Jim DiEugenio comments on Harvey and Lee

First of all let me preface this by saying I have a great deal of respect for Jim and his work.
A tireless campaigner for historical truth ; through his books, his articles, his Kennedy's and King website and now with this forthcoming documentary , he has quite rightfully established himself as one of the most articulate and most knowledgeable researchers. Also ,as he has perhaps the highest profile of any researcher, his words carry a certain extra power. With that power of course comes responsibility. A responsibility Jim usually handles well. Carefully eschewing the wildest conspiratorial ravings to focus on what can be proven.
Not only does he possess an almost encyclopedic awareness of the minutiae of the case, he fully understands the cases crucial importance in the grander scheme, as one of THE major turning points. One of the key hinges upon which the tragic drama of the 20th century swung 
Opening the door that led down the dark crooked path towards Tonkin, Watergate, Iran/ Contra, Reaganomics. That path became the murderous moon haunted highway into the 21st.. terrorism and beyond.
The Kennedy assassination is a potent symbol of the control mechanism that allows the few to govern the many.
A mechanism based on fear. Of ourselves and of each other.
Saying that I disagree profoundly with Jim when it comes to H and L. 
The case as Armstrong presented it; namely two unrelated boys reared almost from birth to be involved in some unprecedented , convulted decade long double doppelganger project, but more importantly how the " evidence" is presented and perceived.
Perception is the key. If this case is ever going to be taken seriously again.
Jim knows this better than almost anyone . His essays on the posthumous assassination of Kennedys career and reputation, how hes perceived as some empty headed playboy cavorting with Marilyn Monroe rather than the clear thinking sometimes visionary statesman still make for chilling reading.
The point he made then is the point the so called H and L critics are making now 
To compare Jeremy's comments with Posner was, in my opinion at least, not only unfair but missed the point he was trying to make.
The greatest obstacles to the historical truth of JFKs death ever being acknowledged and accepted aren't the few tepid voices earnestly reciting the Warren Report lies; they come from the other side of the spurious LN/CT divide.
The characters who endeavour to turn history into a theory and make a conspiracy out of the simple truth; JFK was assassinated by more than one gunman.
None of those gunmen were called Lee Harvey Oswald.
The case IS simple . There's been an almost fetishistic desire to complicate things. To come up with increasingly esoteric intricate theories.
This seeming desire culminated in H and L.
Perception is the key. 
How the truth is perceived is almost as important as the truth itself.
I once believed in H and L. Ironically it was by studying the evidence Armstrong himself collected that convinced me he was mistaken
The cultish advocates that flood thread after thread with their propagandising seem unable to accept ANY mistakes
The goal shouldn't be to destroy the Warren Report, even if that means replacing one fable with another. The goal should be the truth. Not in some abstract sense but the truth about what happened that day.
Kudlaty, Schubert DaRouse etc must be held to the same standard as Howard Brennan and Ruth Paine.
For if we don't do it someone else will. Someone whose sole intent is to keep the public facade of the Warren Report lie intact.
Does Jim Hargroves strike you as someone interested in the truth? Or some salesman intent on burying the inherently shoddy nature of his product behind hyperbole, insinuation and shameless distortion.
The H and L gang have adopted the very tactics that made the Warren Report so abhorrent.
The way I see it is wevew come to a crossroads. H and L represents a failed paradigm. To follow the path down to Chez Armstrong is tantamount to accepting defeat. Mired in repetition , Hargroves has become a living testament to those doomed to relive the same past they failed to learn from.
The other path leads in a new direction....

First of all let me preface this by saying I have a great deal of respect for Jim and his work.
A tireless campaigner for historical truth ; through his books, his articles, his Kennedy's and King website and now with this forthcoming documentary , he has quite rightfully established himself as one of the most articulate and most knowledgeable researchers. Also ,as he has perhaps the highest profile of any researcher, his words carry a certain extra power. With that power of course comes responsibility. A responsibility Jim usually handles well. Carefully eschewing the wildest conspiratorial ravings to focus on what can be proven.

I have a complicated relationship with him, but that is on me and has to do with the way I view human behavior.

Not only does he possess an almost encyclopedic awareness of the minutiae of the case, he fully understands the cases crucial importance in the grander scheme, as one of THE major turning points. One of the key hinges upon which the tragic drama of the 20th century swung 
Opening the door that led down the dark crooked path towards Tonkin, Watergate, Iran/ Contra, Reaganomics. That path became the murderous moon haunted highway into the 21st.. terrorism and beyond.

I can vouch that he at least does not accept material without vetting it, even when it plays to a bias. I know because he has asked some hard questions before accepting works from me to post as his site - works he himself had requested. I see that as a plus for him. But that is where the rub also resides. He does not get involved in the H & L threads, offering the reason that they are "vituperative". Not sure I buy that as the reason. At the same time, he pushes what he perceives as being the good work Armstrong did in other areas. ptui. It is all shit. I think the real reason he stays out is that he bought into the two Oswald theory as demonstrated in The Assassinations, but is smart enough to know the rebuttals over the past 10 to 15 years hold water, placing him in awkward situation. After all, Armstrong has been feted at conferences, is quoted by most of  the influential members of the Conspiriocracy and for all I know is an affable guy in the flesh. Jim's solution is to drop all H & L discussion and references accept for less controversial areas of the Holy Book. 

The Kennedy assassination is a potent symbol of the control mechanism that allows the few to govern the many.

There are control mechanisms at play in this community, as well. I know more than I let on about the behind-the-scenes-machinations. 

