Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

We have a regular exchange of ideas going on in the OIC, and here is Professor James Norwood's response to E. Martin Schot's speech. Like me, James was very impressed with it. 

Martin,

Thank you very much for sharing the text of your presentation "Waters of Knowledge versus Waters of Uncertainty" with the members of the Oswald Innocence Campaign.  Started by Ralph Cinque and Jim Fetzer, this group of scholars-researchers-investigators comprises the premiere community on the internet for research into the JFK assassination.  We generously share our research materials with each other, and there is a special comaraderie among the members.

There is only one word to describe the text of your presentation:  eloquent.

It is only sad to think that if you presented this speech in 1998, fifteen years have now passed without substantial progress is the dissemination of the truth of the assassination of President Kennedy.  As you indicate, there is enough reliable information available for anyone to study this topic and learn the truth, and that is even more apparent in 2015 than in 1998. 

One of the main roadblocks, as you have identified, is in academia.  At this moment, Professor Emeritus James Fetzer is being harassed primarily by uninformed college professors at St. Olaf and Carlton who want to deny him the opportunity of a modest speaking engagement on the JFK assassination and other topics in Northfield, Minnesota.  A lack of open-mindedness, a failure to engage in critical thinking, and a pernicious recidivism characterize the climate in higher education today. 

In the late nineteenth century, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote the following about German universities:  "What an extraordinary atmosphere prevails among their scholars!  What barrenness!   And what self-satisfied and lukewarm intellectuality!....Nothing is more deleterious to this age than the superfluity of pretentious loafers and fragmentary human beings."  Tragically, these were the universities that eventually educated so many of the young men who flourished in Nazi Germany.  Nietzsche's quote could equally apply to our American universities today.  On the positive side, I see more hope at the high schools and community colleges where the teachers are more open-minded.

One topic that is not completely developed in your speech is how the American public has been brainwashed through conventional uses of propaganda ("official" government report; controlled media; unenlightened university faculty).

Recently, my friend and fellow investigator Larry Rivera and I interviewed Toni Glover, who was a 12-year-old eyewitness in Dealey Plaza.  Toni vividly recalled for us the assassination from the perspective of her elevated position standing on a pedestal at Houston and Elm.  In her memory, Toni witnessed details that contradict the conclusions of the Warren Report.  But at a key juncture of the interview, Toni broke away from the recounting of her personal experience and told us the following:

"Look, I'm going on history.  When we drove home, Walter Cronkite said, 'He was gunned down by three shots in Dealey Plaza.'  Once you hear that, it's glued, you know."  

In turn, this eyewitness was later enthralled by the way she was treated by the personnel of the Sixth Floor Museum, leading her to conclude that the Zapruder film provides us with an accurate record of the assassination.  This is how lies get inculcated in the populace.  As a culture, if we want to graduate from adolescence to adulthood, we must to recognize the extent to which we all may be victims of propaganda.  Hence, the importance of your Sufi story of the "waters of uncertainty." 

Thanks again for sharing this magnificent speech.

James Norwood

P.S.  Here are a couple of points where I believe your speech may be improved:

(1)  I agree with Ralph Cinque that the section on Robert Kennedy is problematic and that, if elected president in 1968, it is likely that he would have reopened the investigation into his brother's death.  I do not disagree with what you are saying.  In fact, RFK's efforts to sabotage the Garrison investigation had a devastating impact on that seminal case.  But I feel that your speech loses steam when it tackles such a problematic ancillary issue as that of Robert Kennedy's response at a time when he was nearly incapacitated by grief and depression.

(2)  When you state that "almost the whole 26 volumes of the Warren Commission" could be trashed, it is important to draw the distinction between the supplemental volumes of hearings/exhibits and the lengthy Warren Report itself.  The true garbage lies in the Warren Report.  But the 26 volumes actually provide us with some of the most critical testimony that demonstrates that the final report was wrong.  Let's trash the Warren Report, but keep the 26 volumes that help to lead us to the truth.