JFK and The Re-Writing of History

JFK was killed 50 years ago today.  Truth Dots notes the full-on united front presented by the mainstream media in countless newspaper and magazine articles, TV shows, books, etc, to declare that all "conspiracy theories" are to be left behind, once and for all. Oswald did it and he did it alone. That's all folks, you can pack up and go home.

It is true that many people are willing to jump to conclusions based on their own biases, hence many "conspiracy theories." That is why one must limit ones' attention to people who are actually doing genuine research, and who uncover actual evidence.  And there is an abundance of evidence, that Oswald did not act alone, that he is not the man the media portrays him to be, that government agencies were involved, and that these agencies and the media have been covering up and re-writing history for decades.  It is a tragedy and a travesty that has many precise parallels with 9/11 and its aftermath, and is a hard lesson to be learned.  Because we have been trained to forget about history except as the mainstream culture feeds it to us, we were inadequate to the task of recognizing 9/11 for what it was.

RIDICULE BY ASSOCIATION
Here's a classic mainstream media tactic: provide us with a wise and witty commentator to focus on how one of the most ridiculous JFK conspiracies was de-bunked, with the clear message that it would be better to stay away from any and all such theories.  The intent and effect is to associate all JFK research with the most ridiculous theories, making it easy to dismiss and marginalize any JFK research that conflicts with the official story.



http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000001183275/the-umbrella-man.html


THE LIMITED HANGOUT



Here's an example of what is known as a "limited hangout," a public relations or propaganda technique that involves the release of previously hidden information in order to prevent a greater exposure of more important details.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_hangout

It shows how far the mainstream media will go to dismiss JFK research.  Below is a link to an interview with Philip Shenon, author of the new book, "A Cruel and Shocking Act." Listen for how this guy is willing to make the public aware of damning evidence of corruption and coverup in the wake of JFK's assassination, yet jumps to his own conclusions, without any basis in the facts, that the reasons for all this were nothing more than incompetence, embarrassment, and the desire to "protect President Kennedy's legacy, to protect the privacy of the Kennedy family." This is shoddy journalism posing as hard-hitting investigative reporting, and again conveniently marginalizes genuine research by ignoring it, in favor of simply making up an alternate explanation that fits the conventional wisdom.

http://www.npr.org/2013/10/28/240822565/botched-investigation-fuels-kennedy-conspiracy-theories

Note the title of this feature is "Botched Investigation Fuels Kennedy Conspiracy Theories." Again the way it is expressed is important. They are saying that it is understandable that the evidence being exposed would lead some people to have a "perception' of a conspiracy, but nevertheless you shouldn't think that way. Essentially the author is saying to legitimate researchers, "who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?"

SHUT OUT
News Flash: The Last Stand of the JFK Truthers
 Dallas plans to memorialize the fallen president on the 50th anniversary of his death, and the conspiracy theorists aren't invited. 
http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/67089/last-stand-jfk-truthers

THE REAL DEAL
Credible, meticulous research on the JFK assassination has been going on since the 1960's.  One of the greatest researchers is also one of the least known, Mae Brussell.  Has there been anyone since who has done such a thorough job of actually reading every edition of the Warren commission report, cross referencing it and following up on the information that it cited to support its conclusions?  She produced thousands of pages of research and hundreds of hours of recorded programs discussing her research and encouraging others to do their own.
She never asked for a penny and achieved no renown for her efforts.  She was simply a brilliant person who was also a passionate activist for truth.  Here's her first radio broadcast, all the way back in 1971.



