John Martin Banned (Yeah, Who Gives A Shit?)
December 11th, 2007
Mr. Martin has been banned. Not for the reason he gives — lie #5 as I’m counting — but because he has refused to provide a single shred of evidence for the first four lies (here and here). He doesn’t have to prove his case to regain his right to comment; he only has to provide some argument evidence, any argument evidence (as has been pointed out in the comments, Mr. Martin has already provided some argument: i.e., Churchill is lying because Mr. Martin says so; as such, I’d like to see some shred of evidence to that effect), as to why what he has claimed is not a lie. Something which he has evaded with a finesse worthy of Larry Craig.
Interestingly, one of the lies he’s been banned for was originally proposed here by another commenter, who was also banned for refusing to identify his source for said lie. A lie that’s so stupendously stupid it could only come from Jim Paine: i.e., that Ward Churchill has never published in peer-reviewed journals.
But more on that soonly.
Update: Jim Paine’s now claiming he never said that Ward Churchill had never published in peer-reviewed journals. That’s another lie of course. He said exactly that in June ‘05, in his comments section.
As far as refuting everything Churchill has ever written in order to convince his apologists that he may indeed have fudged on some facts here and there, that is a life’s work, and a sacrifice I’m not interested in pursuing. I do find it interesting, though, that Churchill has yet to publish in a peer-reviewed journal.
Fucking idiot. Fucking liar. Etc.
Update II: As Pablo notes in the comments to this post, Jim Paine has admitted he did indeed write the above. He offers in his defense that he didn’t know better at the time. So I’ve struck the “fucking liar” in my first update.
However, that’s always been exactly my point: the Ballerinas consistently make unqualified statements about Ward Churchill with no fucking evidence, and then leave it to the rest of the world — usually meaning journalists as unqualified as they are — to disprove them. Which, of course, they don’t, instead regurgitating the original, well, lie.
Is it fair to call it a lie? I think so. I could, for instance, make the unqualified statement that John Martin’s a child molester. After all, I’ve found no evidence on Google that he’s not. Would that make it a fair allegation, if all the research I’d done was a bit of internet trolling?
I’ll let you decide. And note that that’s kind of been the point of this blog from the get-go.
That said, Mr. Paine is, as always, a model of integrity compared to his readership. Unlike John Martin who’s still waffling like Larry Craig in a stiff . . . well, you get the idea . . . Mr. Paine has, at least, corrected his statement. Two years after the fact. And long after Ward Churchill’s vita has been readily available to anyone willing to skim through it. But, hell, at least he’s come clean.
On the other hand it is eminently fair, I believe, to call John Martin a liar for the five lies I’ve recounted in the last week. Certainly by Jim Paine’s argument that a lie is only a lie if the liar sticks by it even when the fact that it’s a lie is rubbed in their face.
Which brings us to another lie, this time from Ballerina, Noj, who left the following in Mr. Paine’s comments.
Ben is making hay from Churchill’s single publication (count ‘em — one) in AICRJ, one of the top Indian Studies journals. Which also routinely publishes other Indian impersonators and fabulists such as Jay Vest.
Sometimes this is almost absurdly easy. Wherein one usually has to spend a little time hunting down evidence refuting Mr. Paine’s more inane allegations, all one has to do in this case is, well, be able to read and count.
Here’s Mr. Churchill’s vita, Noj. Care to retry your hand? Or are we still sticking by the statement that Churchill has only had a “single publication (count ‘em — one)” in AICRJ?
To quote you: “count ‘em.”
And a question for Mr. Paine, who can comment all he wants in this thread if he so desires. At what point does this kind of outright sloppiness and stupidity — if that’s what it was — become a lie?
December 11th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
um . . . doesn’t everybody that reads his blog read this blog? he’s not very smart, is he?
December 12th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
An “argument” isn’t actually evidence, Ben.
Arguably—pun intended—Martin has already presented an argument: “Churchill is a liar, therefore everything he says is a lie.”
What’s missing, of course, is any evidence whatsoever that Churchill is actually a liar. Right?
It therefore stands to reason that he’d need to provide concrete evidence that at least one of his specific accusations in this regard is valid, or at least arguably so (on this, I’d be sure and prohibit him from referencing Jim Paine’s equally vacuous accusation; maybe you should require that he cite from print sources rather than blogs).
Another point. As I recall, the original suggestion was Martin be required to provide evidence to support all five of his recent claims that specific things said by Churchill were lies—that’s by your count; my own and other readers’ are more than twice that number of accusations on his part—before he be allowed to post here again.
So, why are you willing to let him off the hook with just one?
Finally, are you going to honor Charley Arthur’s demand that Martin provide evidence supporting his many assertions that Professor Churchill and Mr. Arthur are one and the same?
If not, why?
December 12th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Hell, I’m easy. The reason being that I don’t think he can even meet that bare minimum standard. You’re right, though, it can’t just be any argument; there has to be some shred of evidence to back it up. That seems fair, and I’ll update this evening.
My count of the initial four lies is as follows:
1. That this statement by Churchill is a lie: “You find in the later pages of Mein Kampf an articulation of Hitler that comes from an analysis of empires. . . He’s examining the other European powers for models that would be an applicable model of the German destiny. He points directly to what he calls the Nordics of North America. The United States is the model.”
2. That this statement is also a lie: “You have active negotiations going on between more radical Zionist organizations, the fascist Italians and Nazis themselves. . . Zionists would collaborate with the Nazis in what would be arranged as guerrilla operations against the British war effort … in exchange for a certain guarantee that there would be a territory set aside in that area for Jews and Jews alone.”
