Question to Lone Nutters

[Norman T. Field]

Or else they are being paid to do so?

[W. Tracy Parnell]

11 minutes ago, Norman T. Field said:

Or else they are being paid to do so?

Well, I think that may be what he was implying and I have heard such accusations since the nineties. But I can assure you that I have never received a nickel from any individual or government agency for anything that I have written or posted on a forum related to the JFK assassination. In fact, I have even considered publishing my book online so I can stay "pure" so to speak even though the small amount I would be likely to make (conspiracy books are the bigger sellers) would never make up for the expenses incurred. But that is yet to be determined.

[Cory Santos]

On 4/24/2021 at 11:01 AM, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Joe,

Certainly, if you consider that there are likely millions of pieces of evidence in this case and researchers have spent 50 plus years studying it, you are correct that some will never be satisfied. But I think all of the LN advocates combined have done a reasonable job of countering conspiracy claims. After all, they have convinced those that matter-academia, the media etc.

A couple of things.  First, let both sides debate.   Bring their best arguments and then let them be reviewed.  We do not have this here unfortunately because on one side some relevant evidence is still withheld until 2067.  On the other side, some books are written based on gossip, fake documents and information that is better suited for the gutter.  So Tracy being here to debate-I thought that was the purpose of this forum- is a good thing when all parties do it respectfully and non-Lance like. 

Second, Tracy I am not sure how you suggest academia supports the WC findings.  I was an undergraduate in the 1990s studying history with a minor in criminal justice and then post under-graduate studies and then graduate school. I can assure you that most of my Ph.D professors, whom I discussed regularly this subject, believed at the minimum more then what the wc said happened with several outright calling it a conspiracy.  

Then, during law school, I wrote a paper on Jim Garrison under the supervision of a very distinguished law professor.   In my opinion, unless you can show a Gallop study showing otherwise, academia does not universally support the wc but rather the findings of the house select committee.  
 

As for the media, again go back and compare the 1960’s made-for-government broadcasts and yes, the media backed the wc then.  However post-Watergate you are wrong.   Many notable programs and stations have provided critical and unsupportive views of the wc.  Fox News and Tucker Carlson have pushed for the release of the JFK records and given RFK, Jr.  ample time to discuss his views on his uncle and father.  So, again what consensus are you referring to in the media-which as an entertainment lawyer I can assure you the term “media” today is a huge umbrella incorporating independent media on YouTube, etc.  

Lastly, what really matters is what the people think.  On this we have studies.   The vote clearly favors conspiracy over the sloppy WC work. 
 

I believe you have previously stated to the effect that no one will care in the future.  I beg to differ.  Truth matters in this country.  People care about the truth which has come out about events in the 1800’s. They will care about the 1960’s which turned our country down a destructive path following the example of Rome and other great governments in history.  People will care when they read how their grandparents or great grandparents went to Vietnam and died and they find out the real reasons.  Young Cubans will care when they read how their brave great grandparents fought to restore freedom to their country and discover what really happened in the White House regarding the BOP.  The Gulf of Tonkin, U.S.S. Liberty ...  I could go on but it is unnecessary.  I respectfully dissent from your statements but support your being here and giving your opinions.  Whether that also makes me a paid government disinformation person like yourself-lol,  I cannot believe how late my check is lol- I guess I leave that to the non-government paid disinformation agents here.  ROTFL. 

Edited April 25, 2021 by Cory Santos

[James DiEugenio]

CS: A couple of things.  First, let both sides debate.   Bring their best arguments and then let them be reviewed. 

This has not happened since at least 1993.  Harold Evans and Bob Loomis arranged a large ad campaign and then a huge publicity tour for Jerry Posner.  This included a cover story for US News and World Report and a national spot on ABC. The Power Elite was going to use Posner to stamp out the embers from Oliver Stone's JFK.  Since then, virtually every program on  network and cable TV has promoted the WC and Single Bullet Fantasy. 

That was not the case in 1991 and 1992. Stone's film made it possible for people like Jim Marrs and Phil Melanson to get on national TV. And they were quite effective. The Establishment learned its lesson from this.  The only exception I can think of to this rule would be Nigel Turner, and IMO, Turner was pretty much  useless since the vast majority of people and ideas he promoted were, to put it kindly, deleterious to the cause of truth e.g. Baker, Wilson, McClellan, Murchison, Liggett etc. 

