I wanted to add an agree tick ... But didn't want to incur any wrath here. I quite like the ticks and crosses as it lets me interact when I have nothing to add .... But I do dislike posts like 'source'. They add nothing.
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Where did I misrepresent what you said? Clearly I disagree but I didn't mean to distort your words and I can't see where I did, so please inform me.
The fact that Hoover was a Mason doesn't prove that he only promoted other Masons.
This quote doesn't prove that either, it's only generalities about supposed virtues which were widely shared throughout the US at the time.
I'm going to ignore the Weather Underground reference here as a sidetrack. The mechanism you describe sounds plausible but it is not proof. It is also monocausal, as if participation in Hoover's hobbies would be the only factor at play. It ignores other factors, such as competence at their jobs or favors for political allies, or even plants by those mafia bosses who you say blackmailed him.
You described exactly one incident and one alleged conversation between FDR and his aides. I said that sabotage is harder with more people committed to fighting the war around. Do you believe that their presence does not make a difference? Please enlighten me.
You mentioned them but did not say anything about how they and their men would react to sabotaging the war against Hitler.
Actually, no, you have refused every time to give even a single source. If you don't back up your words with facts, the reasons you give for people acting as they did amount only to guesswork. In other words, your only standard is the plausibility of your narrative. If my arguments are vague generalities, then you should at least hold yourself to a higher standard.
Also, I gave you 3 arguments for why I don't believe it is plausible, you responded to 2 of them. You left out the most important one, that the government may tolerate a level of crime during peacetime if the cost of eradication is too high but would respond harshly if it interfered with winning the war.
Indeed, but you didn't say the mob only had presence somewhere in the JFK assassination, you said they "probably" murdered both John and Bobby. This means you must show not only that some of the people involved had some connection to the mafia but that they were acting on its behalf. I'm not asking for pictures of the bosses' orders obviously but at least document their connection, argue why it outranks other affiliations (such as Oswald's rather confused lefty radicalism), demonstrate why it made sense for the shooters as well as the bosses, and obviously you should do so for both murders.
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I have a couple of problems with this post.
I have told you repeatedly, for years, I find the need to cut up a post into bite sized pieces and deconstruct it the weakest form of discussion. I am taking the time to write out and edit reasoned responses and form coherent ideas illustrated with names, dates, and events. Rather than formulate legitimate questions, you are using a tactic designed to muddy up the water and cause confusion over the issue while expending minimal energy or thought. As I have said repeatedly before, I'm not interested in playing that game.
I have demonstrated repeatedly that I am happy to elaborate, at length. But let's be polite about it.
I have a couple of problems with this post.
I have told you repeatedly, for years, I find the need to cut up a post into bite sized pieces and deconstruct it the weakest form of discussion. I am taking the time to write out and edit reasoned responses and form coherent ideas illustrated with names, dates, and events. Rather than formulate legitimate questions, you are using a tactic designed to muddy up the water and cause confusion over the issue while expending minimal energy or thought. As I have said repeatedly before, I'm not interested in playing that game.
I have demonstrated repeatedly that I am happy to elaborate, at length. But let's be polite about it.
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Your preference for another format is duly noted, and you are free to write however you like in your own posts. However, it is hardly impolite for me to use one that is common both on this forum and elsewhere on the interwebs. This format had one big advantage for me, namely that it allowed me to answer directly to your own words after you had opened your last post by alleging that I had misrepresented you. It is in this sense, and only in this sense, indeed a tactic. I did not intend to muddy or confuse anything. I did not move any part of your post, nor left anything out. Instead I responded to each of your arguments in the order you gave them.
Now I don't mean to be impolite but the coherence of your ideas is not the issue, what is is their relation to reality. Other people in this thread have asked you for sources, you have found that to be beneath you. Now you find my scrutiny of your arguments also beneath you. Pray tell, what do you consider a proper way to ask you to back up your wild theories?
The best answer I can give you is we have had many conversations. They are never very satisfying. You think I shoot from the hip, I have serious doubts you understand the story or the cast of characters behind this event and could not name five mafiosi and their backgrounds without consulting Google.
I am looking for a pleasant conversation during which I am MORE than happy to give and take and discuss the background of the different points; as I have done repeatedly. On the other hand, as usual, you want to play a political match of 'agree' and 'disagree' for reasons only you know; the two goals are not compatible. And I'm not interested in chasing my tail only for you to misrepesent what I said.
Let's just agree to ignore one another.
