Finally: A New, Non-Oliver Stone Film About The JFK Assassination

[Sandy Larsen]

On 5/22/2023 at 10:35 AM, Michael Griffith said:

Only a rabid partisan would say something like "Mamet is extremely untrustworthy because he supports and praises Trump.

 

The person who said that did so because Trump was a really bad president (as I showed in my prior post), not because he is a rabid partisan.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 5/21/2023 at 7:00 AM, W. Niederhut said:

https://www.valleycentral.com/news/local-news/historians-rank-presidents-in-c-span-survey-trump-scores-41st-obama-10th/

 

Oh, you beat me to it. I didn't notice your link.

Well that's okay. Maybe Michael will understand the way I explained it.

 

[Joe Bauer]

So much has happened since 2021 regards Trump that is so incredibly negative and further damaging of his legacy that his place on any presidential rating list should absolutely and rationally lose even more standing than 4th from the bottom.

Unprecedented national division and anger with continuous seditious minded gas lighting.

2 more years of Trump's obsessive rigged election spouting which is so provenly false now, that to still promote this is clearly a sign of some psychologically delusional derangement.

And never has a president been charged with serious crimes as Trump has. Trump's name is in the news daily ( for years now ) for one reason over any other ... criminal investigation.

He was just found liable in a civil court of "sexual abuse" and "defamation" and ordered to pay his victim $5,000.000. What a shameful legacy embarrassment.

And Trump's about to be charged with even more crimes of the most serious kind.

These criminal cases will go on well into 2024.

Historians can keep trying to downplay and even dismiss the legacy importance of these multitude of serious criminal charges surrounding Trump but with each court action that effort seems more and more dishonest and disingenuous and things just look worse and worse for Trump.

It's the main story of Trump now over all others...and has been for years.

The nation is weary and will become even more so of Trump's constant gas lighting anger and his never ending legal battles.

The Trump deposition played for the E. Jean Carroll trial jury is in the documented historical record books forever.

That deposition "alone" is one of the most character damning and damaging testimonies ever shared by a former president in so many appalling ways.

Trump will never be the Republican nominee in 2024. All his opponents have to do is replay that deposition on the national stage and keep replaying it and referring to it and even the most rabid Trump followers will not be able to defend the things Trump states in it.

Trump has done more damage to this country in the area of national division than just about any other former president.

Lincoln decided that we as a nation had to go to a civil war to protect the very existence of our federal government democracy.

But, he himself did not create that division. He had to deal with it but it was created by others ( a wealthy minority ) who wanted it to protect their own personal economic interests.

With England helping to bolster the successionists in that conflict.

Trump has done more bad character things in his presidency and lifetime of business doings than any other president by far.

Well known conservative federal judge J. Michael Luttig has publicly stated he feels Trump is a "clear and present danger to our democracy."

And DJT is STILL gas lighting the flames of nation dividing hate, anger and angst with more energy and action than any former president ever did after leaving office...by a long mile.

Jimmy Carter offered his services in negotiating peace agreements and helped build affordable new homes for first time buyers in his post presidency time.

G.W. Bush Jr. paints pictures. Reagan raised cows on his ranch.

G.W. Bush Sr. jumped out of airplanes.

Bill Clinton visited Jeffery Epstein's sex "Fantasy Island" and gives talks for big dollars.

Trump just rages and rages and attacks and insults his enemies on his national social platforms. He keeps promoting the big L** that the 2020 election was rigged.

It's his 24/7 obsession! 

He cannot allow himself to accept the fact that he is a "loser."

His only other post presidency activity is promoting his business interests such as trading cards, golf courses and begging for donation monies from his poor and working class income followers so he doesn't have to spend his own billions to defend himself against all the criminal court cases constantly centered around him.

The two years since the 2020 election have seen Trump's image go from constantly controversial to constantly criminally charged. His dim legacy light is dimming even lower.

And, Trump has an incomparable lock on the legacy label of the "most crude talking" president and ex-president ever. LBJ was the worst until DJT, but he did this in private where as DJT seems to get a charge doing his crude insult thing in as many public venues as he can!

