DiEugenio, Cranor, and the mole (my mole) - 3/31/20

[Richard Booth]

1 hour ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I don’t find my disagreements with Jim DiEugenio absurd or petty.  In the pursuit of historical truth it is imperative that we are clear on the facts regarding the Bay of Pigs, the overthrow of Diem, the partition of Laos in ‘62, the prima facie case for JFKA conspiracy, and Trump/Russian collusion in the 2016 election.

DiEugenio avoids these weighty, substantive historical discussions with me because I’ve proven him wrong on all of them.

 

 

I believe it's normal for people to have differing opinions and I don't see any particular need to argue with others or "prove" people to be wrong. 

It's just not that important to me, arguing.  

 

[Cliff Varnell]

2 hours ago, Richard Booth said:

I believe it's normal for people to have differing opinions and I don't see any particular need to argue with others or "prove" people to be wrong. 

It's just not that important to me, arguing.  

 

This *is* a Forum given to debate, isn’t it?

What’s wrong with debate?  It’s a great way to learn things, I find.

[Eddy Bainbridge]

18 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

 

I certainly think you are much more qualified to talk about the biology than me. I watched this video a week or so ago which popped up on youtube, the angles made a lot of sense to me on the throat and fatal shot, trajectories from the south knoll are explained scientifically, in a way that made my Zapruder assumptions seem absurd. 
There were clearly shooters at the North Knoll (grassy), I just wonder if the president was shot more times than we realise. I don’t see how you miss from the picket fence at that range with a stationary or almost stationary limo. It makes the crime so much worse somehow, even though the result is the same. 

 

This video is extremely convincing concerning the Direction of two shots from the South Knoll and unconvincing about everything else. I am now logging this as a fact demonstrated to my satisfaction after years of ignoring South Knoll theories. As I understand the evidence the gap for the gunman to aim for the headshot through was pretty small and opens up with the limos travel down Elm Street. I would suggest the head shot from this location is likely a bit farther down Elm. 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 8/26/2020 at 2:38 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Far-fetched theories that are obviously wrong and strongly promoted, such as Lifton's body-alteration nonsense or Armstrong's double-doppelganger nonsense, have the potential to be used for this purpose, as indeed Lifton's was in the 1980s.

 

Unlike Jeremy Bojczuk -- who simply ignores "inconvenient" inconsistencies -- most researchers believe that contradictory evidence should be explained. That is what the legitimate H&L and body alteration theories attempt to do. And unless more likely theories are produced, people will (and should) continue considering those theories as real possibilities.

Jeremy Bojczuk is to complex theories as DVP is to JFKA conspiracy theories. IMO.

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

This video is extremely convincing concerning the Direction of two shots from the South Knoll and unconvincing about everything else. I am now logging this as a fact demonstrated to my satisfaction after years of ignoring South Knoll theories. As I understand the evidence the gap for the gunman to aim for the headshot through was pretty small and opens up with the limos travel down Elm Street. I would suggest the head shot from this location is likely a bit farther down Elm. 

What shocked me is just how much the Zapruder film creates an illusion in the public minds. The perspective cements a logic of the north knoll and it was only on this forum when I started reading south knoll theories I began to think about it. Another thing at a glance is we assume it makes a long difficult shot but, 100 yards is nothing with a rifle, there are guys shooting deer with bows from that range with superb accuracy. I watched it he Zapruder film missing frames/FF and inconsistencies being explained and one thing connected to this, Costello or Costella or whatevery his name is explains that the Connelly’s are completely ducked down when the limo allegedly stops for the volley of fire that some describe. Yes, you’d duck as soon as shots are fired, yes you’d pull your wounded husband down with you (thats logical) but, at the same time Jackie didn’t do that, I happen to think all apart from ex military might freeze or exhibit shock in the moment and not hit the deck immediately. It makes me wonder if Nellie Connelly also knew what was to happen that day, I think John Connelly did. If so, then that gap illustrated in the video is probably accessible for longer for a south knoll shooter. 

Does anyone know if shots aimed at a convex windshield actually do deviate down? If so, then then that probably was an early kill shot that didn’t work.

Like you, I felt the science was great but, the video lost its way a bit toward the end. That video really needs another title and preview image, it would get a lot of traffic if so. 

[Ray Mitcham]

8 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

It makes me wonder if Nellie Connelly also knew what was to happen that day, I think John Connelly did. If so, then that gap illustrated in the video is probably accessible for longer for a south knoll shooter. 

Chris, remember what Connally said to his wife"They're going to kill us all." (My bold)

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Chris Barnard writes:

Quote

Its very frustratingly plausible that the state or whoever was indeed responsible for the JFK assassination and those looking to maintain the W/C narrative would proliferate disinformation and easily provable false scenarios in order to muddy the waters.