I know why some are shunned and shut out - and not just from some forums. A perfect example was the the letter signed by the 50 authors/researchers/actors to have the case reopened. Some of the names on it were so preposterous, words fail. Doug Caddy? FFS. But he gets in because he is part of the Conspiriocracy - or at the very least, is no threat to it. He believes aliens walk among us and that secret was why JFK was killed? No problem! Jim Marrs wrote books on UFOs. Welcome aboard Doug. But not one person - not a single person here was asked to be a part of that. The one place dedicated to having the case reopened. The one place where cooperative research is not only done but posted for all.  And not just hack research - the JFK version of yellow journalism - but real groundbreaking material that is moving closer to an ultimate resolution of this case. No. This is not sour grapes. Ed, Bart, Stan, Lee - any of them would have been worthy additions. 

A mechanism based on fear. Of ourselves and of each other.
Saying that I disagree profoundly with Jim when it comes to H and L. 
The case as Armstrong presented it; namely two unrelated boys reared almost from birth to be involved in some unprecedented , convulted decade long double doppelganger project, but more importantly how the " evidence" is presented and perceived.
Perception is the key. If this case is ever going to be taken seriously again.
Jim knows this better than almost anyone . His essays on the posthumous assassination of Kennedys career and reputation, how hes perceived as some empty headed playboy cavorting with Marilyn Monroe rather than the clear thinking sometimes visionary statesman still make for chilling reading.

Of course Jim now realizes that perception is important. Thus his chosen profession of fence-sitting on "two Oswalds". In the past 10 to 15 years, the penny has dropped for him. He has awoken from the mesmerizing allure of the illusory. 

The point he made then is the point the so called H and L critics are making now 
To compare Jeremy's comments with Posner was, in my opinion at least, not only unfair but missed the point he was trying to make.
The greatest obstacles to the historical truth of JFKs death ever being acknowledged and accepted aren't the few tepid voices earnestly reciting the Warren Report lies; they come from the other side of the spurious LN/CT divide.

The real problem for Jeremy is that no one on the receiving end likes an articulate smart-arse - especially when he is right.  

The characters who endeavour to turn history into a theory and make a conspiracy out of the simple truth; JFK was assassinated by more than one gunman.
None of those gunmen were called Lee Harvey Oswald.
The case IS simple . There's been an almost fetishistic desire to complicate things. To come up with increasingly esoteric intricate theories.

For some it's a parlor game, for others, it feeds self-delusions.

The other night I watched a local true crime documentary following the exploits a disgraced former defense lawyer trying for redemption by proving the innocence of a convicted killer of a British backpacker.  Interesting case. No body, dodgy forensics, conflicting witnesses and so on. But something the ex-lawyer said rings so very true. To paraphrase, he said that no law enforcement or prosecutor would ever admit it, but their real job is to construct a story showing how the charged person did the deed, what led to it and what followed from it, and to sell that story to the jury. The unstated subtext was that the sales job may sometimes require some massaging of the evidence. 

The Conspiriocracy does the same thing, and the online parlor game players pick up on this from reading their works and try and emulate them by remodeling the top selling theories to make their very on subsidiaries. 

Then their are the Cultists and Followers of False Witnesses.

Perception is the key. 
How the truth is perceived is almost as important as the truth itself.
I once believed in H and L. Ironically it was by studying the evidence Armstrong himself collected that convinced me he was mistaken
The cultish advocates that flood thread after thread with their propagandising seem unable to accept ANY mistakes
The goal shouldn't be to destroy the Warren Report, even if that means replacing one fable with another. The goal should be the truth.

Ah, but Grasshopper, the very meaning of "Truth" has been successfully subverted to the point that, as a commodity, it has lost all trust among the punters. The MSM and politicians have lied for so long, vast swathes have turned to alternatives. And there are no shortage of hucksters ready to step in and be that "alternative". 

Yes the goal should be "truth" and maybe one day we can restore the word to it's former glory, But at the moment, the various forms of "truth" make me wretch. For now, how about we aim for a finding of facts. Or sets of facts.

Not in some abstract sense but the truth about what happened that day.
Kudlaty, Schubert DaRouse etc must be held to the same standard as Howard Brennan and Ruth Paine.

Exactly! But glad you said it because it needed to be said.

For if we don't do it someone else will. Someone whose sole intent is to keep the public facade of the Warren Report lie intact.
Does Jim Hargroves strike you as someone interested in the truth? Or some salesman intent on burying the inherently shoddy nature of his product behind hyperbole, insinuation and shameless distortion.
The H and L gang have adopted the very tactics that made the Warren Report so abhorrent.
The way I see it is wevew come to a crossroads. H and L represents a failed paradigm. To follow the path down to Chez Armstrong is tantamount to accepting defeat. Mired in repetition , Hargroves has become a living testament to those doomed to relive the same past they failed to learn from.
The other path leads in a new direction....

Just proving beyond all argument that Oswald was innocent will in itself be a major breakthrough. And yes, I can hear the screams from the peanut gallery now. We don't need to waste time on that. We know he is didn't do it! My answer is that what we "know", has no effect on anything. Having indisputable proof does. It changes the history books and is a permanent reminder to America and to Congress that the case is NOT closed. 

So fuck all tinfoil-hat prosecutors of z grade theories.

You've absolutely nailed it about the Conspiratocracy.
As long as you accept the basic tenets of Orthodox conspiracism your wildest excesses will be tolerated.
Even if they venture through the looking glass to a magical kingdom....where Marilyn Monroe frolicked topless with grey aliens and Bobby Kennedy and President Eisenhower met with 8 foot Nordic aliens at Edwards air force base in February 1954
A witness is a witness...all their statements must be vetted with the same basic rigour.
You can't just close one eye to their credibility because their testimony just happens to prop up your favourite pet theory
As long as Baggins and his rag tag assortment of drones, elves, hobbits and giant emoticons keep pushing their propaganda I honestly think we should be there to counter it. As I see it we don't have much choice
In a very real sense the H and L myth is a wilful obstruction of the facts.
H and L in many ways is the Warren Report translated for your average self respecting conspiracy theorist 
Who are eager to suspend the disbelief they deny to the emissaries of the evil gub'mint.
In real terms H and L totally distorts Oswald's background, his involvement with US intelligence, his linguistic skills, his sojourn in the Soviet Union...and that's just for starters 
Armstrong had to use Lonsdale and the LaGuardia twins because there are no other examples of similar projects.
H and L is Cold War burlesque filtered through the imagination of a luxury builder and a PR photographer 
It's a fantasy scenario. If Baggins and co were left unchallenged the damage they would wreak would probably be terminal.
The JFK assassination would be relegated to the netherworld so beloved of the Conspiratocracy.
Halfway between madness and the dark side of the moon... perfect fodder for Don Jeffries and co.to gush about on their podcasts. 
They get indignant to a point...as long as it doesn't threaten the cosy little niche they've carved out for themselves on the alternative media 
Doc Norwood if you're reading this your attempted rebuttal was actually a retrograde step..you made so much more sense when you were chairman of the OIC

