Mark Lane Question

First topic message reminder :

Is he a disinformation mole?

Discuss...

"The stuff about Jackie Kennedy is this: somehow she should not have arranged for the funeral extravaganza with all the foreign dignitaries and the riderless horse.  Because that was all a distraction to the public."

Yeah, its not like she was playing party planner.  The government recycled the Lincoln funeral protocol for both FDR and Kennedy funerals. The first riderless horse was Lincoln's old friend Bob.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Gs1UBUbSJ8E/UEkkFvCR9gI/AAAAAAAAG2g/LhauGYA7WOM/s200/Lincolns+horse.jpg

James DiEugenio wrote:
But anyway I look forward to Lee's thread on the Weisberg info I never heard about.

 On the subject of Weisberg, is anyone else having a problem accessing the online archive?

I haven't been able to get past the main page to browse the archive for over a week. Just keep seeing an error message. It's bloody frustrating!

Yes, Martin. This is partly the reason why I have yet to start the thread on Hosty. Cannot access bugger all and using google to find the documents I want is even more frustrating.

Lee David Farley wrote:Yes, Martin. This is partly the reason why I have yet to start the thread on Hosty.  Cannot access bugger all and using google to find the documents I want is even more frustrating.

Thanks, Lee. I'm kinda glad its not just me!

Lee David Farley wrote:Yes, Martin. This is partly the reason why I have yet to start the thread on Hosty.  Cannot access bugger all and using google to find the documents I want is even more frustrating.

Lee,

It occurred to me last night that I might know the identity of the man you think left the "Oswald" note. You don't have to answer, but I think the man has the initials WJL.

P.S I am also having trouble browsing the Weisberg archives.

Hasan Yusuf wrote:

Lee David Farley wrote:Yes, Martin. This is partly the reason why I have yet to start the thread on Hosty.  Cannot access bugger all and using google to find the documents I want is even more frustrating.

Lee,

It occurred to me last night that I might know the identity of the man you think left the "Oswald" note. You don't have to answer, but I think the man has the initials WJL.

P.S I am also having trouble browsing the Weisberg archives.

Hasan,

I do not know where William J. Lowery fits in with the Oswald story but firmly believe that he is part of it.  Maybe it is a direct connection or maybe it is tangential but my gut tells me there is one.

You got me thinking today about WJL and so I began reading through some of my old notes.  As most of us have first hand experience of I am gobsmacked by the amount of coincidences that this case throws at us.

Oswald was allegedly arrested with an "American Bakery Co." paystub on his person just after 4:00pm on 11/22.  The paystub was in the name of James Jackson who we are led to believe lived at 214 West Neely prior to the Oswald's living there.  Lee and Marina moved out of the apartment in April 1963 and he departed for New Orleans so if Oswald found this in the apartment then he kept hold of it for seven months and just happened to have it on his person the afternoon of the assassination.

But we also have a report claiming a James Jackson paystub was found at 214 West Neely by SA William Brookhart in January, 1964.

The problem I have with this is, as far I as can tell, nobody from American Bakery Company was ever interviewed concerning James Jackson's employment there and we have to take the word of the person we are told is THE James Jackson that he lived at the address and worked at ABC.  The coincidence involved is that John W. Stanford who was fingered by James Lowery as a member of the CPUSA in September, 1963, was a very close friend of leading American communist - James Jackson:

http://keywiki.org/index.php/James_Jackson

Lee David Farley wrote:Hasan,

I do not know where William J. Lowery fits in with the Oswald story but firmly believe that he is part of it.  Maybe it is a direct connection or maybe it is tangential but my gut tells me there is one.

You got me thinking today about WJL and so I began reading through some of my old notes.  As most of us have first hand experience of I am gobsmacked by the amount of coincidences that this case throws at us.

 
Lee,
 
The coincidences surrounding Bill Lowery are simply mind boggling. For those who are unaware, a fan of Lowery’s was one Nestor Castellanos.
 
Castellanos was an anti-Castro Cuban, who flew one of the seven planes involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion, and had made threatening remarks against President Kennedy. He felt bitter towards the President, because he blamed him for the failure of the invasion, and had the following to say:
 
“And we’re waiting for Kennedy on the 22^nd plenty. We’re going to see him one way or the other. We’re going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas.”
 
