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James Fetzer

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James H. Fetzer
Born
James Henry Fetzer

(1940-12-06) December 6, 1940 (age 83)
Pasadena, California, USA
NationalityAmerican

James Henry Fetzer (born December 6, 1940 in Pasadena, California) is an American conspiracy theorist, a former Marine Corps officer and a retired philosophy professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth.[1][2][3]

Various conspiracy theories advocated by Fetzer include the assassination of John F. Kennedy,[4] the September 11 attacks,[4][2] and the death of Senator Paul Wellstone.[4] He has lectured extensively on these subjects,[4] and has made frequent appearances on various radio[4] and television programs, including Jesse Ventura's America[5] and Hannity & Colmes.[4] Fetzer has published three collections of studies on the death of JFK, co-authored another on the plane crash that took the life of Wellstone, and edited the first book from Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization he founded. He has been published extensively as a journalist for conspiracy-theory oriented Veterans Today and has been a contributor to Iran's Press TV official government sponsored news agency.

He has written on the philosophy of science and on the theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. Two of his most recent books were on the evolution of intelligence and philosophical aspects of "the Christian Right's crusade against science".

Biography

Fetzer was born in Pasadena, California on December 6, 1940 to a father who worked as an accountant in a welfare office in Los Angeles County.[6] He has described himself as growing-up in a troubled home in the neighboring city of Altadena.[4] After his parents divorced, Fetzer moved to La Habra Heights, California with his brother, mother, and stepfather.[4] His mother passed away when he was 11, then he moved back with his father and stepmother, whose encouragement he credits with helping him do well in school.[4][7]

Fetzer attended South Pasadena High School, and went on to study philosophy at Princeton University where he graduated magna cum laude in 1962.[6] After Princeton, Fetzer was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps, and eventually became an artillery officer.[6][7] He was stationed on Okinawa, Japan, and was anchored out in Formosa when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.[7] Fetzer was promoted to captain but resigned his commission in 1966 to enter graduate school.[7] He earned his master's degree program at Indiana University, transferred to Columbia University for a year, then returned to Indiana where in 1970 he completed a PhD in the history and philosophy of science.[6][7]

Fetzer was employed as an assistant professor from 1970 to 1977 by the University of Kentucky, where he received the first Distinguished Teaching Award from the UK Student Government, then held various positions as a visiting associate or visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of South Florida, and the University of Virginia.[6][7] In 1987, he was hired as a full professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and was appointed a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 1996.[7][8] Fetzer taught at UMD until his retirement in June 2006.[6][7]

During his military service, Fetzer married his first wife and had a son.[7] The couple divorced after four years of marriage.[7] Fetzer was married to his second wife while employed at the University of Kentucky.[7]

Works

Fetzer has published more than 100 articles and 20 books on philosophy of science, computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive science.[6] He also founded the international journal, Minds and Machines,[9] which he edited for eleven years, the professional library, Studies in Cognitive Systems, which includes thirty volumes, and the professional organization, The Society for Machines & Mentality.[10]

Controversial views

Fetzer has written about the John F. Kennedy assassination and has been interviewed on his theories about the September 11, 2001 attacks, by Richard and Kate Mucci, hosts of Out There TV, and radio hosts such as Laura Ingraham, Jerry Springer, Donny Deutch and several hosts on Air America, among others.[11] He has been interviewed on Hannity & Colmes (twice) and on The O'Reilly Factor as well as other television programs. Some have questioned his apparent endorsement of a military coup to overthrow the Bush administration,[12] members of which he believes have betrayed the country and violated their oaths of office.

Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Fetzer has published dozens of articles critical of the Warren Commission's findings,[7] and has edited three books of studies by experts on the assassination of Kennedy.[13] He is reported to have become interested in the subject after observing the public debate over Oliver Stone's JFK in 1991.[7] Conspiracy debunker Vincent Bugliosi has described Fetzer as a "good and sincere" man and as "the editor of the only exclusively scientific books... on the assassination".[13] He has also been reported to be "a familiar and controversial figure in the JFK research community".[7] According to Josiah Thompson, author of Six Seconds in Dallas, Fetzer has proffered theories considered "off the wall" by other assassination researchers.[14] Fetzer has been extremely critical of Thompson, an example of which is "JFK, the CIA and The New York Times"[15]

According to Fetzer, the CIA, the American Mafia, anti-Castro Cubans, Texas oilmen, the "military–industrial complex", as well as Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover, all may have been involved in a plot to kill the President.[13] On the basis of medical, ballistic and witness evidence, he believes that gunmen were firing at Kennedy from six locations and that the X-rays of Kennedy as well the Zapruder film were fabricated.[13][16] Maintaining that William Greer, the agent driving Kennedy's limousine, deliberately stopped the vehicle after shots had been fired to make sure he would be killed, Fetzer has written that it was "such an obvious indication of Secret Service complicity in the assassination" that "had to be edited out" of Zapruder's film.[13]

Fetzer appeared as a guest on the MSNBC program Jesse Ventura's America on the 40th observance of the Kennedy assassination. In response to questions from the host and audience, Fetzer spoke about his findings that the Zapruder film "had been massively edited" and that X-rays and forensic evidence had been severely tampered with or withheld.[5]

September 11, 2001 attacks

Fetzer has asserted that people within the administration of George W. Bush were responsible for the September 11 attacks.[3] He is the co-founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a group that rejects the official conclusions of the 9/11 Commission and the National Institute of Standards and Technology that hijackers crashed planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and that the fires caused by the crashed planes were sufficient to collapse the buildings.[2] The group has asserted that the buildings in the World Trade Center were brought down by controlled demolitions and that the United States government possessed a political agenda that allowed or even orchestrated its occurrence.[2] Fetzer invited Steven Jones, a physics professor at Brigham Young University, to serve as the group's co-chair.[3]

Death of Paul Wellstone

After Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone's death in an airplane crash, Fetzer wrote a series of articles for Duluth, Minnesota's Reader Weekly in which he asserted that Wellstone was assassinated by a group of powerful Republicans to regain control of the United States Senate.[17][18] He claimed that sabotage due to an electromagnetic pulse may have caused the plane to crash, and those responsible for it were "...the troika that runs the government, consisting of Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld."[18] In 2004, Fetzer co-authored a book on the subject, American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone, with Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs.[17][19]

Publications

Philosophy of Science:

  • James H. Fetzer. (December 31, 1981). Scientific Knowledge: Causation, Explanation, and Corroboration. Springer. ISBN 90-277-1335-9.
  • edited by James H. Fetzer. (1985). Sociobiology and Epistemology. Springer. ISBN 90-277-2005-3. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Definitions and Definability: Philosophical Perspectives. 1991. ASIN B000IBICGK.
  • James H. Fetzer (1992). Philosophy of Science (Paragon Issues in Philosophy). Paragon. ISBN 1-55778-481-7. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • ed. by James H. Fetzer (1993). Foundations of Philosophy of Science: Recent Developments (Paragon Issues in Philosophy). Paragon. ISBN 1-55778-480-9. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Charles E. M. Dunlop; James H. Fetzer. (1993). Glossary of Cognitive Science (A Paragon House Glossary for Research, Reading, and Writing). Paragon. ISBN 1-55778-567-8. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • James H. Fetzer. (1997). Philosophy and Cognitive Science (Paragon Issues in Philosophy). Paragon. ISBN 1-55778-739-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Minds and Machines: Journal for Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy, and Cognitive Science, Vol. 7, No. 4. Kluwer. 1997. ASIN B000KEV460. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • edited by James H. Fetzer. (2000). Science, Explanation, and Rationality: The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel. Oxford. ISBN 0-19-512137-6. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • James H. Fetzer. (2001). Artificial Intelligence: Its Scope and Limits. Springer. ISBN 0-7923-0548-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Computers and Cognition: Why Minds are Not Machines. Springer. January 8, 2002. ISBN 1-4020-0243-2.
  • ed. by James H. Fetzer (2002). Consciousness Evolving (Advances in Consciousness Research). John Benjamins. ISBN 1-58811-108-3. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • James H. Fetzer (2005). The Evolution of Intelligence: Are Humans the Only Animals With Minds?. Open Court. ISBN 0-8126-9459-7.
  • James H. Fetzer (December 28, 2006). Render Unto Darwin: Philosophical Aspects of the Christian Right's Crusade Against Science. Open Court. ISBN 0-8126-9605-0.