3. That Churchill has no peer-reviewed articles a la What the.
4. That Churchill has lied about Pine Ridge a la Snapple.
And I don’t think it matters where Mr. Martin gets it his evidence. He can’t prove that the first two are lies, because a there’s a vast body of work stating exactly what Churchill said; he can’t prove that the third is a lie because Churchill’s vita clearly shows otherwise — as do the web sites for each of the peer-review journals in question — and he can’t prove the fourth is a lie because, as we’ve already been through here and elsewhere, Snapple’s fucking nuts and his claims are bogus. Again, there’s a number of sources proving Churchill’s case about Pine Ridge, from Michael Apted’s flick to Peter Matthiesson’s book.
So . . . at this point I think we can ask Mr. Martin to prove any other lie we want, but the point’s moot. As his shucking and jiving shows in lie five — that he was banned for something absolutely irrelevant — he’s neither capable nor willing of addressing these first four.
But, shit, should he prove me wrong, I’ll be happy to start kicking him around on the basis of the rest of his lies.
December 12th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
What a shit-eating asshole! Think he’ll fix his post?
December 12th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Well, I must admit that your challenge regarding Churchill’s peer-reviewed articles does appear to have already borne fruit, Mr. Witmer, albeit in an unexpected quarter.
Witness my publisher, Jim Paine, scrambling around on Pirate Ballerina today, trying to gloss over his own misrepresentation of Churchill’s record in this regard.
I’ve long-since lost track of the number of times you’ve caught him engaging in outright falsehoods, and the corresponding number of times he’s either claimed to have said the opposite of what he said, or blamed someone—anyone but himself—for his having said it.
Truth be told, I’m beginning to tire of Mr. Paine’s antics in this regard and have grown increasingly embarassed by my association with his blog (not least, because it tends to put me in the same bag as such unspeakably degenerate characters as John Martin).
December 12th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Heh. I was expecting him to do that. Check the update.
December 12th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Well, it’s about time Martin was banned.
Even I’ve always thought the guy was a puke.
And, yeah, I know, that’s quite a statement, considering its source.
December 12th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Hmm, I probably owe a debt to John Martin though. There is something very reassuring about seeing the other side of this academic debate, and watching it trip over its own shoelaces into a massive pile of bullshit. Sometimes they’re almost sort of nearly convincing with their talk of a liberal bias in education, there are statistics to back it up. There is a direct correlation between “liberal” (whatever the fuck that word really means anymore) thinking and years of education. They interpret this as indicating a huge liberal conspiracy in academia. After watching fine examples like Mr. Martin, however, I think we can attribute it to intelligence and education naturally resulting in sane, logical reactions to the world, such as progressive politics. It’s nice to be reassured. Thanks for being such a shit-eater Mr. Martin, you may have restored my faith in the cause.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
Man, it is like pulling teeth with a jack-hammer over there on PB. Jim Paine FINALLY retracted his statement that he had never said anything like “Churchill has yet to publish in a peer-reviewed journal.” I have to give him credit for coming clean. That’s better than JGM.
But here is jwpain’s new excuse for him being wrong about saying “Churchill has yet to publish in a peer-reviewed journal”:
“I will say that at the time (June ‘05), I believed the statement to be true.”
What was his ENTIRE research before he made that statement as if it were fact, you may ask? Here is jwpaine’s answer:
“Google these two phrases together: “Ward Churchill” “peer-reviewed journal””
Ugh! That’s it. Just a google search. Nothing more. And they wonder why they get accused of making shit up.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
dittos to Tyndale
December 12th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
rofl.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Christ, that was quick, Mr. Paine. What’s it been, six minutes since I posted the update?
December 13th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Dinna fash yourself, Benjie. I hadn’t seen your update; my rofl comment was in response to the comments left here by your cast of impersonators.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:07 am
So you hadn’t seen the update where I told you that you could comment on this thread? You just decided to give it a shot on the off chance that just this once I wouldn’t delete it?
Tsk, tsk, Mr. Paine. Little lies lead to big lies. Just like marijuana leads to heroin.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I imagined you’d delete it, but then, the comment was intended for you, so I didn’t care.
And it’s chewing gum that leads to shooting heroin.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Fair enough, you do that from time to time.
A question: do you think it’s fair to call Mr. Martin a liar, given that he’s yet to retract the above list of, shall we say, untruths? (Not to mention, he’s now concocted a whole new lie as to why I gave him the boot.)
That’s your standard, right? That if it’s pointed out to somebody that they’re wrong on a point and they stand by it, then they’re a liar?
I’ve pointed out to Mr. Martin that he’s wrong on all four points listed above. He’s standing by them. Ergo, he’s a liar, right?
December 13th, 2007 at 10:15 am
ucking nuts
%%%%%%%%%
Snapple says he hopes prancer will bring him a book by FBI agent Trimbach. Actually, if they’re german, that should be wodan bringing the book on sleipnir the horse, unless his slave black peter delivers a beating/abduction.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Don’t worry, Tyndale, Martin’s lyric lines are always be available on his blog, and a lot of them recycled on PB (Martin is, after all, Jim Paine’s main “news source” these days).
And you can expect that, just for fun, a few of his more outlandish “facts” will be parsed hereon from time to time.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hi jwpaine.
