Thanks Moderators

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Since the 1220-page '56 Years' thread will shortly be joining the choir invisible, here again is the link I gave:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2700-the-only-thing-to-fear-about-inevitability-is-the-inevitable-itself-or-a-portrait-of-the-hollow-men-in-motion

As Chris points out, the 'Debunked' section of that forum is well worth a read. Most or all of the far-out JFK-related theories that are sometimes treated seriously over here have been taken apart over there.

Incidentally, when I used the idiom 'right-wing nut-jobs' on the '56 Years' thread, I did so partly to see whether anyone would come forward and self-identify with that description. And, sure enough ...

With luck, perhaps EF commenters can go back to their mud-slinging, ironically under this "Thanks moderators" thread. 

Is Matthew Koch really banned? 

I thought Koch was more entertaining than Netflix, and free.

A variant of gonzo journalism, to dredge up an old phrase.

He should have avoided some situations and posts, to be sure. 

Oh well. The tedium is setting in? 

 

[Denny Zartman]

8 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Denny,

     As a participant on that monster 56 Years thread, from its inception, my perspective is that we had a lot of lively, informative, and humorous discussions about history and contemporary politics on the thread -- until about October of last year, as I described above.  It provided a forum for discussions about American history and politics, beyond the narrow purview of JFK's assassination per se.

     I suspect that other long-term 56 Years thread participants-- Douglas Caddy, Steve Thomas, Joe Bauer, Ron Bulman, Kirk Galloway, Matt Allison, Sandy Larsen, et.al.-- would agree with my assessment, but I can't speak for them.

    The thread only devolved into controversial, petulant arguments during the past few months, after Mathew Koch joined the forum with the express intention of disrupting and challenging the alleged "leftist" bias on the thread.  The exception is that, prior to October, most of us had pointedly disagreed with Benjamin Cole's denial of Trump's J6 coup attempt, and his promotion of Tucker Carlson's "Patriot purge" narrative about J6.  Ben had also repeatedly criticized the Congressional J6 investigation, while refusing to watch the actual hearings.  At one point, even James DiEugenio had urged Ben to watch the damning J6 Congressional testimony.

      Some of the recent arrivals on the forum, who became strangely aligned with Mathew Koch's MAGA movement, never really understood the history of the 56 Years thread.  They have also had a tendency to mistake accurate criticisms of their erroneous opinions for ad hominem arguments.

      In the end, Mathew Koch did finally succeed with his October 2022 goal of "owning the libs"-- not by speaking the truth about contemporary American politics, but by destroying what had previously been a friendly, informative thread.

I understand and appreciate that we have a lot of intelligent forum members here who are plugged into politics and that they would occasionally like to discuss other historical issues as well as current events. At times I was tempted to engage. But the thread was off-topic. Were you all having any success at convincing Benjamin that January 6 was a violent coup attempt? Because all I saw was everyone constantly going in circles on that issue, and almost every page filled with insults.

My point is that there are other places online to discuss other topics, even if just other areas of the forum. As I see it, having those discussions in that thread (and others) was/is 1. Unnecessarily fostering personal animosity and division 2. Cluttering the forum with off-topic personal invective 3. Getting no one anywhere when it comes to researching and studying the JFKA.

Just my opinion. I was not a fan of that thread. I thought it was ugly and reflected poorly on us all. Perhaps I'm wrong.

[Charles Blackmon]

I have deep held political convictions but I rarely followed that off-topic thread and really had no interest in adding to it. I won't miss it.

[John Cotter]

5 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Since the 1220-page '56 Years' thread will shortly be joining the choir invisible, here again is the link I gave:

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2700-the-only-thing-to-fear-about-inevitability-is-the-inevitable-itself-or-a-portrait-of-the-hollow-men-in-motion

As Chris points out, the 'Debunked' section of that forum is well worth a read. Most or all of the far-out JFK-related theories that are sometimes treated seriously over here have been taken apart over there.

Incidentally, when I used the idiom 'right-wing nut-jobs' on the '56 Years' thread, I did so partly to see whether anyone would come forward and self-identify with that description. And, sure enough ...

This is a feeble and disingenuous attempt to rationalise your obnoxious name-calling.

No self-identification by me or anyone else was needed. We were clearly identified by the rabid ideological bias of your diatribe and by its demented contents - the now standard “catch cries of the clown”, the insults slung by you and your ideological fellow travellers – because you are unable to logically rebut the arguments which expose your nonsense.

The misrepresentation of your own post confirms its illegitimacy.

