Explain the logic of Prayer Man please

[Lance Payette]

Yes, Prayer Person has been beaten to death. I was surprised to see that the folks at the Ed Forum are all atwitter because Rep. Luna is going to request the original Darnell and Wiegman films from NBC. At last we will know the truth, or maybe not. (I use the term Prayer Person because, as Duncan once argued, PP looks more like a woman to me.)

I confess, I lack sufficient imagination to become enthusiastic about PP. Yet many quality researchers like Greg Parker and Bart Kamp and others have been. One notable windbag at the Ed Forum has asserted that PP is Oswald “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I truly always wonder, “What cogs are turning inside their heads that aren’t turning in mine?”

If the issue were simply, “Who is that amorphous figure on the top of the TSBD steps?” – well, sure, this would be interesting and nice to know. It’s the enthusiasm that this might be – no, is! – Oswald that mystifies me.

Read my lips: I don’t want to know the details of why you think PP is Oswald. I’ve heard all the arguments. I simply want to hear why you think this notion makes any sense at all. What is your logic? You will note that all PP discussions focus solely on the technical details of why the amorphous figure could be Oswald and ignore more basic issues such as these:

1. In what sort of conspiracy would it make any sense to place a rifle traceable to Oswald on the 6th floor of the TSBD but allow him to be standing on the steps in full view at the time of the shooting? I am so dull that I can’t think of anything. If you don’t at least have the patsy under control and out of sight, how is he an effective patsy? If the rifle is on the 6th floor and the patsy is on the steps, doesn’t this pretty much scream “Conspiracy!” Get me over this mental hurdle, PP fans!

2. It would seem to be pure happenstance that no clear photo of PP exists. There could have been 20 cameras trained on that location that clearly showed PP was Oswald and blew the Lone Nut narrative clean out of the water, but the conspirators took this risk and by pure happenstance there weren’t. By pure happenstance, “Oswald” is a blurry blob in the shadows. Plausible?

3. The steps and the immediate area were crawling with people, mostly fellow TSBD employees. No one recalled seeing Oswald standing there? No one recalled the supposed assassin? Not one person so much as had a sudden flash of "Hey, could that have been Oswald standing there?" Plausible?

4. How on earth is it possible that in all of his interactions with police, reporters and family members, Oswald never screamed at the top of his lungs “For God’s sake, I was standing right there on the steps!!! At least five or ten people must’ve seen me! Talk to them!” Despite the cryptic “out with Bill Shelley in front” in Fritz’ notes, Oswald never screamed to reporters “Someone please talk to Bill Shelley! I was standing there with him!” Plausible? (Indeed, when specifically asked by a reporter “Were you in the building at the time?” Oswald answered “Naturally, if I work in that building, yes sir.” He didn't answer, "Well, no, I was out on the steps with Bill Shelley, as I feel sure he will confirm.")

5. PP is inconsistent with the Baker-Truly lunchroom encounter and Mrs. Reid’s office encounter (with Oswald in a t-shirt!), is it not? Is it plausible that both these encounters were invented as part of a conspiracy? “They” got to Baker, Truly and Reid? If “they” didn’t care that Oswald was standing on the steps in the first place, what was the need for all this? Or perhaps Baker, Truly and Reid were part of the frame-up of Oswald from the get-go - but wouldn't the more obvious frame-up have been to simply control him so he wasn't on the steps? Oy, I'm getting a headache ...

Make sense of if for me, if you can.

[Louis Earl]

1. In what sort of conspiracy would it make any sense to place a rifle traceable to Oswald on the 6th floor of the TSBD but allow him to be standing on the steps in full view at the time of the shooting?

If it is LHO, how do we know he didn't wander down there on his own, not doing what he had been told to do, i.e. stay by yourself, out of sight of other people.

[Lance Payette]

1. In what sort of conspiracy would it make any sense to place a rifle traceable to Oswald on the 6th floor of the TSBD but allow him to be standing on the steps in full view at the time of the shooting?

If it is LHO, how do we know he didn't wander down there on his own, not doing what he had been told to do, i.e. stay by yourself, out of sight of other people.