That's true, but it's worth pointing out that most of the far-fetched tin-foil-hat theories will be put forward by people who genuinely believe that stuff, rather than by bad guys trying to muddy the waters.

Sandy Larsen writes:

Quote

many researchers believe that contradictory evidence should be explained. That is what the legitimate H&L and body alteration theories attempt to do.

I'm very much in favour of providing plausible explanations for inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence. The problem with far-fetched tin-foil-hat theories like the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense and Lifton's body-alteration nonsense is that the explanations they provide are implausible. Not only that, but the theories themselves are incoherent.

If there are reasonable, everyday explanations for inconsistencies in the evidence, it's irrational to use far-fetched  explanations such as long-term doppelganger schemes or presidential body-snatching squads.

A good way to tell whether an explanation is likely to be correct is to look at its basic premise. If the premise is internally coherent and is compatible with how the world normally works, the explanation is worth exploring. If not, it's very unlikely to be correct.

Example one: Lifton's body-alteration explanation. This proposes that the wounds in JFK's back and head were surgically altered to implicate Oswald as the lone gunman, firing from the sixth floor of the book depository. But the wounds did not do what the theory says they did. The locations of the wounds, as given by the pathologists who examined the body, were too low to have been caused by shots fired from the sixth floor, by Oswald or anyone else. Lifton's theory is internally incoherent. Unless his body-alteration scenario was very incompetently implemented, it cannot have happened.

Example two: Armstrong's double-doppelganger explanation. This proposes that a long-term scheme was set up involving two virtually identical Oswalds and two virtually identical Marguerites so that one of the Oswalds, by definition a native speaker of Russian, would be able to understand what was being said around him in Russian when he defected a decade or so after the scheme was set up. But you don't need to be a native speaker of Russian in order to understand Russian. A non-doppelganger American with a good knowledge of Russian would have been perfectly adequate for the task. The proposed scheme was extravagantly unnecessary. Armstrong's theory is internally incoherent. Unless the authorities set up a long-term doppelganger scheme for no purpose, it too cannot have happened.

In each case, there will be inconsistencies in the evidence, mostly witnesses who say one thing versus other witnesses who say a contradictory thing. Whichever set of witnesses you decide to discard, a straightforward explanation is available: people often make mistakes when recalling things, especially traumatic events such as presidential assassinations and events that are supposed to have happened decades earlier, such as the non-existent Oswald doppelganger attending Stripling school, the prime 'Harvey and Lee' talking point which was comprehensively debunked by Mark Stevens here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/

The body-alteration nonsense and the double-doppelganger nonsense each rely on placing too much reliance on apparent inconsistencies in the evidence and too little reliance on obvious everyday explanations. In the case of the double-doppelganger nonsense, we know the likely culprit; the nonsense was partly invented by Jack White, who also believed that the moon landings were faked:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/5911-jack-whites-aulis-apollo-hoax-investigation-a-rebuttal/

Someone who thinks that the moon landings were faked would be a perfect match for the media's propaganda definition of 'conspiracy theorist'. Blatant nonsense like body-alteration and doppelgangers encourages the media to attach that label to critics of the lone-nut theory. That's why it needs to be opposed, at least when the nonsense is heavily promoted.

On that note, does Sandy know why Jim Hargrove is taking a break from spamming threads with 'Harvey and Lee' talking points? Has he finally accepted that 'Harvey and Lee' is a lost cause? There is one possible explanation here:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2208p50-dear-sandy#34511

Chris Barnard also writes:

Quote

We all know there are people with IQ’s less than 90 that are impressionable that pick this stuff up as gospel

Indeed we do, Chris. Indeed we do.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Chris, remember what Connally said to his wife"They're going to kill us all." (My bold)

I remembered that, just wasn’t sure how much you’d share with the wife. It seems like they attempt to debunk the seating swap between Yarborough and Connelly, I can totally see why he fancied LBJ’s limo instead. We must assume he had foreknowledge, Connelly is too integral. 

[Mark Stevens]

11 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

 I watched it he Zapruder film missing frames/FF and inconsistencies being explained and one thing connected to this, Costello or Costella or whatevery his name is explains that the Connelly’s are completely ducked down when the limo allegedly stops for the volley of fire that some describe. Yes, you’d duck as soon as shots are fired, yes you’d pull your wounded husband down with you (thats logical) but, at the same time Jackie didn’t do that, I happen to think all apart from ex military might freeze or exhibit shock in the moment and not hit the deck immediately. It makes me wonder if Nellie Connelly also knew what was to happen that day, I think John Connelly did. If so, then that gap illustrated in the video is probably accessible for longer for a south knoll shooter. 