Want to explain the position of you ballerinas that the SCRM report allows all of you ballerinas to say whatever you want without any evidence at all to support you? Because you ballerinas now claim that the burden of proof has somehow shifted to Churchill to prove your bullshit claims are false, even when you ballerinas don’t have a single piece of evidence to support your claims?
Don’t even try to say I’m putting words in your mouth. Because I have multiple quotes from you, Lawyer, Noj, Fred, JGM, etc that repeat that same theme over and over.
What? Are you too damn afraid to be bitch-slapped until you are silly to defend this over here? You can’t ban me here. Step up, little man.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Okay, enough with the cryptography, guys. What on earth does “rofl” mean?
December 13th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Silly Sally? You wouldn’t by chance be “Sally” with the fine yellow paint?
Anyway, it’s just this man paine being as articulate as usual, and the statement is, surprise surprise, necessarily a lie. He wasn’t “rolling on the floor laughing” he was sitting at a computer typing. Not that I think this is important or damning or anything, it’s just another symptom.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
If Wodan were to visit anyone, it would be Snapple.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Didn’t this boy Paine have himself a few other little problems with Churchill’s bib a while back?
Something about publication dates, as we recall.
Well,we just looked, and he’s still havin’ them—one item is still listed as being published in two different years—and he’s still making the same excuse for it, to wit: the years indicated in Churchill’s CV and on Amazon sometimes conflict.
And he’s still claiming that he’s “stuck with” the problem until he can find a copy of Books in Print to Google.
To which, a proper response is “Bullshit!”
As was pointed out to Mr. Paine when this first came up—roughly 2 years ago, by our recollection—all he’s ever had to do is check the copyright pages on the books in question to get the correct years (all of which correspond perfectly to the years indicated in Churchill’s CV).
There’s a big difference between being unable to do something on the one hand, and being unwilling to do it on the other, Mr. Paine.
And pretending that you’re unable when the fact is that you’re simply unwilling to bother getting your facts straight is a lie.
But, hey, maybe you can, as always, blame somebody else for it. Right?
In this case, maybe you should try laying the fault on Google’s “failure” to provide you some effortless means of appearing to have a clue what you’re talking about, Mr. “Expert.”
(BTW: You’ve still got Churchill’s Vietnam service listed under the wrong year, and there are a few other chuckles, as well. Jeez, man, can’t you get ANYTHING right? Do you even try?)
December 13th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
He doesn’t think he has to try Charlie. He thinks he just has to say lots and appear confident in order to influence public opinion. The sad part is he is probably right. It’s a good thing that kind of BS doesn’t necessarily hold up in court at least. I would have said that kind of BS doesn’t hold up in educational communities either but, well, we’ve seen where that goes.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Yellow paint???
Call me really dense, but…
December 13th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Oh yeah, and is anybody going to explain what “rofl” means?
December 13th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Roll On the Floor, Laughing.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
As I believe I said before, “Charlie,” show me proof of anything incorrect in one of my PB posts, and I’ll correct it. Sorry, mere assertions of error will not do. Nor will contradictory quotes from any of your usual character references, such as Truthforce, Teh Glenns, Russell Means, Esq., ad nauseam.
confidential to Pablo: What, are you high?
December 13th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Running away from the issue, eh jwpaine?
December 13th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
No, Pablo, I’m ignoring your question. There’s a difference. I didn’t boot you from PB just so I could respond to your belligerently ass-hatted reasoning elsewhere.
December 13th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I can start dumping the quotes here. It all started when you said this quote below (I’ve replaced the actual issue at hand with “XXXXXX” because the actual issue doesn’t matter, it is your logic I’m discusssing).
“For the record, Pablo, no evidence has come to light that Churchill did anything but XXXXXX.
…
However, since Churchill has been proven a liar on a vast array of subjects
…
Churchill is probably lying about XXXXXX.”
your lap-dogs just kept digging the hole deeper for you. Even Noj jumped in to claim that
“Churchill’s record does shift the burden of doubt onto him. Why should anyone believe anything he says at this stage in the game?”
Your little game over on PB of claiming anything you want even when “no evidence has come to light” to support your claims, and then attempting to “shift the burden of doubt onto [Churchill]” to prove your baseless claims to be false has been exposed.
Care to actually address this practice of the ballerinas? Or will you bravely, bravely, bravely, run away?
December 13th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
You’re overlooking a few things about Churchill’s military record yourself, Charlie (more accurately, we’re talking about a single-page summary of his file, which is all anybody’s ever seen).
Example: I’ve been waiting nearly three years for some bright bulb to notice that it’s clearly stated on the summary sheet that he’d qualified as an “expert” with automatic weapons.
His doing so would have required his receiving training in the use of automatic weapons, something almost nobody other than those with an infantry MOS got during the Vietnam era.
Certainly, the Army was not training “movie projectionists” to double as machine gunners. Or “jeep drivers,” either.
The important thing, though, is that automatic weapons training is not indicated on Churchill’s summary sheet.
There are only two possible explanations for this obvious discrepency: Either he wasn’t actually a qualified automatic weapons expert, or the training listed on his summary sheet is incomplete (or erroneous).
Whichever is true, one thing is clear: the summary sheet on which his critics have been hanging their hats is inaccurate.
December 13th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
No evidence has come to light proving that Jim Paine does not fuck his ponies. We know this because we typed the words “Jim,” “Paine,” “fuck,” and “ponies” in on Google and got no hits. It may therefore be concluded that, as a matter of “fact,” that Jim Paine does indeed fuck his ponies.
