John Simkin Thought John McAdams Was a CIA Propagandist

[James DiEugenio]

John McAdams is dead.

So, pray tell, what are you talking about?

[W. Niederhut]

3 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Looks like it's becoming a habit for some EF members to totally ignore this forum rule:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Accusations of Member Credibility:

Members that post and/or imply that a fellow member of this forum is using an alias on this forum or an alias elsewhere designed to deceive members at [this] forum or any other forum, and/or that he/she may be paid to post on this forum.

Such behavior may lead to a suspension or ban from the forum.

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25465-forum-rules-and-membership-behaviour/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Isn't this old forum rule rather odd, and perhaps even Un-Constitutional-- especially in light of the documented evidence (above) that our Education Forum founder, John Simkin, was expressly concerned, as early as 2005, about the activity of John McAdams and the CIA propaganda establishment on the internet?

     Are we now forbidden from even discussing putative CIA propaganda on Simkin's Education Forum?

     Does anyone really believe that John Simkin would have forbidden informed forum members in 2024 from even raising the question of whether any CIA-funded WCR propagandists may have "infiltrated" the Education Forum?

     I can't imagine that John Simkin would have enforced such a bizarre restriction on honest dialogue and historiography.

     And I probably don't need to point out the obvious irony of Steve Roe, W. Tracy Parnell, Jonathan Cohen, David Von Pein, and our WCR/LN mob calling for censorship of honest questions about CIA propaganda on the grounds that such questions interfere with their freedom of expression!

   

 

Edited October 8 by W. Niederhut

[W. Niederhut]

Addendum:  Incidentally, in GHWB's revised CIA policies for Operation Mockingbird (following Colby's Church Committee testimony) restrictions on CIA funding of domestic propaganda ops did not apply to free lance journalists.

I assume this would apply to CIA funding of "free lancers" running websites-- e.g., John McAdams, David Reitzes, and others.

[James DiEugenio]

William, 

If I recall, Reitzes was more of less subsidized by McAdams.

Pat can probably tell you more about that..

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

The only thing more bizarre is Pat's insistence that JFK was not shot in the right forehead by a bullet fired from in front of the limo.

Let me guess .... W. Niederhut thinks Dr. Humes is telling a bunch of lies in this 1967 interview.

Right, W.?

 

Edited October 8 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

John McAdams is dead.

So, pray tell, what are you talking about?

I wonder who this DiEugenio post was being aimed at?

No way to know, of course, since James is too lazy to ever utilize the quote function.

 

Edited October 8 by David Von Pein

[Denny Zartman]

It appears Mr. David Von Pein is concerned about the rules and the rule enforcement on the Education Forum. How interesting.

Let's note that David Von Pein previously broke the rules here and as a result was banished from this forum.

You know what other folks do when they're a member of an online forum, don't like the moderation, and feel that they're being treated unfairly on said forum?

They quit.

David Von Pein begged to come back to this forum after his banishment.

Begged. Begged. BEGGED.

Imho people like that should be thanking the moderators every single day for allowing them to be here. Instead, they now strut around lecturing others on rules and decorum.

[David Von Pein]

3 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

Let's note that David Von Pein previously broke the rules here and as a result was banished from this forum.

Objection, Your Honor! Misstates the evidence.

Let the record reflect, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that the "rule" that I (allegedly) broke was not even a rule at this forum at all at the time I was banished. It was, in fact, a rule that was only added to the Forum Rules page a few hours after I was booted out the door.

But don't let that little detail keep you from pretending I "broke the rules" anyway, Denny.

Your witness, counsel.

 

Edited October 8 by David Von Pein

[Jean Ceulemans]

11 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

      Isn't this old forum rule rather odd, and perhaps even Un-Constitutional-- especially in light of the documented evidence (above) that our Education Forum founder, John Simkin, was expressly concerned, as early as 2005, about the activity of John McAdams and the CIA propaganda establishment on the internet?

     Are we now forbidden from even discussing putative CIA propaganda on Simkin's Education Forum?