He also insisted that Kennedy “must be gotten out”.
 
http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/597/rec/16
 
Anyone else find it interesting that Castellanous was in contact with Lt Jack Revill of the DPD regarding radical Cubans, and that Revill would claim that Hosty told him that the FBI knew Oswald was capable of committing the assassination, and that Hosty was Lowery’s FBI control?
 
I wrote about the coincidences surrounding Lowery, Johnny Brewer, and Frankie Kaiser in my Jacket essay. I believe that all three were FBI informants, and that Lowery and Kaiser were quite possibly involved in the assassination, with Brewer being set-up to identify Oswald as the man he saw outside Hardy’s.
 
[url=http://www.ctka.net/2013/The mystery of Ce163.htm]http://www.ctka.net/2013/The%20mystery%20of%20Ce163.htm[/url]
 
The stuff you wrote about James Jackson, Lee, is absolutely fascinating. I Can’t wait to read what you have for us on the so-called Oswald note.

Martin Hay wrote:I don't believe for a second that Mark Lane is any type of mole or plant. His record shows him to be the kind of guy who always roots for the underdog and loves to take on bullies. He opposed segregation, got arrested as a freedom rider and represented numerous African Americans in civil rights cases. He was the only prominent figure speaking out in Oswald's defense in the wake of the assassination and his book Rush to Judgement was a brilliant deconstruction of the Warren Report that convinced masses of people (myself included) that Oswald really was just a patsy. 

Lane also played a big part in getting the HSCA started, hoping that it would lead to a real investigation of the JFK and MLK cases. He wrote a classic book on the MLK case and became Ray's lawyer; representing him before the HSCA and publicly exposing some of their dishonesties. By any standard, Lane has an impressive record. Sure he's made some questionable choices and been taken in by some obvious liars (Marita Lorenz anyone?) but the exact same thing can be said about Jim Garrison and I hope no one here would accuse him of being anyone's mole.

Let's also not forget that the CIA and FBI hated Lane and made numerous attempts to discredit him, trying to tie him in with communists and all that crap. But the way you can tell that Lane is a genuine truth seeker is that the lone nutters hate him. Really hate him. Guys like Jim Moore, Gerald Posner, and Vincent Bugliosi have all dedicated space in their books to calling Lane a liar and a fraud and yet none of them have been able to back it up with anything. Bugliosi wrote a whole chapter aimed at smearing Lane and discrediting his book and yet he never managed to point out a single mistake or falsehood in Rush to Judgement.

This is the opposite of how they treat Lifton. They treat that particular piece of work with respect. They discredit his theories easy enough but they don't attack him personally. In fact Bugliosi complimented him and John McAdams even has a couple of Lifton's articles on his site. Lifton's stuff is crazy tabloid bullshit that discredits the "conspiracy movement" and the lone nutters respect him. Lane's stuff is sober, fact-based and proves a conspiracy and the lone nutters hate him and call him a liar.

That's the difference between a mole and a truth-seeker if you ask me.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think Mr Lane is an interesting man who has lead an interesting life.
I also think he has probably been a royal pain in the ass for some people/governments/agencies, and if he turned up dead it would raise more questions. I think they got around this by trying to discredit him.
If Mr Lane has given out some wrong info I would prefer personally to put it down to this being a massive case, we can't know all the facts and details all the time off the top of our heads and he is getting older.
I find that the good work he has done on the case by far outweighs the bad. I think there is a level of paranoia that comes with looking into this case that we all have that makes us question every ones motives. And that's a good thing.
I would also hate to be held accountable for everything I have ever said and done and have it reflected onto my work.
 Plus. The man is adorable

Frankie Vegas wrote:

Martin Hay wrote:I don't believe for a second that Mark Lane is any type of mole or plant. His record shows him to be the kind of guy who always roots for the underdog and loves to take on bullies. He opposed segregation, got arrested as a freedom rider and represented numerous African Americans in civil rights cases. He was the only prominent figure speaking out in Oswald's defense in the wake of the assassination and his book Rush to Judgement was a brilliant deconstruction of the Warren Report that convinced masses of people (myself included) that Oswald really was just a patsy. 

Lane also played a big part in getting the HSCA started, hoping that it would lead to a real investigation of the JFK and MLK cases. He wrote a classic book on the MLK case and became Ray's lawyer; representing him before the HSCA and publicly exposing some of their dishonesties. By any standard, Lane has an impressive record. Sure he's made some questionable choices and been taken in by some obvious liars (Marita Lorenz anyone?) but the exact same thing can be said about Jim Garrison and I hope no one here would accuse him of being anyone's mole.