That the moderators have condoned your obnoxious nonsense is not surprising. A few month ago I reported a post by one of your ideological fellow travellers who referred to his opponents as “sub human cretins”. (Like you he tried to dodge responsibility for his calumny by falsely claiming that his targets weren’t identified.)

One of the moderators laughed off my complaint on the pretext that the “56 years” thread was intended to be moderated less strictly than other threads so as to facilitate free discussion. In response to this washing of hands I quoted the Latin maxim, Qui potest et debet vetare, jubet (He who can and ought to forbid, and does not, commands.)

Hence, the moderators bear much, if not most, of the responsibility for the “56 years” thread getting out of hand and specifically for the constant ad hominem attacks by your ideological fellow travellers.

In that context, Matthew Koch, felt it necessary to respond in kind in order to defend himself. That’s why I said the indefinite ban imposed on him now looks like scapegoating: he’s being wrongly punished for the moderators’ permissive stance vis-à-vis the transgressions of his opponents.

Is it any wonder you and your fellow idealogues want the “56 years” thread deleted? The evidence of your obnoxious illogicality displayed in the thread is damning.

Edited March 14, 2023 by John Cotter

[Kirk Gallaway]

Yeah I'm banned too.     No, not really. But I am currently out of the U.S. at an undisclosed location.

 

I got the word from my good buddy Peter Thiel and we got our funds out just before he yelled "fire!"

in our Texas Theater.

 heh heh

 

I guess the deregulation of the forum didn't work out so well.

But there are some  naysayers who said it was working out fine.

But I still be believe in intellectual capitalism.

But you do need some intellectual honesty.

Or people will run it into the ground.

 

********

 

No, I got out of here soon because it was getting too crazy.

Ok, everybody shares some blame.

But now  we have a guy who personally trashed a few people here unlike I've seen before. And he has no problem even casually  saying he's sorry and even deleting his  post yet he knows he can go right back to attacking others with impunity, and is incapable of learning anything. JMO

 

There was a guy here who was banned for refusing to apologize for outrageously slandering a public figure with no evidence. He had a choice, and he's probably reading this now because he realizes any other website  he's gone since with people who were just like him has  degenerated into wacko boundlessness. Just my guess. But both these guys just laughed at the undeserved suffering of people they thought to be on the other side of their politics. And this guy much earlier had called me an as-h-le in huge letters, and I didn't report the guy. I just ignored him. Later, I was among the people who protested to the mods what he said.

 

Of course other people who might have felt an ideological affinity with him or thought anything he said should be tolerated still could have had a conversation with him about his conduct and decorum. Whatever you think about free speech. We don't live in a inhuman. barren wasteland. That's what I would have done. I would have PMed him and told him he was screwing it up for our side. I would express my solidarity with his view but I would caution him that he could screw it up for everybody.

Again, I don't mean to end this just totally blaming the other side. 

 

I would stand by the 56 year thread as a great time capsule for at least 2 years since it's inception in April 2020? About the the time of the beginning of the covid pandemic was it?  There were a lot of good people who put a lot of good work in it. I  think it has a more unique perspective than other political  threads (though honestly I'm no expert in that I haven't participated in a lot of political threads) in that everyone in it believed that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy. That's a unique subset of people.

 

 

[Pat Speer]

A quick note. Context is everything. The history of this forum is littered with posts from people insistent on a particular point--the Jews did it, the black warehouse workers did it, JFK, LBJ, Clinton et al were perverts and we can only serve history by discussing in detail their each and every perversion, Watergate was about controlling secret technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard, Pat Speer and others reluctant to acknowledge it was Oswald in the Altgens photo are CIA plants, etc.  It is a magnet for obsessive minds, which quite frequently leads to increasingly unhealthy rants. And then moderation. And then cries of "my free speech is being suppressed by authoritarians!" 

Moderators are constantly under fire from those who see this place--designed as a discussion place on the JFK assassination--as their personal soapbox to scream out about the secret history only a few can see--or are even willing to contemplate. 

If you reach the point where you see the forum as a whole, and the bulk of its fellow members, as something you need to scream about, then just go. Leave. The forum will be no poorer minus your posts than it is the thousands of posts blaming Jews, NASA, perverts, etc that have historically clogged up its bandwidth. 

You can find some space on reddit or whatever to foment anger among your fellow-marginalized.  

[W. Niederhut]

Since this is a kind of post-mortem thread for the defunct, monster 56 Years thread, I had a few additional thoughts overnight.

One thought has to do with the general mission/purpose of this fine Education Forum, and the subject of what constitutes "uncivil" discourse.

Is it "uncivil" or "disrespectful" to criticize falsehoods-- i.e., alleged "facts" and opinions that are contradicted by established facts?

