Oh man. I just found out that Jim Fetzer, the philosophy professor promoting the idea that space lasers brought down the twin towers, also advocates the theory that we never went to the moon.
Before that, Fetzer was the chief advocate of the absurd notion that the Zapruder film was subjected to all sorts of elaborate alterations that would be difficult to accomplish even today, in the era of Photoshop and CGI and digital compositing -- and which would have been absolutely impossible in 1963. Did you ever see 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big Cinerama screen? Jumpy matte lines galore. And that was on 65mm stock, with the best experts in the business -- guys like Doug Trumball, Wally Veevers and more -- working with a then-massive $10 million budget.
In all these years, Fetzer has yet to have his views on the Z-film seconded by a single expert on '60s-era special effects.
You know who else promotes the Z-Film alteration theory? Jack White, who claims to be an expert in photography, but who wilted under the equivalent of a voir dire when questioned by the HSCA. White also believes that we never went to the Moon. I'm not sure what he thinks about 9/11, but I can guess.
Now, please rest assured that the vast majority of JFK assassination researchers do not believe in this "moon hoax" crap. And they don't go in for pseudoscientific theories of 911. I do hope that the world does not conflate the hard work done by the good JFK researchers with the data-spew expectorated by the trannies and the lunar loons. It's embarrassing to admit that the "good guy" side in the JFK case attracted a healthy handful of freakazoids.
(Trannies: I am moderating. And as I never tire of pointing out, you have no shortage of other sites where you can scream to the world about what a horrible fellow that Cannon guy is.)
4 comments:
Joe: Your link to the Rigorous Institution website (itself a high priest of weirdness) on Jim Fetzer's allegedly weird beliefs does not do justice to the issues. Jeff Wells makes the comments in the context of a more important issue, that of asking the right questions.
In fiarness to Fetzer you need to do more than highlight these alleged claims and look at what he actually does say.
the doubts about the Zapruder film's authenticity were raised in several early books on the JFK assassination, including those by Twyman, Groden and Lifton, and particualrly in the first of Fetzer';s three major anthjologies on the JFK assassination, Assassination Science. Fetzer then edited the third book in that series, the Great Zapruder Film Hoax in which a number of highly qualified people set out, over several chapters, why they think the film was altered and how it was done. You may not like their conclusions, but at least look at the evidence before shooting the messenger.
Seconly, Fetzer is not an advocate of 'laser beam' technology destroying the WTC towers. Rather, he refers to the work of people like Dr Judy Wood who make the reasonable point that the pulverisation of the concrete in the twin towers (which even the websites you prefer acknowledge) required a lot more energy than that created by fires, collapses, or even conventional explosives.
To look at this evidence and ask quesitons hardly makes one a 'trannie' or a 'lunar loon'.
Your comment is an exercise in pure horseshit, Jimmie boy. If you think Fetzer's beliefs are "allegedly" weird, then frankly, you are the sort of person who should patronize some other blog. Even so, I will allow your inane comment here stay, simply to show how easy it is to destroy such arguments.
You make no arguments based on science. You simply list books and point to people you consider experts. All right, let's proceed from that standpoint.
First, let me tell you of my personal interest: I may not be a courtroom-quality expert in the history of cinematic special effects, but I was kind of obsessed with the subject for a while, as were a lot of other young film buffs of my generation. (We all thought "2001" was the coolest thing ever.) And I did a lot of amateur 8mm filmmaking -- as I suspect Fetzer has not.
I did a lot of professional pre-digital image alteration back in the airbrush days, and at present I could testify in court as an expert in Photoshop, which is what you'd need to do the kind of work Jim Fetzer is talking about.
All right, that's my background. It's probably not enough to impress you. But you know what...?
The fact is, Fetzer has been spouting this bilge for a long time now and NOT ONE SINGLE EXPERT IN MOTION PICTURE SPECIAL EFFECTS thinks that his theories are possible.