Let's also not forget that the CIA and FBI hated Lane and made numerous attempts to discredit him, trying to tie him in with communists and all that crap. But the way you can tell that Lane is a genuine truth seeker is that the lone nutters hate him. Really hate him. Guys like Jim Moore, Gerald Posner, and Vincent Bugliosi have all dedicated space in their books to calling Lane a liar and a fraud and yet none of them have been able to back it up with anything. Bugliosi wrote a whole chapter aimed at smearing Lane and discrediting his book and yet he never managed to point out a single mistake or falsehood in Rush to Judgement.

This is the opposite of how they treat Lifton. They treat that particular piece of work with respect. They discredit his theories easy enough but they don't attack him personally. In fact Bugliosi complimented him and John McAdams even has a couple of Lifton's articles on his site. Lifton's stuff is crazy tabloid bullshit that discredits the "conspiracy movement" and the lone nutters respect him. Lane's stuff is sober, fact-based and proves a conspiracy and the lone nutters hate him and call him a liar.

That's the difference between a mole and a truth-seeker if you ask me.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think Mr Lane is an interesting man who has lead an interesting life.
I also think he has probably been a royal pain in the ass for some people/governments/agencies, and if he turned up dead it would raise more questions. I think they got around this by trying to discredit him.
If Mr Lane has given out some wrong info I would prefer personally to put it down to this being a massive case, we can't know all the facts and details all the time off the top of our heads and he is getting older.
I find that the good work he has done on the case by far outweighs the bad. I think there is a level of paranoia that comes with looking into this case that we all have that makes us question every ones motives. And that's a good thing.
I would also hate to be held accountable for everything I have ever said and done and have it reflected onto my work.
 Plus. The man is adorable

I totally understand why Mark Lane is held in such high regard, Frankie.  I'm just looking at things through a different lens.  Everything connected to this case can be looked at from different positions, angles and perspectives.  If you simply look at the surface evidence that was collected concerning Lee Oswald one could be forgiven for thinking the guy guilty.  Rifle found, palm prints, fibres, revolver, Hidell ID, left work immediately, etc.  But once you scrape the surface of the evidence then it begins to fall apart.  We have to look at all of the evidence collected, hidden, changed, ignored.

Virtually every member here has had some sort of success reexamining the assassination story because we keep scraping and scraping and scraping away.  The things we now know we would not know if we didn't dig.  The things we now know we wouldn't know if we weren't curious.

I'm curious about Mark Lane.

On the surface he is a upstanding, honest, and tireless campaigner for the rights of the little guy.  Scrape the surface and, IMO, it becomes somewhat murky.

I don't think I'm being paranoid by questioning some of the guy's decisions and I believe that no assessment of Mark Lane is complete if we ignore certain parts of his life.  Serious and damaging questions remain concerning Mark's involvement in Jim Jones' People's Temple.  Mark Lane has been silent on this issue for decades for reasons best known to him.  This is not a nitpicking issue.  Mark Lane was very, very close to a cult that concluded with 900+ people lying dead in the jungle of Guyana.  He was Jim Jones' lawyer and was one of only a handful of people who somehow managed to escape.  How he did so has been questioned for decades.

I sincerely do not understand how researchers can overlook this part of Lane's life when making any sort of conclusion as to who and what he is and his overall/total impact on American history.  It would be like writing biographies of Kim Philby and Guy Burgess and stopping the narrative at the point just before they were outed as communist spies. If that happened you would have a incomplete picture as to who and what they were.

I really couldn't, in all good conscience, sit here and promote the sun shining out of Mark Lane's jacksie when I have nagging questions concerning him. I wouldn't do that with the evidence concerning the case and I won't do it with the first generation critics.  It's a sad state of affairs that the likes of Penn Jones, who I believe really wanted to know the truth, promoted some of the biggest dungheaps of shit that still permeate this case.  The Mark Lane issue reminds me of the John Armstrong issue.  There are people who would stone you to death for levelling any criticism at Armstrong - - yet his work is fundamentally flawed and he promotes things, IMO, that he had to have known were not true.  Will the fact that Armstrong has a legion of worshippers following him who are on the lookout for heretics stop me from criticising his work and decisions?  Nope.  Same with Mark Lane. 

