"Conspiracism Is Like Creationism" : Poor Research Predicated On A Bogus Definition

                                                                           

The carelessness of so-called "conspiracism" researchers whereby they often conflate actual nuts (like Alex Jones- left) with serious analysts like Mark Lane, is self-defeating and counter productive.

"Fundamentally, the difference between a genuine and a specious conspiracy comes down to power. The genuine conspiracy,  however brief or limited, is able to project it and alter events for good or ill in clearly manifest ways." - Anonymous author, July 2016

According to a piece recently appearing in the magazine ZME Science,

"if you ask people why some phenomenon happens, two dominant and diametrically opposite schools of thought emerge: one is scientific reasoning, which uses a series of deductions and reasoning to reach a logical conclusion. The other is teleological thinking. A teleological thinker, for instance, makes propositions such as “the sun rises in order to give us light” or “the Earth was created for humans” — whereas a scientific thinker will go crazy at the mere thought."

This is true, of course, including the Aristotelian version of dynamics which insists heavier bodies must fall faster because well, they "want to".  I.e. they have a teleological or purposeful basis for moving more rapidly to Earth than lighter objects given they have a greater "affinity" for Earth.

The piece goes on, quoting  Sebastian Dieguez of the University of Fribourg:

“This type of thinking is anathema to scientific reasoning, and especially to evolutionary theory, and was famously mocked by Voltaire, whose character Pangloss believed that ‘noses were made to wear spectacles.’ Yet it is very resilient in human cognition, and we show that it is linked not only to creationism, but also to conspiracism,”

Whereby we are informed Dieguez and his colleagues have studied conspiracism,   which neologism (actually evidently been around since the 1980s)  is defined by the Oxford online English dictionary:

"The belief that major historical and political events are brought about as the result of a conspiracy between interested parties,"

Which boggles the mind because, truth be told, that is actually how many major global or national events actually transpire!  With every passing day and the new revelations to do with charges for corruption and financial crimes on Cohen, Manafort et al we are learning the extent to which Trump was catapulted into office by yes - a conspiracy!  As blogger- writer Joe Conason has noted: "In pleading guilty to felony violations of federal campaign finance statutes, Cohen has said that he paid off Stormy Daniels and another woman in a criminal conspiracy with Trump."  This conspiracy with the explicit purpose to influence the outcome of the 2016 by concealing the hush money payouts, including using the Trump Foundation as a conspiracy conduit. As we learned via a lawsuit brought by NY DA Barbara Underwood: 

"In 2016, the Board knowingly permitted the Foundation to be co-opted by Mr. Trump's presidential campaign. Mr. Trump's political committee extensively directed and coordinated the Foundation's activities. The Foundation ceded control over the grants to the campaign, making an improper, in-kind contribution of no less than $2.823 million. The contributions made the Foundation look charitable and increased the candidate's profile to primary voters. Mr. Trump's wrongful use of the Foundation to benefit his campaign was willful and knowing".

The preceding conspiracy - not "conspiracism" bunkum - can't get more in your face than that.  Not convinced? Then read Neal Kaytal's NY Times piece:

Opinion | This Conspiracy Theory Should Worry Trump - 

So why do so many - like WSJ columnist Kimberley Strassel -  skate over it?  A conspiracy not only between and among his homegrown gangster thugs and Russian cronies, but between them and GRU agents as well. Look at Mueller's indictments for cripes' sake!  

[Read the indictment here.]

The incredible ignorance of the preceding definition also appears oblivious to how effective the conspirators were in Iran-Contra. They succeeded in transferring an immense cache of weapons to the Iranians as well as eliciting illegal support for the Nicaraguan Contras. As summarized  (p. 338) in Lawrence E. Walsh's Iran-Contra Report:  "The Iran and Contra operations were merged when funds generated from the sale of weapons to Iran were diverted to support the Contra mission in Nicaragua. "

Adding:

"Using government resources, the conspirators conducted an unauthorized covert program in support of the contras.  North and Poindexter used their Government positions to create a hidden slush fund under the exclusive control of the conspirators”


The key point? To the extent it lasted, the Iran-Contra conspiracy succeeded. To the extent it lasted the BCCI banking conspiracy - based on a nest of dummy accounts in 73 countries - also succeeded. (Sadly, many ordinary citizens in Barbados paid the price, see e.g.

BCCI shock waves spread worldwide as outposts' operations 

Meanwhile, 73 Cubans paid the price when a conspiracy to blow up Cubana Airlines Flt. 455 and hatched by a Venezuelan terrorist Luis Posada Carriles 

succeeded, e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uspkEV_fFzs

These facts are germane and important because they disclose the extent of the conspiracy as well as the people involved and - in some cases- the dire effects. .  But this is the essential nature of all real conspiracies in the political realm - to somehow leverage power to the advantage of those seeking to impose their own agenda. It was applicable in the Iran-Contra conspiracy as it was in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy - the objective in the latter to implement a much larger national security state and permanent war state.

Leave out the flatus inherent in "conspiracism", it is far more useful to treat conspiracy as a real concept, say as defined by Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary: 

A treacherous, surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons”

This definition is simple, as well as operational and also - to its credit- doesn't prejudge a conspiracy as non-existent or "teleologically based" (or flawed)  if its effects or plans are not manifested. All that is necessary is that a "plan is formulated" and it's done by "two or more people".   By contrast,  conspiracism is a bogus concept - as so defined- if it excludes real conspiracies and real conspiracy effects.  My point is that one must be crystal clear on the definitions of objects of inquiry else one ends up investigating or examining pure rubbish

Author Michael Parenti ('Dirty Truths')  offers an insight (p. 174) into the sort of phobic mind that engenders this type of useless rubbish:

" Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: 'Do you actually think there's a group of people sitting around in a room, plotting things?' For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers.  But where else would people of power get together - on park benches or carousels?"