GW Bush Junior liked to get good ole boy barbeque and beer down and dirty with fart jokes now and then post presidency, but he's actually been quite civil in his occasional public comments.

Any future major film produced to highlight Trump's presidency and life outside of it will present the biggest challenge any screenwriter or group of screenwriters have ever even contemplated.

And it seems to me the most honest tone and take of such a film would be that of tragic comedy.

Perhaps with a title like " Citizen Orange?", " The Man From Mar A Lago?", " " MAGA Man?"

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by Joe Bauer

[Michael Griffith]

6 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

The person who said that did so because Trump was a really bad president (as I showed in my prior post), not because he is a rabid partisan.

Your statement could be a textbook example of extreme bias and of treating opinion as established fact. 

A rabid conservative, using your same awful logic, could say that anyone who supported Obama is extremely untrustworthy. And, when challenged about this statement, they could reply, "I said what I said because Obama was a really bad president, not because I am a rabid partisan." 

Here are some established facts: The Moon landings happened; 9/11 was not an inside job; the WTC towers were not destroyed by controlled demolitions; the Earth is not flat, etc. Virtually all established facts have a few fringe doubters, but the vast majority of educated people and of the general population recognize them as established facts.

The opinion that Donald Trump was a really bad president does not even come close to being an established fact. Similarly, the opinion that Barack Obama was a really bad president does not remotely qualify as an established fact. And only rabid partisans at each end of the spectrum would deny this. 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

 

 

Michael,

Instead of talking about what someone else means when they say something, I'm going to talk about what I mean when I say it. Here we go:

 

But first, note that every presidential poll taken since Trump was in office, where those being polled were political scholars, presidential scholars, or historians, has ranked Donald Trump very near the bottom and ranked Ronald Reagan 10 to 15 from the top.

If someone said that Trump was one of the greatest presidents ever, I'd say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

If someone else said that Reagan was one of the worst presidents ever, I'd again say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

Now tell me, did I say those things because I am a rabid partisan?

 

If I did, then I would have to be both rabid left-wing and rabid right-wing simultaneously. Since I cannot be both, then there must be another reason for my not trusting the opinions of those two people. The reason I don't trust them  has nothing to do with my political leanings. It has everything to do with the opinions of those two being the opposite of the dozens of scholars who participated in the presidential polls.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Johnson

Nixon

Ford

Carter

Reagan

Bush !

Clinton

Bush 2

Obama

Trump 

Biden

Take a look at that list of the last 11 presidents.  I know something about history, especially contemporary American history.  To me that is a strong of failures, quasi criminals (in some cases, actual criminals like Nixon and probably Reagan and Bush 2) and mediocrities.

Which is why Monika Wiesak's book is aptly titled.

Edited May 25, 2023 by James DiEugenio

[Michael Griffith]

21 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Michael,

Instead of talking about what someone else means when they say something, I'm going to talk about what I mean when I say it. Here we go:

But first, note that every presidential poll taken since Trump was in office, where those being polled were political scholars, presidential scholars, or historians, has ranked Donald Trump very near the bottom and ranked Ronald Reagan 10 to 15 from the top.

If someone said that Trump was one of the greatest presidents ever, I'd say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

If someone else said that Reagan was one of the worst presidents ever, I'd again say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

Now tell me, did I say those things because I am a rabid partisan?

If I did, then I would have to be both rabid left-wing and rabid right-wing simultaneously. Since I cannot be both, then there must be another reason for my not trusting the opinions of those two people. The reason I don't trust them  has nothing to do with my political leanings. It has everything to do with the opinions of those two being the opposite of the dozens of scholars who participated in the presidential polls.

Are you just purposely missing the point? You're leaving out a key component and problem: Allen Lowe said that Memet's JFKA research was automatically suspect merely because he supported and praised Trump. 

When someone says "anything John Doe says about JFK's death is automatically suspect" merely because John Doe has expressed support for this or that political figure, they are showing extreme partisan bias. 

It is one thing to question Memet's support of Trump. It is quite another thing to say that just because he supports Trump, anything he says about the assassination is automatically suspect because he must be "extremely untrustworthy."  