Adorable?  I will admit Mark does keep his beard nice and trim

Hopefully the Weisberg Hood college archive will have its search function fixed over the coming weeks.  I've sent a complaint through and might be able to post some of the details as to why Mark Lane was less than honourable in Harold's eyes and we may be able to have a rational and reasonable discussion on here concerning the direction set by Mark Lane and whether it helped or hindered the overall search for truth.

I am not doing this to slag him off or create division (as per the criticism of me by RCD) but to find out whether the information he supported, promoted, and disseminated was/is valuable or whether it led into dead ends.  There is much more scraping to be done concerning the evidence.

I will also start a thread on Jonestown and maybe we can all try and establish what was going on there and how and why Mark Lane ended up in such a vulnerable position before and after the murder of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and the mass suicide of 900 people.

I am more skeptical about Harold's judgment and integrity than I am about Mark's and  I believe I do not know enough about the approach and motivation of either of them. I agree with Lee that it is better to examine than it is to praise. The recent adulation of Obama by so many who thought he was who he said he was and stood for what he said he did is a good example of what can happen when admiration gets in the way of taking a hard look at what someone did, vs. what they said, wrote, or projected. In 2008 I was heavily criticized in reaction to diaries I wrote critical of Obama at dailykos.com. I urged fellow members to consider who Obama's early financial backers were (The Henry Crown family) and his abrupt turnaround, voting in the US Senate to give telecomms immunity from civil suits related to their supplying customer tele calling records to the government without legal warrants compelling them to do so. Obama's promise to escalate military action in  Afghanistan and Pakistan was another problem I pointed out.

I am not comparing Obama to anyone, I am attempting to give an example of an instance in which so many lost their perspective because of assuming how they felt was as reliable an influence as investigation and evaluation any candidate for the U.S. presidency must be subjected to.

I got this lead on what Lane said about the end times at Jonestown.:
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=258952&sid=35383ab75a921380b7ba614c85b67b12#p258952

Image of entire Washington Post Foreign Service article on Jonestown deaths, quoting Lane :
http://docsfiles.com/pdf_exalting.html

Weisberg made big mistakes in judgment, see Hunt, Rothermel, and Garrison, and in a number of other instances, if anyone is interested.

BTW, I usually got as good or better results (and quicker) searching the Weisberg archive by typing a key or phrase into a google search box along with jfk.hood.edu ......... https://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=50b0def07234ca47&psj=1&q=%22mark+lane%22++jfk.hood.edu+

Tom Scully wrote:I am more skeptical about Harold's judgment and integrity than I am about Mark's and  I believe I do not know enough about the approach and motivation of either of them. I agree with Lee that it is better to examine than it is to praise. The recent adulation of Obama by so many who thought he was who he said he was and stood for what he said he did is a good example of what can happen when admiration gets in the way of taking a hard look at what someone did, vs. what they said, wrote, or projected. In 2008 I was heavily criticized in reaction to diaries I wrote critical of Obama at dailykos.com. I urged fellow members to consider who Obama's early financial backers were (The Henry Crown family) and his abrupt turnaround, voting in the US Senate to give telecomms immunity from civil suits related to their supplying customer tele calling records to the government without legal warrants compelling them to do so. Obama's promise to escalate military action in  Afghanistan and Pakistan was another problem I pointed out.

I am not comparing Obama to anyone, I am attempting to give an example of an instance in which so many lost their perspective because of assuming how they felt was as reliable an influence as investigation and evaluation any candidate for the U.S. presidency must be subjected to.

I got this lead on what Lane said about the end times at Jonestown.:
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=258952&sid=35383ab75a921380b7ba614c85b67b12#p258952

Image of entire Washington Post Foreign Service article on Jonestown deaths, quoting Lane :
http://docsfiles.com/pdf_exalting.html

Weisberg made big mistakes in judgment, see Hunt, Rothermel, and Garrison, and in a number of other instances, if anyone is interested.

BTW, I usually got as good or better results (and quicker) searching the Weisberg archive by typing a key or phrase into a google search box along with jfk.hood.edu ......... https://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=50b0def07234ca47&psj=1&q=%22mark+lane%22++jfk.hood.edu+

 Nothing there I could disagree with, Tom.