But the seed of this idea of no open debate goes all the way back to 1967.  In the early drafts of the CBS four night special, the mid level guys wanted to have a debate between both sides. One guy even wanted to put the WR on trial. As Roger Feinman showed with pilfered documents from CBS, that is not what happened in the end. The top level of management--Salant, Paley, Stanton--rejected the idea of fair and open debate  And the mid level guys got the message.  One of the CBS lawyers who advised not to do it, and instead attack the critics, Bayless Manning, was later appointed by David Rockefeller as first president of the CFR.

Just a coincidence I guess.

Edited April 25, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Greg Doudna]

I agree with much of what Tracy Parnell says. I do not think it is too relevant what the public thinks. That is not who I think is the relevant audience to address. Half of the public believes in creationism. Half of the public believes in astrology. Half of Trump supporters think there is a question concerning whether Obama was U.S. born. Winning over public opinion is irrelevant. The ones that matter are historians, now and in the future. Peer-reviewed journal articles, or published books which are game-changers for those knowledgeable of the issues. A senior scholar with a lot of wisdom from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, that I knew long ago advised me: don't write scholarly articles for the purpose of winning over mediocre scholars or the public. Instead, you write addressing the best minds in the field fifty years from now--that is who matters. He also said, in politics he was egalitarian believing in equality of persons, but in scholarly ideas he was an elitist, not all arguments are equal.

For a little while I have been working on an argument making a case for exculpation of Oswald in the case of the Tippit killing. It will contain new argument and data not previously raised. Of all charges against Oswald, it is probably fair to say the Tippit killing is perceived as the most difficult case for exculpation of all. I intend to separate it from issues of any other charge against Oswald, such as the JFK assassination, focusing solely on the Tippit killing. My argument will involve no Oswald doubles, no claims of prior plot to frame Oswald, nothing outside of usual and customary law enforcement responses. It will be solely in the genre of "Innocence Project" case arguments for overturning wrongful criminal convictions. Oswald did not live to be charged or convicted of the Tippit killing, but apart from that that is the parallel I will be developing. When I do have it ready to publish, I will gladly offer it to the best critics to my knowledge to shoot it down if possible, such as Myers, or Tracy Parnell or Steve Roe, each of whom I respect, if one or more of those are willing to have a go at it. Strange to say, I do not regard that kind of critical assessment, argued on the basis of evidence, as a negative thing but to be welcomed and valued and appreciated. My target audience and objective will not be to win over the public, or readers of this forum. I will judge success or failure of my Tippit argument based on whether it wins over those in America experienced in issues of wrongful criminal convictions, and historians. But I am not actually talking about legal exculpation (which is not always the same as actual exculpation), but exculpation to historians' standards, in terms of whether the accused actually did it. If it succeeds it succeeds, if it fails it fails. The arbiter that matters to me, in terms of human judgment, being not the public, not people here, but mainstream historians. Tracy Parnell is right: that is whose judgment matters.

Tracy Parnell is right on another thing: there is no unified theory on who killed JFK, not after years of investigation and research decades after the fact. There is strong though not quite unanimous agreement that Oswald was innocent of the JFK assassination, but explanations of the specifics of that go every which way. If Oswald was involved with the sniper's nest on the TSBD sixth floor, how could he be innocent of involvement in the assassination itself? But if he was not involved in the sixth floor sniper's nest, then who was and how did they get into and make their exit from the building without being noticed? Yes, this and that explanation has been conjectured to these questions, but there is no unified theory even conjecturally even on those basic questions. There is unity I would say on this: that the shots fired that day are not explicable in terms of Oswald alone firing, with reasons for that coalescing around a cluster of basic facts and arguments upon which there is some loose agreement. To that extent there is a something approaching a minimal "unified theory" if it can be called that, even if it has not come together formally. But that is about as far as any unity of the best researchers' minds goes at this point, it seems.

If the objective is to change popular and political reality in America by reopening the JFK assassination case, where are the serious journal article submissions to peer-reviewed standards in historians' and forensic journals? Where are the best researchers combining to agree on published, written basic bullet-point statements of agreement as to findings ("unified theory specifics")? 

I think the issue of the JFK assassination will be a matter for the nation's and the world's historians ultimately to solve or not solve, in terms of ultimate arbiters. Through the peer-reviewed journal process, historians' conference presentations, and historians of reputation and standing becoming persuaded on the basis of evidence formally presented and published. 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Greg Doudna

[W. Tracy Parnell]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

I agree with much of what Tracy Parnell says.

Greg,

Your comments are most welcome and I find that is regularly the case. You make several excellent points and do it much better than I could have. The approach you outline is the correct one I believe. Best of luck with your article on Tippit.

[W. Tracy Parnell]

5 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

I respectfully dissent from your statements but support your being here and giving your opinions.

Thank you Cory and your comments are very welcome.