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Your posts are plausible and in themselves conclusive. And if I had at least some of the background information you seem to have I (or anybody else) could probably join a discussion with you that you'd like. But alas, I don't have that infomation, and the only expert in this regards I know seems to be you who refrains from giving me that information. I respect your position of "years of experience and picking up information here and there" but the niveau on which you seem to want to discuss is scientific and I know no scientific work which is to be taken serious that does not tell its sources. So at least providing sources for the main points of your posts would be highly appreciated. If the sources aren't available online, well bad luck for us, but in that case you could at least tell the book or whatever your information came from, so we had at least the chance to check them in the next library or whatever (the museum you mentioned is such a thing, but even that information only came up after insisting on it).
I can see that after some years - especially if you are very interested in some topic or even have an academic degree or something - the number of sources gets huge and that you can't remember from which source what information was obtained. But in that case you could at least name some sources of which you know that they contain the most important points. There's barely a topic which doesn't have one or more standard works aynone who's interested in that topic should read/watch/whatever.
This all is epecially true if googling is frowned upon, as your last post implies. I don't have the information, I need that information to enter a discussion with you. You have the information, you don't want to share the information (or at least not its sources). But you offer to elaborate. That's nice of you, really. The problem is that when you elaborate then the sources - whichever they are - are filtered through your brain. But I want to use my own brain, read that sources and only then start a discussion with you about whether or not I have the same interpretation of these sources as you do.
And that is - as far as I understood - all @Barsoom is asking for.
But since you seem to have a past involving similar problems, maybe I'm missing the point of your discussion. *shrug*
(Disclaimer: I'm actually not thaaat interested in that topic to start reading some books, I'm happy with this discussion. As far as this specific topic goes I'm just a bystander and read your discussion for my leisure)
Not at all - by refusing to give a clear answer and then descending into speculations on Masonic influence on the FBI and the Kennedy assasination, this very simple request for a source has led Andre Bolkonsky to demonstrate that his analysis isn't that credible, beyond being an example of conspiracy theorizing.
And this is why being able to give sources is so important for historical analysis (beyond the also hugely important issue of providing further reading for people who might be interested in the topic). It lets you see where people are getting their information from, and how they are using it. Which is crucial to working out whether a historical interpretation is plausible or not.
What's your source for that?
I completely agree with you. What I disagree with is the lazy way in which this was communicated. Does the 'sauce' man want some kind of citation proving that Hoover was the head of the FBI? Or that he was homosexual or that he was a cross dresser. What exactly needed clarification?
Regardless of the factual correctness, the post was an interesting read and warranted more than a simple one word answer. Not every discussion needs to descend into an endless list of competing facts. That critical analysis of incomplete information is part of what makes history so interesting for me.
Maybe Andre is conspiracy theorising. The text was still interesting and just because we disagree with something, doesn't give us the right to be abjectly rude and confrontational. All historical theses begin with a theory ... A question which needs answering and clarification through an examination of source material. We have the theory, why don't the interested parties perform their own examination of the source?
If, as Andre did, you state something as a fact (crossdressing Hoover, Masonic conspiracies, etc.) rather than admiting that these are theories, it may lead readers to uncritically accept them. A response asking for a source is neither confrontational nor rude (it may be lazy if the info is easy to confirm but that is not the case here). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and it is important to highlight the lack of proof in cases such as this and not take something an anonymous individual wrote on the internet as gospel just because it was ”interesting”.
Touche. I admit defeat on that point and you cannot argue with Bayes*! However it doesn't mean that the way you responded wasn't both lazy and unhelpful.
*However, I could if I were a Dempster Schaeferist disagree. I am sure that I could formulate that there are sufficient facts in Andre's post to raise the belief to a point where the more tenuous claims have sufficient plausibility. Everyone loves a little probability theory!
First, thank you. I am glad you enjoyed the posts. This falls into an area I've been following for a great many years as you surmised. The group of people I write for are those who primarily don't reply back, maybe they learn something and maybe they don't. But I enjoy writing, particularly detail pieces like the one above.
Writing is a process done from memory. One of the great things about the internet is if you forget a date or how to spell someone's name, or you remember a particular character associated with the person you can easily double check and find what you are looking for. The problem this generates is people just walking into a topic, who have no idea really what they are discussing, want an internet answer. Even then they barely bother to read what they find. And the real problem with that is what I call a Chinese Answer, where the pages are frequently slanted toward whoever edited them last and you get the answer they wrote.