Parenti averred that conspiracy "is clearly a way to get things done", mainly at the political level for which the media was often an accomplice in impeding disclosure of full information, or invoking the usual "tin foil hat" mockery. Parenti's further salient point was that even if conspiracies failed, as in the case of the Watergate conspiracy, BCCI, and Iran-Contra, that doesn't mean a conspiracy never existed. Even Operation Northwoods which never even came to partial manifestation (thank goodness!) was still a conspiracy. Plus, we have the documents to verify the fell plan existed and the carnage and chaos it sought to inflict on Cubans, e.g.

The question arising from examples like these is how to square them with the authors' perspective, i.e. of a similarity of conspiracy to creationism. So that one has:  "a related but not identical belief: the idea that some events in the world are actively and purposely fabricated — that some things are meant to be, driven by an external force. Sounds familiar? That’s also the core of religious thinking."

Here the authors wade a tad too far when they conflate the "purposely fabricated" with "some things are meant to be."  If we exclude the latter as typical of religious ideation, i.e. "souls are meant to be saved or damned" then we can get on firmer cognitive ground.   We then can grasp that because an event can be purposely and actively fabricated toward an objective, that doesn't ALSO mean "some things are meant to be".  The point? The conflation is what leads to mixing up creationism and conspiracism.


A related serious mistake I've referenced in previous posts  is critics' invocation of "Ockham' Razor" (the simplest hypothesis is usually the correct one). The mistake too many make is assuming simplicity along the same theoretic lines as for physical theories. Thus, the widespread presumption that any viable conspiracy theory - like a physical theory -  needs to be a hallmark of simplicity,  not complexity. 

But let's be realistic here: human beings are not inanimate, unconscious objects like planets and moons in defined orbits.  Nor are they like billiard balls - say that collide according to Newton's 2nd and 3rd laws of motion- making their future paths predictable. Humans by their nature possess the capacity for duplicity, formulation of self-determined agendas and concealed motives as well as the ability to misdirect others toward their (hidden) agendas. In any conspiracy of any magnitude (say like assassinating a President), therefore, one fully expects such devious capacities to overwhelm straight line logic - given the conspirators already know any would-be investigators would start off with that form of approach.

For clarity and to fix ideas, recall it was Barbadian psychologist Dr. Pat Bannister who invoked the idea of  a "conspiracy research community"  to distinguish it from base conspiracy ideation or what Dieguez and co-authors call "conspiracism" .    The latter encompasses the whole gamut of mnot only whackdoodle drivel (such as Jones' Sandy Hook false flag idiocy) but also quasi- paranoid  conjectures  which didn't  advance adequate evidence or documents to  support them. Or, if such were advanced, they didn't meet elementary scientific standards for acceptance, including consistent data selection. For example, the nincompoops who claimed no men actually landed on the Moon and it was all filmed on a Hollywood lot. 

By contrast the conspiracy research community was comprised of educated, rational adults who brought their scientific, quantitative and other aptitudes to bear on real, fact-based conspiracies.  These people put in real man hours as well as intellectual "sweat equity" - whether applied to the BCCI banking conspiracy or the JFK assassination conspiracy,  The discrimination was crucial and led Prof. Bannister to the following classification system:

1- Conspiracy analysts

2- Conspiracy theorists

3- Conspiracy crackpots or cultists


At the top of the hierarchy were conspiracy analysts, such as Mark Lane, Peter Dale Scott, Harold Weisberg, Richard Charnin and others (like yours truly).  These were serious people possessing some measure of intellect who brought their scientific, mathematical and other aptitudes to the investigation of multiple aspects of a putative real conspiracies like Iran-Contra and the JFK assassination.  These people put in real man hours and actually published their work in authoritative media (e.g. BOOKS - real books!) and respected forums as opposed to spreading bunkum through half-assed posts in the lowest dreg regions of the net, like 4chan and 8chan.

By contrast, the "conspiracy theorist" puts forward conspiracy conjectures - some highly elaborate -  but often didn't  advance adequate evidence, quantitative reasoning or documents to  support them. Or, if such were advanced, they didn't meet rigorous scientific standards for acceptance, including consistent data selection.  The 9/11 truthers are an example of this lot.  They have generated compendiums of work but none of it fully taking into consideration the physics of force balance and progressive collapse. See e.g. this excellent physics explanation which the "truther theorists" need to address:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/11/28/the-physics-of-9-11/

Pay attention to the force balance and progressive collapse computations!  The 9/11 truther would do well to show similar computations that instead supports their case. (If any truther has such, I will happily publish his or her work as a guest post on this blog.)


Sadly,what Dieguez and his co-authors have done by their sloppy work is to paint so wide a brush in their criticism of anything smacking of conspiracy ("conspiracism")  that actual conspiracies (e.g. BCCI, Iran-Contra etc.) become conflated with Bannister's bottom rung (category 3) conspiracy crackpots - say like the QAnon rubbish.  

In order to test their hypothesis, they recruited 150 college students in Switzerland, and then an additional 700 people online. The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire which included teleological claims and "conspiracist" statements, as well as measures of analytical thinking, esoteric and magical beliefs, and a randomness perception task.

They found a strong correlation between creationism and conspiracism. They also found that the relationship was mostly independent of other variables such as gender, age, analytical thinking, political orientation, education, and agency detection. 

According to Dieguez, quoted in the ZML Science piece:

"By drawing attention to the analogy between creationism and conspiracism, we hope to highlight one of the major flaws of conspiracy theories and therefore help people detect it, namely that they rely on teleological reasoning by ascribing a final cause and overriding purpose to world events.  We think the message that conspiracism is a type of creationism that deals with the social world can help clarify some of the most baffling features of our so-called ‘post-truth era.'” 