Are we supposed to be "respectful" of all opinions-- even those that are invalid?

I think not.

On the contrary, my impression is that the mission/purpose of this Education Forum is to discern and report the truth, about history and other subjects.

As a corollary, falsehoods need to be refuted.

Case in point.  Most of us believe that America's destiny was betrayed after 11/22/63, by men who conspired to murder President Kennedy in order to alter JFK's foreign and military policies.

Consequently, we tend to refute the false Warren Commission thesis that JFK was assassinated by a Lone Nut.

Is that uncivil?

Similarly, an important topic on the 56 Years thread was Trump's conspiracy to obstruct the certification of Biden's election on January 6th.

The evidence of Trump's J6 conspiracy has been quite ample, especially as a result of the 2022 Congressional J6 Committee investigation.

And, yet, as in the case of the WCR "Lone Nut" narrative, some people in the media, (especially Tucker Carlson) and on this forum, have repeatedly promoted false narratives about January 6th.

These are the same people who insist that it is "uncivil" for forum members to criticize their false claims about January 6th.

Some have also erroneously claimed that criticism of their false claims constitutes an "ad hominem" attack.

It doesn't.

[Mark Knight]

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Since this is a kind of post-mortem thread for the defunct, monster 56 Years thread, I had a few additional thoughts overnight.

One thought has to do with the general mission/purpose of this fine Education Forum, and the subject of what constitutes "uncivil" discourse.

Is it "uncivil" or "disrespectful" to criticize falsehoods-- i.e., alleged "facts" and opinions that are contradicted by established facts?

Are we supposed to be "respectful" of all opinions-- even those that are invalid?

I think not.

On the contrary, my impression is that the mission/purpose of this Education Forum is to discern and report the truth, about history and other subjects.

 

 

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Some have also erroneously claimed that criticism of their false claims constitutes an "ad hominem" attack.

It doesn't.

Criticisms can be respectful of the poster while disputing the veracity of their claims. 

Calling the people who make these posts "whackos," "nutjobs," "cretins," "subhuman," "fellow travellers" [a term that harkens back to the "Red Scare" days of the 1950s, if I'm not mistaken], and other insulting names IS an ad hominem attack. 

Disputing the truth of a source is NOT an attack on the poster. 

And this forum does not intend to operate on the principle of "an eye for an eye." If you are a victim of an ad hominem, that does NOT give you license to resort to the same tactic. This is made clear in the forum rules of behavior. Anyone who refuses to abide by those rules can face discipline...or they can choose to leave of their own accord. Moderators cannot be on every thread 24/7. That's why the new rule was implemented under which a member can request another member to remove an offensive comment. Because the moderators and administrators have lives away from this forum, and away from the entire internet, and only drop in from time to time, the "report to moderator" function won't always bring about an immediate response.

"...and we are all mortal." None of us is perfect. The mods and admins try to do the best they can, with the information that they have. There are times in which some reports are discussed among mods and admins to decide upon the proper course of action. While a course of action may have the name of only one of them, it's likely that a majority of them, possibly even in unanimity, decided on the course of action that is visible.

Think about these things. It's generally a thankless job, so a thread such as this actually thanking the mods and admins is quite rare.

[Leslie Sharp]

18 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Steve,

     I agree that the 56 Years thread needed to be put to rest.

     But, since we are all erstwhile historians, I went back and studied the trajectory of that thread this evening.

     We were all having lively, informed discussions about current events until roughly October of 2022.

     Beginning in October, the thread was infiltrated and increasingly disrupted by Mathew Koch's MAGA spam, and an openly expressed agenda of disrupting and challenging the alleged "leftist" bias on the forum.

     It was all downhill after that, as Mathew's MAGA movement picked up momentum from a motley international crew.

     Jeremy Bojzuk posted a rather hilarious, literary critique of our forum's MAGA movement last night, by one Alex Wilson.  Worth reading, especially for T.S. Eliot fans.

      I wrote a comment about Mr. Wilson's "Hollow Men" critique this morning, but Mark Knight closed the thread just before I clicked the "Send" button.

As a matter of interest, W., wasn't the Wilson analysis of the thread posted on kennedysandking, and didn't it originate with Paul Blau at ROKC?  I may have the trajectory reversed, and for all I know Blau and Wilson are one and the same.

I haven't checked recently, but in the past I've noticed that Jim DiE doesn't always permit comments. Is the Wilson analysis allowed to smolder? 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[Leslie Sharp]

22 minutes ago, Mark Knight said:

 

 

Criticisms can be respectful of the poster while disputing the veracity of their claims. 

