16-01-2011, 02:24 PM
Something is very wrong with Jim DiEugenio (speaking of his views about history and those who are entitled to pursue its study). He loves to return to some very obscure nook or cranny of his work where he can find firm ground as though that supported views of his that are not well-founded. His allusions to the 9/11 community, which are rife with rumor, speculation, and hearsay, offer a nice illustration of his methodology. Use phrases that are likely to draw a negative response from those who have never studied them. Dredge up whatever you can find, scrape the bottom of the barrel, and sling a lot of mud in the hope that some of it might stick. I used to think that he was making valuable contributions at the intermediate level between the most serious players and the actual assassins. I am no longer convinced that he has the balance and judgment to be taken seriously on any of these issues.
After all, this post of his is nothing more than trash attacks on those whose message he does not like. The man is a master of the ad hominem, where his performance here verges on the despicable. He doesn't know the history of the 9/11 movement, but he wants to use his impressions to smear a very good man whose motives and abilities for seeking the truth about matters complex and controversial far exceed his own. And as a perfect example of his willingness to trade in crude distortions, I am supposed to be "irresponsible and sloppy enough to compare this book with JFK and the Unspeakable". Except that I explained that Douglass explains how JFK antagonized the most powerful forces in the country, while Nelson's book explains what they did about it. There is nothing "ludicrous" about that. That is the relationship between them. One of us is being "irresponsible and sloppy" but the last name is "DiEugenio".
After all, this post of his is nothing more than trash attacks on those whose message he does not like. The man is a master of the ad hominem, where his performance here verges on the despicable. He doesn't know the history of the 9/11 movement, but he wants to use his impressions to smear a very good man whose motives and abilities for seeking the truth about matters complex and controversial far exceed his own. And as a perfect example of his willingness to trade in crude distortions, I am supposed to be "irresponsible and sloppy enough to compare this book with JFK and the Unspeakable". Except that I explained that Douglass explains how JFK antagonized the most powerful forces in the country, while Nelson's book explains what they did about it. There is nothing "ludicrous" about that. That is the relationship between them. One of us is being "irresponsible and sloppy" but the last name is "DiEugenio".
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:Mr. Reynolds:
Looking at your CV, and Fetzer's referrals to you r9-11 essays, I see I was correct in my assumption. I fail to see anything you have done that is strictly on the JFK case.
We have a problem in this community. Namely that it is 47 years old now, and we still get books like Legacy of Secrecy, Nelson's, Reclaiming History, and DVD's like John Hankey's JFK 2.
Whatever these works have contributed in the way of new evidence is zero to negligible. What they have contributed is nothing a but a preconcieved notion, and the creators then went and filled in this notion with everything that existed previously that could fit--whether it was logical or not, or whether it was credible or not, whether it was really evidence or not.
THe sum total of these works has not been to elucidate the crime. It has been to confuse the public. For the simple reason that you cannot say that: 1.) the Mafia did it 2.) LBJ did it 3.) Oswald did it 4.) Bush did it. This is what the other side wants us to do and be: a confused morass of nonsense that makes them throw up their hands in frustration. I cannot blame them. I mean this kind of approach takes us back to the Torbitt Document , that classic 1974 piece of CIA disinfo which so many researchers found so bracing.
So when I read someone like you, who probably does not even know what Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal is or was, or doesn't understand what Farewell America is or was, and who Lulu Holmes is or was (Destiny Betrayed p. 363), and then telling us we should buy into the Nelson book, well excuse me. I also find it bracing that you come from the far side of that 9-11 Truth movement split, which was so acrimonious. You know, Judy Wood and her space beams, no planes hit the WTC, giant holograms and BYU professor Steve Jones and his thermite is up a tree. ANd you and Wood were, to put it kindly, rather unsparing in your personal invective toward Jones. I also note that Fetzer came down on your side, which may be why you are here right now--since Jim is getting trounced here in his defense of Nelson/Hersh, McClellan. After all, he was the commentator who was irresponsible and sloppy enough to compare this book with JFK and the Unspeakable. Which is ludicrous.
So Morgan, I for one have had enough of amateurs on this case. I respect the tradition that the best of the JFK research community has achieved, going back to Weisberg and up to Douglass. Nelson does not figure into it. ANd neither does Sy Hersh.