http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk-fringe.html
Let's analyze exactly what he says here, and it isn't much. First, without naming anybody, he says that "the vast majority of criminal investigators and forensic experts" accept the official JFK story. Oh really, Dave? Let's see the evidence for that. And I suggest one proviso: that anyone who works for the state be ruled out. That's because when someone is paying your salary, it tends to make you biased. I say we limit it to independent investigators.
But without having proved his first grouping, he expands it:
Criminal investigators, scientists, historians, and journalists commonly dismiss JFK conspiracy theories as no more worthy of consideration than, say, "9/11 Truth" theories alleging U.S. government complicity in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Isn't that special? He just makes it bigger and bigger. Next, he's going to lay claim to Prince Charles, the Pope, and Mylie Cyrus. After all, why not? It's all for the same price.
And regarding 9/11, David Reitzes refuses to debate it with me:
A few curiosity questions, Ralph.
Do you believe that some of the shootings and terrorist actions that have
occurred in this country over the past few years are false flag operations
to scare the country into allowing the government to seize everyone's
guns?
Are you concerned about chemtrails?
Do you believe the government is covering up the existence of
extraterrestrial visitors?
I'm just trying to get an idea of where you draw the line.
Dave Reitzes
You are being evasive, Dave. I made a valid point: There is no way those pilots, any of them, would have surrendered control of those planes to terrorists waving box-cutters. They would have fought them- to the death, if necessary.
So, the official story has got to recognize that. But, it's not a very credible script, and I'm saying that as one who has written two scripts, one of which is under contract.
Say that the terrorists burst through the cockpit door and started going at it with the pilots. Whatever advantage you think the terrorists might have because of the box-cutters was countered by the fact that there was a plane-load of people who were on the side of the pilots. In fact, as weapons go, a box-cutter is pretty darn puny, as I explain here:
http://oswaldinthedoorway.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-other-thing-is-this-if-man-is.html
Don't you think that some of the male passengers upon hearing the struggle would have rushed forward to come to the aid of the crew? Let's put it this way: how could they not? What would you do? Just sit there and continue watching the movie? NO! You'd race down that aisle, fast as you could, and hell-bent on taking it to the attackers- with severe prejudice.
Once you realized what was going on, and it would only take a split-second, you'd act, and so would I, and so would most men.
The official scenario doesn't work, Dave. Don't tell me that a few swarthy Arabs waving box-cutters overcame all the people on a plane- and that it happened 4x in one day. That doesn't wash. It isn't real. And that's what we need to be talking about. Never mind the other stuff. Just stay on this. (But, all I got back from Rietzes was:)
Nothing personal, Ralph, but I just skim past anything anyone says about 9/11 Truth b.s., including everything you say above and in your previous post. I'm just wondering what conspiracy theories are too out-there even for you. Just curious. Dave
So, now you know that this guy is only good at shadow-boxing. He can't explain the unbelievable incongruities of the official 9/11 story. When asked to do so, he runs. But, back to his latest article on JFK:
Yet polls consistently show that the vast majority of Americans believe the assassination of JFK was the work of a conspiracy. A 2003 ABC News poll found that only 32 percent of American adults believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in Kennedy's murder, 51 percent believe there was a second shooter, and more than two-thirds believe there was a government cover-up
I'll point out that those polls are corrupt in the way they are done because they usually frame the question as, do you think LHO acted alone, which is like asking how often you beat your wife. What they should be asking is whether LHO acted at all or was he just an innocent patsy, but neither Fox News or Gallup or any other media organization will do that.
How do we judge what is history and what is not? "The key," Shermer observes, "is the ability to test one's hypothesis."
Shermer notes that scientists strive for objectivity ("basing conclusions on external validation") and avoid mysticism ("basing conclusions on personal insights that elude external validation")
No dispute there either, Dave.
Then, Reitze quotes Jim Garrison in what he presumes to be a self-evidently wrong statement:
You see, most people don't realize we're living in a totalitarian state. Most citizens of this country live — we live — in the world that appears to be, while those in power live in the world that is. . . . Especially those hiding behind the intangibles of power in the government and the military complex and the CIA. When you recognize and deal with the intelligence apparatus in this country, you're encountering the world that is
Yikes! You really think that Garrison was dipping into the Sazerac when he said that, huh Dave? I'm asking you that in light of what we have learned recently about NSA spying and other things from the likes of Snowden, Assange, and others. I remind you that many have likened the provisions of the Patriot Act as totalitarianism, and most of them have no involvement with JFK whatsoever.