This same rabid partisan bias shows up in many books on the JFKA, wherein sweeping tar-brush attacks are made against conservative politicians and against conservatives in general. In contrast, you never see such bias displayed in conservative books that support the conspiracy position on the JFKA.

Just imagine if conservatives were the majority in this forum and if many of them expressed the view that any JFKA book written by an Obama supporter was probably flawed/wrong because supporting Obama made an author "extremely untrustworthy." 

Anyone who has taken a college-level critical thinking course can tell you that it is invalid and illogical to presume than an author's research on the JFKA is automatically suspect because the author is "extremely unreliable" based solely on their support for a given political figure.

Finally, just on a point of logic, I, for one, would not conclude that a person's judgment was untrustworthy just because they said Reagan was one of the worst presidents ever. It is invalid and illogical to draw such a sweeping conclusion about someone's judgment based on a single statement of that nature. Now, if that person said the Moon landings were faked, or that 9/11 was inside job, or that the Holocaust never happened, yes, then I would reach a general conclusion about their judgment. 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Sandy Larsen]

14 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Are you just purposely missing the point? You're leaving out a key component and problem: Allen Lowe said that Memet's JFKA research was automatically suspect merely because he supported and praised Trump. 

 

I wasn't purposely "missing the point." I used an analogy to explain why Allen Lowe said what he did, but I strengthened the source of the analogy to make my point clear. Apparently you didn't get it.

So what I am going to do is repeat my analogy, but this time use the exact words you say Allen Lowe did, "praised Trump." (I won't use the other word, "supported Trump," there are people who hate Trump but support him for office nevertheless because they are Republicans.)

Here's my updated analogy:

 

If someone praised Donald Trump, I'd say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

If someone else excoriated Ronald Reagan, I'd again say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

Now tell me, did I say those things because I am a rabid partisan?

If I did, then I would have to be both rabid left-wing and rabid right-wing simultaneously. Since I cannot be both, then there must be another reason for my not trusting the opinions of those two people. The reason I don't trust them has nothing to do with my political leanings. It has everything to do with the opinions of those two being the opposite of the dozens of scholars who participated in presidential polls and rated Trump near the very bottom and Reagan near the top.

 

[Michael Griffith]

5 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

I wasn't purposely "missing the point." I used an analogy to explain why Allen Lowe said what he did, but I strengthened the source of the analogy to make my point clear. Apparently you didn't get it.

So what I am going to do is repeat my analogy, but this time use the exact words you say Allen Lowe did, "praised Trump." (I won't use the other word, "supported Trump," there are people who hate Trump but support him for office nevertheless because they are Republicans.)

Here's my updated analogy:

If someone praised Donald Trump, I'd say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

If someone else excoriated Ronald Reagan, I'd again say that that person's judgement isn't trustworthy.

Now tell me, did I say those things because I am a rabid partisan?

If I did, then I would have to be both rabid left-wing and rabid right-wing simultaneously. Since I cannot be both, then there must be another reason for my not trusting the opinions of those two people. The reason I don't trust them has nothing to do with my political leanings. It has everything to do with the opinions of those two being the opposite of the dozens of scholars who participated in presidential polls and rated Trump near the very bottom and Reagan near the top.

Look, let's just boil this down to basics. Our exchange started after I responded to Allen Lowe's attack on Memet, in which Lowe expressed doubt about the value of Memet's upcoming JFKA documentary because he regards Memet as "extremely untrustworthy" based on Memet's support of Trump. I said and still say that such a comment shows extreme partisan bias, but you said and still say that it does not. 

One clear difference between us is that you will draw a sweeping conclusion about a person's judgment if they opine that Reagan was one of our worst presidents or if they opine that Trump was one of our best presidents. I would never draw such a broad, summary conclusion about a person's judgment based on either of those statements.

I would disagree with that attack on Reagan and with that praise of Trump. I would say that the person who expressed those views was wrong. But, I would not jump to the sweeping conclusion that their judgment was unreliable, much less that they were "extremely untrustworthy."

We'll agree to disagree.

[Sandy Larsen]

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I would disagree with that attack on Reagan and with that praise of Trump. I would say that the person who expressed those views was wrong. But, I would not jump to the sweeping conclusion that their judgment was unreliable, much less that they were "extremely untrustworthy."

