Judyth Vary Baker: Living in Exile

[Peter Lemkin]

Dr. Fetzer, I appreciate your considerate response, thank you. I also made it all the way to your last paragraph. And you're right that I'm not likely to shake my subjective conviction about moon hoax theories. At a minimum, I don't understand why the hoax needed to be repeated six times or why an aborted mission also needed to be faked (Apollo 13). But more importantly, I'm not sure why it matters. So I take issue with this statement:

but NASA recently acknowledged that it had "taped over" the Apollo moon landing tapes, which, I dare say, is on a par with LIFE magazine inadvertently damaging the Zapruder film, perhaps the world's other most precious footage.

I don't think these two things are on par. Not even close, since one is evidence in a murder. And I guess I'm baffled as indicated earlier why so much energy and time has been spent on debunking the Apollo missions. What has it achieved, besides providing a short-cut for critics to conflate and smear all "conspiracy theory"? Do you honestly expect to persuade a critical mass of people that we didn't land on the moon? And if you did - and you won't - what then?

Why choose to die on that hill?

I feel much the same way about Kennedy, although I'm as guilty as anyone of wallowing in detail that has trapped the research community in a closed loop for almost half a century. Why take on the burden of proof when it's the government that should be made to account for the failures of the WC and the HSCA? This is why I'm more heartened by Jefferson Morley's attempts to seal the release of the Joannides records than I am by pretty much anything else going on in the research community at the moment, including endless rancor over Judith Baker's bona fides (and just to be clear, I think Ms. Baker is the real thing).

In other words, I don't see how it's up to us to explain the plot, or how-they-did-it, or even why, when it's so much simpler to eviscerate the official bodies that presided over the cover-up; something that can be achieved beyond a shadow of a doubt with the existing research.

Ditto 9/11. You lose by trying to foist your speculation on everybody else, when the 9/11 Commission was so clearly and blindingly compromised.

By your 'logic', if I understand it correctly, if one has evidence of official lies and deception/cover-ups - no matter how important and perhaps you are saying the MORE important the greater one should avoid ,at all cost, presenting such evidence - simply because most Americans and some others are either too embedded/blinded/fooled by the propaganda, patriotic 'religion', in denial, too lacking in history and its contexts to understand, or just NOT WILLING TO GO THERE (afraid of the implications and the fact that knowledge implies responsibility to act?! You are calling for an unconditional surrender in the face of grievous crimes - some of which IMO are absolutely proven and others of which are highly suspect. It is like the button: "My government requests I only: shut-up, pay-taxes, go shopping, watch TV, and then just die." Not my style and obviously not Jim's - and many others.
Jefferson Morley is certainly to be applauded, but I think his chances are rather slim to slimmer than slim - because the evil apparatus of denials, lies and cover-ups is very strong and he is one man with few behind him. You are asking the fox to release the chickens of it own free will..if we only say 'please'?! You have to push and fight and get huge numbers to join in - strike at the Beast at every chance. If ONLY to say in the end, "I did my best to try".