Many of the Kennedy conspiracy theories seem to flow from this premise. When inevitable anomalies arise in the evidence, the simplest solution (human fallibility) is brushed aside in favor of sinister, more complex scenarios involving shadowy government agents and operations. For example, contradictory descriptions of the President's wounds lead to theories of forged autopsy reports, forged photographs and X-rays, and even the wounds themselves being altered or another body substituted for autopsy.(14) Disparate recollections of the official examination of the President's brain lead to a theory of two separate examinations of two separate brains.(15) Divergent descriptions of Lee Harvey Oswald throughout his life lead to scenarios concerning CIA Oswald imposters.(16)
Note that in his footnotes, Reitzes lists various authors who make the claims he belittles, but he doesn't actually address their claims. He just presumes the right to dismiss them.
Then Reitzes quotes a perfectly valid statement of Livingstone:
For example, author Harrison Edward Livingstone (High Treason) writes that "if a group of doctors all say that they saw a certain type of wound, and there is no credible evidence to controvert it, giving credence to a suspect photograph is a mistake. A contradictory photograph should be suspicious rather than the statements. Their observation becomes a fact."(18)
If a number of eyewitnesses describe a wound of exit towards the back of the President's head, Livingstone says, then "the photographs and X-rays showing the back of the head [intact] are false and cannot possibly be correct."(19)
Livingstone is right, Reitzes. Spot-on right. What is your problem?
Then he quotes Mantik, again, as if it's malarkey:
The legal principle is that eyewitness testimony has priority over photographs. This principle was turned upside down by the battalions of lawyers who worked for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and for the WC [Warren Commission]. For them, against all legal precedent, the assumption was always the reverse: if the witnesses disagreed with the official view, it was assumed that they were in error or even lying. On the other hand, the photographs (and the X-rays, too) were assumed [sic — see below] to be immutable monuments to truth. In a real trial, no competent judge would have permitted this illegal approach.(20)
Mantik too is right. The pompous ass Reitzes thinks that if he quotes something in a context of disparagement that the disparagement sticks- without even having to argue it.
Next, Reitzes attacks Jim Fetzer for his publication of Assassination Science, claiming that it never passed muster with a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
But, you see, Dave, even science is subject to "political correctness" and there is nothing more politically incorrect, and not just that but politically not tolerated than JFK truth. So, it means nothing that Jim's work was not peer-reviewed.
Then, Reitzes criticizes this statement of Jim's:
The scientific method represents a highly idealized and perhaps naive vision of human inquiry. Because scientists are, by their very nature, idealists, they have always been among the first to be duped by political power.(27)
But, hasn't scientific dogma fell sway to political pressure over global warming, cholesterol, AIDS, and other things?
And again, when I say that Dave "criticizes" I mean that he puts something up disparagingly without making an actual argument against it. As again here:
And, as Michael Shermer notes, "the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinarily well-tested the evidence must be."(31)
It makes one wonder what evidence of conspiracy has been tested so thoroughly and successfully to allow James Fetzer to categorically state that "anyone sincerely interested in this case who does not conclude that JFK was murdered as the result of a conspiracy is either unfamiliar with the evidence or cognitively impaired."(32)
That isn't an argument. It's just a smear. Jim Fetzer is correct. Anyone who gets into JFK's assassination who does not conclude conspiracy either hasn't studied the evidence or is brain-dead. Next, Reitzes makes a statement that is 180 degrees wrong:
The burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim. It is not enough for conspiracy theorists to pick at the "official" conclusion, as creationists do with the theory of evolution.(36) As with evolution, the case for Lee Oswald's guilt is constructed of neatly interlocking, mutually corroborative pieces of hard evidence.(37) Chipping away at one facet cannot falsify the whole, nor can this method validate an
hypothesis of conspiracy.
Dave, the official story IS the extraordinary claim, and that is where the burden of proof lies. It defies logic, reason, and common experience. A bullet that traverses the bodies of 2 men causing 7 wounds, then emerging in pristine condition? That's an extraordinary claim, Dave- in case you don't know it.
