My Debate with a Chomskyite

[James DiEugenio]

Yes, I agree.

That is why I am writing a reply to this one.

And Sandy is right, what is  odd about Buzzanco, is his lack of knowledge of the new documentation out of the ARRB.  Which is not just about the case but about JFK and VIetnam and also Cuba.

[Rob Couteau]

I think it's clear that Bob engaged in a lot of empty persiflage while Jim cranked out fact after fact in a calm and cool manner. Bobbie says he's never read much of the Warren Report yet he tries to defend it. He hasn’t gone "granular" with Oswald yet he claims it's not important. All that after having the audacity to tell Jim that Jim should stick with documents; yet here he's admitting he hasn’t read these documents. Bobbie then makes sweeping withering statements attacking the opposition but doesn't back them up with much. Worst of all, he has a very negative and caustic tone: one of a bombastic know-it-all. In contrast to that, Jim's calm and detachment served him well. One thing that gets me is that the lonenutters always attack our side for not solving the puzzle when the responsibility to do that was with the govt itself. It's as if by not solving it 100% we are guilty of some sort of terrible failure. While they sit back and do nothing. They also fail to realize that billions of dollars were at stake if JFK wasn't killed. The motive was not just political but it was financial as well - since money and politics go hand in hand. The Chomsky people and many on the faux Left will always attack Kennedy because he wasn't Che Guevara or Abbie Hoffman. They seem to forget that it was 1960 and that JFK was surrounded by hyenas and war hawks, and that he could only push progressive ideals so far. What distorted-mirror world do they live in? 

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by Rob Couteau

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Rob.

I probably should have pushed that more, the bonanza that the Vietnam War presented to certain business entities.  

I also agree, is it not odd that these people know so little about the case, and have not bothered to check in on it since the ARRB.  And they diss the ARRB!  WHiel screaming about documents!

 

LOL

[Rob Couteau]

On 4/16/2022 at 12:00 AM, James DiEugenio said:

LOL

Yeah, that guy was a clown. When people claim that America lost the Vietnam War, I always say, "Which Americans? Surely not the ones who made a bundle from the war machine." But I was also thinking of the billions at stake in Indonesia and the Congo. For this clown to claim that JFK's foreign policy would not have changed all that is simply ludicrous. All you have to do is follow the money trail.  

[George Govus]

Clean-up on Isle Denial.

Never having read Edward Gibbon, it was a separate thrill to find him quoted at the end.

[James DiEugenio]

I got that from Mahoney's book George, it was not me.  I wish it had been me.

To this day I think that is the best sentence long summary of JFK.

Yes, he had defects, but they came from the contagion of the era, his virtues and his achievements came from himself.

Edited April 18, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Last night, I had the opportunity to watch the four hour version of the film.

I say this with as much objectivity as I can muster:

Where are you ever going to see that many authoritative people describing Kennedy's foreign policy at such length and depth and in so many places in a documentary?

I cannot think of one valid comparison with: Mahoney--Congo; Galbraith, Newman--Vietnam; Rakove, Muehlenbeck--Egypt;  Brad Simpson , Lisa Pease.-Indonesia.

I will not hesitate to say some of these are the best American scholars in the field, or at least they are pretty close.

Mahoney was so knowledgeable and articulate.  Some of his stuff we had to censor.  He told us that JFK had nick names for the JCS.

If I recall correctly, Lemay was dumb ass.

 

Edited April 19, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Here is my follow up article on the debate.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/cleaning-up-after-my-debate-with-buzzanco

[David G. Healy]

21 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Here is my follow up article on the debate.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/cleaning-up-after-my-debate-with-buzzanco

nice piece of follow-up work... 

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks Dave.  I have to address that 15 minute preamble he put on his version. 

Where he calls us assassinologists.  

[Pat Speer]

The awful arrogance of someone who wants to debate you but refuses to do the homework so they can understand what you're talking about is more commonplace than one might assume.

I ran into this when I exchanged emails with Warren Commission attorneys Howard Willens and Burt Griffin, and Skeptic Magazine editor Michael Shermer. Willens and Griffin said they would give my dissection of the single-bullet theory a fair shake, but then backed out and said they wished to discontinue our discussion if I thought the evidence led to the conclusion Specter and/or Warren lied. To them, any discussion of such a possibility was ludicrous, and a waste of their time. 

Shermer was in some ways even worse. He claimed to be a supporter of science, and cited his acceptance of evolution as a defining moment in his life. And yet when I tried to get him to acknowledge the scientific problems with the single-bullet theory, he essentially cut me off, and said I'd gotten lost in the minutiae. He then said something like when it came to the medical evidence, we shouldn't presume to understand the textbooks, and should instead rely on the testimony of "experts," in this case Dr. Baden.

Not exactly scientific. 

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by Pat Speer