Jimmie, you pretend to know the history of the JFK case, but you don't. And don't you dare accuse accuse me of not looking at the evidence. I've probably been following the case since before you were born. I was heavily involved with the scene back when this Z-film alteration horsepuckey started to make the rounds. That was the main reason why I gave up on the JFK thing altogether. It was so fucking annoying to have the same conversation over and over with people who refused to budge. (This shit came on the scene JUST when we finally got the Greer-shot-Kennedy wackos to shut the fuck up.)
This good piece by Martin Shackleford gives the true history of this silly sideshow of the JFK controversy:
http://www.jfk-info.com/martin2.htm
Also see here:
http://www.jfk-info.com/zapr-1.htm
and here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/thompson-proof.html
and here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~joejd/jfk/zaphoax/zavada-hoax-comments-r1.pdf
You cite Groden, but I've spoken to him about this very point, and he thinks Fetzer is ridiculous. (I've also spoken to Fetzer, although it was a long time ago and I doubt that he would recall.) Groden told me that the loss of a generation in the Z-film would have been immediately apparent to expert eyes -- which is like, DUH.
Kodak expert Rollie Zavada confirms that very point.
You have a very skewed view of the publication history of the works addressing the JFK case. Contrary to your statement, Groden did NOT write any of the early books. His first publication in the field was "High Treason," written with the dreaded Harrison Livingston, whom I hope has joined the trannies. That book, if memory serves, came out in 1987 or '88.
Twyman came much later, after I decided that I had to turn my attentions elsewhere. 1995, I think. Hardly an "early" book. I don't even consider Lifton's "Best Evidence" an early book -- and at any rate, it discusses alteration of the body, not of the film.
As I recall, none of the early books makes any kind of claims for extensive alteration of the Z-film. (We are not talking about the two well-known splices in the most widely-seen copy; that is a separate issue). Again, I am doing this from memory -- I lost my library and files more than a year ago, and I haven't really devoted any attention to the case in more than a decade -- but the early works were by Sylvan Fox, Thomas Buchanan, Mark Lane, Edward J. Epstein, Harold Weisberg, and Sylvia Meaghar. I THINK those were all the major pre-Garrison works.
None of them made any reference to this alteration nonsense.
You dare to call the people who contributed to "The Great Zapruder Film Hoax" "highly qualified"? My ass! They are "highly qualified" only in the same alternative universe where Fetzer's lunar views can be called "allegedly" weird.
Look at the contributors: Jack White, who thinks that we never went to the Moon; David Lifton (whose degree was, IIRC, in law, not film effects), David Mantik, a nice guy (I've spoken with him too) but a medical specialist, not a film effects expert; and a math teacher named John Costella. Here's what Josiah "Tink" Thompson, author of "Six Seconds in Dallas," has to say about HIM:
"John Costella, a high school math teacher from Australia with a Ph.D. in physics, visits Dealey Plaza in company with another contributor, Jack White. They see a metallic cylinder attached to a highway sign in the Plaza. Costella includes in his essay nine pages of text and pictures (223-232) arguing that the cylinder is a "listening device" placed there by the U. S. government to spy on people like Jack White and himself. The listening device is actually a rain sensor placed in Dealey Plaza by Dallas Parks and Recreations to turn off the sprinklers when it rains! Costella also claims in this book that the U.S. government sabotaged his razor and messed with his shirts during a recent visit to the U.S. With respect to the assassination, Costella claims that Abraham Zapruder and Marilyn Sitzman were not standing on that concrete pedestal. Rather, standing on the pedestal was the "coordinator of the assassination" who also used his position there to film at least part of the shooting (216)."
Sounds pretty fruitcakey to me.
Also look at what Tink has to say about Lifton's contribution to that book:
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Zapruder-Film-Hoax-Deception/dp/081269547X
His point is utterly damning and beyond rational counter-argument.
The fact is that there is no evidence of pre-digital optical effects work in that film. No matte lines, no high contrast, no increase in film grain, no nothing.
Again, I am by no means an expert, but even I have more knowledge of pre-digital 8mm cinematic film effects than do ANY of the Z-film alteration gang. The same could be said of several thousand other guys who went to film school in the 70s. Never mind the REAL experts in the history of cinematic film effects. I’ll repeat: Not one of them -- NOT ONE -- has endorsed this alteration nonsense.