Conspiracy Theories:

  • edited by James H. Fetzer. (1997). Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK. Open Court. ISBN 0-8126-9366-3. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • ed. by James H. Fetzer. (2000). Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now that We Didn't Know Then. Open Court. ISBN 0-8126-9422-8. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • ed. by James H. Fetzer (2003). The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK. Catfeet Press. ISBN 0-8126-9547-X. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Four Arrows (aka Don Trent Jacobs) & James H. Fetzer. (2004). American Assassination: The Strange Death Of Senator Paul Wellstone. Vox Pop. ISBN 0-9752763-0-1. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

References

  1. ^ Narain, Jaya (February 16, 2007). "We're all conspiracy theorists at heart". BBC News. Retrieved May 5, 2010. {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  2. ^ a b c d Pope, Justin (August 7, 2006). "Scholars join ranks of Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists". Bangor Daily News. Bangor, Maine. AP. p. A3. Retrieved July 16, 2012. {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  3. ^ a b c Mosedale, Mike (June 28, 2006). "The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much". City Pages. Minneapolis, Minnesota. p. 1. Retrieved July 29, 2012. {{cite news}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Mosedale 2006, p. 2.
  5. ^ a b "JESSE VENTURA'S AMERICA for November 22, 2003". MSNBC. November 22, 2003. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Lederer, Sarah (February 2009). "James Fetzer's Home Page". Duluth: University of Minnesota. Retrieved 2009-02-02.[self-published source]
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Mosedale 2006, p. 3.
  8. ^ "Distinguished McKnight Professorship Program". University of Minnesota. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
  9. ^ Fetzer, James H. (1991), "Editor's preface", Minds and Machines, 1 (1), Springer Netherlands: v–vi, doi:10.1007/BF00360575, ISSN 0924-6495, retrieved 2012-07-17
  10. ^ Curriculum Vitae (special)[self-published source]
  11. ^ Scholars for 9/11 Truth - Past Events[self-published source]
  12. ^ John Gravois, "Professors of Paranoia?: Academics give a scholarly stamp to 9/11 conspiracy theories", The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 23, 2006.
  13. ^ a b c d e Bugliosi, Vincent (2007). Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 506, 508, 974, 986, 1498. ISBN 9780393045253. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  14. ^ Mosedale 2006, p. 4.
  15. ^ "JFK, the CIA and The New York Times, Veterans Today (29 November 2011) http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/11/29/jfk-the-cia-and-the-new-york-times-2/}
  16. ^ Cockerell, Penny (November 22, 2003). "JFK 40 Years Later: America Still Has Questions; Assassination theories don't fade away". Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Spartanburg, South Carolina. AP. p. A6. Retrieved July 15, 2012. {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  17. ^ a b Mosedale 2006, p. 5.
  18. ^ a b Diaz, Kevin (June 3, 2003). "Conspiracy theories thrive after Wellstone plane crash". Star Tribune. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Retrieved August 1, 2012. {{cite news}}: More than one of |author= and |last= specified (help)
  19. ^ Dameron, Eva (October 31, 2005). "Author makes case for murder". Daily Lobo (University of New Mexico).

External links

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