsible for 9/11?

Indeed, according to THE 9/11 COMMISSION, 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. The number from Iraq was zero. So why did we attack Iraq instead of Saudi Arabia? That looks like a stunning illustration of the failure to follow basic rules of logic or investigative research. As Ron Suskind, THE PRICE OF LOYALTY, reported, George W. Bush’s first secretary of the Treasury, Paul O’Neil, was astonished that war with Iraq was discussed at the first meeting of the cabinet, nearly nine months before the events of 9/11. Which means 9/11 was used as a fabricated rationale to support a predetermined conclusion, which appears to have been a policy that was adopted by Bush and Cheney before their formal inauguration.

While Berlet insists that “conspiracism” fails to follow the basic rules of logic and investigative journalism, he should have explained that rumor and conjecture represent the second stage of scientific modes of reasoning, where it is crucial to elaborate all possible alternative explanations to insure that the true hypothesis is not excluded from scratch. Thus, the first stages of puzzlement and of speculation are followed by those of adaptation (of hypothesis to evidence, using likelihood measures of evidential support) and of explanation (when the evidence has “settled down” and the best supported hypothesis is entitled to acceptance in the tentative and fallible fashion distinctive of science (see “Thinking about ‘Conspiracy Theories: 9/11 and JFK”).

The essence of Berlet’s book, however, is that he believes conspiracy theories come out of psychological needs of prejudiced people, which makes them INTERNAL FANTASIES. He is thereby throwing the crime baby out with the conspiracy bath water. Conspiracies really do happen in the EXTERNAL WORLD. They are not merely internal figments of the imagination. It is true that some people embrace conspiracy theories and reveal themselves by the inability to improve or adjust their views in light of new evidence or new hypotheses. If they are scapegoating, then the internal origin of their conspiracy need is manifest. However, conspiracy crimes are commonplace and external to us. When they are the subjects of objective investigations, those who study them are governed by logic and evidence, which are basic to rationality.

Ultimately, Berlet has defined a belief system called “conspiracism” that has only tenuous connections with conspiracies. While some gullible persons may satisfy its constraints, there are vastly more conspiracies than there are examples of conspiracism. Ask what Shakespeare would have had to write about if not for plots against the kings and queens of England. How many victims of conspiracies have died in the 20th century alone? In his brilliant study, “The Silence of the Historians,” for example, David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., lists the names of more than two dozen prominent political figures -- from Franz Ferdinand and Czar Nicholas II to Salvadore Allende and Fidel Castro -- who were targeted for assassination by multiple conspirators on a single page of MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (page 402).

The ultimate failure of Berlet’s study is that it succumbs to the kind of simplistic thinking that he condemns. The world is divided into forces of good (the rational thinkers) and evil (the conspiracy theorists). The evil conspiracy theorists are stereotyped as trading in circumstance, rumor, and hearsay, while the rational thinkers follow the rules of logic and investigative journalism. Their careless collections of facts and flawed assumptions are often commandeered by demagogues. And of course they can be used to incite unjustified violence against innocent parties. But this presumes knowledge of which claims are true and which assumptions are flawed. Simplistic thinking of Berlet’s kind does not advance understanding. As Michael Moore said, when asked if he was into conspiracy theories, ”Only those that are true.” Each case must be evaluated on its merits using logic and evidence.

Thanks to Mike Sparks for inviting my attention to Berlet’s study and more.

James H. Fetzer is the editor of assassinationscience.com and co-editor of assassinationresearch.com. He has a blog at jamesfetzer.blogspot.com. His academic web site is found at www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer

There is a major problem with conspiracy theorists, which is very well illustrated by this little story :

A psychiatrist was consulted by a patient with a very peculiar delusion. He was convinced that he was dead, and nothing could be done to dissuade him of this. The psychiatrist tried to reason with him. "Tell me", he said, "do dead men bleed ? " "No, of course not ! " cried the patient. "That is a stupid question ! " The psychiatrist pricked the man’s finger with a needle, and a drop of blood appeared. "And what do you conclude from that ? " asked the psychiatrist. The patient paused for a few seconds to examine the wound. "Obviously I was wrong", he murmured quietly. "Dead men do bleed…"

Just like the patient in this story, conspiracy theorists are so enclosed in their world of make-believe, that there is absolutely nothing a reasonable person can say to help them see things differently.

That's very sad.

But even sadder is the fact that conspiracy theorists would stop at nothing to claim their beliefs. They dare DENY anything. They deny reality, and that doesn't bother them.

Jack White denies that Americans went to the moon in 1969.

Jim Fetzer denies that an American Airlines plane crashed into the Pentagon in 2001.

And yesterday, Jim DiEugenio tried to deny that Lee Harvey Oswald ever owned a rifle !!!

It's so easy : denying the obvious facts will allow you to display any belief. Indeed if you deny reality, then you have an open field, and you are free to tell whatever story pleases your own beliefs.

That's bad !

And my experience in this forum showed me that conspiracy theorists NEVER answer the simplest questions.

When I asked if anybody had read the critical-thinking books I listed, NOBODY answered, because NOBODY had read them, but they were ashamed to admit it.

Nonetheless, that is a very serious matter. How can they hope to sort things out if they do not have the tools for that ?

I can think of an analogy.