A favoured feature writer on K&K produced this magnificent essay.
Peace.

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Posted 55 minutes ago
Nobody has thanked you ... and nobody cares for the orders you bark...
While you go round and round with Wylie and Lucas and Stripling... waiting and drooling for a post to come your way so thankfully you get to speak your piece....
(originality doesn't seem to be your strong point...  Other People's Work... that's where you live... )
Luckily there is an IGNORE function whereby we don't have to listen to you pollute thread after thread...
Frank said what sounds like Wylie at the beginning of that video...  Lucas took over in 1953.  Probably a simple mistake since this was now 10 years later...
What's not a mistake is your ineffective attacks on Kudlaty for not having done this that or the other...  for doing what he says he did... and you wondering, hypothetically, what else... what else can we use to trip Kudlaty up...????   
In the end, you simply can't.  Which principal is not nearly as important as FBI agents removing the accused's school records and job records in select areas of the country from 11/23 all thru the following week... while the FBI Lab takes fewer items than it returns to Dallas that following week...
Your inability to see more than a single puzzle piece at a time is what defines childish here Robbie...  Terribly sorry you can'y figure out how they fit together but if you follow along for a while

and stop interrupting, maybe you'd learn to see TWO pieces at the same time...    
With regards to the emoticons...  it's 2020, get over yourself already... 
[size=36][/size]

David has contributed well... to the total confusion of what was already a huge mess.

According to the Fez, Lucas took over from Wylie in 1953.

According to another poster, Lucas was deceased by the time of the assassination.

According to Armstrong, it was Wylie who called Kudlaty.

According to Armstrong, Oswald went to school at Stripling for 6 weeks in the 1954-55 school year.

If all of this is true, the Crack Squad has an even bigger problem.

Wylie could not have called because he was not the principal in 1963.

Lucas could not have called because he was dead.

We should all chip in and buy the Fezmeister a stamp. Like Hal Blaine's... instead of" Hal Blaine strikes again" I think " Fez Fucks it up again" would be appropriate..
Maybe throw in an emoticon or three to add authenticity..
With his 13 inch hat, shades and sizzling charisma Swinging Sandy would mark each thread like Zorro..
" V" for Sandy.
Naturally.
Butler on the other hand would leave something more earthy . something a tad more pungent..
Something to appeal to another sense .
The digital equivalent of a pile of steaming hot shite.
I can just imagine El Swingero...hopping around on one booted trotter ... trying valiantly to leave his mark..
The sole of the other trotter covered in the shit he's just trod in .

"Luckily there is an IGNORE function whereby we don't have to listen to you pollute thread after thread..."

Fez, keep your crap on the relevant thread then.

"What's not a mistake is your ineffective attacks on Kudalty for not having done this that or the other...and you wandering, hypothetically, what else...what else can we use to trip Kudalty up..."

Fez, how about his own words. Which he spoke in front of Armstrong. Which still don't register in your tiny brain.

"...while the FBI lab takes fewer items than it returns to Dallas the following week.."

Fez, relevance to the topic please. Your in danger of scooting to another thread here. See who it works? We do.

"Your inability to see more than a single puzzle piece at a time is what defines childish here Robbie..."

Fez ! Really?

"With regards to emoticons...it's 2020, get over yourself already..."

Fez, why are you stuck in 2013 then? Get some new ones...or try gifs.

https://giphy.com/gifs/funny-horror-creepy-KzGCAlMiK6hQQ

Good advice, Steely.

We now have Fez and Baggins at loggerheads.

Fez sez Wylie preceded Lucas as principal.

Baggins begs that Lucas preceded Wylie.

If Baggins is correct, then the phone call is possible from Wylie.

But if Fez is correct, then the phone call is not possible - at least not as an official call from the then Principal of Stripling.

Of the two, it looks like Fez may have actually done a little research on it. If he is right, he has buried the Stripling bullshit all on his own - without even realizing it, Got bless his little cotton socks!

I am going to copy and paste the relevant comments here lest they get erased when they realize what they have done.

the fez sez wrote:Obituary for Kathryn Lucas:  A Yucca beauty while in her freshman year, she met and later became engaged to Weldon M. Lucas, a student and athlete at North Texas. They married Dec. 24, 1932, and resided in Fort Worth, where Weldon, known as "Luke," coached in the Fort Worth Independent School District. In the mid-1940s he became a vice principal at McLean Junior High, in the '50s a principal at Stripling High School and in the early '60s a principal at Arlington Heights High School.

Can you post HARRY WYLIE's bio and occupation from 1953 to 1957....  y'know to prove he was actually the principal at the time... Lucas started [as Stripling Principal] in 1953...  maybe Wylie was 51 & 52?
Maybe, just maybe Kudlaty misspoke, having had Wylie as his principal a few years earlier...

Okay... so Wylie up to 1953, then Lucas...so Fez sez Lucas must have made the call...

But according to Tony Krome, if Lucasmade the call after the assassination, it was from the grave...

