COPA: Who plans to attend this year?

[Peter Lemkin]

NB - can anyone in a neutral and sane, intelligent way explain to me why the JFK research community is divided into TWO conferences.....and has been for some time...seems to me we 'ain't gonna win until we re-unite!

...divide and conquer...?

The internecine warfare that for too long has characterized the organized (keep your nasty comments to yourself) JFK research community (see previous parenthetical admonition) is simultaneously a manifestation of base human nature (selfishness, jealousy, tribalism) and the product of "meddling" by the conspirators.

As we know, minority control of the majority exists only to the degree that the former can keep the latter at each others' throats.

So far, so bad -- for us.

About ten years ago I was honored to deliver one of two keynote addresses at a JFK Lancer conference in Dallas (I was scheduled to lead off; David Lifton would follow with the major speech). Earlier in the day, between presentations, George Michael Evica, Ian Griggs, and I sat in the otherwise deserted ballroom and discussed matters grave and not so grave.

Ian spoke of the counter-productivity of two competing JFK conferences running at the same time in the same city. The mood somehow remained light as Ian conjured the image of "John Judge, standing in front of his hotel, handing out pamphlets."

At which point I chimed in, "Yeah ... the Fair Play for COPA Committee."

We all laughed. But not for long.

Cut to the evening's activities. I used the line in my remarks that were focused all but exclusively on just this topic: how and why JFK Lancer and COPA were doing the enemy's work by competing with each other.

After Lifton's inspiring and eloquent speech, Debra Conway took to the podium and, referencing my comment, tearfully reminded everyone how COPA had done Lancer wrong.

Reverse the organizations' names, and you'll have COPA's argument.

Nothing has changed.

I'm not going to the Dallas jamborees this year. And neither should anyone else until the madness stops.

I'm not privy to the 'original sin' re: the offense of A v. B or B v. A, but have good friends and collegues in both camps. I remember once being asked to speak at both - but knew one had to choose, and couldn't speak at both. Then, later in the Plaza there we were all mixing, all talking, all poking-around, taking photos and measurments etc. Insanity. We are so few...to divide into two groups is nothing short of suicidal or deep psychopathology.....IMO. The outside enemy surely has a hand in all of this...and has a good laugh over it all.