     Does anyone really believe that John Simkin would have forbidden informed forum members in 2024 from even raising the question of whether any CIA-funded WCR propagandists may have "infiltrated" the Education Forum?

     I can't imagine that John Simkin would have enforced such a bizarre restriction on honest dialogue and historiography.

     And I probably don't need to point out the obvious irony of Steve Roe, W. Tracy Parnell, Jonathan Cohen, David Von Pein, and our WCR/LN mob calling for censorship of honest questions about CIA propaganda on the grounds that such questions interfere with their freedom of expression!

   

 

If members suspect these things, they should report it to the mod (....), IMO that´s the intention of the rule, members are not supposed to start accusing each other..., that goes bad in a hurry.

You can discuss cia propaganda as much as you like, different thing.

 

 

Edited October 8 by Jean Ceulemans

[Benjamin Cole]

For enough money, I will shill in the EF-JFKA, for nearly anybody. 

Seriously, I think influence-peddling through money does happen, though whether in the  EF-JFKA, with its minute readership, is less likely. 

It is easy to launder money, in exchange for social-influencer or media  posts. 

A gag back in L.A. was city officials hiring a PR shop for this or that, and someone's wife worked at that PR shop. Gray zone-y. 

I am now researching a dubious new new-site named Drop Site News. So where do they get their money? They have not filed the required forms yet. 

But they say "Drop Site News is currently fiscally sponsored by Social Security Works Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization."

OK, so who gives money to the "Social Security Works Education Fund"?

Then the money is re-funneled to Drop Site, which has never published a story on Social Security but has valorized Hamas many times. 

Writers are on-staff or have stipends from foundations, think tanks and lobby groups, and know what they should do, without a specific quid pro pro. 

My guess is the intel state is more active than ever online, and so are foreign governments. 

 

 

[Jean Ceulemans]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Cut

But they say "Drop Site News is currently fiscally sponsored by Social Security Works Education Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization."

Cut

Fiscally sponsored only means they don´t have to pay taxes on their profits (but often they do have to fill in a tax form to provide information so their status can be checked).  In this case DSN is achieving that by being a member of the SSW Educ.Fund.

So it doesn´t mean money goes from one to the other or vice versa, but that is possible (even likely).  Like charges for administration and accounting, usually done within the mother company.

Funding was initially crowd funding/donations.

Behind it, at a certain moment, according Influene Watch :

"Social Security Works co-founder Eric Kingson serves as the chair of the board of the Social Security Works Education Fund. He is a professor of social work at Syracuse University10 and served on the advisory committee to the Social Security Administration’s transition team after volunteering on President Barack Obama’s campaign’s advisory committee on retirement security policy. 

Richard Arenberg is a member of the organization’s board of directors and currently serves as the interim director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University. Previously, Arenberg had a long career on Capitol Hill working for a number of Democratic members of Congress including former U.S. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and George Mitchell (D-ME)."

There´s more on them on different websites.

Edited October 8 by Jean Ceulemans

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Jean Ceulemans said:

Fiscally sponsored only means they don´t have to pay taxes on their profits (but often they do have to fill in a tax form to provide information so their status can be checked).  In this case DSN is achieving that by being a member of the SSW Educ.Fund.

So it doesn´t mean money goes from one to the other or vice versa, but that is possible (even likely).  Like charges for administration and accounting, usually done within the mother company.

Funding was initially crowd funding/donations.

Behind it, at a certain moment, according Influene Watch :

"Social Security Works co-founder Eric Kingson serves as the chair of the board of the Social Security Works Education Fund. He is a professor of social work at Syracuse University10 and served on the advisory committee to the Social Security Administration’s transition team after volunteering on President Barack Obama’s campaign’s advisory committee on retirement security policy. 

Richard Arenberg is a member of the organization’s board of directors and currently serves as the interim director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University. Previously, Arenberg had a long career on Capitol Hill working for a number of Democratic members of Congress including former U.S. Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and George Mitchell (D-ME)."

There´s more on them on different websites.