Part of the process of a conversation, which is how I view this forum, involves introducing information. If someone is interested, perhaps they ask for clarification or follow up by forming questions using words that require thought. To write out a two page document with half a dozen stories, a dozen named players, including dates and events; and the only reply is 'source'? Rude is an understatement, and when used in such a manner is rather insulting.
I find that the answer you get reflects the thought you put into the question. Personally, I don't start asking questions until I run into the same idea two or three times, and then start seeing how it fits into the overall storyline. And over the years I've gotten fairly good at asking questions. And answering them.
Now, on the surface, Barsoom asked for clarification. And, if we go back and read, i attempted to do so in detail. Then a typical pattern occurs where Barsoom makes assumptions on what he reads, and then begins rewriting the narrative by asking slanted questions that do not reflect any part of what I said. The process muddies the water, create confusion in the text, and misrepresents the issue. Above, when he began to grow insulting, I found it best to end the conversation. Barsoom is an intelligent fellow who knows a few things, but in this case it was evident he has no idea about the topic under discussion and his questions strongly suggest he has zero interest interest in learning about it. Any attempt to answer one question just generates 27 more because the goal is not information or discussion of a topic but open harrasment using a wide variety of tactics.
Sometimes the best reply is simply no reply at all.
Now, if we can go back to the conversation, rather than discuss proper footnoting, maybe we can sort out the problem and discuss the reasons behind why certain words were chosen.
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You're associated with the military, you know better than most sometimes you have to make a decision between possible answers and the simplest explanation is usually the most correct.
EK, what amuses me here are the number of people who want to discuss Andre in the third person without addressing Andre himself. Kind of interesting, actually. Almost like a political rally where people call their friends in to support them.
Actually I did not ask for a source as Andre had previously made it clear that he didn't want to provide them. (I am using the third person because it appears Andre put me on his ignore list.) What I did ask was evidence.
Andre has made a number of allegations about my interest in or knowledge about the topic. I think they amount to ad hominem attacks backed by authority arguments which, ironically, are based entirely on speculation. First, he's wrong. I'm certainly not an expert on the mafia and quite willing to acknowledge another as more informed but I'm also not a novice. I am personally and professionally interested in warfare and the influence of non-state organizations on it. I am also personally and professionally interested in international migration and transnational networks. As both of these topics touch on organized crime I have read a bit about it. Second, Andre is using these speculations to allege that I am arguing in bad faith. I take objection to that qualification. I have asked him to tell me where I misrepresented him but his only answer has been further speculation about my knowledge and motives. I actually do not remember when or about what we have had clashes in the past, I tried searching but we've both been on these forums for a long time and google didn't help either. For what it's worth, I don't carry any grudge and I am very much interested in the topic. That said, it's his right of course not to have a discussion here when he doesn't think it's fun.
The facts we can all look up but the way we incorporate them into explanations we can't. We can ask why someone leaves some facts out or values some over others, or we can put up some of our own facts and explanations and ask how they compare. I think that's part of critical analysis. It's something we can do on our own but it's usually more fun and more enlightening to have a conversation with others. My problem here is that I seem to have hit on a raw nerve. I don't think I was rude and confrontational but please tell me if you think I was.
When conducting planning, you try to assess the adversaries 'most likely course of action' and his 'most dangerous course of action'. The most dangerous could be hugely unlikely, but still helps to direct the decision making process.
I wonder, is talking about yourself in the third party rude? I think that it highlights a difference in thinking and expectations. Your post has probably highlighted some of those different ways of thinking (which in itself becomes fascinating!).
If I am honest, I think that the rudeness stemmed from a single word. Some of the posts have been deleted so I wont comment further .... but what you write here is exactly what is interesting about this form - critical analysis.
As an example, I don't agree with much of what @Sunforged General posts, but I do like that the discussion and critical analysis that he generates.
Speaking of yourself in the third person is usually done humorously, the exception seems to be professional athletes and entertainers who take themselves too seriously. Terry Crews, who was an artist before becoming an NFL linebacker and then a comedic actor, does it all the time but is going for a humorous angle.
Other than that, I absolutely agree with the general thrust of your comments above. It is vital to know where information comes from, and that its reliable, and the discussion and critical analysis of the topic is frequently both entertaining and educational.
As such, I am more than happy to continue this conversation and explain why I said what I said; but let's make it enjoyable rather than an inquisition.
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Seems that nobody wanted to take up your offer of an enjoyable conversation? Back to the inquisition then?