If Fetzer gets a thumbs' up from someone like Doug Trumball, I'll take it all back. In fact, I'll dance a jig naked in front of my home.
What Fetzer proposes just cannot be done. Not with 1963 equipment, not on 8mm film. And even with Photoshop, the job could not be done in EXACTLY the same way with ALL copies of the film (working separately on each copy), even if the same team had possession of all the copies, which was not the case.
I realize that nothing will ever make Fetzer admit that he's in the wrong. Hard core conspiracy guys would rather pull their own noses off with pliers than admit that they were wrong about ANYTHING. The psychological inability to admit fallibility is one sure sign that one is dealing with a kook.
I am sure that they can make an argument countering what their critics have to say. As Aleister Crowley once said, "Never forget how easy it is to make a maniac's hell's broth of any proposition, however plain to common sense."
Oh -- and as for Doc Judy. I've seen her website, and she seems pretty damned weird to me. Check out these links:
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/laughingtokeepfromcrying:thelightersideo
http://www.debunking911.com/jones.htm
Really, there's no point in arguing with trannies, Holocaust deniers, creationists, or Zapruder film alteration theorists. They will NEVER admit that they are wrong. The pretend to talk like scientists, but the effect is always like dressing a chimp up in human clothing and asking him to teach a class.
(I deleted the original post to correct some spelling errors, mostly.)
I think Fetzer's and the other eccentric takes on the JFK assassination (William Cooper's 'the driver turned around and shot JFK (and you can see it on the film)!' as another example), offer an important object lesson in critical thinking.
For, I presume that Joseph does not take these relatively few (but overly loud!) writers, whose meanderings into unsupported, irrational, or perhaps nearly insane territories COULD be used to discredit the entire anti-WarrenCommission/anti-single-gunman position, to actually do that.
Whatever fatally flawed perspectives these arguments add into the JFK question do NOT make the WC correct, or the other, more mainstream WC critics' positions equally suspect as these fringe characters, even when these newer fringe authors may be central to any more recent developments in such discussions or published works dealing with the subject.
Similarly, the allegedly masterful debunking of all JFK assassination theories and their supposed answering of all objections raised by the critics, as in 'Case Closed' by Gerald Posner or other authors (the urologist Lattimore, say, or the new book coming out soon by the former LA prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi) likewise does not make their position so (however convincing at first blush).
As RigInt (I think) quotes Nietzsche in translation, nothing more insidiously undermines a position that putting out flawed and stupid arguments in its favor (even if it is true).
And please note, even sincere, relatively rational researchers can be played by those wishing to quash remaining questions, since they can be offered apparently solid leads that are designed to turn to dross at the specified midnight hour.
Those in the truth community in this question are aware of the potential for disinformation provocateurs, and that isn't an uncommon charge among and between the researchers in the community. ("You are presenting a nutty theory simply to discredit the real questions and evidence, on behalf of the PTB/the government/ whatever other conspirators are allegedly involved").
However, this charge ITSELF can be exactly what it is pretending to unmask. Kinda complicated, mirrors in mirrors sorta thing.
My advice is based on a real world experience, reading philosophy quarterlies in an archive, giving me the benefit of a lengthy exchange concerning an article that continued in the letters section over a year's time. And back and forth it went, each side's position seemingly unassailable, until it was assailed, again, unassailably.
If you read a piece that appears to provide a startling truth, you simply have to read the replies and critiques of specialists. That much is fairly obvious. However, THOSE must then be subjected to the counter-arguments of those knowledgeable in the field (unless you are one yourself).
Using this method on say, Gerald Posner's work, finds his prosecutor's brief torn into shreds by Harold Weissburg's 'Case Open,' among many many others, with only very weak rejoinders by Posner or his side, and thus the 'very convincing' case he draws in his work is shown a laughable fraud. But frankly, finding that out would required many years of independent research if the expert critiques were not read.
sofla
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