Well, way off topic for EF-JFKA, but Drop Site News might as well be Quds News, or Radio Tehran. Actually worse, as they know the audience better. Something fishy going on. If you want to talk more, DM me. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

It is about propaganda, so perhaps it´s ok. Or how it goes on in the digital era, at least a part of it.

Over the last week there have been a lot of DDoS attacks (sending overloads of internet traffic to certain website channels to block them) especially by the NoName group.  Also a lot of websites are hacked and their regular content replaced by some kind of propaganda. I do not know that´s what going on at DSN, but they will use everything they can get their hands on. Non-profit websites are known for having low protection. Yesterday a number of Belgian government websites went down. And one would be surprised to see how many "regular people" have their computers used as jump- stations (between a hacker and his goal are often thousands of these to make tracing them very hard). 

For now it all has to do with Russia, Ukraine, Israel, etc.

Edited October 8 by Jean Ceulemans

[Jean Ceulemans]

I really had no idea how this all worked, untill my brother in law showed me a bunch of this stuff, as he was the director of a cyber security services company. 

[Pat Speer]

14 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

      Isn't this old forum rule rather odd, and perhaps even Un-Constitutional-- especially in light of the documented evidence (above) that our Education Forum founder, John Simkin, was expressly concerned, as early as 2005, about the activity of John McAdams and the CIA propaganda establishment on the internet?

     Are we now forbidden from even discussing putative CIA propaganda on Simkin's Education Forum?

     Does anyone really believe that John Simkin would have forbidden informed forum members in 2024 from even raising the question of whether any CIA-funded WCR propagandists may have "infiltrated" the Education Forum?

     I can't imagine that John Simkin would have enforced such a bizarre restriction on honest dialogue and historiography.

     And I probably don't need to point out the obvious irony of Steve Roe, W. Tracy Parnell, Jonathan Cohen, David Von Pein, and our WCR/LN mob calling for censorship of honest questions about CIA propaganda on the grounds that such questions interfere with their freedom of expression!

   

 

John Simkin wanted McAdams and his ilk to become members of this forum, so that their ARGUMENTS could be challenged and possibly destroyed. That was the purpose of this forum--an all-hands-on-deck-let's hash-this-out-and-get-somewhere forum where a wide variety of arguments could be discussed. He grew discouraged, however, over time, by the prevalence among some to attack those with whom they disagreed or had a problem. As stated, he DEFENDED John McAdams when I thought I found some dirt on the guy. 

So, no, he didn't want to lure McAdams here to play GOTCHA! He wanted McAdams here to discuss issues regarding the Kennedy assassination. A key part of the forum at the beginning was a section in which authors could come and discuss their books. This dried up rather quickly because most members chose to fill these threads with "Somebody told me" and "Somebody else said" type stuff, and the authors were forced to discuss what others had said and not their own books. 

So, long story short. John would not have subjected members to questions about their motivations, and would have instead focused on questions about their ideas. The forum rule about questioning people's background was designed not just for the benefit of LNers, but everyone. John had seen how people such as Tink Thompson and myself were routinely attacked by people such as Fetzer as CIA defenders for simply disagreeing with their batshit claims. If you claimed the evidence failed to support that the limo came to a complete stop in the plaza you were a CIA puppet or shill. If you failed to support that Lee Harvey Oswald was photographed on the front steps in the Altgens photo--but that the photo was altered in a secret CIA lab hidden amongst the cars in the depository parking lot to disguise his face--you were a CIA puppet or shill. And so on. It was nauseating. So a rule was needed. 

And it works both ways. I'd had many talks with some of the most famous researchers by that time and the consensus was that, if anyone among the research community was put here to disrupt, embarrass, and discredit us, it was not someone like McAdams, but someone like Fetzer. 

SO...do we really wanna open that door--where we make it okay to accuse our fellow CTs of being sent here to disrupt? And have the forum collapse onto itself in an orgy of finger-pointing? And make a joke of John Simkin's dream?

Edited October 8 by Pat Speer