That's fine and dandy except the authors have proven no such link, not at all.  We read, for example, a summary of the work in Science Daily:

"It's not uncommon to hear someone espouse the idea that "everything happens for a reason" or that something that happened was "meant to be." Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology on August 20 have found that this kind of teleological thinking is linked to two seemingly unrelated beliefs: creationism, the belief that life on Earth was purposely created by a supernatural agent, and conspiracism, the tendency to explain historical or current events in terms of secret conspiracies or conspiracy theories."

But Dieguez et al seem not to grasp the enormous chasm separating the two.  Belief in a supernatural agent to originate the cosmos is not at all similar to explaining historical events in terms of "secret" conspiracies - IF said conspiracies are verified by documents or actual events. I already went through a number of verified conspiracies earlier.  Note again, no one is insisting or claiming a la the ubiquity of teleology peculiar to creationism that ALL historical events are driven by conspiracies.  BUT - a fraction of them are-   such as those specific examples I already described.  

Is Dieguez then going to argue that Operation Northwoods wasn't real, despite the fact the planning documents, files exist? (Such as I showed)?  Is he going to claim it wasn't real because it didn't manifest? This commits the logical error Parenti referred to.  What about Iran- Contra? Is he prepared to argue that conspiracy wasn't real because it was eventually found out? (Despite the fact over 1,000 TOW missiles were delivered to Iran and arms dispatched to the Contras in violation of the Boland Amendment)  

What about the conspiracy by Luis Posada et al to detonate a bomb and blow up Cubana Airlines Flight 455 off the southwest coast of Barbados?   Is he going to claim that conspiracy wasn't real - a mere case of "conspiracism"  - despite 73 people losing their lives in the biggest airline terror of the 20th century?

You get my point.  The problem inheres in the too broad definition. i.e. of "conspiracism",  which essentially tosses out "baby with bathwater" and ends up getting us nowhere in terms of discriminating the different expressions which are often carelessly referred to as "conspiracy theories" by the media.  The use of this too general definition also by its nature undermines the research done, and discourages others doing further work, including efforts at confirmation. Who, after all, wishes to be hamstrung by a vacuous definition in the pursuit of differentiating the objectively real from the unreal?

See also:

Trump's Criminal Conspiracies: Vivid, Overwhelming, and Lethal

As They Celebrate Castro's Death, Miami's Cubans Would Do Well To Remember...

Miami's Cubans whoop it up last night on Calle Ocho, downtown.




















The 73 innocent souls blown out of the sky off Barbados' southwest coast on October 6, 1976. Blown to smithereens by a cabal of anti-Castro extremists - fighting for "freedom" - but taking their wrath out on the Cuban fencing team and family. All regarded as "targets of opportunity" by Orlando Bosch, one of the masterminds, and Luis Posada Carrilles.

The true fact here? Cuba was the victim of the worst state-terror attack in the western hemisphere before 9/11 and it came from the U.S. This was instigated by the CIA on Oct. 6, 1976 using a Venezuelan- based former CIA asset (Luis Posada)  to blow up Cubana Airlines Flight 455 killing all 73 on board.

Certainly the event is just as emblazoned in Barbadian neurons as the 9-11 attack for those in New York. Maybe worse,  since the scale of Barbados is radically smaller than New York, or the U.S. On a national scale of devastation, that Cubana Airline bombing took out a percentage of people equal to 0.03% of the total populace, while numerically as a %, 9-11 took out roughly 0.0001%. Thus, in purely proportionate numerical terms, Cubana 455 was much deadlier. But sadly, it's not on most citizens' radar - certainly not in the US Of A.

I was at the Paradise Beach on the southwest coast of the island with my five nieces when it occurred. We witnessed the plane come down, and wondered what the hell had happened – then watched in horror barely an hour and a half later as bloody body parts began to wash ashore. Even now, as adult women, they're unable to venture anywhere near that particular beach.

The prevailing thought at the time was some malfunction occurred and the plane just blew up more or less by accident. It was only years later that it was ascertained that the two questioned in Barbados were hired thugs commissioned by anti-Castro extremist Cubans and the CIA . As former federal agents Warren Hinckle and William Turner noted in their excellent book, ‘Deadly Secrets: The CIA-Mafia War Against Castro and the Assassination of JFK’ (p. 384, Thunders Mouth Press, 1992):

“Two men who had deplaned in Barbados, Freddy Lugo and Hernan Ricardo Lusano, were interrogated after joking about the bombing in a Barbados taxicab. The two were employed by Luis Posada…and confessed that Posada and (Orlando) Bosch had supplied them with two bombs, which they planted on the Cubana aircraft.”

Luis Posada  Carriles - state-sponsored  (by the U.S.) Venezuealan terrorist, who was allowed U.S. sanctuary by George Bush Jr. and never extradited for trial in Venezuela.


According to a secret CIA cable dated Oct. 14, 1976, intelligence sources in Venezuela relayed information about the Cubana Airlines Flt. 455 bombing that tied in  Alpha 66 terrorist Orlando Bosch, who had been visiting Venezuela, and Posada, who then served as a senior officer in Venezuela’s intelligence agency, DISIP. On his arrival, Bosch was met by a CIA operative and Posada, according to the report. Later, a fundraising dinner was held in Bosch’s honor. “A few
days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was overheard to say that, ‘we are going to hit a Cuban airplane,’ and that ‘Orlando has the details,’” the CIA report said.