Calling the people who make these posts "whackos," "nutjobs," "cretins," "subhuman," "fellow travellers" [a term that harkens back to the "Red Scare" days of the 1950s, if I'm not mistaken], and other insulting names IS an ad hominem attack. 

Disputing the truth of a source is NOT an attack on the poster. 

And this forum does not intend to operate on the principle of "an eye for an eye." If you are a victim of an ad hominem, that does NOT give you license to resort to the same tactic. This is made clear in the forum rules of behavior. Anyone who refuses to abide by those rules can face discipline...or they can choose to leave of their own accord. Moderators cannot be on every thread 24/7. That's why the new rule was implemented under which a member can request another member to remove an offensive comment. Because the moderators and administrators have lives away from this forum, and away from the entire internet, and only drop in from time to time, the "report to moderator" function won't always bring about an immediate response.

"...and we are all mortal." None of us is perfect. The mods and admins try to do the best they can, with the information that they have. There are times in which some reports are discussed among mods and admins to decide upon the proper course of action. While a course of action may have the name of only one of them, it's likely that a majority of them, possibly even in unanimity, decided on the course of action that is visible.

Think about these things. It's generally a thankless job, so a thread such as this actually thanking the mods and admins is quite rare.

Mark, having been baptized by fire moderating Russ Baker's whowhatwhy.org in the early days, I have the greatest respect for you and the team — regardless of my own subjective view of certain recent adjudication.  It's a thankless task.

[Paul Brancato]

Thank you Mark and the moderators 

[Leslie Sharp]

4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Since this is a kind of post-mortem thread for the defunct, monster 56 Years thread, I had a few additional thoughts overnight.

One thought has to do with the general mission/purpose of this fine Education Forum, and the subject of what constitutes "uncivil" discourse.

Is it "uncivil" or "disrespectful" to criticize falsehoods-- i.e., alleged "facts" and opinions that are contradicted by established facts?

Are we supposed to be "respectful" of all opinions-- even those that are invalid?

I think not.

On the contrary, my impression is that the mission/purpose of this Education Forum is to discern and report the truth, about history and other subjects.

As a corollary, falsehoods need to be refuted.

Case in point.  Most of us believe that America's destiny was betrayed after 11/22/63, by men who conspired to murder President Kennedy in order to alter JFK's foreign and military policies.

Consequently, we tend to refute the false Warren Commission thesis that JFK was assassinated by a Lone Nut.

Is that uncivil?

Similarly, an important topic on the 56 Years thread was Trump's conspiracy to obstruct the certification of Biden's election on January 6th.

The evidence of Trump's J6 conspiracy has been quite ample, especially as a result of the 2022 Congressional J6 Committee investigation.

And, yet, as in the case of the WCR "Lone Nut" narrative, some people in the media, (especially Tucker Carlson) and on this forum, have repeatedly promoted false narratives about January 6th.

These are the same people who insist that it is "uncivil" for forum members to criticize their false claims about January 6th.

Some have also erroneously claimed that criticism of their false claims constitutes an "ad hominem" attack.

It doesn't.

Adding two cents, W. Banning the use of historically accurate terms distorts truth and compromises facts.  For instance, fact — the title of Yeadon and Hawkins' book is N azi Hydra in America, not PooPoo Hydra in America.  The classic by Shirer and Rosenbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: The history of N azi Germany, is not  subtitledThe History of PooPoo Germany.  I'm guessing you agree how absurd and silly this reads on a forum purporting to appeal to historians of all stripes? (and the go-arounds are even more ludicrous.  N-azi is not, historically, hyphenated nor does it have a backslash, or other creative solutions to the silly ban.)   I'm aware the term N-zi was being hurled as an epithet on this forum, but surely there's an algorithm that distinguishes usage?

 

And I'll add that because what goes around comes around, I'm opposed to censorship in any fashion unless it's to prevent or interrupt someone from (metaphorically) crying fire in the crowded theatre. "And then they came for us," as is happening with book banning. It goes without saying that robust debate is the cornerstone of democracy so I believe the lies promoted by TC and his ilk provide a perfect foil to advance truth and we must, now more than ever, rise to the occasion. Contrary to Kelleyanne Conway, there are no alternative truths.  But, it requires truth seekers to hone their research and communication skills.  I'm talking to myself and the recent imbroglio with Mathew Koch. I'm not immune to triggers and should have been on my toes.  That said, I have no doubt he has been trained, seriously trained.  I recognized some of the tactics, but fell prey anyway.  Your observation of the timeline of the insanity that ensued on that thread aligns with my research into the history. He joined in September, and I suspect he was assigned Ed Forum. In time, maybe one of us can nail it down. Thus is the nature of most who are committed to K assassination research. I respect your posts hugely!
 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Leslie Sharp

[John Cotter]

1 hour ago, Mark Knight said:

Calling the people who make these posts "whackos," "nutjobs," "cretins," "subhuman," "fellow travellers" [a term that harkens back to the "Red Scare" days of the 1950s, if I'm not mistaken], and other insulting names IS an ad hominem attack. 