I think this idea is pretty absurd and I'd have to ask outside of television, what experience do you have with shootings of any kind as well as with people who have been involved in shootings, even as witnesses? There is no one thing that is going to happen, and while a person's past experiences and training will directly impact their fight or flight response and what form that response takes, to posit that anyone other than former military would freeze is just flat out wrong.

3 hours ago, Ray Mitcham said:

Chris, remember what Connally said to his wife"They're going to kill us all." (My bold)

Doctors at Parkland exclaimed the same thing. "They've shot the President." 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

That's true, but it's worth pointing out that most of the far-fetched tin-foil-hat theories will be put forward by people who genuinely believe that stuff, rather than by bad guys trying to muddy the waters.

You are right, I think they massively outnumber the actual villains, the problem is we’d never know which are the villains for sure. Alex Jones David Icke haven’t done us any favours on a range of topics. 

But, I also think if I were a government or corporation, trying to deceive the public (which they shouldn’t be doing in a well functioning democracy), I would definitely put some red herrings out there to muddy those waters, and give them a good push if it suited my agenda. We should be wary, as the ‘conspiracy theory’ tag has now made many intelligent people refrain from questioning events going on in the world. 
You can just about discuss the JFK one at the right dinner party, but, lots of the questionable events since would instantly make you look crackpot in front of people who never researched anything in their lives. If Wiki doesn’t support your opinion, in todays world it seldom matters how right you are. 
 

Have you ever gone down a ‘conspiracy theory’ route and realised you got the wrong end of the stick? Or have you refrained from commenting on something because it’s too much of a topic that could ostracise you from society/friends/family etc? 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Mark Stevens said:

I think this idea is pretty absurd and I'd have to ask outside of television, what experience do you have with shootings of any kind as well as with people who have been involved in shootings, even as witnesses? There is no one thing that is going to happen, and while a person's past experiences and training will directly impact their fight or flight response and what form that response takes, to posit that anyone other than former military would freeze is just flat out wrong.

Doctors at Parkland exclaimed the same thing. "They've shot the President." 

I think that’s fair comment in parts, I have only fired guns at targets and animals, I have not been fired at myself. The closest I have come to it is in San Salvador, having a gun battle of sorts going on outside of our hotel in the street. I was very grateful for walls and my bed was up against the door. I don’t have combat experience but, I do have a serving member of the British special forces as a fishing buddy for a few years and discussions about such topics to come up. He is absolutely trained not to freeze in very perilous situations, he is a door kicker. 
 

We certainly do see people in the limo itself have differing reactions, don’t we? 

[Bill Fite]

4 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

I do have a serving member of the British special forces as a fishing buddy for a few years and discussions about such topics to come up. He is absolutely trained not to freeze in very perilous situations, he is a door kicker. 

I had some emergency training years ago -- airplane crashes / flight attendant training.

We were told that until the crash landing one would not know what people would do in such a stressful situation:

* positive panic - move to help others and save as many as possible

* freeze - self explanatory

* negative panic - panic and get in the way, possibly negatively panicking others.

I have no idea if this is valid or not.... but that is what they told us.

[Mark Stevens]

5 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

I think that’s fair comment in parts, I have only fired guns at targets and animals, I have not been fired at myself. The closest I have come to it is in San Salvador, having a gun battle of sorts going on outside of our hotel in the street. I was very grateful for walls and my bed was up against the door. I don’t have combat experience but, I do have a serving member of the British special forces as a fishing buddy for a few years and discussions about such topics to come up. He is absolutely trained not to freeze in very perilous situations, he is a door kicker. 
 

We certainly do see people in the limo itself have differing reactions, don’t we? 

I don't believe training is the real indicator. Many people have training and still freeze, cower, or otherwise act contrary to how they were trained.

I do agree that the people in the limo have different reactions. I guess the question is...so what? What does their differing actions mean, or prove? For me, it just proves what we all know about human nature and it proves my favorite theorem, Plato's Allegory of The Cave. I believe a great deal of life experience can be explained by the allegory. In this instance, each person in the car had a different perspective, different perception, and therefore a different reality to which they were reacting. For the Connally's it was gunfire and shots in their direction, for Jackie it was being covered in her husbands blood and brains. Her reality was far different than Nellie's and I would expect her reaction to be equally different.

To further my point about training, is the Secret Service driver trained to slow down and even possibly brake in the situation Greer was in? Or is he trained to evade and escape? It would appear as though he acted contrary to his training.