Saaaaay…
This is really fun.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Rama, now you’re getting the hang of it! Very good! Now to top it off, all you have to do is claim that the burden of proof is on Jimmie to prove he doesn’t fuck his ponies, and unless/until he does provide the proof, you are right!
But to add the special ballerina twist, you have to say that whatever Jim Paine himself says about fucking ponies is a lie before he ever says it. Thus eliminating any chance of Jim proving that he doesn’t fuck ponies.
Now you are bullet-proof!
December 14th, 2007 at 12:17 am
Is it too early to use the same Monty Pyton quote I used with JGM?
Ah, what the hell….
What did Brave jwpaine do when handed a chance to post his stance?
He buggered off.
Brave Sir jwpaine ran away,
When truth reared its head, he bravely turned his tail and fled.
And gallantly, he chickened out. Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir jwpaine
I know, sooooo original. But when the Monty Python fits…
December 14th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I think you can sing it to Noj too.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Take a refresher on reading comprehension, Jimbo.
What I quoted your “Churchill Chronology” as saying—for the past 2 years and change—is that you’re “stuck with” inaccuracies concerning the various years in which Churchill’s books were published until you can come up with a copy of/electronic access to Books in Print.
That’s false, because all you have to do is look at the copyright page in each book.
That’s been pointed out to you before, and you’ve done nothing about it, so your claim that you correct inaccuracies whenever possible is also a lie (longstanding and frequently repeated).
Now go do your fucking homework and stop whining.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Jim Paine is in a retaliatory mood this morning.
I just got banned for defending myself against spurious accusations of anti-semitism.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that you’ve still got the year wrong for Churchill’s service in Vietnam.
There. I’ve pointed it out again.
So get your ass busy and fix it.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I still haven’t stopped chuckling over Mr. Paine’s admonishing Tyndale to be “a bit cleaner and less pointlessly abusive.” Pot, kettle.
Jesus, they hate being subjected to their own tactics.
December 14th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I…feel…so…dirty…and abusive. Whatever will I do? These paragons of integrity and moral superiority have sullied my mocking made up name!
December 14th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
You saying the dates listed on that summary sheet, November 16, 1966 to November 1, 1968, are incorrect, “Charlie”?
December 14th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
BTW, Metroplex: the “Expert Badge with Auto Rifle bar” is an admirable achievement, but one The Perfesser may have won in basic combat training. The Army held classes to teach him how to make his bed and fold his skivvies in basic, too, but neither of those skills is listed on the summary, either.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
jwpaine, and according to the logic of you and the other ballerinas, if he was taught how to make his bed and fold his skivvies, then he couldn’t have seen combat. He must have folded skivvies and made beds the whole time he was there. (if this sounds completely stupid to you, why do you the ballerina’s use the same logic??)
Isn’t that the classic argument that you ballerinas make about BOTH him driving light trucks, AND running a projector?
That if he was trained to run a projector, that proves he couldn’t have seen combat? He must have run a projector the whole time he was there and nothing else?
And that if he was trained to operate light trucks, that proves he couldn’t have seen combat? He must have operated light trucks the whole time he was there and nothing else?
Oh wait, I forgot the other one you ballerinas repeat. That he wrote a newsletter while he was there, so he couldn’t have seen combat.
oy! You ballerina’s and your endless speculations. Maybe when faced with the illogical conclusion of him making beds and folding skivvies the entire time he was there just because he was at one time trained to do it will finally FORCE you to comprehend the fallacy of the typical arguments you ballerinas have tried to use.
But I’m sure you will just make some half-wit response and then run away instead.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
No, Pablo, it’s the absence of a CIB on that summary sheet that suggests strongly his lack of combat experience. Whether Churchill saw combat or not is easily provable; all Churchill has to do is release his military records. Until then, all anyone–you included–can do is speculate based on the sparse evidence available.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
All that’s revealed by your suggestion as to where Churchill “may have” qualified as an expert with automatic weapons is the fact that you yourself never underwent Basic Training in the Army during the Vietnam era, Mr. Paine.
Had you done so, you’d have been aware that no such training was provided therein. Which means that Churchill could NOT have earned his expert’s bar in that setting.
Training in the use of light automatic weapons, and a chance to demonstrate proficiency with them, would have been provided in what was called Advanced Individual Training.
AIT was an eight-week instructional sequence to which those graduating from Basics were immediately sent. It’s purpose was to prepare those undergoing it with the skills sets corresponding to the “Military Occupational Specialty” (MOS) they’d been assigned.
For what should be obvious reasons—even to someone like yourself, who was apparently never in the Army—people with different MOS’s received different kinds of training in AIT.
As I thought I pointed out the first time around, but maybe I wasn’t clear enough for you to get it, this is where Churchill’s qualification with automatic weapons becomes instructive. Such training was provided only to those undergoing AIT as an infantryman.
Maybe it’ll help if I put it another way. Those assigned to serve as infantrymen were not trained to use field howitzers, Mr. Paine. By the same token, those assigned to the artillery were not trained in the use of automatic weapons.
Those assigned to be cooks, clerk-typists, movie projectionists, and the like, received training in the use of neither type of weapon.
It’s possible that if Churchill took the AIT provided to tankers, he’d have been trained as a turret gunner. But—please correct me if I’m wrong on this—I’ve never heard of anyone, including yourself, claiming that he was in an armored unit.