Meanwhile, those of us living in Barbados at the time had no remote notion of the bloody act to come, nor of the U.S. complicity in it, or that the same right wing Cuban renegades - whose associates conspired in the JFK assassination -  were part of it. The CIA Report went on to read:

“Following the 6 October [1976] Cubana Airline crash off the coast of Barbados, Bosch, Garcia and Posada agreed that it would be best for Bosch to leave Venezuela. Therefore, on 9 October, Posada and Garcia escorted Bosch to the Colombian border, where he crossed into Colombian territory.”

(Note the CIA's  sanitizing of language, the use of "crash" instead of bombing, or what we call "collateral language.)

Meanwhile, Venezuelan police began rounding up suspects. Two right wing Cuban exiles, Hernan Ricardo Lusano and Freddy Lugo, who got off the Cubana plane (Flight 455) in Barbados, confessed that they had planted the bomb and they named Bosch and Posada as the architects of the attack. A search of Posada’s apartment in Venezuela turned up bomb-making instructions, some materials as well as Cubana Airlines timetables and other incriminating documents.

Posada and Bosch were charged in Venezuela for the Cubana Airlines bombing, but the case soon became a political tug-of-war, since the suspects were in possession of sensitive Venezuelan government secrets that could embarrass President Andres Perez. Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison where he was awaiting trial in 1985. In his autobiography, Posada thanked Miami-based Cuban activist Jorge Mas Canosa for the $25,000 that was used to bribe guards who allowed Posada to walk out of prison. Another Cuban exile who aided Posada was former CIA officer Felix Rodriguez, who was close to then-Vice President Bush.

To make a long story short, Posada became the beneficiary of assistance of not only a somnolent, uninterested media (which expressed more outrage at the Pan Am 103 downing in 1988) and a friendly Bush Junior Administration - but also Miami's Cuban community which provided safe harbor for a number of years while investigations were ongoing.

Years earlier, the U.S. had planned massive terror attacks not only on Cuban soil but in the U.S.  - to blame on Fidel Castro, in order to foment a full scale war and invasion of the island. We have the records that document  the extent of it, e.g.                                                          









































This was none other than Operation Northwoods.  In Operation Northwoods the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military planned a campaign of terror, to include the sinking of refugee boats (carrying Cuban refugees) on the high seas, as well as the killing of innocent citizens on American cities’ streets, plus random bombings carried out in Washington, DC, Miami and other places. What was the  motivation? Author James Bamford shows (Body Of Secrets, pp. 82-83) it was to incite an invasion and war against Cuba and enable the U.S. to invade and overthrow Fidel Castro.

But the documents to support suspicions of this (failed) conspiracy were only released years later – though many smelled a ‘rat’. When I first heard of Northwoods, I had trouble processing how any U.S. government agency or entity could remotely conceive of such foul deeds, far less carry them out. Then I quickly recalled the blowing up of Cubana Airlines Flight 455 over Barbados, on October 6. 1976 by Luis Posada, Freddie Lugo and other renegades sponsored in the extremist Alpha 66 enclave by the CIA.

It is interesting, historically, to note that the bulk of Cubans who fled as refugees  after Fidel Castro overthrew the jackboots of Dictator Fulgencio Batista, were of the middle class. They fled because they were no longer able to get the easy perks they could under Batista, given Castro wanted to redistribute the island's scarce resources. And since Cuban intelligence learned of plans to try to topple Castro long before he turned to the Soviet Union, his decision was made much easier regarding which nation had his best interests at heart. Most of Miami's entitled Cubans celebrating on Calle Ocho forget that.

I  beheld these entitled Cubans when they first arrived in Miami in 1962 via "Operation Pedro Pan" - given most had been in elite Catholic schools and their parents were horrified at the prospect of a "communist education".  They arrived at my high school, Mgsr. Edward Pace, and were given free textbooks, clothing,  housing, as well as paid tuition compliments of the Miami Archdiocese. Meanwhile, I had to work after classes to pay my own tuition. Do I necessarily begrudge them? No, but I want them to stop their whining now, and disgusting celebrations on the death of a ninety year old man who - let's face it - had been literally on his death bed the past ten years. As Janice opined this morning: "Maybe if they get it all out of their system they'll behave from now on." Miami's Right Wing Cubans? No way.  They'll find some other grievance to chew on with Raul Castro, just stay tuned.

Much of the travail and Castro reprisals were due to the U.S. own attempted interventions and mischief. In each case it forced Castro to tighten the screws of security further including scoping out domestic enemies - like Orlando Bosch and cohort.  Thankfully, after the October, 1962 missile crisis, John F. Kennedy attempted to end the awful relations via rapprochement with Castro through his aide de camp Renee Vallejo and JFK's go between, William Attwood.

Attwood, a Washington lawyer, who had earlier negotiated the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners who was to be instrumental. He was charged by JFK with becoming the first American emissary to secure Castro’s ear and trust. In particular, to show good will and good faith, Attwood arranged for $62 million in medicines and food aid as part of the prisoner deal.

 Attwood was also continually active in the spring of 1963, securing the release of other prisoners, including three CIA operatives held in Cuban jails. What derailed the effort, ending it violently with the Kennedy asssassination? Likely the CIA getting wind of the plan, especially given they were still enraged by Kennedy's reaction after the Bay of Pigs.

Probability of cross-Agency leakage would’ve occurred when ABC News reporter Lisa Howard offered herself as an intermediary, and her apartment in New York as the venue, for the first bilateral talks between U.S. and Cuban officials.   Certainly, the Agency’s eyes and ears would’ve been turned (tuned?) toward Howard after she did a fairly sympathetic TV special on Castro in April, 1963.   Might they have bugged her apartment and listened in? Possible, but they may not have had to – since a “high society” crowd attended and these may well have provided all the extra source leaks the Agency needed to plan ahead for what it wanted to do.