To further my point about reactions, just look at any video of disasters. Whether caused by man or natural. Bombings are a great (poor choice of words) choice to look at. In these videos there are various reactions. Shock, crying, anger...any number of emotions and reactions are on display. Everyone reacts differently based on not only their perspective and their individual reality, but factors that make up their overall emotional and mental state as well. 

I believe assigning any type of rationale to how the people in the car reacted is worthless and will not lead anyone to anything fruitful with possible exception given to the SS men and Connally himself. If any of these people had foreknowledge, their reactions would surely be telling. I can't see Connally knowing anything though with him being in the same car, much less directly in front of JFK. He had tremendous confidence in the shooters if this is true. I'd say the same is likely true for the SS men, I seriously doubt they had any legitimate foreknowledge and anything they did was genuine reaction.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, Mark Stevens said:

I don't believe training is the real indicator. Many people have training and still freeze, cower, or otherwise act contrary to how they were trained.

I do agree that the people in the limo have different reactions. I guess the question is...so what? What does their differing actions mean, or prove? For me, it just proves what we all know about human nature and it proves my favorite theorem, Plato's Allegory of The Cave. I believe a great deal of life experience can be explained by the allegory. In this instance, each person in the car had a different perspective, different perception, and therefore a different reality to which they were reacting. For the Connally's it was gunfire and shots in their direction, for Jackie it was being covered in her husbands blood and brains. Her reality was far different than Nellie's and I would expect her reaction to be equally different.

To further my point about training, is the Secret Service driver trained to slow down and even possibly brake in the situation Greer was in? Or is he trained to evade and escape? It would appear as though he acted contrary to his training.

To further my point about reactions, just look at any video of disasters. Whether caused by man or natural. Bombings are a great (poor choice of words) choice to look at. In these videos there are various reactions. Shock, crying, anger...any number of emotions and reactions are on display. Everyone reacts differently based on not only their perspective and their individual reality, but factors that make up their overall emotional and mental state as well. 

I believe assigning any type of rationale to how the people in the car reacted is worthless and will not lead anyone to anything fruitful with possible exception given to the SS men and Connally himself. If any of these people had foreknowledge, their reactions would surely be telling. I can't see Connally knowing anything though with him being in the same car, much less directly in front of JFK. He had tremendous confidence in the shooters if this is true. I'd say the same is likely true for the SS men, I seriously doubt they had any legitimate foreknowledge and anything they did was genuine reaction.

There isn’t much I can agree with here, aside from the fact we just don’t know, because anything could be argued at least two ways. So you can say you think the Connellys didn’t have foreknowledge and reacted instinctively, and I can say I think they did know or at least John, based on what I have seen. Like much of the theory around the assassination, its speculative. 
What I do know is, we’re not taking about long shots, we’re talking about shots that very competent marksman wouldn’t likely miss. Another aspect is if there was foreknowledge we don’t know exactly what the foreknowledge was. 
Are you accepting that Lyndon B Johnson may have had foreknowledge that something was happening that day? 

[Mark Stevens]

1 hour ago, Chris Barnard said:

There isn’t much I can agree with here, aside from the fact we just don’t know, because anything could be argued at least two ways. So you can say you think the Connellys didn’t have foreknowledge and reacted instinctively, and I can say I think they did know or at least John, based on what I have seen. Like much of the theory around the assassination, its speculative. 
What I do know is, we’re not taking about long shots, we’re talking about shots that very competent marksman wouldn’t likely miss. Another aspect is if there was foreknowledge we don’t know exactly what the foreknowledge was. 
Are you accepting that Lyndon B Johnson may have had foreknowledge that something was happening that day? 

Really curious as to what you "can't agree with."

Is it that people's reality is shaped by their perception, or that Connally and the SS had no foreknowledge? Is it that even well trained people cower in fear, or otherwise act in contrary to their training?

As far as competent marksman go, I just last week read about a very competent marksman who shot his daughter in the head, on stage, in front of around 200 people because he wasn't so competent that time. I don't care how competent a person is, only those with a true death wish or balls of steel would put themselves in the line of fire. Based on Connally's future statements, I doubt he had any foreknowledge, and if he did who did it come from?

As far as LBJ, no I do not accept that. I do not believe LBJ had any foreknowledge of or participation in the assassination.

I'm also curious to "what you have seen." Is this pertaining to Zapruder and Connally's reactions in the car, or something else outside of that which gives you the belief that he had foreknowledge? If it's his reaction in the car, from what I see he is hit and doesn't even immediately get down. He heard shots and looked around vs. ducking. None of that meshes with foreknowledge, unless he was hoping to die as well in the crossfire.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Mark Stevens
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