 

And you shouldn't jump to the sweeping conclusion that when someone makes a remark like Allen Lowe's or mine, he is doing so because he's a "rabid partisan." Because, as I showed, there are other reasons a person might make such a remark. Not everything is partisan.

 

[Allen Lowe]

On 5/21/2023 at 7:14 AM, Michael Griffith said:

Look, it's very simple: I have never said, and never will say, "John Doe is extremely untrustworthy because he is an Obama supporter [or a Biden or Hillary supporter] and has been quoted as saying Obama did a great job." Such a statement would show me to have a rabid, extreme partisan mindset. Yet, you said that Mamet is "extremely untrustworthy" because he's a Trump supporter and has been quoted as saying Trump did a great job.

There are plenty of conservatives who don't buy the lone-gunman theory, but you and many others here act like a person cannot really care about JFK's death and understand its ramifications if they are not liberal. Some of you folks even accuse conservatives of being a manifestation of a Fourth Reich, of being "fascists," "dangerous," etc., etc. 

You and others keep ignoring the fact that JFK was a centrist Democrat who was fiscally conservative, who advocated a gigantic tax cut for the rich, who privately condemned Halberstam's coverage of the Vietnam War as biased and harmful, who said in June 1963 that "the Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today," who took a decidedly centrist approach to labor unions and declined to accept extreme union demands, who gave military personnel a larger pay hike than Eisenhower gave them, and who said the following about his increases in national defense on the very day he was murdered:

          In the past 3 years we have increased the defense budget of the United States by over 20 percent; increased the program of acquisition for Polaris submarines from 24 to 41; increased our Minuteman missile purchase program by more than 75 percent; doubled the number of strategic bombers and missiles on alert; doubled the number of nuclear weapons available in the strategic alert forces; increased the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe by over 60 percent; added five combat ready divisions to the Army of the United States, and five tactical fighter wings to the Air Force of the United States; increased our strategic airlift capability by 75 percent; and increased our special counter-insurgency forces which are engaged now in South Viet-Nam by 600 percent. (Remarks at the Breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce | The American Presidency Project (ucsb.edu)

never mind; see below.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Allen Lowe

[Allen Lowe]

on the other hand, maybe I over-stated. I think Michael Griffith's politics are....well, grossly wrong, but I have been reading his JFK work for years and I respect it hugely, and I think he broke a lot of new ground.

Ok, Mike, here is where you say I may be certifiably insane, am wanted in three states, owe everyone money, but you respect my opinions (and are glad I didn't marry your sister).

Edited June 5, 2023 by Allen Lowe

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours ago, Allen Lowe said:

on the other hand, maybe I over-stated. I think Michael Griffith's politics are....well, grossly wrong, but I have been reading his JFK work for years and I respect it hugely, and I think he broke a lot of new ground.

Ok, Mike, here is where you say I may be certifiably insane, am wanted in three states, owe everyone money, but you respect my opinions (and are glad I didn't marry your sister).

Actually, my sister is married to a very solid guy who is an ardent Trump lover and who totally believes JFK was killed by a conspiracy. 

I suspect that if you and I sat down and talked politics for a while, you would find that we are not as far apart politically as you seem to think we are. 

"On the other hand, maybe I over-stated." That happens to all of us from time to time. 

And, I appreciate your positive comments about my JFKA research. 

[James DiEugenio]

Look, this new film is not really Mamet's film or his idea.

His idea, and the script he wrote, was about possible Z film alteration. It was set to go into production with no less than Cate Blanchett, as the star.  The day before the shooting started the financing was pulled.

This particular film is not really Mamet's concept or idea.  Celozzi brought it to him. In my review of Celozzi

s previous documentary on the subject, we get some kind of idea of what the main tenets will be. So in my view, Mamet's politics will not really enter into the equation.  Celozzi is not just the producer but he wrote the first draft of the script.

So i look at this really as Celozzi's movie more than Mamet's. 

[Jonathan Cohen]

Barry Levinson now stepping in to direct:

https://deadline.com/2023/10/barry-levinson-assassination-al-pacino-1235576261/