By September 24, 1963, Robert Kennedy had informed Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. William Atwood, that Jack might be able to meet Castro, but not in Cuba. Mexico may have been suggested as an alternative. By then many of us suspected that the conspirators had a plan afoot to possibly take out Kennedy in September. We didn't realize it already had been planned for Dallas in November, using at least one team composed of Cuban exiles from the Bay of Pigs with  vengeance on their minds.

With Trump now likely to assume office in two months,  all the progress toward Cuban relations launched recently by Obama will be upended and we 'll return to the same Cold War mentality as before. That is something, along with the memory of  their 73 countrymen blown out of the sky 40 years ago,  Miami's Cubans ought to weep over -   rather than celebrate.

See also:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2016-10-06/bombing-cuban-jetliner-40-years-later

http://www.loopnewsbarbados.com/content/watch-cubana-air-bombing-remembered

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/03/what-maddow-left-out-in-her-segment-on.html

Tom Hanks Finally Gets To Broadcast His JFK Anti-Conspiracy Bollocks ( In Miniature)

Vince Bugliosi -author of 'Reclaiming History' - figures prominently in Tom Hanks' recycled propaganda piece on the Kennedy assassination.

Imagine assembling a cavalcade of talking heads with some name cachet to dispute and attempt to skewer the evidence that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a conspiracy. It would require some degree of moxie especially if one also was a self-proclaimed "Kennedy liberal".  But this was Tom Hanks, as he catapulted himself from the fictional Forrest Gump to would- be modern pop historian of record, most recently in a CNN 1-hour presentation on the JFK assassination.

Most people are aware that pop historians Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman were to have completed a 13 part HBO series on the event based on Vince Bugliosi's ridiculous book 'Reclaiming History" - to support the Warren Commission whitewash. This was to be for the 50th anniversary year (2013).  Hanks went so far as to say in one Truthdig interview that he intended to "do the American public a service" - because they "have been snookered into believing that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed."  .  Evidently, Hanks,  Goetzman and Bugliosi were convinced that Gerald Posner's earlier, two -bit hatchet job 'Case Closed' wasn't enough - and they were right. Within a short time critics had exposed all of Posner's tricks, omissions, distortions and disinformation which the interested reader can peruse here:

http://assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

So Hanks' job was formidable: to do what Gerald Posner was unable to. Recall when I told German friends at the Zugspitze about Hanks' grandiose plans they howled with laughter and asked 'Who was trying to snooker who?'  Most couldn't believe a high grade comic actor would deign to produce a historical series about Kennedy.  See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/germans-tom-hanks-wasting-his-time-with.html

One can, of course, inquire into Hanks' bona fides as a Kennedy historian of any type. Those who want the details (Goetzman's too) can  check out Jim Di Eugenio's superb book, 'Reclaiming Parkland',  where we learn Hanks first rose to some minor theatrical prominence at Skyline High School in Oakland, CA, and subsequently entered Chabot Community College in Hayward, CA as a drama specialist.  Hanks - as Di Eugenio notes- basically has no history creds at all, but he did rise to stardom with 'Splash" and then - after becoming a household name - met Gary Goetzman on the set of 'Philadelphia'. The rest, as they say, is history and the pair went on to make a set of historical series, starting with 'Band of Brothers' on HBO.

That these guys even read the full Warren Report, the official government report (released by the HSCA)  or any of the recently released files under the JFK Records Act is doubtful. As Di Eugenio put it ((p. 16):

"How did these men get into a position to make such momentous public decisions about highly controversial and very important historical issues."

Well, because of their connections - especially to media elites and propagandizers (like Vince Bugliosi, and Max Holland) with an axe to grind about anything that raises the issue of conspiracy.

But let us fast forward.

Hanks' Kennedy conspiracy- skewering extravaganza never made it to HBO, even after he and Goetzman pared it down to nine parts and pleaded with the producers re: its "import". But the decision of the honchos at HBO was that it would be a ratings disaster and the details those like Bugliosi would go into,  would simply cause viewers' eyes to glaze over.  In addition, Hanks' previous project, 'The Pacific', didn't draw the numbers of his earlier popular history efforts, e.g. Band of Brothers. So the project had to be mothballed.

But who knew at the time that this historical fiasco would be resurrected but in distilled,  miniature form? Thus, it appears Hanks and Goetzman were bound and determined to get this propaganda promotion (maybe for the CIA?)  on the air in some form, and with some cooperating media outfit. Evidently, they succeeded with CNN - in a series televised over last weekend entitled 'The Sixties'. One of the episodes was 'The Kennedy Assassination' and as soon as I spotted Hanks and Goetzman's names (as executive producers)  I figured they might try a hit job on JFK lone nut skeptics in that episode. I was absolutely correct.

To their credit they present actual historical footage from the times, including Oswald's being paraded through the Dallas police station and also being asked questions by reporters  - which would never happen today.  He provides responses that are all consistent with Peter Dale Scott's evidence that he was methodically framed by the security state to act as the patsy. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee_1807.html

Where it turns into propaganda is the edited insertion of dissing talking heads, starting with Bugliosi himself. There we see the former Manson prosecutor whining in a tinny voice that "everything he said was provably a lie" . But, of course, we now know just about everything Bugliosi said about Oswald was a lie, and the Warren Report he and his associates defend so vigorously is just a tissue of lies woven into more lies (as well as fake exhibits). But this despicable affront to American intelligence was given the mantle of probity by assembling  a set of commissioners possessing a veneer of name gravitas.  See my FAQs on the WC here for its many failings, omissions, and suborning detritus that really ought to have outraged any real lawyer:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_13.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_14.html

Bugliosi immediately follows his "lies" outburst by asserting  Oswald was a "nut" and once that was "learned" his prosecution as the lone gunman became inevitable. In fact, Bugliosi had become prey to the very media canards Peter Dale Scott exposed in his 'Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics’, e.g. that of a:

"neurotic frustrated by neglect, and 'angered' (Posner's words) that 'others failed to recognize the stature he thought he deserved."