Learn more about Mae and access the vast archive of her work at http://maebrussell.com/

WANT TO KNOW MORE?
If you're ready to dive in and do some JFK research, our good friends at WantToKnow.info have prepared the way for you with an outstanding portal to articles, videos and plenty of links and references.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/assassinations/kennedy/kennedy-assassination-jfk-rfk

EVIDENCE OF REVISION
Ready to go down the rabbit hole? Evidence of Revision is an amazing documentary, relying on a treasure trove of actual archival film footage from the times, to show how history was indeed being revised, even as the events were unfolding. Here's part 1:



JAMES CORBETT
Few have honored Mae Brussell's legacy as well as James Corbett of corbettreport.com. In this video he gives us a quick, concise summary of the mountain of evidence that indicates that Oswald was someone quite different than the official story. It is meant to give you a sense of the absurdity of it all, and it succeeds quite well.
Everything he refers to is referenced and linked on this page:
http://www.corbettreport.com/jfk-a-conspiracy-theory/



JIM DOUGLASS



Jim Douglass, in his book JFK and the Unspeakable, has an interpretation of events to explain why JFK was murdered, and why it matters, that makes more sense to me than any other.  I think his ideas are worth pursuing further, as everything I have encountered so far supports his ideas. Here's an interview in which he summarizes his views.



FINAL WORDS
And the final words go to the man himself. Here's JFK giving the commencement address to the graduating class at American University in 1963. Is this the sound of a politician planning to seek re-election, saying what he thinks will appeal to liberal voters, or is it a man who is genuinely turning away from the ambitions of the CIA, the military-industrial complex, and the other elites working behind the scenes to drive the country back to war and ruin?





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Beating The Drums Of War Again

For twelve years now, we've been conditioned to accept that we're in a state of perpetual war. So is it really much of a surprise to hear the war drums beating again, this time for Syria?

Granted, Assad is a very bad guy, and his government has been one of terrible repression and unconscionable violence against its citizens. But there's always more to the story. Unfortunately, you'll have trouble gleaning the bigger picture from our political leaders and the U.S. news media. Propaganda abounds, its purpose being to obscure the finer points in favor of gross generalities and misconceptions, all presented with intent to provoke anger and fear, which in turn will result in support for military action. Critical analysis by media "journalists" is almost non-existent. What investigative reporting that exists is being systematically stifled by an Obama administration bent on crushing dissent of any kind, through its merciless campaign to criminalize whistleblowing. 

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/09/obamas_unprecedented_war_on_whistleblowers/

It is becoming more true than ever that the only information we get about government activities will be coming from official government sources. But that’s OK,  they never lie, right? Oh, wait...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/28-0

KABUKI DANCE

Here's a peek into the way this works. Last week, Fox News Sunday brought on two congressmen, a Republican and a Democrat, to help the public get used to the idea that U.S. military action in Syria is coming.



Republican Senator Corker assured the public that he is certain the Syrian government is indeed responsible for the latest chemical weapons attack, based on his careful analysis of…social media.  Hey that's good enough for me. Who needs an actual investigation?  He also assures us that "we will respond in a surgical way." This of course means cruise missiles, as the other congressman later explains. But hey, so as long as it's surgical, OK?  Nothing could go wrong with that.  He gives a blanket endorsement to the "opposition," and encourages our training of them to be upgraded from covert to "industrial strength."

Host Chris Wallace doesn't question or challenge a single word. In fact he actually admonishes Corker for suggesting that the president wait two weeks until Congress comes back to get approval for military action.  In truth, Wallace is throwing a softball to Corker so Corker can reluctantly admit the president may just have to go ahead without Congress. Oh darn.

This leads to Wallace bringing on Rep. Engel, a Democrat, who takes his cue to increase the urgency factor, saying two times in one minute: "We have to move and we have to move quickly." He thinks the president should go ahead and "get started," and Congress can just show up later and approve it.

Obviously this is what this little pre-scripted show has been leading up to: a bi-partisan expression of support for the president's decision, already made, to act unilaterally to attack Syria, based on insufficient evidence and with zero acknowledgment of conflicting views, and zero interest in considering the deeper context of the situation. Now picture this scenario being repeated in every major distribution TV network, newspaper and magazine.

The real action is behind the scenes, orchestrated in secret by the CIA and their ilk. In front of the cameras, we hear the same hypocritical rhetoric, over and over again, justifying the inflicting of violence on one Middle Eastern country after another. It's almost like they're going down a list...