Harold Weisberg did pursue and promote certain parts of the assassination story that were a crock.  The guy was a staunch defender of the possibility that Oswald was in the TSBD doorway that we are still feeling the effects of today.  Of course, Harold was more careful in how he communicated things like this (unlike the dumbasses Ralph Cinque and Jim Fetzer) and I must admit to spending weeks and weeks looking into it myself, even roping Greg into the fools errand along the way.

Once we create our perceptions about individuals (good or bad) it can difficult shifting them even if that person demonstrates behaviours that run counter to how we initially built the perception.  We can forgive or hate more, delete and omit more, and suffer from cognitive dissonance in certain situations.

Martin, on an earlier post, mentioned the way Harold behaved toward Garrison and what he did when he found out about Oliver Stone's movie.  Harold made those decisions himself and only he knew why he chose to do that.  The only reseacher I hold in high regard concerning the level of information and analysis they have left us is Sylvia Meagher.  I'm only concerned with the information.  Not the personalities.  If you mix my personality with the information I have provided it would be very easy to throw it all in the bin because I can come across as an obnoxious arsehole.  But the information, conclusions, and evidence speaks for itself.

well, if we are going to court perfection then we have many problems; I saw Jim Douglass speak in Portland, Maine a few years back to a crowd that was disturbingly cult-like (disciples, I believe, of the Catholic Worker). And then he touted the work of someone who believes that the World Trade Center was an inside job; and then someone in the audience said the Jews were warned out of the WTC; afterwards I went up to Douglas and asked him to disavow that particular belief (about the Jews) and he, surrounded by guys who were like hostile bodyguards, looked at me contemptuously and walked away. 

I still like his book. Though the whole evening was extremely odd and disturbing. Reminded me, I have to say, of the Lyndon Larouch-ites I knew in college.

I'd love a Jonestown thread. I could learn a lot from something like that.
I agree that anyone and everyone should have their motives questioned. And I haven't looked into Mr Lane's personal life as much, but have read /watched all of his work on this case.
I like that motivations are questioned and think it's vital. But also have met some who question everyone and everything they do (related to this case) and are very quick to accuse people of being 'spooks'. I don't mean you personally do this. I sometimes find it a worrying trend though.
I've been called an agent once or twice, once because I told a man not to send me inappropriate Facebook messages. Ha! If an agency had turned me, they need to start ponying up. My husband is sick of financing my vintage dress obsession.  

AllenLowe wrote:well, if we are going to court perfection then we have many problems; I saw Jim Douglass speak in Portland, Maine a few years back to a crowd that was disturbingly cult-like (disciples, I believe, of the Catholic Worker). And then he touted the work of someone who believes that the World Trade Center was an inside job; and then someone in the audience said the Jews were warned out of the WTC; afterwards I went up to Douglas and asked him to disavow that particular belief (about the Jews) and he, surrounded by guys who were like hostile bodyguards, looked at me contemptuously and walked away. 

I still like his book. Though the whole evening was extremely odd and disturbing. Reminded me, I have to say, of the Lyndon Larouch-ites I knew in college.

Sorry Allen, I may be misreading your post here but I don't believe anybody has mentioned anything about "courting perfection."  I'm keen to look at some of the information/leads/direction Lane provided us with to see whether it helped or hindered the cause in the short-medium-long term.

I headed into a shit storm not so long ago for daring to question the Ralph Yates story as described and evidenced by both Jim Douglass and John Armstrong in their books.  Both writers twisted the evidence to suit their needs and they missed out portions of the FBI reports that did not help support their conclusions.  I was accused of putting too much faith in the FBI and their documents when I pointed this out to certain people while they, at the same time accusing me of this, were using portions of the same FBI documents to state their case.  Completely absurd.  I have real issues with the Jim Douglass narrative concerning the events in Dallas and cannot believe he used some of the witnesses and stories that he did.  Ed Hoffman?  C'mon.  Only last year I stood where Ed Hoffman said he stood on the overpass and I couldn't see a damn thing.  Robert Vinson?  An unmarked C-54 cargo plane landed next to the Trinity River?  However, I do have a lot of respect for Douglass' work that centres on JFK himself but believe he made some bad decisions trying to outline the events in Dallas itself.