Tony Krome wrote:Must of been a call from the grave ..... Weldon Lucas was DEAD

Then we have Baggins contradicting Fez by claiming that Wylie actually took over from Lucas, not the other way around...

Baggins blustered wrote:The Stripling principal who called Frank Kudlaty in 1963 was Mr. Wylie, just as Mr. Kudlaty says at the start of his interview.  This is what John A. wrote on two different places on our website
 
Seven months later, on November 23, 1963 (one day after the assassination) Mr. Kudlaty received an early morning phone call from his boss, Mr. Wylie, the principal of Stripling Junior High. Mr. Wylie told Kudlaty to immediately go to Stripling and meet two FBI agents who would arrive shortly and to give them Oswald's school records.

https://harveyandlee.net/School/Stripling.html

 
Early Saturday morning, the day after the assassination, Mr. Wylie, principal of Stripling Junior High, called the assistant principal, Frank Kudlaty, at his home . Mr. Wylie told Kudlaty to immediately go to Stripling and meet two FBI agents who would arrive shortly and to give them Oswald's school records.
 
https://harveyandlee.net/Early/Early.html
 
Weldon Lucas was the Stripling principal when LHO attended Stripling.  John accidentally used his name instead of Wylie's here: 
 
Early Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after the assassination, the assistant principal of Stripling Junior High School, Frank Kudlaty, received a phone call from his boss, Weldon Lucas. Mr. Lucas instructed Kudlaty to go to Stripling, locate (HARVEY) Oswald's school records, and give those records to FBI agents who were on their way

https://harveyandlee.net/FBI/FBI.html
 
I have just corrected this page to show Wylie instead of Lucas.

Now getting some popcorn to watch how this plays out and who Fearless Leader sends to the Naughty Corner.

My guess is that Dr Norwood will try to ban Gordon and shut the forum down. Much work makes many light hands i've found.

In general I do like and admire Jim and his work. I am disappointed in his attitude towards Prayer Man and also his refusal to criticize Armstrong's fairy tale.

PM is the end of the line Vinny. H&L is the last but one stop. Unlike LHO, Jim has a ticket.

Steely as usual, in his own inimitable style brought up a very good point. One of my main problems with K and K is some of the contributors simply aren't up to scratch.
Jim himself is a genuinely talented reviewer, who fully understands the art of criticism..but Joseph's? I found his work on the rifle basically incoherent...it was like peering into the thought processes of some 3rd rate modernist poet. A contemporary of Ginsberg and Kerouac...now reduced to mumbling incontinent lines to soothe the pain of his twilight years..
His work on Juddufki was tepid and fundamentally unconvincing.
In true Fezzo style with an open goal yawning before him he runs up and hoofs the ball miles over the bar .. landing beside the COINTELPRO infiltrators in row Z
Basically it boils down to a question of epistemology, and historiography. All they know they've learned inside the conspiracy bubble. Repeating the same clumsy mistakes and flawed conclusions.
Utilising the conspiratocracy sanctioned authors.
Doc Norwoods effort was an absolute perversion of basic scholarship.
To put it quite bluntly he knows fuck all about how Russian is taught and learned. Instead he's breezily spreading the same old erroneous H and L friendly bullet points.
Don't believe me? Go to any fucking University level Russian lecturer who learned Russian as a second language. To a native English speaking Russian expert it's blatantly obvious Oswald was a native English speaker who learned Russian as a second language. To an adequate level. Hell never mind an expert. I can just about manage basic reading and spoken Russian and even I could tell . They know very little about 20th century history and what they do know is polluted by the toxicity of revisionism. They seem to labour under the misapprehension that a lie becomes the truth when it's used to expose another lie. To me that pretty much encapsulates the modus operandi of Trine Day etc. The Warren Report was a lie so every lie is permissible in the name of " truth"
Trine Day and Fox news, H and L and the Warren Report.. different sides of the same deception. 
Armstrong carefully avoided consulting real experts. Even the expert he DID consult was a fucking native RUSSIAN speaker. A crucial distinction.
Baggins grandiose claims about people being " threatened" by H and L is just hysterical bluster. If he , Swinging Sandy and Doc Norwood want to believe JFK was killed by a consortium of sodomite aliens and rodeo cowboys that's their business.
Good luck to them. I, like many others have a problem with them spreading knowing falsehoods.
I have a problem with Armstrong twisting, omitting and distorting facts. Preventing people from having a full honest coherent picture before they make their decision.
H and L refuses to acknowledge basic human nature. They go spiralling off into some grotesque conspiracy friendly alternate dimension.
Frank Kudlaty was capable of telling lies just as Howard Brennan was entirely capable of telling the truth. All witness and witness statements MUST be evaluated on their own merits. Likewise documents. Claiming a document is faked just because it happens to disagree with your own favoured scenario is quite simply cheating.
I only know enough to realise how little I know, how little it's possible to know.
I admire all the core members here but none of them are perfect. We're all fundamentally fallible and easily mistaken. An honest researcher/ student, call it what you will acknowledges this.
The true ideologue ignores everything that doesn't mirror their own beliefs. Even if that means jumping through hoops, performing the most outrageous contortions and yes even clinging onto the most egregious falsehoods just to preserve the sanctity of a favoured hypothesis/ theory/ witness 
Fundamentally this case is simple. Anyone not blinded by ideology , anyone with even a couple of firing brain cells understands it was a conspiracy.
People like Sylvia Meagher planted firm roots, grounded in honesty, rationality and integrity. From there the tree became somehow distorted, the branches twisted and the leaves poisoned.
Conspiracy has become both the means and the end. Uncovering the most labyrinthine convoluted conspiracy has become the goal of the self appointed conspiratocracy.
If some enterprising journalist hired a couple of actors to recite some of the H and L gang's sterling contributions then it would be curtains.
The assassination would almost certainly be designed to the tabloid netherworld for another half century..
Fifty years later Doug Caddy will STILL be talking to Don Jeffries embalmed head about Nixon's secret message about the alien presence..
That's why I think combating the malign propaganda of the H and L gang is so important.
To paraphrase the famous saying; all the 13 Inch Headed folk need to succeed is for the normally headed folk to do nothing.
Mark, Greg, Jeremy, RC-D and us here at ROKC towers have got the cultsters on the run.
Ive absolutely nothing against them personally but I find what they're try to do fundamentally repugnant.
There's enough discord,, disharmony and disinformation out there. Norwood is misinformed. He has neither the maturity or it seems the integrity to admit his mistakes.
Sandy, Baggins and Fezzo are just flotsam ..13 inch hatted, emoticon loving dust borne along on the conspiracy tide. Fezzo in particular is a hopeless case now. Armstrong has thoroughly dry cleaned his mind...so much so he can't even recognise his own reflection in the COINTELPRO circular he's so fond of posting.
I have nothing but contempt for Baggins. He's trying to make a commodity out of history. He obviously doesn't give a fuck about any of this

