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From: Jerome Clark <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 99 13:01:47 PDT
Fwd Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 07:27:36 -0400
Subject: Re: Budd Hopkins And The Big Lie


>Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 21:04:13 -0400
>From: Peter Brookesmith Mendoza <DarkSecretPB@compuserve.com>
>Subject: Budd Hopkins And The Big Lie
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>


>With the compliments of the Duke of Mendoza:

>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
>>From: Jerome Clark" <jkclark@frontiernet.net>
>>Subject: Re: Budd Hopkins And The Big Lie
>>Date: Mon, 21 Jun 99 09:20:40 PDT


Peter,

>>I find Peter's work at best of modest interest,
>>his often smirky, immensely self-pleased prose generally
>>unreadable.

>It's good to know that Jerome can change his mind, after years
>of maintaining how - though he might disagree with whatever I
>had to say - he always found it interesting. This shows he is
>open minded and tolerant and a very good egg.

You're a fine writer, Peter, and at times an immensely
self-pleased one who seems unable to imagine that the views of
honest, decent, sane persons who don't happen to agree with you
deserve anything but contempt and ridicule. As examples of the
latter, I found your FT pieces on Hopkins and Jacobs frankly
unreadable, which is why I missed your bogus charges about Budd
the first time around.

Reading your stuff, I have the feeling that the two Brookesmiths
are in conflict.  The Brookesmith I praise and enjoy is the good
writer who can be glimpsed struggling to emerge from behind what
looks to this reader (and to others with whom I've discussed
your work) like an outsized ego.  There are worse social crimes
than being egotistical or even egomaniacal, of course, but the
King Sneer act does get a tad tiresome, in my judgment.  But
hey, do what you gotta do, dude.

>But what, exactly, do Jerome's generously provided and variously
>repeated literary opinions have to do with anything I said last
>time around? Could it be that he does not want to gaze upon his
>own peccadilloes, to which I so unkindly drew attention? It is
>certainly true that he has been rather quiet about a major drift
>of what I wrote, which (lest we forget) concerned his ethical
>and moral self-contradictions.

Huh?  Whatever you say, guy.  And now ...

...  let's get back to what you're trying to avoid here:  You
accused Budd Hopkins, first, of dishonesty and, second, of
hypnotizing children in search of abduction testimony.  Both
charges are false.  When I pointed that out to you, you went
into full ad-hominem rant.  And of course you were wildly
indignant when I suggested that an apology might be in order.
(As I recall, Mao and Stalin suddenly entered the discussion.)
Jenny Randles, for example, did not consider the suggestion
outrageous.  It wasn't as if I were asking you, after all, to
retract your basic beliefs re the abduction phenomenon which,
right or wrong or both, you have every right to hold.  I just
thought, naively it appears, that you would have the ethical and
moral conviction that when grave and potentially damaging
accustations turn out to be unfounded, the accuser -- if he has
spoken from honest mistake, as I assume you have -- ought to say
he's sorry.

>>I am not willing to accept his tedious,
>>self-serving rationale -- laced, typically, with ad-hominem
>>remarks -- for not withdrawing and apologizing for his role in
>>circulating a bogus allegation.

>I am perfectly happy, if the facts so suggest, to apologize to
>Budd Hopkins. I see no reason to apologize to Jerome or anyone
>else who has no locus standi in the business.

Uh, did I ask you to apologize to _me_?  I don't think so. That
herring was notably red, my friend.  Since you have made the
false charges in more than one public forum, a public retraction
in at least one such forum would seem in order, don't you think?

>I really do not care what Jerome is willing to accept or not
>from me, or from anyone else. I do care a little more that he
>misrepresents me quite so transparently. Those who represent
>themselves as historians should be less economical with the
>truth. Turning the telescope the right way round will also show
>me in my true proportions.

Uh ... yeah ... right ... sure.  Now, back to the issue at hand:
Are you prepared to admit that you were wrong to accuse Hopkins
of (1) being dishonest (as opposed, say, to merely being wrong
from your point of view) and (2) hypnotizing children?  The
world -- or at least the list -- awaits your answer. A simple
yes or no will do.

Cheers,

Jerry Clark