Nice try, Mark.

The odd one out in that list of “insults” is the one to which you had to append an explanatory note in order to try to make it an insult.

The reason you had to do that is of course because the term “fellow traveller” is not an insult. It’s a purely descriptive term for someone who shares another’s ideology.

Each of the other terms you listed is described as “derogatory” by the Oxford Dictionary, but “fellow traveller” is not.

Things are fairly desperate when a moderator has to resort to the Humpty Dumpty method of word definitions: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

This is parallel universe “Alice through the Looking Glass” stuff.

[Mark Knight]

fel·low trav·el·er

[ˈˌfelō ˈtrav(ə)lər]

 

NOUN

fellow travellers (plural noun)

 

a person who is not a member of a particular group or political party (especially the Communist Party), but who sympathizes with the group's aims and policies:

"he was certainly a fellow traveller—in the political context of the Thirties this was unremarkable"

 

I didn't make up this definition. Fellow traveler Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

 

From Wikipedia: "In U.S. politics, during the 1940s and the 1950s, the term fellow traveller was a pejorative term for a person who was philosophically sympathetic to Communism, yet was not a formal, "card-carrying member" of the Communist Party USA. In political discourse, the term fellow traveler was applied to intellectuals, academics, and politicians who lent their names and prestige to Communist front organizations."

 

I didn't make up this Wikipedia entry, either. It is PLAINLY STATED that this "...was a pejorative term..." Which makes it an insult.

 

Which means thou protesteth too much, without doing the requisite research.

[Leslie Sharp]

1 hour ago, John Cotter said:

Nice try, Mark.

The odd one out in that list of “insults” is the one to which you had to append an explanatory note in order to try to make it an insult.

The reason you had to do that is of course because the term “fellow traveller” is not an insult. It’s a purely descriptive term for someone who shares another’s ideology.

Each of the other terms you listed is described as “derogatory” by the Oxford Dictionary, but “fellow traveller” is not.

Things are fairly desperate when a moderator has to resort to the Humpty Dumpty method of word definitions: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

This is parallel universe “Alice through the Looking Glass” stuff.

 

John, keep in mind that one of Matthew Koch’s final posts on the infamous thread was a link to a Milo Yiannopoulos video with a kind of chyron claiming that feminism is equivalent to AIDS. Turns out, Milo is a “fellow traveler”. 

 

From 2017… Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker

Yiannopoulos is the technology editor for Breitbart, the right-wing, pro-Trump news site formerly run by Steve Bannon, who is now President Trump’s chief strategist and arguably the most powerful man in the White House. While working for Bannon, Yiannopoulos did more than anyone else at Breitbart to explain and build bridges to the so-called alt-right, the amorphous collection of neo-nationalist [SIC]activists. Bannon once said that Breitbart was “the platform for the alt-right.” . . .

 

Yiannopoulos, who has called himself a “fellow-traveller” [sic] of the movement, last year wrote a sympathetic essay, “An Establishment Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right,” which attempted to usher the movement into semi-respectability among the site’s many Trump-loving readers. At an infamous alt-right conference in Washington in November, attendees toasted Trump with the National Socialist salute. But, over the past year, Yiannopoulos, along with the alt-right, Bannon, and Trump—whom Yiannopoulos often calls “Daddy”—moved from the laughingstock fringes to the center of the conservative movement. 

 

So, are you arguing that Matthew Koch wasn’t aware of what he was saying when he referred to “fellow-traveler”?  Remember Mr. Koch apparently respects Mr. Yioannopolis which explained his obnoxious remarks directed at a female on that thread. And no, I'm not asking for a rehash. The facts stand, and I will own my part in succumbing to his triggers on several occasions.

 

For Chris Barnard's benefit, from my subjective experience, which I am entitled to express, Mr. Koch exhibited the characteristics of a trained provocateur. Chris, if we're permitted to identify perps in the Kennedy assassination who are no longer able to defend themselves, logically the same rule should apply here. If I'm still transgressing forum rules, a moderator, not a school monitor, should step in.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/ryan-lizza/how-alt-right-fellow-traveller-milo-yiannopoulos-cracked-up-the-right

 

 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Leslie Sharp