I care about DiEugenio's hypocrisy on this as much as much as I care about any of his other bloviations.

The reason he does not take a stance is because, just like Armstrong, he is financially invested in the tale and has himself repeated this nonsense and included it in his work. If Jim attacks the Stripling evidence, he is by extension attacking his very own work and his very own websites. He won't call question to his writings, so he stays 'agnostic."

While I do believe as of 2020 Jim Di does not believe the Stripling tale, he still sells books with this information in it. He won't attack that theory because it then calls his own statements and research into question. I believe he also refrains from alienating Armstrong, as he uses Armstrong research in much of his discussion.

In the end though, his basic stance does piss me off.

Jim Di is no stranger to pointing out the toxicity of many works and theories and how their inclusion waters down JFKA research, and gives new people the wrong impression of the evidence and of the case.

When it comes to "Harvey & Lee" though, this isn't the case. It's "influential" and in spite of it's errors, if it gets people talking and looking into the JFKA then it's a good thing.

He didn't say that about 11.22.63 though. He hasn't said this about numerous other works, in fact his position is very clear. Except for on Armstrongs work, those mistakes and out right lies are allowed, because it gets people talking.

Profiteering hypocrite.

Speaking of profiteers, have I shared with you all Armstrong's sport car collection? Good thing he isn't trying to be a profiteer, or that would be a weird coincidence.

A dimly lit basement compound buried deep beneath the Nevada desert...a maze of grim shadow and distorted memory.
The guru is slumped at his desk, his bright purple shellsuit crumpled, his usually immaculate hair tousled and his hooded eyes dark and brooding.
Staring at the loaded revolver on his desk, the barrel gleaming with icy menace. Sending tiny slivers of steely light cartwheeling across the dull oak panelled walls.
Behind him, flickering on small rectangular screen, grainy and out of focus is Fezzo the Fez. Still in the same " undisclosed location"..his fez looks battered and worn, as if someone's tried to insert it, tassle first, up some orifice or another.
He looks exhausted..worn out and spent from his massive emoticon-asm.. seemingly not even the centrefolds from Emojis Gone Wild he's got stapled down the front of his purple shellsuited gut can revive him...
Kneeling before the guru , in front of the desk are a hatless Swinging Sandy, his hind trotters twitching nervously, a glassy eyed and unkempt Jimbo Baggins and Doc Norwood, stuffed uncomfortably into the school uniform of St Januss All Boys Boarding School( motto "Semper Doppelgangus")
Behind them, half encased in shadow, an ominous hooded figure cradling an axe...
" Well" the guru sighs, glaring down at the semi prostrate form of Baggins
" You really fucked that one up.."
" But master" Jimbo whimpers submissively.
He's silenced by his guru's contemptuous snort
" Shut the fuck up and listen. All you and your fellow drones had to do was answer a few fucking questions about a couple of newspaper articles..you could have come up with any old shit, you know like you normally do"
Puts on an exaggerated high pitched effeminate squeak
" Megathanks for the information.. what the H and L critics want us to believe.. everything I need to be fake IS fake..but no this time you couldn't even rise to a tepid spurt of faux indignation..
They asked you a few questions about some shitty fucking articles and what do you do?"
The guru slams his fist on the desk.. causing the front of the Doc's purple shorts to darken and a suspicious looking puddle to form round his knees..
Catching a whiff of the acrid stench Baggins dishevelled goatee twitches.. like a Hobbit attached to electrodes in Dave Ferries secret kitchen cancer lab..
Ignoring the foul aroma, the veins in his forehead bulging like a fake mastoidectomy scar the guru continues screaming..
" Instead of answering the questions you kept posting the same articles over and over..Jimbo what's happening?" He slouches back, his voice softening to a despairing whisper
" You're loosing it..not even Sandy here buys half the shit youre trying to pimp...Sandy fucking Larsen!!! SANDY LARSEN!! and he believes Jesus Christ was a cross dressing petrol pump attendant from Omaha Nebraska...who used to play bass for the fucking Village People and who died of auto erotic asphyxiation in Franz Ozs Vegas hotel room"
Sandy lifts his hatless 13 inch head to protest but the guru raises his hand..
" IvI' had enough of your incompetence.."
Turning to Doc Norwood
" And as for you!! Doctor Prissy Britches.. you were a real great fucking investment! For another 20 bucks I could have got me Jim Fetzer ..mind you I heard he costs a fortune in hamburger shaped enemas and IG Farben colostomy bags.. I've made a little decision.." 
Nodding towards the revolver
" It's time for some new faces..I hear Don Jeffries is cheap .very fucking cheap actually and very flexible too if you catch my drift"
He grins down at Baggins..now fully prostated..arms upraised. rolling and writhing about like a lactational Sperm Whale..
" Oh master spare your most humble servant..Spare me oh fake mastoidectomy scar of Ahura Mazda"
" Mazda!!" Swinging Sandy burbles " Brigham Young rode in the back of a holy Mazda MX-5 to heaven!!"
" ENOUGH!!" the guru roars .
" " Those damn troll punks are making us look like fucking clowns"
" Oh my most exalted and beloved master!! Spare lowly Jimbo Baggins..the dirt beneath thy holy feet"
" See!" the irate guru growls " you even use their nicknames..that troll punk overlord has you dancing like puppets on strings .hmmm I wonder what the tax breaks are like Down Under? Maybe Australia is the land of opportunity for dynamic cult leaders .I mean fearless researchers"
" Please Mr Armstrong sir" Norwood salutes primly, trying to ignore the unsightly squishing..
" Let me write another essay or two .I mean it's easy to rebut something if people have no idea of what it is you're meant to be rebutting!!"
" Genius idea" Swinging Sandy chirps " Wanna compare IQs? Apart from Aunt Zebedees prize pig I've got the highest IQ in my family!! And all 3456 of us grew up in one little shack downwind from White Sands..the H bombs used to make such funny sounds...after 1954 when daddy became mommy and I grew both mommy and daddy bits"
" Shut the fuck up!!" the guru groans
" I can't fucking take this any more!! Why can't someone normal believe in H and L? Someone without latent psychosis, Oedipal fixations, an abnormal psychological sexual fixation with Dorothy from the Golden Girls or genocidal fantasies? Someone semi coherent and capable of rational thought..oh yeh someone who doesn't splatter emoticons everywhere like some  overexcitable 13 year old Twilight Saga fan ..ENOUGH!! No more begging.. it's time to play a little Russian roulette..Five bullets..one empty chamber..one shot each .and for you Fezzo" he turns towards the screen
" You've two buttons on your chair..one on each armrest...one realises a blow up sex doll shaped like a giant dancing emoticon...the other Zyklon B.. the original stuff..manufactured by Teschen and sons...an H and L supporter had some lying around..My holy name only knows where he got it from"
" Russian roulette?"
All the cultists cry at once..
" This is just like the last time" Fezzo grumbles" with the Hale Bopp comet and the Kool Aid..why didn't I just join the Scientologists...at least I might get to give John Travolta a massage!"
TO BE CONTINUED..

