 Everyone 'knows' who or what Stanton
Friedman is. He's probably as close as anyone has gotten to being a household
name with regard to UFOs. Even not knowing his name, but seeing his picture,
is to automatically go, "Oh yeah... right... ...the 'UFO' guy."
-
- Friedman was recently pilloried, fatuously, along with
some undeserving others, on the recent Jennings/ABC flopumentary "exploring"
UFOs, where he was faintly accused of behavior so far removed from his
actual behavior that it borders on slander. For my money it crosses the
line. To wit:
-
- Stanton Friedman is an evidential cherry picker, a self-involved
fantasist, and an inventive conspiracy monger/hoaxer. Stanton Friedman
is a frustrated old man with delusions of grandeur and a messianic complex.
Stanton Friedman is ~not~ real.
-
- So would say those who speak in persuasive proclamation,
'mainstream' declaration, media decree, and 'official' edict. But hold
on. The thing about proclamations, declarations, decrees, and edicts is
that they don't need to be true; they only have to be compelling. They
only have to sew a seed of doubt... ironically nourished by the "information
void" they help to maintain, it's enough to preclude further action.
The goal, to be blunt.
-
- Let's try some other 'proclamations' on for size...
-
- Stanton Friedman ~is~ real. Stanton Friedman is a tireless
historical scholar and rational humanist. Stanton Friedman is a portrait
of selfless courage, an assiduous researcher, and an unflinching observer/reporter
of that which is decidedly and discomfortingly out of the box... but portending
our future...
-
- Forgetting, entirely, their opposing character, is there
any other difference between these preceding proclamation sets? Paul Kimball,
a serious filmmaker with his own production company, has produced some
engaging and instructive documentary films providing the requisite basis
for just this kind of supposition.
-
- The well crafted documentaries referenced here include
Kimball's "Stanton Friedman Is Real" (a sober examination of
Stanton Friedman the 'man') and "Do You Believe In Majic" (A
Doc regarding alleged quality documentation indicating, among other astonishing
things, ~very~ high levels of official interest in the ExtraTerrestrial
Hypothesis... as it pertains to UFOs). These films show, with some clarity
and fairness, where more of the truth in this... very twitchy and ephemeral
area... must be! This is forgetting the balanced cameo they provide Stanton
Friedman, despite, I do not hesitate to point out, any conflicts of interest
possible. I suspect any conjectured conflicts are abundantly accounted
for.
-
- Kimball's relationship by marriage to Friedman's family
has Kimball erring on the side of Friedman's opposition, if anything.
It remains that this writer's gut-sense advises that Kimball is legitimately
trying to shoot straight-down-the-middle on the issues. Too bad for Friedman's
opposition. A 'fair' look makes ~them~ look pretty bad. Humiliatingly
so.
-
- The pros and cons regarding a ufological contribution
by Stanton Friedman do not balance in actuality, even as Kimball's films
very assiduously give equal time to the positions of both sides... obvious
sincerity shown by Kimball, a man trying to arrive at some kind of non-anticipatory
conclusion on the matter, or at least a step forward and not back. Which
side of the argument ~does~ succeed in outweighing the other?
-
- The viewer can make up his or her own mind... but this
writer perceives that the 'cons' see far before them what 'pros' leave
far behind... The cons have little weight it seems.
-
- Along similar lines, I've heard no protestations from
this opposition -- no cries of "foul" or angry wounded remonstrations
regarding a misrepresentation of their assumptive, biased, canted, and
homocentric views; their convenient attitudes; their conflicted opinions.
The point is whittled, admittedly, pretty fine.
-
- Truly, I've neither read nor heard of same, and both
of these films were released some time ago. Perhaps there will be a late
protest...
-
- The presumption is that, to date, the opposition feels
that it was fairly characterized by Kimball's films, and that oppositional
views, such as they are and have always been (...continue to be!), were
squarely portrayed and accurately recounted. One would presume.
-
- The irony is that it ~was~ squarely portrayed and accurately
recounted. They ~got~ their best shot!
-
- In comparison with Stanton Friedman, though, they fall
way short -- their meager shell won't even clear the gun tube. This is
~despite~ the huge amounts of powder provided by the hijacked mainstream
to get that round down range.
-
- This is further illustrated by the ease with which Friedman
will dispatch the occasional brave (if haplessly clueless) soul who gathers
up the sack required to join the long list of "noisy negativists"
crushed, decisively, in debate with him. There are numerous examples of
same on Kimball's films. Dispute Stanton Friedman on the issues, bunky,
and scamper from a righteous fray with your tail tucked between your legs
making whipped-puppy-Ned-Beatty noises... I digress.
-
- Flatly, the arguments of Friedman's opposition make assumptions
based on contrived ignorance, intellectual infidelity, obstinate illogic,
wishful thinking, denied fear, and rank complacency. They are arguments
larded with confident sounding if baseless assertions based on varying
tinctures of the preceding six performance indicators, and they only serve
to provide for what, in the final analysis, can only be sack-less cowardice
-- intellectual and otherwise. Such is, and has been, the ongoing prosecution
of the arguments from the opposition.