Other than that, his automatic weapons qualification makes it pretty much certain that Churchill’s AIT was as an “Eleven-Bravo” (that’s an infantry MOS, for those who don’t know).
Now, there’s one other point I’d like to make before I stop.
I really don’t know whether or not Churchill went to jump school and qualified as a paratrooper. There’s obviously nothing on his summary sheet indicating that he did, but it’s also obvious that the sheet is a little sketchy (to put it mildly).
What I really can’t figure out, though, is exactly where you got the idea that Churchill ever claimed that he did. I’ve been looking, and the closest I’ve been able to come up with is his saying he was assigned to the 101st Airborne while he was in Vietnam.
Is that what you’ve been going on about, Mr. Paine? If not, please do point me in the right direction on this.
But if it is, let me be the first to explain to you that by 1968, the year both Churchill and I spent in-country, it wouldn’t have been necessary for him to have been airborne-qualified to be in the 101st.
At that point, there was such a shortage of trained paratroopers that the only airborne unit in Vietnam able to fill its levies with them was the 173rd (and only because it was a brigade, not a division).
From late 1967 until the division returned stateside, a lot—maybe the majority—of the combat troops in the 101st were leg infantrymen.
Please feel free to check me out on these things, Mr. Paine. It won’t be hard to confirm what I’m saying (I can even provide you with a couple of references, if need be).
And do remember while you’re checking, that—since their mission in Vietnam didn’t involve jumping out of airplanes—the jobs in such elite combat units as the 101st were exactly the same, and equally dangerous, whether the men who did them went to jump school or not.
Taking all this into account, it looks to me like Ward Churchill may very well have been telling the truth about the nature of his military service. At least, while I suppose you may yet enlighten me on the matter, I’ve found nothing substantial upon which to base a contrary opinion.
On that note, allow me to leave you with a couple of questions, the answers to which I’d really like to hear.
Since it’s obvious that you were never in the Army, were you ever in any branch of the military? If so, which one? When? Where did you serve? Were you ever in combat?
Here’s the really important one.
Did your branch of service, assuming you have one, award you some sort of decoration for the precision with which you learned to fold YOUR skivvies?
Quite apart from how either of us might feel about Ward Churchill, as an infantry veteran I’d find the gratuitous insult to ALL infantry veterans wrapped up in that stupid analogy to be absolutely disgusting, Mr. Paine.
December 15th, 2007 at 2:22 am
jwpaine whined “No, Pablo, it’s the absence of a CIB on that summary sheet that suggests strongly his lack of combat experience.”
It also didn’t have an MOS listed either. Are you suggested that he must not have had an MOS at all, since it wasn’t listed? Do you think that Churchill somehow managed to be the first person in the military to serve and never be given an MOS, just because YOU haven’t seen it documented? Like you claim he must not have seen combat, just because YOU haven’t seen a CIB documented?
Your lapses in logic are astounding. You simply don’t get how mind-numbingly stupid you are.
There is nothing strong about a LACK of information on a document that the only thing people can agree about is that it lacks information.
It’s a SUMMARY sheet. I know you know that, you just wrote it yourself. Why do you believe you can draw any conclusion at all from a DETAIL of Churchill’s service not being on a SUMMARY sheet? Especially when other details, like his MOS, is glaringly also missing?
Does it list his blood type? (a very important thing in a war zone.) If not, are you going to claim that he doesn’t have any blood either?
Your gaps in reasoning ability are so large you could drive a light truck through them. With a projector on top.
December 15th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Metroplex: Links to the various documents upon which I’ve based my suppositions (not conclusions) are here. And, as I told Churchill nearly three years ago:
“I don’t denigrate your Vietnam service, nor the epiphany you say you had there. I am a Vietnam Era vet (US Navy; the closest I ever got to Vietnam was on a destroyer 20 miles off the coast, plane-guarding for the USS Enterprise). Anyone who put their life on the line for their country (regardless of their doubts about the legitimacy of the risk), whether drafted or volunteer, has my respect.
My question has always been the nature of your service, not the value of it.”
Incidentally, Metro, if you choose to be offended by my analogy, tough.
December 15th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Here we go, again.
The Combat Infantry Badge was not awarded to anyone and everyone who saw combat in Vietnam, Mr. Paine. As the very name of the award clearly indicates, it’s bestowed upon INFANTRYMEN who come under hostile fire.
Lots of people, from truckers to cooks and clerk-typists, were involved in actual combat in Vietnam (on convoy duty, when base camps were overrun, and many other circumstances). The “absence of a CIB” in their records doesn’t change that a bit.
Having said that, it’s also true that Churchill has claimed to have been in an infantry unit in Vietnam. And, as I’ve explained at considerable length, there’s evidence supporting his claim.
As concerns the absence of a CIB on his summary sheet, several possibilities other than your conjecture about his “making false claims” present themselves.
First, he might very well have served as a combat infantryman (whether jump-qualified or not) without coming under hostile fire. Although it may seem counterintuitive to those with no combat infantry experience, his related claim to have been a LRRP actually increases the likelihood that that might be the case. That’s because LRRP teams generally avoided making contact with hostile forces whenever possible.
Of course the law of probability would be at work here. The longer Churchill served as a LRRP—that is, the more missions he was involved in—the less the likelihood that he wouldn’t have come in contact. In other words, he’d be much less likely to have come under fire if he went out on two three missions than if he went out on thirty or forty.