Locc wrote:I care about DiEugenio's hypocrisy on this as much as much as I care about any of his other bloviations.

The reason he does not take a stance is because, just like Armstrong, he is financially invested in the tale and has himself repeated this nonsense and included it in his work. If Jim attacks the Stripling evidence, he is by extension attacking his very own work and his very own websites. He won't call question to his writings, so he stays 'agnostic."

While I do believe as of 2020 Jim Di does not believe the Stripling tale, he still sells books with this information in it. He won't attack that theory because it then calls his own statements and research into question. I believe he also refrains from alienating Armstrong, as he uses Armstrong research in much of his discussion.

In the end though, his basic stance does piss me off.

Jim Di is no stranger to pointing out the toxicity of many works and theories and how their inclusion waters down JFKA research, and gives new people the wrong impression of the evidence and of the case.

When it comes to "Harvey & Lee" though, this isn't the case. It's "influential" and in spite of it's errors, if it gets people talking and looking into the JFKA then it's a good thing.

He didn't say that about 11.22.63 though. He hasn't said this about numerous other works, in fact his position is very clear. Except for on Armstrongs work, those mistakes and out right lies are allowed, because it gets people talking.

Profiteering hypocrite.

Speaking of profiteers, have I shared with you all Armstrong's sport car collection? Good thing he isn't trying to be a profiteer, or that would be a weird coincidence.

Many times on here we have wondered why Jim Di never produced a review of H&L. The nearest we got to an answer was when he stated that the book was too large and complicated to do a review justice. Strangely enough, he had no such problems with an equally large and complicated book called Reclaiming History. He eventually produced his own book as a rebuttal.
Profiteering hypocrite? Sounds about right.

GARBO...SORRY ARMSTRONG SPEAKS!!!
The guru in person is making an appearance on Black Op Radio .
To  further enlighten the rubes ..sorry.. the critical minded research community.
Apparently he's going to dazzle 'em with news about the latest additions to the H and L website.
Specifically the " Marines" page .
Don't forget to tune in folks!!

Locc wrote:I care about DiEugenio's hypocrisy on this as much as much as I care about any of his other bloviations.

The reason he does not take a stance is because, just like Armstrong, he is financially invested in the tale and has himself repeated this nonsense and included it in his work. If Jim attacks the Stripling evidence, he is by extension attacking his very own work and his very own websites. He won't call question to his writings, so he stays 'agnostic."

While I do believe as of 2020 Jim Di does not believe the Stripling tale, he still sells books with this information in it. He won't attack that theory because it then calls his own statements and research into question. I believe he also refrains from alienating Armstrong, as he uses Armstrong research in much of his discussion.

In the end though, his basic stance does piss me off.

Jim Di is no stranger to pointing out the toxicity of many works and theories and how their inclusion waters down JFKA research, and gives new people the wrong impression of the evidence and of the case.

When it comes to "Harvey & Lee" though, this isn't the case. It's "influential" and in spite of it's errors, if it gets people talking and looking into the JFKA then it's a good thing.

He didn't say that about 11.22.63 though. He hasn't said this about numerous other works, in fact his position is very clear. Except for on Armstrongs work, those mistakes and out right lies are allowed, because it gets people talking.

Profiteering hypocrite.

Speaking of profiteers, have I shared with you all Armstrong's sport car collection? Good thing he isn't trying to be a profiteer, or that would be a weird coincidence.

I believe if Jim could defend the thesis, he would. His attempts to hold up every OTHER facet of the book not directly related to the imaginary Oswald Project as "important", is prima facie evidence that he has come to realize that the central premise is indeed garbage. In fact, it is as if he tries to play down the Oswald Project as a small part of the book. He forgets that the name of the book is not "Tracing the Weapons" or "Hayride in Mexico". It is called "Harvey and Lee" for a reason. 