[James DiEugenio]

There have been peer reviewed articles published in academic journals.

Dave Mantik has one, Don Thomas has one, and Randich/Grant also.  Gary Aguilar and Cyril Wecht published two of them which just destroyed the PBS Nova special in 2013, which we were allowed to reprint at K and K.

 https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/nova-s-cold-case-jfk-junk-science-pbs

The above was so devastating that the Haags, who were responsible for the awful show, refused to debate Gary and Cyril in public.  Even though Gary offered to pay their plane fare and hotel room fees. 🥵

This is what I mean about there being no fair debate in this case.  And if you did not know about these academically published articles then that is not the fault of the authors.  All of them, particularly the last, exculpate Oswald.  And they do so with what is supposed to be the the heart of the case against him: the so called core evidence.

I don't know what Greg is talking about when he refers to the judgment of historians. Historians, with  few exceptions, do not solve crimes. As I indicated on another thread, they usually accept the CW in that regard.  And they advance their careers based on that e.g. Weinstein and Alger HIss.  There are exceptions the other way, like Gardner on the LIndbergh case and Kurtz on the Kennedy case.  But these are few and far between. 

As Paul Bleau proved in an article Parnell wants to ignore,  historians are not willing to do the hard work that this case takes. And they know that no career enhancement will be there are the end. To do a good and thorough job on the JFK case takes a minimum of five years, full time.  Minimum, and I mean ten hour days, six days a week.  And why would any academic do that?  Knowing it will probably hurt his career in the end.

 

PS I love Parnell saying d'Estaing is not reliable because he is only repeating what Ford said. If you had waken up Ford in the middle of the night and told him his house was on fire and he had to jump out the window, on the way down he would have screamed: Oswald did it! 

Raising the back wound? Appointing Belin to run the Rockefeller Commission, after explicitly stating in public that he did so to cover up assassinations? Talk about a man with no credibility.

Edited April 26, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Tony Krome]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Raising the back wound?

Sibert: And he said, "I moved it up for clarification." And when the guys told me this—Jerry Gunn—during the deposition—I said, "Yeah, for clarifying the single-bullet theory, because if you didn't get that up to the back of the neck there is no way it could have come out the front of the throat."

Edited April 26, 2021 by Tony Krome

[James DiEugenio]

Nice one Tony.

Ford was such a sell out.  

[Cliff Varnell]

On 4/25/2021 at 2:14 PM, Greg Doudna said:

I agree with much of what Tracy Parnell says. I do not think it is too relevant what the public thinks. That is not who I think is the relevant audience to address. Half of the public believes in creationism. Half of the public believes in astrology. Half of Trump supporters think there is a question concerning whether Obama was U.S. born. Winning over public opinion is irrelevant. The ones that matter are historians, now and in the future. Peer-reviewed journal articles, or published books which are game-changers for those knowledgeable of the issues. A senior scholar with a lot of wisdom from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, that I knew long ago advised me: don't write scholarly articles for the purpose of winning over mediocre scholars or the public. Instead, you write addressing the best minds in the field fifty years from now--that is who matters. He also said, in politics he was egalitarian believing in equality of persons, but in scholarly ideas he was an elitist, not all arguments are equal.

For a little while I have been working on an argument making a case for exculpation of Oswald in the case of the Tippit killing. It will contain new argument and data not previously raised. Of all charges against Oswald, it is probably fair to say the Tippit killing is perceived as the most difficult case for exculpation of all. I intend to separate it from issues of any other charge against Oswald, such as the JFK assassination, focusing solely on the Tippit killing. My argument will involve no Oswald doubles, no claims of prior plot to frame Oswald, nothing outside of usual and customary law enforcement responses. It will be solely in the genre of "Innocence Project" case arguments for overturning wrongful criminal convictions. Oswald did not live to be charged or convicted of the Tippit killing, but apart from that that is the parallel I will be developing. When I do have it ready to publish, I will gladly offer it to the best critics to my knowledge to shoot it down if possible, such as Myers, or Tracy Parnell or Steve Roe, each of whom I respect, if one or more of those are willing to have a go at it. Strange to say, I do not regard that kind of critical assessment, argued on the basis of evidence, as a negative thing but to be welcomed and valued and appreciated. My target audience and objective will not be to win over the public, or readers of this forum. I will judge success or failure of my Tippit argument based on whether it wins over those in America experienced in issues of wrongful criminal convictions, and historians. But I am not actually talking about legal exculpation (which is not always the same as actual exculpation), but exculpation to historians' standards, in terms of whether the accused actually did it. If it succeeds it succeeds, if it fails it fails. The arbiter that matters to me, in terms of human judgment, being not the public, not people here, but mainstream historians. Tracy Parnell is right: that is whose judgment matters.

