From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 09:33:50 -0500
Archived: Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:19:14 -0500
Subject: Re: Committee For Skeptical Inquiry


>From: Stanton T Friedman <fsphys.nul>
>To: <post.nul>
>Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:19:23 -0400
>Subject: Re: Committee For Skeptical Inquiry

>>From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
>>To: <post.nul>
>>Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:45:31 -0500
>>Subject: Re: Committee For Skeptical Inquiry

>>Yes, many debunkers undeniably are close-minded, and some are
>>even fanatical and obsessive (just like some of the people on the
>>opposite side of the debate). Nothing, however, justifies
>>paranoid fears that tie them to sinister gummint operations. It's
>>worth noting that in CSICOP's early years anonymous papers
>>circulated - at the time, speculation, I don't know how soundly
>>based, tied them to the Scientologists - in which the case was
>>argued that CSICOP was almost certainly a Soviet front group.

>>Apparently, some people then and now are incapable of believing
>>that perfectly sincere persons can hold views they disagree with.

>I do wonder if anybody has traced the connections between Dr.
>Corliss Lamont, a rich Philosopher and strong supporter of
>Stalin's ways for a long time and who was, as I understand it, a
>major contributor to the American Humanist Association.

Yes, Stan, you didn't think this up all by yourself. Corliss
Lamont's role in the AHA is well known and gets mentioned in any
even mildly comprehensive commentary on its history.

In fact, the anonymous papers thought by some to be a Scientology
project (because they resembled the sorts of black jobs for which
the group was notorious in those days; as far as I know, however,
nothing was ever proved) were loaded with sinister Lamont-based
insinuations. Though papers were lucidly written and well
researched, as with so much discourse on loaded subjects - as
witness what we see from some on this List almost daily - the
distance between data and conclusions could be measured in
parsecs.

For those who don't know the name, Lamont virtually defined the
Cold War fellow traveler (i.e., someone who, though not
personally a Communist, harbored open sympathies for the Stalin-
era Soviet Union and advocated its case against the West). A
wealthy man from a family inheritance, Lamont did play a large
role in creating and financing the American Humanist Association,
out of which CSICOP evolved, though the two soon separated to
become independent entities. Paul Kurtz, who would lead CSICOP
for decades, had been AHA president, and the anti-paranormal
crusade within the AHA began on his watch.

Of course, no sane person ever accused the AHA of being a
Communist front group. Lamont's strange allegiances
notwithstanding, the AHA's membership held, and holds, a range of
political views. Atheist materialism, the glue that holds the AHA
together, is not a political ideology. Atheists can be found
anywhere on the political spectrum.

The anonymous papers argued that the Russians sought to stop
Pentagon research into parapsychological techniques by
discrediting the reality of psi. No actual reason to believe that
the Soviets funded any American group for that purpose has ever
been demonstrated.

>Paul Kurtz was the President of the AHA and it was in many Ways
>the forerunner of CSICOP. Two of their targets have been UFOs and
>Paranormal activities which do have basic military possibilities.

Your point being? Kurtz was an anti-Communist and, at least at
one time, something of a neoconservative. He voted for Reagan,
which disgusted some of his CSICOP colleagues and amused others,
given Reagan's penchant for astrology and end-times prophecy.

It bears noting that the most active American UFO debunkers are
almost uniformly to the right - sometimes far to the right - in
their political beliefs. Philip J. Klass, for example, could be
accurately characterized as a hard-core wingnut. If he held a
single progressive opinion, I never heard of it in all my years
of interacting with him and otherwise monitoring his actions and
pronouncements.

In my correspondence with him, the only non-UFO periodical he
ever quoted was the conservative National Review. Klass believed,
as I have documented elsewhere, that persons who thought the U.S.
government might lie about anything (and not just UFOs) amounted
to Soviet sympathizers.

>Discouragement of outside interest in related activities could
>serve the goals of both the CIA and Stalinists.

And paranoia about debunkers, which makes ufologists look
unhinged, serves the goals of our critics.

Come on, Stan, you know better than that. As you yourself have
often demonstrated to great effect, there is much about debunkers
open to legitimate criticism. Why any time should be wasted on
illegitimate criticism is a mystery.  Fortunately, since I am not
a paranoid, I will not provide the obvious paranoid answer to
that question.


Jerry Clark



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