As for the threads... can you ask Jim H and David J to get together and make a decision on which headmaster followed which? As it stands, they are saying the opposite to each other. 

Also... re the news clipping you posted in another thread - can you tell me when that was published? Depending on when it was, it may tell something, because the clothing description in it is the one given by Mary Bledsoe

Greg,
The article is from the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23 1963.

Locc wrote:Greg,
The article is from the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 23 1963.

Thanks Mark. There is no description of him or his attire in her initial statement dated 11/23/63
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/bledsoe1.htm

Mr. BALL - Notice the color of his pants?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Yes, they were gray, and they were all ragged in here [indicating].
Mr. BALL - Around where?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - At the seam.
Mr. BALL - At the waist?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - At the waist, uh-huh.

Mrs. BLEDSOE - Now, is that long pants?
Mr. BALL - Yes; this is 157.
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Well, that is not the ones he had on.
Mr. BALL - That is not?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - No; it was ragged up at the top.
Mr. BALL - This other pair of pants, 156, does that look like any of the pants he had on?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - That must have been it, but seemed like it was ragged up at the top.
Mr. BALL - But, you think 156 may have been the pair of pants he had on?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - Yes.
Mr. BALL - You think 157---don't pay any attention to the fact that it is cut up does 157 look anything like the pants he had on?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - No; I don't---
Mr. BALL - You don't think so?
Mrs. BLEDSOE - No, sir.

Her first description of those "ragged" trousers was to the FBI on Nov 28, so she is probably not the source of the description. Yet I can find no other witness who described them in similar fashion.

greg_parker wrote:

I think the real reason he stays out is that he bought into the two Oswald theory as demonstrated in The Assassinations, but is smart enough to know the rebuttals over the past 10 to 15 years hold water, placing him in awkward situation. After all, Armstrong has been feted at conferences, is quoted by most of  the influential members of the Conspiriocracy and for all I know is an affable guy in the flesh.

That explanation makes sense. I suppose he needs to keep avenues open by not offending those who still think there might be something in the H&L nonsense.

I'm still trying to get my head around the notion that Armstrong was ever considered a respectable researcher. Digging out documents is one thing, but any credit from that gets used up pretty quickly if the only reason he was doing it was to back up a nonsensical theory about doppelgangers with unmentionable mastoidectomy defects.

Once you take into account the dodgy journalistic practices when interviewing witnesses that Mark Stevens pointed out in his Stripling essay, Armstrong turns out to be just another parasite using the assassination as a prop for his paranoid view of the world (or to grab a big movie deal, if that's what's actually behind it all). As you say, I'm sure he's a perfectly pleasant guy in person, but it would be better if he shifted his attention to a similar but less harmful activity, like proving that the Earth is flat.

I'm glad I came across the H&L nonsense without knowing any of the background. By the time I first heard about H&L, others had done all the work of debunking it, and instead of being a promising if unlikely theory, to me it was just one more piece of paranoid nonsense, and the doppelgangers got filed away alongside the little green men and the shape-shifting lizards. There was no reason to treat Armstrong and his idiotic theory with any respect at all, and I'm surprised anyone still does.

alex_wilson wrote:Doc Norwoods effort was an absolute perversion of basic scholarship.
To put it quite bluntly he knows fuck all about how Russian is taught and learned. Instead he's breezily spreading the same old erroneous H and L friendly bullet points.

There seems to be some uncertainty among our more paranoid brethren about how good Oswald's Russian was and what the purpose of the doppelganger scheme was.

If you go to http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26644-the-far-reaching-influence-of-%E2%80%9Charvey-and-lee%E2%80%9D/page/2/, the first comment is by the thin-skinned James Norwood, who, in a rare break from trying to get his critics banned, wrote:

this man who lived briefly in her [Ruth Paine's] home and spoke flawless Russian

But the final comment on that page, by Jim Hargrove, offers a different opinion:

The real purpose was to take a youth, reasonably fluent in the Russian language, give him an American ID, and eventually send him as a U.S. spy in the Soviet Union who secretly understood Russian.

So which is it? There's a huge difference between "flawless Russian" and "reasonably fluent".

Whichever level they go with, they have problems. Even with 'Harvey and Lee' quantities of evidence-twisting, Norwood is never going to convince anyone that Oswald's Russian was "flawless". The evidence is overwhelming that Oswald frequently made grammatical mistakes in Russian and spoke with an accent.

They are stuck with "reasonably fluent", which is what the defector's Russian actually was, much as it distresses me to admit that Jim has described something accurately for once. If your job is to secretly understand the language that's being spoken around you, "reasonably fluent" is fine; you don't need to be "flawless".

But if the defector's Russian was only "reasonably fluent", what was the purpose of the long-term doppelganger scheme? Any number of intelligent American servicemen of Oswald's generation could have learned enough Russian to reach that standard. Why go to all the trouble of recruiting a Hungarian refugee (or Russian war orphan, or whatever fictional character they come up with next) as your chosen doppelganger? Why recruit a second Marguerite? Why bring Robert Oswald into the scheme? It's a lot of bother for no benefit.

Problem one: if the defector needed to speak "flawless" Russian, why did they choose someone who didn't? Why give the job to someone who was making frequent grammatical mistakes even after having lived in the Soviet Union for two and a half years?

Problem two: if the defector only needed to speak "reasonably fluent" Russian, there was no point in running a decade-long doppelganger scheme.

As well as being ridiculously far-fetched, the whole idea is amateurish. Even after more than two decades, they are still making things up as they go along.

P.S. Considering that our paranoid brethren are having such a nice time up against the ropes, getting pummelled with the Stripling issue, I'll hold back from mentioning this on the Ed Forum. It would just give them an excuse to change the subject again.

jeremy wrote:That explanation makes sense. I suppose he needs to keep avenues open by not offending those who still think there might be something in the H&L nonsense.