At this point, I don’t see how this one can be honestly assessed, since I’ve never come across anything in which Churchill has indicated how long he was a LRRP or how many missions he went out on. Have you, Mr. Paine? If so, please share.
One thing I do know, however, is that Churchill would not have had to have undergone special training to have served as a LRRP in Vietnam in 1968 (no more than he needed to be jump-qualified to end up in the 101st Airborne). While there were “Recondo” schools in which skill sets particular to recon were taught, many—perhaps most—LRRPs hadn’t been to them. All Churchill would’ve needed to do was volunteer.
So the absence of such training from his summary sheet is irrelevant.
The second reason why a CIB might not show up on the sheet concerns the question of whether, assuming he was actually assigned to the 101st, he remained in that unit throughout his whole tour of duty in Vietnam. Since he’s also said that he served with the 4th Infantry, it seems pretty likely that he didn’t.
This raises the question, assuming he was in fact transferred from the 101st to the 4th, of whether his in-country service file was complete when the 101st passed it along. I’ve no idea what the timing would have been on this—do you?—but if it occurred any time soon after his arrival in-country, which seems to have been amidst the bedlam of the Tet Offensive, the odds are great that the paperwork was in disarray.
A related issue in this regard would be the reason or reasons why Churchill was transferred. This is to say that it was not entirely uncommon for portions of a guy’s paperwork to get “lost,” if he got himself on the wrong side of someone in a position to “lose” it.
These considerations would have to be multiplied by the number of times Churchill was reassigned while he was in Vietnam. Was the 4th Division his last stop? I’ve no idea. He could’ve been moved through a half-dozen units, for all I know.
The third and final reason why Churchill’s summary sheet might be less than complete and accurate is a real doozy. In July 1973 a disastrous two-day fire in the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis—where the Army stored its files—destroyed millions of individual service records.
About eighty percent of the records for the period 1912-1959, stored at one end of the building, were completely destroyed. Overall, damage decreased as you moved towards the other end of the building, where the records for 1973 were almost untouched.
Churchill’s military record, which would have been archived in 1968, would have been stored a fair distance away from the 1973 files, in an area where damage from both fire and water was uneven but significant. So, did his file survive in undamaged condition? Was it totally destroyed? Somewhere in between? Who knows? Not me.
Do you, Mr. Paine? If so, how?
Here’s what I do know. The Army has spent decades and many millions of dollars trying to reconstruct lost or damaged files, using a variety of sources and secondary records to do so. Despite these efforts, much of the reconstruction has been partial, to say the least.
The form summarizing Ward Churchill’s military record clearly bears the earmarks—contradictory and apparently incomplete information—of exactly such a file.
Here’s something else I know. You’ve not been prone to qualifying what you’ve said and written about Churchill’s military service with phrases like “strongly suggests” (as you did in your response to Pablo B last night).
Instead, you’ve asserted in no uncertain terms that his account of his military service is “fraudulent.” To illustrate, allow me to direct your and other readers’ attention to a caption reading “Churchill’s Vietnam Fraud,” which has been located on the left-hand sidebar of your blog for more than two years now.
That’s a very serious accusation, Mr. Paine.
In fact, since it was made by a man whose own military service is in doubt—I’m willing to bet my next month’s paycheck that you yourself never set foot in Vietnam or any other combat zone—your accusation should be considered downright indecent, unless you can provide solid evidence to support it.
This is where I really do have to agree with Pablo B.
You can chant “all Churchill has to do is release his military records” until you’re blue in the face, Mr. Paine, but it will never add up to anything more than a buck-passing scam.
Churchill doesn’t “have” to do anything at all in this situation, and you are in no defensible position to insist that he does. Certainly, he’s under no ethical or moral obligation disclose confidential records for your inspection, simply because you opted to run off at the mouth.
YOU made the accusation, Mr. Paine. That means the burden of proof is and has always been yours to meet.
Thus far, you’ve provided nothing beyond speculations stemming from a truly laughable ignorance of the context at issue.
That being the case, your accusation amounts to no more than a gratuitous slur, and you yourself stand revealed as a conscious, malicious liar.
December 15th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Let me see if I understand this correctly, Mr. Paine.
You’re saying you respect Mr. Churchill because of his service in Vietnam, and that’s why you call it fraudulent on your blog even though, as Metroplex keeps pointing out, you don’t seem to have any real evidence one way or the other?
This doesn’t make sense to me. Did I miss something?
December 15th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Having now examined the links you provided in support of what you’re now referring to as your “suppositions” about Churchill’s military service, all I’ve found is further confirmation of what I’d already found to be true.
Churchill is not quoted as saying he went to “paratrooper school.”
The only reference to his having supposedly undergone such training appears in the brief biographical sketch in the Denver Post article you link to. In other words, the “claim” is attributable to the reporter, not Churchill himself.
There’s no way of knowing whether she allowed Churchill to fact check her material in order to ensure that her condensed interpretation accurately reflected what he’d actually said, but I think you know as well as I do that it would be very unusual if she did.
It’s entirely possible that she simply took Churchill’s saying that he’d been in the 101st Airborne to mean that he’d necessarily gone to jump school. As I pointed out earlier, that’s a pretty common error.
Whatever the exact circumstances, your “fraud” accusation is based on an uncorroborated paraphrase rather than a direct quote.
That’s shoddy journalism to say the least, Mr. Paine.
The link you provide concerning Churchill’s supposed service in a motor pool is even worse, not least because both your source and you yourself have grossly misrepresented the documentary basis upon which you made this assertion.