Just say no. Say no to a course of action that can only lead to the deaths of more Middle Eastern civilians by American hands; a course of action which will most likely lead to the deaths of American soldiers. Don't force any more soldiers' families to sing patriotic songs in order to justify the deaths of their sons and daughters for something that has nothing at all to do with our freedom or security, and everything to do with the self-serving agendas of a privileged few.

HUMANITARIAN HYPOCRISY

Just say no when the government claims it is acting on "humanitarian" grounds. Nothing could be further from the truth, or more hypocritical. The United States has no high ground of humanitarian virtue to stand on, and any attempt to do so must be understood as an attempt to deceive and deflect attention from actual agendas. Do we really need to recite the bloody facts of recent history? Perhaps we do:

1960's, Vietnam - the U.S. deliberately used one of the most toxic chemicals ever created, Agent Orange, a "defoliant," at such high levels that it became a de facto chemical weapon, resulting in the death and maiming of almost a million people, with severe disabling health effects on survivors and horrible birth defects afflicting hundreds of thousands more, including our own soldiers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange 
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/29/usa.adrianlevy

1980's, Iraq -  U.S. approved the sale of anthrax, bubonic plague, etc, to Iraq, and later provided Iraq with intelligence support for its campaign to use chemical weapons against Iran, and its own people.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-534798.html
 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran

2000's, Afghanistan and Iraq - U.S. used napalm, cluster bombs, white phosphorus and depleted uranium, universally understood to be intolerably cruel and brutal weapons, causing devastating impact on civilian populations.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/27-3
http://www.monbiot.com/2005/11/15/war-without-rules/

Is it unfair to blame our current leaders for the sins of the past? Perhaps, or perhaps the past informs us of the necessity to understand just how callous and inhumane our own government can be, and how easily they will lie about it. The past teaches us that we must be highly suspicious and distrustful when our leaders claim to be acting out of benevolent and humanitarian causes.

POLITICAL HYPOCRISY

The U.S is supporting Syrian "rebel" groups that oppose the Assad "regime," even though many of the rebels have openly aligned with Jabhat al-Nusra, a.k.a.  Al Nusra Front, the most radical and violent group of the rebel coalition, and known to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda. Al Nusra is a designated terrorist organization. Sounds awfully familiar.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/world/middleeast/us-designates-syrian-al-nusra-front-as-terrorist-group.html

CONFLICTING ARGUMENTS IGNORED

Secretary of State Kerry decisively condemned the Syrian government for the latest attack, even though proof of responsibility has not yet been established. Many other government officials have been rolled out to talk to the press, saying the exact same thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So1T1HdDpJw

This completely ignores a mounting body of evidence that the rebels are also in possession of chemical weapons. A U.N. inspector has already stated that pretty conclusively, back in June:
http://www.france24.com/en/20130506-syria-un-del-ponte-chemical-weapons-gas-rebels-assad

The mainstream media are lining up to cheer-lead the push, just as they did in the rush to war with Iraq. Again. isn't this all too damn familiar?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/27-2

You have to go to alternative outlets like Common Dreams to find intelligent, well-informed analysis and commentary providing views contrary to the official line.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/27

Sadly, their audience is tiny in comparison to the huge reach of of the mass media.

CONNECT THE DOTS

I know the implication here is provocative: that the rebels, having chemical weapons capability of their own,  would launch an attack that would kill their own people and allow it to be blamed on the Assad government, in order to provoke the U.S and NATO to enter the conflict on the opposition side.  There is the further implication that the U.S. supported this.  Is that too unthinkable, too conspiracy-ish?  Well again, history reminds us of the horrible, tragic consequences if we fail to be suspicious of dramatic events that lead to urgent calls for U.S. "intervention"…




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"Those who cannot remember the past..."

"...are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

It's a tired old saying, isn't it. But the fact is it speaks to the heart of the mess our society is in today: a tragic, pervasive lack of awareness about own history and how it relates to the events of today.