You, then, are positing a conspiracy where the pesky patsy fails to stay out of sight as he's been told to do and wanders out onto the steps. Now you will need to explain (1) why the patsy doesn't question why he's being told to stay out of sight, and (2) why, in a PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION, the conspirators would trust the patsy to stay where he's told and exercise no control over him. Thanks for trying, but this really doesn't address any of the issues I raised. For starters, if our patsy had wandered out to the steps, wouldn't his screaming alibi have been "I WAS STANDING ON THE STEPS!!!" as I suggested?

[John Mytton]

The Hosty note where Oswald allegedly says he's going outside to watch the P/parade is what reignited the Prayerperson nonsense.



I have addressed Prayerperson(PP) with this 3D representation of the Darnell frame. Since we know Frazier's height of about 6 foot we can establish that PP is much shorter than the 5'9" of Oswald.



There was some debate that PP had one foot on the lower step and thus the height of PP could correspond to Oswald's height but PP is way back in the shadow and another proof is since the camera was moving horizontally we can determine the horizontal parallax movement of stationary objects which does require an assumption that the object didn't move in the fraction of a second between frames, so assuming that both Frazier and PP were stationary we can see PP relative to the vertical frame behind shows virtually no parallax movement indicating she was close to the corner and Frazier because he was further away from the door shows more horizontal movement.



And besides this visual proof, we have Oswald himself agreeing that he was inside at the time!

@1:15

Rep Luna who is holding a hearing on of all dates April first(LOL) says NBC has never seen before footage(which if it's the Darnell film we have definitely seen a low res version), of Oswald(PP) near the Limo, this whole fiasco is going to embarrass a LOT of people and will forever cement the entire JFKA CT community as a bunch of Loons(Luns) Hahahaha!

@2:20

JohnM

[Lance Payette]

Can no CTer articulate a plausible basis for the notion that PP is Oswald?

I'll even get you started: When I posed the same question at the Ed Forum years ago, one CTer offered that the conspirators were "sending a message." The message was, basically, "We're such bad dudes and so firmly in control that we don't even CARE if our patsy is seen standing on the steps of the TBSD when he is supposed to be shooting from the 6th floor."

SURELY, someone can do better than THAT?

Come on, people, there really are quite a number of serious researchers who take PP seriously. There must be SOME logic to it - mustn't there?

[John Iacoletti]

Why does there have to be an elaborate conspiratorial reason for everything that happened?  Just so you can argue that "it doesn't make sense that a Conspiracy would do that, therefore Oswald killed Kennedy"?

[Lance Payette]

Why does there have to be an elaborate conspiratorial reason for everything that happened?  Just so you can argue that "it doesn't make sense that a Conspiracy would do that, therefore Oswald killed Kennedy"?

There does not have to be an elaborate conspiratorial reason for everything. An argument can have epistemological warrant - i.e., be epistemologically justified - even if it is wrong. However, it cannot be epistemologically justified if the proponent cannot articulate a coherent rationale. I simply challenge CTers to articulate a rational, coherent theory as to how the designated patsy who is ostensibly shooting from the 6th floor could be allowed to be standing in full view on the front steps. You apparently cannot do it, and that's fine. Given all the Prayer Man brouhaha, however, I'm just surprised that no one can. It does tend to suggest that CTers don't think at the level of niceties like "Does this make any sense?" If your theory is that the conspirators actually were complete bumbling fools - well, OK, that's a coherent rationale of sorts, although it seems unlikely in the context of a Presidential assassination.

[John Iacoletti]

There does not have to be an elaborate conspiratorial reason for everything. An argument can have epistemological warrant - i.e., be epistemologically justified - even if it is wrong. However, it cannot be epistemologically justified if the proponent cannot articulate a coherent rationale. I simply challenge CTers to articulate a rational, coherent theory as to how the designated patsy who is ostensibly shooting from the 6th floor could be allowed to be standing in full view on the front steps. You apparently cannot do it, and that's fine. Given all the Prayer Man brouhaha, however, I'm just surprised that no one can. It does tend to suggest that CTers don't think at the level of niceties like "Does this make any sense?" If your theory is that the conspirators actually were complete bumbling fools - well, OK, that's a coherent rationale of sorts, although it seems unlikely in the context of a Presidential assassination.

Prayer man is either Oswald or it is not.  It doesn't have to "make sense" to you in the context of a strawman Conspiracy with a designated patsy.