So right now we're supposed to convince historians 50 years in the future?

Quote

Tracy Parnell is right on another thing: there is no unified theory on who killed JFK, not after years of investigation and research decades after the fact.

Forget theories. 

Just follow the highly redundant First Day Evidence Pattern. 

A shallow wound in the back, no bullet found in the body; an entrance wound in the throat with no exit, no bullet found.

Either elements of the Secret Service and/or the military conspired to remove the bullets prior to the autopsy -- or JFK was hit with a high tech weapon similar to the blood soluble flechettes developed for the CIA by the US Army at Fort Detrick, MD.

Any legitimate investigation would commence with these root facts.

Quote

 

There is strong though not quite unanimous agreement that Oswald was innocent of the JFK assassination, but explanations of the specifics of that go every which way. If Oswald was involved with the sniper's nest on the TSBD sixth floor, how could he be innocent of involvement in the assassination itself? But if he was not involved in the sixth floor sniper's nest, then who was and how did they get into and make their exit from the building without being noticed? Yes, this and that explanation has been conjectured to these questions, but there is no unified theory even conjecturally even on those basic questions.

These are not basic questions concerning the JFK assassination.  These issues bear on the cover-up of the crime, not the crime itself.

Quote

 

There is unity I would say on this: that the shots fired that day are not explicable in terms of Oswald alone firing, with reasons for that coalescing around a cluster of basic facts and arguments upon which there is some loose agreement. To that extent there is a something approaching a minimal "unified theory" if it can be called that, even if it has not come together formally. But that is about as far as any unity of the best researchers' minds goes at this point, it seems.

Given the degree of onanistic complexity fetishism that's no big surprise.

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Cliff Varnell

[Joe Bauer]

On 4/25/2021 at 6:07 PM, James DiEugenio said:

As Paul Bleau proved in an article Parnell wants to ignore,  historians are not willing to do the hard work that this case takes. And they know that no career enhancement will be there are the end. To do a good and thorough job on the JFK case takes a minimum of five years, full time.  Minimum, and I mean ten hour days, six days a week.  And why would any academic do that?  Knowing it will probably hurt his career in the end.

Absolutely true.

90% of the American public from 1963 to 1991 probably read no more than an occasional once a year article or viewed a major media documentary about the JFK assassination, usually published or shown on or around the anniversary date of November 22nd.

For many reasons this was so ( I discuss the media reason below ) and even more so today when even on the anniversary date, there is hardly a mention of the JFK assass. in any print or broadcast media anymore.

I would guess that the remaining 10% in those decades "may" have read more about the event than a yearly article, perhaps even read a book on the subject as well as viewing a documentary and/or tuned into one or more JFK event related radio interview programs. The night time Coast To Coast Am radio talk show comes to mind.

With less than .001% doing the kind of research effort James Di cites in qualifying someone as a truly educated JFK assassination expert.

But the JFK low interest 90% numbers in the U.S. definitely changed in 1991 when millions of them flocked to movie theaters to watch Oliver Stone's blockbuster, major Hollywood actor studded film "JFK" about the JFK assassination.

With his film "JFK" Stone broke through the main media JFK assassination silence, obfuscation and resulting public apathy wall.

His film "JFK" was so powerfully dramatic and well done, even though a notable amount of it's content was admittedly not based 100% on documented facts, it had a massive effect on the national psyche regards this event in our modern history.

It spawned a new public interest movement to investigate again the JFK event as a possible conspiracy that was so widespread it resulted in the JFK assassination act and the ARRB.

That's an amazingly powerful and society effecting legacy for Roger Stone and his film JFK. 

To an unprecedented degree in our film history imo.

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Joe Bauer

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

 

His film "JFK" was so powerfully dramatic and well done, even though a notable amount of it's content was admittedly not based 100% on documented facts, it had a massive effect on the national psyche regards this event in our modern history.

 

It’s a masterpiece. Although the way filmmaking has advanced, I reckon it could be even more impactful if done today. Cinema / Streaming is so powerful as a tool for reaching the subconscious of the public. 

[David Andrews]

On 4/25/2021 at 5:14 PM, Greg Doudna said:

I think the issue of the JFK assassination will be a matter for the nation's and the world's historians ultimately to solve or not solve, in terms of ultimate arbiters. Through the peer-reviewed journal process, historians' conference presentations, and historians of reputation and standing becoming persuaded on the basis of evidence formally presented and published. 

Based on the last fifty years, the encouraged tendency over the next fifty years will be to not solve.  That is why we dissent here.