Same goes for John Armstrong.  Great respect for the documents he collected and much of the information in his book.  Not so much respect for him shoe horning and twisting evidence that did not fit his theory and leaving items in his document collection because they didn't fit that should have been part of his book.  After reading through his collection at Baylor, and believe me I've gone through virtually all of it, if John Armstrong did not know that Larry Crafard was the source of many of the second Oswald sightings in Dallas - - then I'm a monkey's uncle.

I've looked into the Hosty note issue several times over the last few years and although Harold Weisberg may have been reaching when he suggested the existence of the note itself was leaked in order to divert attention away from more serious FBI destruction of evidence crimes I do believe there had to be more in Oswald's FBI Dallas file or else we have to believe that Agent Jim Hosty was not

a) Interested in Oswald
b) Meeting with him
and
c) We have the full content of the file in the record

I cannot believe any of the above and we certainly do have evidence that at least one document (other than the Hosty note) disappeared from the file that may have shed light on the real relationship that existed between the FBI and Lee Oswald.

greg parker wrote:

No comment

well, it seems like perfection is sometimes, let me say, the misguided goal because at times we use particular and specific mistakes to discredit the whole; when the whole is a much more complex thing. People can be very wrong and yet very righteous at the same time; their reasons are not always understandable and easily translatable; or they may have surprising blind spots. It's just a human trait; I mean, if you had asked me about Jim Garrison 20 years ago I would have probably sounded like Phelan; but things and opinions evolve and change. As for  "I agree that anyone and everyone should have their motives questioned," (from Frankie, above) well, I think that's a potentially extremely destructive idea; I believe everyone's ideas  and reasons can be questioned, debated, argued with. Motivations are another thing and questions about such can lead to the kind of self destruction that's a little bit too endemic in the JFK conspiracy community. Though I say this as one who is pretty much an outsider.

as for Reitzes, that's another story; and probably a counter argument to MY argument about questioning motives. On the other hand, his arguments are surprisingly easy to take apart. He's clever, but not half as clever as he thinks.

AllenLowe wrote:well, it seems like perfection is sometimes, let me say, the misguided goal because at times we use particular and specific mistakes to discredit the whole; when the whole is a much more complex thing. People can be very wrong and yet very righteous at the same time; their reasons are not always understandable and easily translatable; or they may have surprising blind spots. It's just a human trait; I mean, if you had asked me about Jim Garrison 20 years ago I would have probably sounded like Phelan; but things and opinions evolve and change. As for  "I agree that anyone and everyone should have their motives questioned," (from Frankie, above) well, I think that's a potentially extremely destructive idea; I believe everyone's ideas  and reasons can be questioned, debated, argued with. Motivations are another thing and questions about such can lead to the kind of self destruction that's a little bit too endemic in the JFK conspiracy community. Though I say this as one who is pretty much an outsider.

 Well, at least we're having an interesting, thought provoking and open debate about it, Allen.  Look on the bright side, if we were all still over at the Education Forum we would be discussing the latest groundbreaking thread from Raymond J. Carroll entitled "One of JFK's favourite singers."

The question of motive is a prickly subject.  Of course it is easy to apply dishonourable motives to individuals and its a different kettle of fish trying to prove dishonourable motives.  I can suspect them and I can create beliefs around them but at what point can I categorically state that someone's intent is to misdirect and mislead?  When you see the same behaviour over and over and over again?  Like in the case of David Lifton who has had the same MO for for forty years?  I questioned the motives of Paul Trejo recently because he was only interested in one thing IMO - - promoting himself as the man who solved the JFK case and stringing together a bunch of conclusions held together with scotch tape and spit, even shoe horning into his nonsense the ramblings of a crazy woman to help support his already madcap theory.    

James Phelan's motives can be questioned because we have an abundance of evidence of what he was up to.  Hugh Aynesworth, same deal.  Dave Reitzes is one of those Gary Mack chameleon personalities - - build something up and then tear it all down.  A real Saul on the road to Damascus moment if you believe in miracles - which I don't.

I take on board that I opened discussions here concerning Mark Lane by asking if he was/is a "disinformation mole" and I wish I had opened the thread more constructively but, hey ho, what's done is done.  But he still remains "dodgy" in my eyes and if James Phelan had reared his head in Jonestown in 1978 I'm guessing we'd all be very interested as to why he was there and why the hell 900 people drank the kool-aid as he ran off into the jungle.

I agree; the Jonestown stuff is VERY troublesome.  Could be ego (which Lane has lots of) or could be just a really bad mistake - yes, or something else. Your point is well taken.