I'm still trying to get my head around the notion that Armstrong was ever considered a respectable researcher. Digging out documents is one thing, but any credit from that gets used up pretty quickly if the only reason he was doing it was to back up a nonsensical theory about doppelgangers with unmentionable mastoidectomy defects.

I wasn't around when the theory was in development. But I can imagine how it happened. It was the period following Stone's JFK and he already had Jack White on board.  That post-jfk period would have been pretty euphoric where it seemed like a breakthrough was imminent. You also had a Jack White up your sleeve or hiding up your trousers, considered by some as heroic for his  HSCA work. In short, it was a time just ripe for suspension of disbelief. And boy was it suspended. 

White also no doubt drew in other big kahunas, along with Lancer.  

What they have done is not much different to what the DPD and WC did. Decide in advance (even if unconsciously in the case of the latter) what the facts would be and then cherry pick and bend the evidence to more or less support those facts in a neat little timeline.  As others have pointed out, this is just the Warren Commission Report respun for the Tinfoil Hat brigade. And Oswald did it in both cases.

Look at the individuals involved in little HARVEYs birthing process...Jack White and Jim Marrs( I wonder how Michelangelo would have tackled Jack White's trademark turtleneck and cardigan combo? " A little more sfumato round the eyes Signor Marrs?".." Git that damn waccy baccy away from me you Eye-talian hippy".. Imagine if the divine Buanorotti had immortalised little HARVEYs conception? Jack White and Father Armstrong, resplendent in a freshly pressed purple shellsuit drifting serenely across the cloudy vista of Fort Worth... Alternatively we might envision HARVEYs birth as something a little more Frankenstein like . Gloomy castles, lumbering hordes of pitchfork wielding villagers and the rumble of distant thunder considering his putative Central European origins this might be  more authentic...On second thoughts maybe Young Frankenstein would be more appropriate...Armstrong as Victor, Jack White as Igor( pronounced Eygor) and Jim Marrs as the stiff necked heel clicking Hapsburg bureaucrat...)
H and L was the critical mass of conspiracism .. Woodstock for the tin foil hat fraternity.
The timing was right, riding on the euphoric crest of the post JFK wave..a major breakthrough did indeed seem imminent.
And here we are, nearly 30 fucking years later... still raving on about airbrushed moles on the " fake" Marguerite's face.
The immediate post JFK generation of researchers blew it and they blew it big time( we're talking the Genoese merchant ship that brought that cargo of blankets to Market Harborough in 1351 big time.." Hey Giovanni these black rats look like they gotta lotta fleas, and my groin and armpits are very itchy)
They had the vast majority of the public on their side while the film and the attendant publicity created a genuine desire to find out what really happened.
And what did those geniuses do? Create the most preposterous doppelganger fantasy this side of Zenda or Edgar Allan Poe ( incidentally William Wilson is no relation. Or so my identical bullnecked twin tells me)
While good old Jack left his halycon days headlining the HSCA behind and got down to the serious business of finding 8 foot women on Elm Street.
Fezzo, Cinque, Fetzer and Butler are what happens when you spill your seed in fallow( and clinically paranoid) soil
Armstrong may have done good work on the rifle and Mexico City but how can that possibly erase or even account for the havoc hes wreaked?
I'm not fucking joking anymore , that lot ARE a cult . Impervious to logic, reason and most of all irony.
H and L IS the Warren Report retooled for the post Watergate generation.
After all the gyrations, contortions and broken test tubes, bullnecked or not they still have an Oswald taking aim out a 6th floor window.
For an added bonus they've further fragmented an already uneasy alliance and exposed all serious historians to contempt and derision.
Job well done.
None of them, and I mean none of them seem to understand how subversive COINTELPRO/ agent provocateurs operate. 
Hypothetically speaking if there WERE agent provocateurs at work in the so called" research community" they wouldn't be writing polite apologias for the Warren Report.
They'd be right in, balls deep, making all potential critics look as ridiculous as possible.
Stirring up bitter internecine disputes. Tripping lightly along, like the Pied Piper of Elm Street, leading as many newbies astray as possible.
Jim DiEs attempt to focus on the rifle and Mexico City is intellectually dishonest. At best . It's pure PR...an uneasy compromise to keep the peace in the fallout shelter up on Iron Mountain ( the conspiratocracys Mount Olympus)

Agnostic is an interesting word. It means he's unwilling to commit to a position on the matter. It can be true or not true, both are possible, in his opinion.

I recall Bill Simpich said he is "agnostic" on Oswald being in Mexico City because it didn't really matter either way. This was because someone impersonated Oswald whether or not he actually was in MC and that was the important bit after all. That made sense to me as a good use of the word in order to make an important point.

Jim D. apparently uses the word solely because he wishes to avoid making a commitment to H and L being either true or untrue. Then separately, he finds the other topics (rifle, Walker, etc) to be "more compelling". To me, this is simply code for H and L is too far out but I like the other stuff in that great big book. If you take DiEugenio literally that H and L can be true or not true, then that means that it's possible that  Armstrong's vast research, interpretation, and conclusions regarding H and L do indeed prove his conclusion. But he's also saying it may not do so? The book either does or it does not. There shall never be a better or more comprehensive compilation of "facts" and interpretations in support of Armstrong's H and L conclusion than will be found in that book. It's not true that it can be true or not  be true. Clearly all the evidence that can be presented is presented and upon reading it, one is not left with the luxury of being "agnostic". It's either proven true or it is not. Jimmy D doesn't want to come out and say it but he is definitely saying H and L is not proven. This all appears to me to be a political move more than anything else. He appears to demonstrate a very strong motivation not to offend anyone by knocking Armstrong's book, but no compunction to very clearly state honest criticisms of many other books. Why is that?