Both you and “Gunny Bob” stated that your claim was contained in Churchill’s “military records.”
The statements were false on two counts. First, neither of you had ever seen Churchill’s military records (if you had, you’d not be presently demanding that he release them). To this day, all you’ve ever seen is the much-discussed single-page summary sheet.
And nowhere on the summary sheet does it say that Churchill worked in a motor pool.
It does say that Churchill at some point received the training required to drive “light trucks”—a term referring to “deuce-and-a-halfs” (2.5 ton, 8-wheel drive, open-bed vehicles typically used to haul cargo or troops—but that in itself provides no indication that he was assigned to a motor pool.
Nor does it indicate, as your source claimed, that Churchill was “trained to drive a jeep,” a vehicle which is not even classified as a light truck. (Actually, I’m not sure anybody was ever “trained” to drive a jeep. The best I can recall, if you had a valid civilian driver’s lisence you were considered qualified).
In the end, the “evidence” you’ve provided really doesn’t say much about the veracity of Churchill’s account of his service one way or the other, Mr. Paine.
But it’s certainly removed whatever remaining doubts I had as to whether you guys are outright liars.
December 16th, 2007 at 11:58 am
NOW you’re catchin’ on, Metro.
No need for you to belabor the matter any further, because neither of these guys is in the least interested in anything as trivial as mere facts or logic (both of which would tend to interfere with the neatness of their preordained conclusions).
Which is to say that they’re just a couple of low-rent frauds fraudulently accusing others of fraud.
You can take it from The Swabbie’s sudden silence that he’s busy polishing up that award the Navy gave him in aknowledgement of his unrivaled prowess at skivvy-folding (inside secret: he had his undies double-starched, which explains why his award came complete with a “V” device indicating a display of extraordinary valor).
And, what the hell, power to him. I mean, everybody’s got to be good at something, don’t they? We should be glad he found his niche.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Anybody know if this “Gunny Bob” character was ever actually a Gunnery Sergeant? In view of certain things he’s said, I’d bet against it.
After all, it’s been well established that all present-day superhawks were overprivileged draft-dodgers during the Vietnam era.
Disclaimer: I’m prepared to link you to the no less than three blog-screeds upon which I’ve based the “supposition” I just announced as a fact, so don’t be trying to pretend that I’m in any way responsible for misrepresenting things as I did. Actually, it’s YOUR fault if what I said turns of out to be untrue.
The same disclaimer applies to the following: It will henceforth be considered “truth” on this blog that Bob’s claim to having been a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant is fraudulent.
It will also be considered a “fact” that, apart from watching a lot of John Wayne movies over the years, Bob’s “military career” never really went any further than a stint in the Cub Scouts.
Okay, Bob, you’ve been accused.
Which means that my accusations, no matter how gratuitous, are all true unless you can prove otherwise. That’s the rules. Right?
December 16th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Anybody know if this “Gunny Bob” character was ever actually a Gunnery Sergeant? In view of certain things he’s said, I’d bet against it.
After all, it’s been well established that all present-day superhawks were overprivileged draft-dodgers during the Vietnam era.
Disclaimer: I’m prepared to link you to the no less than three blog-screeds upon which I’ve based the “supposition” I just announced as a fact, so don’t be trying to pretend that I’m in any way responsible for misrepresenting things as I did. Actually, it’s YOUR fault if what I said turns of out to be untrue.
The same disclaimer applies to the following: It will henceforth be considered “truth” on this blog that Bob’s claim to having been a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant is fraudulent.
It will also be considered a “fact” that, apart from watching a lot of John Wayne movies over the years, Bob’s “military career” never really went any further than a stint in the Cub Scouts.
Okay, Bob, you’ve been accused.
Which means that my accusations, no matter how gratuitous, are all true unless you can prove otherwise. Those are the rules. Right?
December 16th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Geez, how you folks can make so much soup from one oyster. It ever occur to any of you that winning this argument accomplishes absolutely nothing?
Well, it has occurred to me. And so, I believe I’ll take Pablo’s advice and run away.
BTW: One of the disadvantages of acquiring a following such as yours, “Charlie,” is that few of them have a pot to piss in. So good luck getting that 20K; I’m guessing you’re going to need it, by and by.
December 16th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
20K???
December 16th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
But you’ve never answered my question, Mr. Paine. You can’t just run off and leave me all confused about something so basic. Can you?
December 16th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Charlie, over at PB they are convinced that 20k is all the lawsuit is about. (The amount of the intitial lawsuit based upon the lawyer fees that were offered for representation through the SCRM processes that were never paid).
Sadly, the ballerinas haven’t figured out yet that civil rights violation lawsuits have no cap, and the civil rights violation claims sections of the lawsuit are in no way related to the claims for the 20k.
And the ballerinas are also clueless that CU has already admitted that they violated Churchill’s due process civil rights. CU just says that they are unwilling to reverse their decision because of their admitted violations.
The court isn’t in any way limited by that decision, but CU is stuck with their admission of violating Churchill’s civil rights.
I don’t think the ballerinas have thought through that any more than they have thought through any of their other logical fallacies.
Just more jwpainian logic to laugh off. He thinks that because some parts of a lawsuit name 20k in damages, that the entire lawsuit only involves 20k in damages.
December 17th, 2007 at 12:10 am
jwpaine is now bitching and whining that we “Take any assertion made by your opponent, restate it in an exaggerated manner, taking it as many steps beyond the original point as you believe you can get away with, and then base your argument on the artificial construct you’ve fabricated rather than the original assertion.”