-
- Friedman's pompously ignorant and conflicted detractors
ascribes humanistic psychological motives to aliens, facilitating a fallacious
relegation of them to dismissible myth. It waxes knowledgably on the physical
impossibilities of alien propulsion systems then references their superiority
later to preclude us from a possibility of accidentally bringing one of
them down... then it blithely leaps back to foregone conclusions on the
unlikelihood of alien technologies with which to start. Astonishing!
They seem unaware of this strange dichotomy, themselves...
-
- It soberly expounds that the already unlikely alien cannot
get here because we cannot get there, only inventing a comforting rubric
they can use to keep their intellectual distance from them. It is quick
to label the ufologically affected individual as a mis-representer of the
facts (a LIAR), a mis-understander of the facts (a DOPE), or as one too
mentally incapacitated to appreciate the facts (a NUT). To the opposition,
there is, or can be (...of needs!), ~no~ 4th possibility.
-
- To this klasskurtxian and pelicanistic opposition, people
who see UFOs are, unquestioningly and absolutely, "M" cubed (Misleading,
Mistaken or Mentally ill), and we ~are~ alone in our little corner of the
multi-verse. ...Perhaps (...pray hard to your fundamentalist god of choice!),
even alone in the whole damn thing... a centerpiece jewel in God's crown
of creation, ideally! Intelligent alien beings might ~possibly~ exist
in some other galaxy, or even at the other end of this one... but not here...
Oh please, god... not here.
-
- No!
-
- No! There ~is~ a 4th choice. Verily, there is a plethora...
a panoply of 'choices'! These are choices that must come as a result of
following the data where it leads and not where it can be driven. These
are choices that one discovers as one pursues the devil in the details
(as Friedman has for four decades!) and still be able to hold that evidentiary
demon by reluctantly slippery shirttails! These are choices that remain
after one is able to appreciate the vast amount of evidence extant (as
Friedman has) that is physical, historical, photographic, anecdotal, and
even personal. These are choices one can accept when one sees past the
end of a conflicted little nose (as Friedman has), removes oneself from
ones convenient and unfounded prejudices (as Friedman has), or objects
to and rejects ones self-imbued and pettily contrived ignorance (as Friedman
has). Freidman has a long, long history of perspicaciously, perceptively,
and intelligently trying to get it down... right.
-
- We are not alone. Not now. Not ever. Admitting the
preceding is to step to the future. Denying it is an impossible and so
disastrous retreat to a lost, and even invented or imagined, past.
-
- Paul Kimball is clear in his films that Friedman is very
specific and precise about why he says what he says. Not content to sit
in a comfy spot and airily spew puerile pronouncements of outdated and
discredited "conventional wisdom" like his critics, Friedman
chases details that squirm and shift in his grasp, details handily discrediting
the 'official' version of puzzling events and/or corrupting, otherwise,
what should be a cogent record of same. Rare bird he. We're lucky to have
him.
-
- Stanton Friedman is thorough. His critics are only thorough
enough with regard to their assertions to sew a fallacious seed of doubt
or allow for a plausible deniability to obscure the ufological issue du
jour. This is not honorable, on any level, and apes the activities of
the propagandist, despot, axe-grinder, canted lobbyist, or spin-doctor.
-
- Friedman is organized, objective, constructive, and comprehensive.
His critics are none of these things and are shot down in flames when they
meet him in the air for formal argument on the points of it.
-
- Friedman is flexible, acceptable, specific, and thoughtful
regarding the ufological. His critics prosecute the opposites of these
things, and use every fallacious trick they can to discount him, invalidate
him, and discredit him. Even honor and character have been smarmily attacked,
reader!
-
- ...Et tu, Peter Jennings, and a mark on your legacy,
Sir. Point one finger and risk three back at yourself, boyo!
-
- Contrarily, Kimball's compelling film "Do You Believe
In Majic," dismissing the recent Jennings/ABC whitewash as patently
false and a mockery of what a documentary (...a "mockumentary"!)
should be, is a good case in point.
-
- Every point skeptically raised against the verity of
the MJ-12 Documents (...as clear evidence of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis
with regard to UFOs, and an admitted high level ufological interest in
the ~reality~ of same...) is dissolved, handily, by citation -- chapter
and verse. Truly, these defensively reflexive protests do not hold up
upon examination, Kimball is able to show. They are bluster, illogic,
ignorance, complacency, bias, and cant. Friedman, on the other hand, can
provide clear and compelling evidence that the documents are, indeed, real.
His critics have nothing remaining in their moldy corner but strident,
officiously vicious, and patently unsupported negativity.
-
- So, in answer to the question asked at the beginning
of this essay about differences between the two sets of opposing proclamations,
the answer is this:
-
- One set is of 'proclamations' is based on solid reputation,
diligent research, pains-taking fact finding, unblemished integrity, tuned
intelligence, and verified results. The other set is based on 'mainstream'
flatus or klasskurtxian hot air. The reader can judge for themselves which
is which. Be that as it may, Stanton Friedman, in a final analysis, ~is~
real, in this writer's view, and one wastes no time, at all, believing
in MAJIC. Step forward to the future, reader, not backward to futility.
-
- Such can be drawn from Paul Kimball's intriguing, concise,
and calmly iterated documentaries, here referenced. More information can
be secured from the filmmaker's site at:
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- http://www.redstarfilm.com/order/index.htm
-
- Read on!
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- alienview@adelphia.net -:|:-
- www.AlienView.net
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