Perhaps you've heard that Jack Ruby (the strip club owner who gunned Oswald down during an abortive police transfer two days after the assassination) was hired by the Mafia to silence the assassin. Or that Oswald was a secret agent. Or that the President was killed by the CIA, which he had reportedly threatened to splinter into a thousand pieces after the Bay of Pigs disaster. Or that the military-industrial complex murdered him to keep him from withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam. Or that the same forces responsible for JFK's death also took out Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There is no factual basis for any of these stories.
Reitzes has bundled together the content of dozens of books and decades of research and dismissed it all with one statement: "There is no factual basis for any of these stories."
Who do you think you are, Reitzes? God? The Pharaoh? The King of Siam?
Next, Reitzes seems to think that lone-nutters are entitled to a pass- one that he would never grant to CTs.
Conspiracy theorists commonly demand answers to questions that are impossible to answer conclusively from the available evidence. For example, if Oswald did it, what was his motive? (We don't know; he never confessed.)(41) But if he wanted to become important or famous or to accomplish something for a political purpose, why didn't he confess? (Fair question, but Oswald's still not talking.) Why are there discrepancies — sometimes seemingly minor, sometimes perhaps not — between the many different reports, photographs, and other items of evidence in the record? (Practically every criminal or historical case has loose ends or discrepancies. Would it ever be possible to explain every conceivable detail to every critic's satisfaction?)
So, conflicting reports, conflicting photographs, Oswald's lack of a motive, and numerous other holes in the official story mean nothing to Reitzes. No, we don't need answers to every conceivable detail, but here's one that bothers me a lot:
How could Oswald have planned to kill Kennedy when he didn't even know the motorcade was passing the building that day? He asked Junior Jarmon why people were gathering on the sidewalk outside. What was that? An act? Was he establishing an alibi for later use? But, on what basis are you assuming that Oswald knew anything about it? Until the morning of the 22nd, the papers were publishing the wrong motorcade route. You're an evidence man, so what evidence is there that Oswald had any advance knowledge that Kennedy was driving by his place of work?
Next, Reitzes assumes the validity of the HSCA doctors in authenticating the autopsy x-rays- in defiance of doctors like Wecht and Mantik- as if it comes down to plurality. But, the bottom line is that it is impossible for government to honestly investigate itself. When the issue is whether the government lied, the government fabricated, and the government killed Kennedy, then government cannot be relied upon to honestly investigate it. What is needed- in both JFK and 9/11- are INDEPENDENT investigations, and I mean independent of government.
Next, Reitzes brings up the non sequitur fallacy- that temporal correlation does not imply causality. Yeah, we know about that, and it's great, Dave, but you can't just assume it and play it like a trump card. Sometimes there is a causal link between two associated events.
Then Reitzes tries to deny that Ruby and Oswald knew each other citing "coincidences."
Dave: Ruby and Oswald knew each other. Multiple witnesses said they did. Here is one who said: "they knew each other very well."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl0PENyHnKU
What will it take to convince you? An 8x10 glossy of Oswald and Ruby together?
Next, in regard to all the suspicious deaths of JFK witnesses, Reitzes quotes his hero Michael Shermer again:
Shermer concludes, one "would be well advised to first thoroughly understand the probable worldly explanation before turning to other-worldly ones."
Dave, murder is not other-worldly. It is very much part of this world. Now go read Hit List by Richard Belzer:
http://www.amazon.com/Hit-List-Investigation-Mysterious-Assassination/dp/1620878070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383665754&sr=8-1&keywords=Hit+List
Then, after diverting to a discussion of flying saucers and whatnot, Reitzes finishes up with an attack on Jim Garrison, starting with ridiculing him for describing Ferrie's death as a suicide when he really died of a stroke.
But then again, Dave, there were not one, but two suicide notes left by David Ferrie, and it was ruled a "suicide". And, Ferrie associate Eladio del Valle, who was also sought by Garrison, was murdered by gunshot and an axe soon afterwards. According to mathematician Richard Charnin, the odds of both deaths were 1 in 453 billion.
The bottom line is that in that long article, David Reitzes did not land a single blow or score a single point against the case for conspiracy in the JFK assassination. He succeeded at nothing argumentatively. It was an complete failure, utterly devoid of any rational content. And the asinine fool styles himself as a rationalist- one who is adept at reasoning. Ha! He doesn't reason; he just lies and deceives but with a pompous attitude. What a blowhard. It doesn't work, Dave, and it doesn't get Oswald out of the doorway.
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