OK. All that tells us is that jwpaine is completely unable to understand analogies. Fine. Let’s just diagram his assertion and destroy him that way.
So here is his assertion:
“it’s the absence of a CIB on that summary sheet that suggests strongly his lack of combat experience.”
Let’s break that down and diagram his argument.
jwpaine was searching to the answer to the unknonw “has Churchill had combat experience”. Let’s see how he came to his conclusion.
Step 1) Research for answer to Unknown “A” (has Churchill seen combat) This is the original Unknown that jwpaine is trying to solve for.
Step 2) Search document for a direct answer to Unknown “A”. (Does the summary directly say if Churchill saw combat) This leads to just another unknown, because the document does not say one way or the other. Call this Unknown “B”. So no conclusion can be made based upon Unknown “B”, because this document has no answer for this Unknown.
Step 3) Search document for an indirect answer to Unknown “A”. (Does the summary say if Churchill got a CIB). This leads to just another unknown, because the document does not say one way or the other. Call this Unknown “C”. So no conclusion can be made based upon Unknown “C”, because this document has no answer for this Unknown.
So there are 3 unknowns.
Unknown “A” — The original unknown being solved for, Did Churchill see combat?
Unknown “B” — The summary does not directly state if Churchill saw combat or not.
Unknown “C” — The summary does not directly state if Churchill received a CIB or not.
But jwpaine somehow concludes that 3 unknowns “suggests strongly his lack of combat experience”.
What?!?!?!!!?? The issue of a CIB is just yet another Unknown. How can jwpaine claim anything based upon this unknown?
All he has is three unknowns, and his thinks he can draw a conclusion from not knowing ANY of them!
Anybody with half a clue about the sorting of evidence would understand that NO CONCLUSION can be drawn from not knowing 3 different unknowns.
But not jwpaine. In classic jwpainian logic, he thinks he can support his conclusion with nothing other than NOT knowning the answer to ANY of 3 unknowns.
jwpaine’s answer: uhhhh… aahaaa… I better run away. This is too deep for me to understand.
December 17th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Confidential to FRED in response to him saying “I can’t find where Paine mentions the $20K at all”:
“# jwpaine Says:
December 16th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
…So good luck getting that 20K…
Fucking idiot. Can’t even manage to do a page find on a single web page.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
“I could, for instance, make the unqualified statement that John Martin’s a child molester. After all, I’ve found no evidence on Google that he’s not. Would that make it a fair allegation, if all the research I’d done was a bit of internet trolling?”
If being able to google is what makes an allegation fair, then I’d say JGM has some splainin’ to do…
Go on….google “John Martin” and “child molester” and see what comes up first.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Ha! I’ll take that as unmitigated proof.
December 17th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
So it’s now a “proven fact” that John Martin is a child molester?
Wow. Now I know why that guy always give me the creeps.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
You got it, Rama.
Heh.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
It’s very rude of you not to even acknowledge my question, Mr. Paine.
I’m beginning to think that maybe Pablo, Metroplex, and some others may have been right about you all along.
December 18th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
Silly Sally,
That is classic jwpaine method of operation. When he loses arguments he runs away. Or he takes his ball and goes home. Nothing new.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:26 am
well, what’s weird about this whole Churchill blog-ring phenomenon is that they’ve been at this since 2005, and it’s almost 2008. Yet despite the intense scrutiny, they seem surprised about or unaware of basic facts on his CV
December 19th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Y’know, it’s hard to believe they don’t know this stuff. Nor that they’re just throwing terms around without understanding them. The easier explanation is that they’re lying in hopes that no one’s paying attention. Which is probably true. They’ve been very successful at getting the media to regurgitate their line of shit. No one fact checks.
I can’t keep nailing them indefinitely — it gets tiresome — but you can quite literally do it forever. Not so much to Jim Paine, who is pretty good at making only highly qualified statements to cover his willful ignorance, but definitely to his duller hanger-ons, like Mr. Martin, Laurie, Noj, Sherman, etc.
December 19th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Benji, you know as well as we do that the rules apply only to Churchill, not us (or anybody we ballerinas happen to agree with). So please stop pretending that we have the same sort responsibility to respect the laws of factual validity as he does. OK?
December 19th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Now on his blog, Snapple is doing a santa-Whitmer piece, trying to compare him to ‘Ralphie’ of ‘Christmas story’, and in the process showing more misunderstanding about the school concept.
I wonder if snapple truly cares about children, or is faking it.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
that’s such an unequal fight, intellectually. In driver’s school, the guest police officer said that women stopped for a violation should start to cry, because it is sadistic to be mean to a weak person. Men would risk an antigay response. But at the same time, at least the ballerina blog has been damaging. Didn’t the newspaper use their genealogical tree? But that doesn’t mean that the newspaper isn’t staffed by retards too.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
That’s exactly what it means, ma’am. Initially we primarily went after the local papers for doing exactly that. I always mean to do more of it, but here in slow times, we’re forced to poke at the bottomfeeders.
December 20th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Somebody, somewhere else on this blog, said this Snapple person killed that poor little Jon Benet Ramsey. That’s really scary. Do you think it’s true?
December 20th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
I’ve been all over Google, Sally, and I’ve found nothing proving that he—or she—or it—didn’t kill Jon Benet. So it must be true.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
He does have a weird fixation with the children and abuse.