This codswallop was then additionally integrated into the CIA- confected narrative that Oswald was a "KGB -linked assassin"  hired to kill Kennedy. Under the tutelage of Warren Commissioner Dulles, it was decided to drop it and pursue the lone gunman narrative instead. The spooks agreed they didn't want to use an unproven bit of nonsense to frighten the American people to death after assembling a compendium of lies.

Alas, these illustrious historical actors presented by Hanks and Goetzman included Allen Dulles - the very CIA head JFK fired after the Bay of Pigs and who set up his own anti-Kennedy gov't in the wake to bring Kennedy down by hook or crook- or bullets see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/11/convergence-of-two-important-books.html

Bugliosi soon appears again, bellyaching that  "conspiracy theorists had  dug so deeply they had ended up splitting hairs then splitting the split hairs until the Kennedy case had become the most complex ever known". Of course, this is outrageous hyper-bullshit. In fact, all that happened is that when actual files (previously withheld) were finally released under the JFK Records Act in 1992 researchers finally had the material they needed to pursue the case in all its dimensions, including: Clay Shaw's CIA contract agent number,  Oswald's CIA files (CI/SIG and 74-500), and the fact that Kennedy had planned to pull all personnel out of Vietnam by 1965 via National Security Action Memorandum 263.

There followed stock footage of Oswald's murder by Jack Ruby which saw other media heads visibly pouting in their expressed outrage,  as if no one could be stupid enough to challenge the finding that good ol' Jack simply acted out of his heart as a latter day cowpoke who took down the 'bad guy'.  (But he did have a personal motive: he wanted to drive more business to his 'Carousel Club' - as the place owned by the guy who killed the big, bad assassin. NO thought that he'd be in the slammer for his misdeeds).

Oh, then there was the objection that hey, Ruby was a "groupie"  of the Dallas cops and always came to the station, so WHY would any dolt think it was "unusual" he was there? The odds are, well,.....astronomical!  Another pompous gasbag spouted that "Ruby had only a few minutes to get into the station" i.e. from where he'd been earlier, "so how the heck could he have been sure to be armed and known Oswald would be there so he could shoot him?" The "limited time" disproved it.

Sorry, Roscoe, it doesn't. (Also, controverting evidence shows Ruby had more than ample time to get inside and get a good shot)

Ruby's very regular presence likely made him privy to the scuttlebutt that Oswald was being moved to a new site, so was aware of the day and time and brought his weapon. As gangster Johnny Roselli confessed to one source (before he was to appear before the HSCA) :  "Of course Jack did it, to silence Oswald!" After which Roselli found himself in the Intracoastal waterway off Miami gutted like a fish and crammed inside a waste can. Escaping gases from the corpse caused the can to rise to the surface as reported by Gaeton Fonzi in 'The Last Investigation' (the HSCA real gov't investigation that Hanks and Goetzman omit.)

The only one with the sober take, amidst all Hanks' parading puppets, was Oswald's mother, who told it straight that she believed Ruby was a "hired killer to shut the mouth of Lee Oswald".  Subsequently released files disclose she nailed it.

On the segment to do with Jim Garrison, all the venomous claims and slanders made against him are interjected, as well as images of Clay Shaw - holding the New Orleans States -Item in his hands with the front page reading, 'NOT GUILTY!' and yucking it up   More Hanks' selected  talking heads follow, yapping how the case was tossed out. Well, of course it was, since the Judge in the case (Haggerty)  refused to allow Garrison to cite or introduce Shaw's alias, 'Clay Bertrand'.

Like most of the content of this blatant hit job, no mention is made that after the JFK Records Act and files release, the CIA DID fess up that Shaw was a contract agent and worked for them. As CIA Doc. (JFK 1993: 6.28.16.07.26.560280) notes:

"A memorandum marked for files says that J. Monroe Sullivan, #280201, was granted a covert security  approval as of 10 December 1962 so he could be used in Project QKENCHANT [Clay L. Shaw has #402897]"

Under the CIA  banner QKENCHANT one is cleared for intelligence procurement. Such clearance meant you were a safe contact  for the Agency and hence could be used as a "cut out" (employing an alias)  , with the CIA giving you only a certain amount of information. Clay Shaw then, had the ability to recruit other agents, thereby granting them security approvals. From the available files disclosed long after Garrison's efforts ended, Shaw used his QKENCHANT clearance to "plan or coordinate CIA activities" as well as "initiate relationships with non-Agency persons or institutions." In this guise, Shaw was effectively part of the CIA's clandestine services with Covert Security Approval, working under cover.  

Not skipping a beat, Hanks then brings in "experts" like Arlen Specter and some low level Warrenite stooges and media twerps to disparage the skeptics who found fault with the single bullet theory. A 2-dimensional plan overview of the limo and the positions of JFK and Connally are shown to refute the critics SBT objections - with Bugliosi arguing that Connally was not really seated directly in front of Kennedy, a perspective achieved by altering Connally's  seat position relative to JFK in the rear.  They'd have certainly managed to convince many people that yes indeed, that single bullet could find its way through both men to make seven wounds and emerge barely scathed. BUT....if one goes to the sideways diagram, and appeals to the records track, one finds the horse fly in the ointment, e.g..



The "horse fly" is at the entry point in JFK's back. Recall that early on the Warren whitewashers realized their original sketch of the bullet entry wouldn't work:

The upper inclined blue arrow shows the trajectory of the bullet that the Warren Commission first believed would be needed in order to account for BOTH the JFK back wound AND the neck wound - then entering Connally to make his wounds.