I take the most mild umbrage at being described as thinking that Mark Lane is or was a "white knight," as stated above in this thread.  I have no problem considering whatever negative data might be supplied about him, but I've yet to see anything significant presented here.  Like him or loathe him, he did his level best to serve Oswald's interests when nobody else dared, and I think it to his credit that he still does so fifty years later.  Your mileage may differ.

I likewise think it inappropriate to compare Lane with Phelan, Aynesworth, et al, simply because I cannot find a single instance in which those men did anything praiseworthy.  Had any of them been in Jonestown, I would have been less surprised than I was upon hearing that Lane was affiliated with the People's Temple.

It is also a tad dodgy to use the word "Jonestown" as shorthand, as though it adequately depicted something we know to be true.  There is more to that grisly incident than any of us yet know, and research down that path illustrates just how little we actually can claim to know for certain.  That it connects to the JFK murder via Lane, the MLK murder via Lane and Grace Stephens, and the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone only days later demonstrates a convergence of weirdness that still remains unresolved.

At the risk of appearing to be a Lane apologist (which I cannot possibly be until someone provides proof Lane did something requiring an apology), I think this is worth a few mintues of reading time:

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/mark_lane_is_much_more_than_an.php

edited for tpyo:oops:

thanks for posting that; it all adds up, nothing sinister about it.

Robert Charles-Dunne wrote:I take the most mild umbrage at being described as thinking that Mark Lane is or was a "white knight," as stated above in this thread.  I have no problem considering whatever negative data might be supplied about him, but I've yet to see anything significant presented here.  Like him or loathe him, he did his level best to serve Oswald's interests when nobody else dared, and I think it to his credit that he still does so fifty years later.  Your mileage may differ.

I likewise think it inappropriate to compare Lane with Phelan, Aynesworth, et al, simply because I cannot find a single instance in which those men did anything praiseworthy.  Had any of them been in Jonestown, I would have been less surprised than I was upon hearing that Lane was affiliated with the People's Temple.

It is also a tad dodgy to use the word "Jonestown" as shorthand, as though it adequately depicted something we know to be true.  There is more to that grisly incident than any of us yet know, and research down that path illustrates just how little we actually can claim to know for certain.  That it connects to the JFK murder via Lane, the MLK murder via Lane and Grace Stephens, and the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone only days later demonstrates a convergence of weirdness that still remains unresolved.

At the risk of appearing to be a Lane apologist (which I cannot possibly be until someone provides proof Lane did something requiring an apology), I think this is worth a few mintues of reading time:

http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2010/05/mark_lane_is_much_more_than_an.php

edited for tpyo:oops:

Rather than post links to eight paragraph blogs that run counter to the one Robert has posted as a non-apology that no one has asked for I will instead say farewell.

We can all take offence given the messages we are reading each day and I'm sick and tired of having to defend myself against people describing my own writings as "inappropriate", "divisive", and alleging I am using terms as "shorthand" whilst taking personal "umbrage" because I happen to not completely trust a man that everyone else here does.  Robert has known my name is Lee for some time and to snidely be referred to as "someone" in his post above is the last straw for me regardless of whether he admits it was directed my way or not.  I read his posts as "carefully" as he reads mine.

It might appear to some of you to be an overreaction but I guess I've been looking for an excuse to finally leave this draining shit behind.  I now have it.

Take care y'all

Lee David Farley wrote:Rather than post links to eight paragraph blogs that run counter to the one Robert has posted as a non-apology that no one has asked for I will instead say farewell.

We can all take offence given the messages we are reading each day and I'm sick and tired of having to defend myself against people describing my own writings as "inappropriate", "divisive", and alleging I am using terms as "shorthand" whilst taking personal "umbrage" because I happen to not completely trust a man that everyone else here does.  Robert has known my name is Lee for some time and to snidely be referred to as "someone" in his post above is the last straw for me regardless of whether he admits it was directed my way or not.  I read his posts as "carefully" as he reads mine.

It might appear to some of you to be an overreaction but I guess I've been looking for an excuse to finally leave this draining shit behind.  I now have it.

Take care y'all

Lee,

Please see my PM to you.

I can't think of too many things that are a bigger downer than to see two people whom you hold in respect bordering on awe, having a falling out.

Shattered, and I don't want to say any more.