Conspiracy theorists have bricks. Some one them have lots and lots of bricks. But they don't have the mortar to build a wall, so they end up standing in front of a huge pile of bricks, but they are still outside in the cold.

A reasonable person has as many bricks, but like a mason or bricklayer, he has the mortar, so he can build a wall, so he'll be able to build a house and spend the winter in the warmth of his home.

That's a good image.

Here, bricks are books, and mortar is critical thinking.

Without critical-thinking skills, conspiracy theorists are unable to sort things out, they do not know what to do with the evidence. They fly to hundreds of directions. It's a mess.

Some of them say the body was altered, when others say no, some of them say the Zapruder film was altered, when others say no, some of them say the Cubans did it, when others say no, some of them say Johnson did it, when others say no, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Anybody can say anything. Everybody is right.

Boy, John Kennedy must have been assassinated a hundred times !! It must have been very painful to him !

But as I said more than ten years ago, conspiracy theorists are in the business of ASKING questions, not ANSWERING them. I can understand : it is way easier….

(They are also in the business of ACCUSING people. When Jim Fetzer accuses some members the New York Fire Department of having something to do with 09/11, or when others accuse President Johnson, I want to vomit.)

For instance, these are very embarrassing questions for them (among many others) :

Why is it that Robert Groden, a very well-known conspiracy theorist doesn't believe that the Zapruder film was altered ? Is he dumb ? Does he work for the CIA ? Has he been paid to tell a false story ? Or is the Zapruder film authentic after all ? In that case, is Jim Fetzer wrong ? But if he is wrong, how come he has published anthologies that he claims "prove beyond any doubt" that the Zapruder film was altered ? Is Fetzer stupid ? Is Mantik wrong too ? Then is he wrong in his claims about the medical evidence ? How come Fetzer and his friends have managed to "prove" something that never existed in the first place (an alteration of the film) ? Can it be that some people can write conspiracy books that lead nowhere ?

Who is right ?

And why can't James DiEugenio give us a clear-cut answer as to whether the Zapruder film was altered ? Hasn't he read Fetzer's books ? Or has he read them but was unable to understand the evidence shown before his eyes ? Or he is paid by the CIA ?

Well, as long as conspiracy theorists will believe in as many theories as there are members of that community, refusing to debate reasonable people, afraid of being shown they had been wrong all along, they'll continue to spread their lies.

That's very sad !

/F.C./

Mister Fetzer,

Good evening.

I see you have read my post and copied/pasted an article of yours.

That's fine by me.

But why didn't you try to ANSWER my questions instead ?

Is it because, as the title of this thread says, they are "embarrassing" to conspiracy theorists ?

Once again, I am asking you :

Why is it that Robert Groden, a very well-known conspiracy theorist doesn't believe that the Zapruder film was altered ? Is he dumb ? Does he work for the CIA ? Has he been paid to tell a false story ? Or is the Zapruder film authentic after all ? In that case, is Jim Fetzer wrong ? But if he is wrong, how come he has published anthologies that he claims "prove beyond any doubt" that the Zapruder film was altered ? Is Fetzer stupid ? Is Mantik wrong too ? Then is he wrong in his claims about the medical evidence ? How come Fetzer and his friends have managed to "prove" something that never existed in the first place (an alteration of the film) ? Can it be that some people can write conspiracy books that lead nowhere ?

Who is right ?

Surely you will acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with my asking those interesting questions.

I assure you I would love to know your answers.

/F.C./

Edited August 19, 2010 by James H. Fetzer

[David Von Pein]

Anybody who thinks J. E. Hoover, of ALL people, would have wanted to frame an INNOCENT Lee H. Oswald for JFK's death is not thinking clearly at all.

Hoover would have been one of the last people on the globe who would have wanted to frame Oswald. If anything, J. Edgar would have been bending over backwards to try and CLEAR Oswald of the charges (if he could). And it's obvious as to why this is so.

[Guest James H. Fetzer]

No. Read the post to which I posted as a response. Can't you even track the contents of a single thread? If

you check it, François Carlier created this thread to attack conspiracy research and singled out work on the

fabrication of the film as a special target. I am responding (appropriately) to the issues that he has raised.

To the mods: Is not the above long post by Fetzer about Z film alteration on the wrong thread?

[David Von Pein]

Hey, it's Italian ammo is the same as WCC, Gary Mack.

Just because somebody wrote the word "Italian" on that ammo box (or was it just a white card of some kind? I can't recall), that doesn't mean that the bullets necessarily had to be MADE IN ITALY. It merely could indicate that the ammo was made for an ITALIAN gun.

Take for example the verbiage we find in the Klein's rifle ads -- "6.5mm Italian Military Ammo".

Do you think that has to mean that Klein's got all of its bullets directly from Italy, Jim? And none of the bullets Klein's sold through those ads were made in the USA?

I doubt it.

http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc151/David_Von_Pein/MISCELLANEOUS%20JFK-RELATED%20PHOTOS/KleinsAdFromNovember1963.gif

Edited August 18, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Yes, somebody wrote the word "Italian" on something. A white card, or cardboard, or the side of a box, or something, because I saw it. It was posted at this forum or another forum recently. Can you post that photo? Because that's what I'm talking about...not anything that was imprinted in the Italian language.