The problem was that with the upward angle trajectory the shooter would've had to have been firing literally  from street level,   which would have eliminated a TSBD shooter (alleged to be Oswald). Thus, at least one WC member (Gerald Ford) realized for the SBT to work the Commission's drawing had to reset the placement higher - changing it to the light yellow trajectory through the base of the neck, and a downward angle.. .

The initial draft of the report(conforming to the blue upward trajectory)  had  stated:


"A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder to the right of the spine." 

Ford altered it to read:

"A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."
 
Clearly, Ford wanted the document to conform with the single bullet myth  (requiring now the yellow shot arrow) and would stoop to altering a document on record to attain the goal.  The problem for Ford and the Warrenites is one of basic anatomy. The original autopsy sheet, including the placement and description of the back wound, was signed and verified by Admiral George Gregory Burkley, personal physician to the president who directed the autopsy at Bethesda. He verified the back wound placement on November 24th .

That death certificate revealed the back wound to be, in the Admiral's own words, at the president's "third thoracic vertebra.”  The neck has seven CERVICAL vertebrae, and this observed and verified wound was described as three THORACIC vertebrae lower than the neck itself.

The final report then read: "A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of his spine." Ford insisted this was “a small change, …intended to clarify meaning, not alter history”. But alter history is exactly what it did! For by altering the original autopsy report, Ford and his cohorts succeeded in conferring a measure of validity on Specter’s single bullet theory. This is despite the fact that analysis of the resulting trajectory doesn’t even conform to basic laws of Newtonian dynamics!

To make matters worse for Ford et al, the throat wound was described by Parkland surgeon Malcolm Perry (who should know his business given having to deal with multiple Dallasites' gunshot wounds at Parkland) as an ENTRY wound..

Cleverly, Hanks and his parade of propagandizers made reference to none of this. But that is the special talent of Hanks and Goetzman: to frame viewer perceptions by omission. (In the preceding episode, "The World On the Brink", they omit any mention of Kennedy evolving away from his cold warrior pose after the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the violent opposition of Gen. Curtis Lemay to Kennedy's naval blockade during it. They also omit his documented rapprochement with Fidel Castro. But then they obviously would know that would have given the security warhawks a prima facie case to kill him.)

Interspersed throughout we see and hear all the Warren Commission groupies and puppets, from yes, Max Holland, to Vince Bugliosi to David Susskind and assorted Jim Garrison critics.  They note at the time a majority of Americans don't buy the Warren Report - for all the reasons I have cited ad infinitum, and we hear these varied snarky mini-speeches - as if to lecture any viewers they damned well ought to know better:

Trying to add more reinforcement to the hit job Hanks et al then get this bit of canned, subjective insight from Priscilla Johnson McMillan (author of 'Marina and Lee')  :

"If you understood the Walker shooting, you knew Lee was like a cocked rifle. He could go off at any time".

The true fact is that Lee had nothing to do with the Walker shooting, but why fret over facts when Hanks and Goetzman can recruit willing disinformationists to do their dirty work. McMillan, as later records disclosed, worked as a research pawn for the CIA, so it's no surprise her book would be framed the way it is (that Lee was this seething loose cannon). See:

http://www.jfk-info.com/pjm-cia.htm

 A salient point to make which McMillan omits: the slug found at the scene was from a 30.06 as reported from the FBI files cited in Mark North’s excellent book Act of Treason (page 255). So how did a 30.06 rifle mutate into Oswald’s alleged 6.5 mm Mannlicher –Carcano some months later, when all the evidence is Oswald never fired such or was ever photographed with such?  Why would Hoover, the FBI, the Warren Commission and the Dallas Police be so eager to hang this shooting on Oswald, to later implicate him in the JFK assassination? Mark North again has the answer:

“Hoover, the Dallas P.D. and the Warren Commission realized early on that an examination of Oswald’s past reveals only a pacifist engaged in leftist activism. Simply put, he is nonviolent”

North aptly points out (ibid.) subsequently that the Walker shooting – like other “media myths” -  was totally unrelated to the assassination and further:

“would have faded into total obscurity but for the fiction that will be created on 11/22/63”

One does have to hand it to Hanks and Goetzman for clever editing and inserting all the most gravitas-resonating voices of the time, including Eric Sevareid, and Walter Cronkite to instill the meme that finding for conspiracy is all about finding "comfort" in a brutish random world where-  according to Sevareid:  "power and majesty can be wiped out in an instant by a skinny, weak-chinned little character".

After all, at least a conspiracy provides a sense of "order", where a lone nut killer is "random".  Of course, a real conspiracy involving the national security state is a billion times more upsetting to a sane person - given it implies any President can be removed by force. A lone gunman scenario would be balm by comparison given it would mean a plausible 'one off' and not that systematic killers are lurking to take out anyone who steps too far out of  line. Do these two fools- Hanks and Goetzman-  really believe Americans to be that fucking stupid? Evidently they do!

Hey! Allen Dulles didn't look that skinny and "weak-chinned" to me!

And then we are treated to the authoritative voice of Walter Cronkite:

"What would be more comfortable? Accepting a lone assassin, or believing a second assassin suddenly materialized out of thin air, fired a shot and disappeared again without leaving a trace of his rifle, his bullet or any other sign of existence?"

But barely ten years after "Uncle Walter" said those words, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) did find for a "96 percent probability" of a second gunman based on acoustic tests done by MIT researchers. While a special gov't appointed team attempted to refute it, they failed, and moreover none of them were bona fide  acoustic specialists like the MIT group.

Then there is  pseudo-historian Robert Dallek, husking through his teeth:

"They don't want to believe that something so random would have occurred."

Well, uh yeah, Robert, especially when the alleged rifle couldn't even be made to replicate Oswald's purported shots in test trials! See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-fhe-jfk.html

To make matters worse, he resorts to false analogy:

"Can you believe you could stop off a curb someday and be killed by an oncoming car? Nobody believes that kind of possibility for themselves but it happens! Is life that fortuitous or uncertain?"

Yes, it can be, but that's not at all the same as all the evidence pointing to being framed, as a set up or decoy for an actual assassination conspiracy.  Dallek, like other pro-Warren flunkies -  and that includes the pop stars of Hanks and Goetzman -want to expunge the fact that Oswald was framed. If he was framed - and we have the CIA's  (Mexico City) cables from David Atlee Phillips to prove it -  then it was no  "random" event  but planned - by the same CIA spooks who framed him. See e.g. the previous links I gave just preceding the paragraph commencing with the words "Where it turns into propaganda".

In this Dallek (like Cronkite and Sevareid),   commits the same error as mathematician John Allan Paulos, in his 2008 book, Irreligion: mistaking the low political value of the person assassinated for the high political value of the assassination.

The end blather comes compliments of Bugliosi, squealing about lack of faith in government:

"They've (conspiracy believers) lost so much faith in government they actually think the government is an accessory after the fact to the President's murder. It can't get too much worse than that."

Well, it can if it is true, and all the recent record  releases point to it ,  namely the involvement of the CIA. After all, nowhere in Bugliosi's cinder block of a book was it even mentioned that the USAID Commodity Import Aid Program  to S. Vietnam had been cut off without informing Kennedy- until David Bell (CIA and USAID go between) told him. This prompted New York Times journalist Arthur Krock  in his piece  ‘The Inter-Administration War in Vietnam’, The New York Times, Oct. 3, 1963). to write:

"If the United States ever experiences an attempt at a coup to overthrow the government, it will come from the CIA”
 
This followed his observation  that:  "the CIA had flatly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge.”

What? Vince lacked the I.Q. to locate this NY Times piece? Or was he too lazy or too dedicated to protecting the Warren claptap? For sure - as a former prosecutor - he'd have seen prima facie evidence for government involvement!  In addition, it's mystifying to have seen him whining about this when this is the same guy wrote:  'The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President'. This refers to the noisome interjection of the Court in the 2000 Florida recounts, basically handing the 2000 election to Gee Dumbya Bush.  Basically, Bugliosi believed the high court committed "treason" as he often referred to it in interviews to promote the book. So in fact at one time he did believe the government  - a sector of it  - could be an accomplice to nefarious acts. So why not to assassination? And oh, let's not forget Operation Northwoods!

This was described by James Bamford  (Body of Secrets, Doubleday Books): p. 82 as:

“maybe the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government”

This treacherous campaign of terror was to include the sinking of refugee boats (carrying Cuban refugees) on the high seas, as well as the killing of innocent citizens on American cities’ streets, plus random bombings carried out in Washington, DC, Miami and other places. The objective? To deliberately incite a war with Castro's Cuba. One can easily see from both the October, 1962 exchanges and also the Northwoods information, that the JCS and especially LeMay - had a major 'Jones' for starting a war.

Hell, we even have FOIA files for the preliminary plan that was later accepted - which would have been easily accessible to Hanks and Goetzman if they had more investment in truth than confecting propaganda. E.g.












































That neither Bugliosi, Hanks or Goetzman could evidently find the same documents shows me they are all either incompetent, or they are committed to mass brainwashing : Bugliosi using his portentous, misleading propaganda book, Hanks and Goetzman with their biased hit job on Warren Commission skeptics and conspiracy proponents, researchers. They all ought to be ashamed of themselves.

The lone voice in the hour that stood out for me was that of historian Robert Caro:

"The assassination changed the trajectory of America. So it was a different place after the assassination than it was before Kennedy was killed. If you look at America as a whole in the 20th century - and look at America in the 1960s - you really see how that event split the history."

Thankfully, this will likely be the last half-baked historical propaganda piece we can expect from Hanks and his pal Goetzman, masquerading as real history.  Hanks insists he is a "Kennedy Liberal" which is interesting because that is exactly what I am. So why are Hanks and myself at 180 degree opposite poles on the Kennedy assassination? Why is it that I do believe Oswald was indeed framed and set up as a decoy and Hanks thinks we're all "snookered"?

I think the separation can be almost entirely explained on the basis that Hanks hasn't done one tenth the research, reading and other investigations that I have actually carried out (and described in detail in my recent book, 'The JFK Assassination: The Final Analysis').  How many years, decades has Hanks spent plowing through relevant materials, including old documents, newspapers, newsreels, clips, tape transcripts and FOIA -released files? Or, did he just commence doing it within a year or so of the publication of Vince Bugliosi's pro-Warren Commission PR book? Meanwhile, I have been at it non-stop  since 1977, including going through all the volumes of the House Select Committee on Assassinations- published in 1979. I've also done my own physics analysis of the shot sequence, including relevant computations of momentum, torque acting on the body and the impulse needed to send a piece of skull flying over the limo trunk. (A little observation Bugliosi also never processes in trying to explain why the head shot at Z-313 is really due to a "jet effect")

It is all very well, then, to seek to disabuse a population about their strong belief in Oswald's innocence, or that he wasn't the lone gunman, but what have YOU got to show in terms of your own bona fides?  Thankfully, it appears Hanks' further specious responses - apart from this CNN piece- will spread no more devious propaganda - dispensed from presumed trustworthy pundits -  masquerading as truth.

See also:


http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/green/BesmirchingHistory.html

http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2007/05/reclaiming-history-from-vince-bugliosi.html

http://www.reclaiminghistory.org/