Forty-nine years ago today, on Aug. 7, 1964. U.S President Lyndon Johnson easily persuaded Congress to pass the "Gulf of Tonkin" resolution, giving the president broad powers to use military force against North Vietnam. This was in response to reports only five days previous, that American ships had been attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of North Vietnam. The mainstream media carried the stories provided to them by the government, and the drumbeat for war was pounded. Congress approved the resolution almost unanimously after a mere 10 hours of consideration. The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam.

The problem? The story of the attack presented to the public, and to Congress, was false, and top leadership knew it at the time. Read the Wikipedia entry for an introduction to how this happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

Here's a good quick summary, with commentary by Robert MacNamara, who was secretary of Defense at the time. After reading the Wikipedia, you can see how, all these years later, he is still deliberately obscuring key facts.



The resulting escalation in Vietnam went on for nine more years. It resulted in over 50,000 American troops dead, over 2 million dead Vietnamese, and finally, withdrawal with none of the ostensible objectives being achieved.

Starting to sound familiar? This clip makes the connections for you:



The media has always been a participant in this game, willing to be used to propagate the official line, not bothering to fact-check. The always reliable James Corbett of www.corbettreport.com provides a thorough and meticulously prepared reminder of how this has happened time and again.



Let's throw something else into the mix: Operation Northwoods. From ABC News:

In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

And of course Wikipedia has an entry about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

Here's a brief clip about it:



If this still sounds too conspiracy theory for you, follow this link
http://www.wanttoknow.info/010501operationnorthwoods
for articles, interviews and links to the declassified documents. (Thanks again to www.wanttoknow.info for being such a valuable resource.)

CONNECT THE DOTS
The relevance for us today should be obvious and simple. Based on what is now public knowledge about our government's past actions, we have the right, perhaps even a duty, to regard the words and deeds of our leaders today with intense scrutiny, distrust and suspicion. With history as a guide, it is not hard to see why we think it so likely that we are being misled every step of the way, by people who are pursuing their own self-serving agendas, unrestrained by any ethical boundaries whatsoever. And history also shows us that if we don't reject the lies and demand the truth, the results are certain to be tragic, destructive and futile.


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Media Coverage - We Lose Again

OK it's over. As you could guess, I would have been just as unsatisfied if the Republican had won instead of the Democrat. Both are merely emblematic of a system that is rotten, corrupted beyond repair. What I want to point out today is the enormous role of the major media in and the role they play in degrading the average person's understanding of current events, and thus contributing to the abhorrent state of affairs we find ourselves in.

I did not watch any of the campaign/election coverage on any of the major networks or news channels. I do not read the daily papers or national magazines on any regular basis. I do not follow any popular bloggers or Twitterers. Nevertheless I can tell you what the vast majority of the coverage was like:

1. The candidates were presented as personalities, celebrities, two-dimensional figures. The focus was not on their genuine character, but on how well they did at concocting an image/"brand" for themselves and selling it to the public.
2. Their activities were covered like a reality TV show or a sporting event. Emphasis on drama, winning/losing, crisis, scandal.
3. Genuine context and background exposition was absent from most analysis. Even if they wanted to, how could they when most of the time, coverage of any particular item only lasts one to two minutes?
4. The various media outlets and their star "journalists" knocked themselves out claiming that each was the most honest, independent, fair, balanced and tough in their reporting, while what you actually saw were egotistical media celebrities whose main talents are looking good, and a willingness to say and do just about anything to boost their ratings.

The net result is that the picture of reality presented by the mainstream media is, overall, an incredibly superficial one, in which the complex problems of the world are reduced to sketchy dramatic episodes, absent any sense of larger context, background or history. The thoughts of our leaders are reduced to sound bites. Media coverage, especially TV, degrades reality down to the TV paradigm - everything is reduced to short, commercialized bursts of entertainment that are expected to be quickly forgotten.

One might think that political figures would be unhappy with this state of affairs. But in fact for those at the top of the political milieu, this is just what they're looking for. It is useful for them to have the public accustomed to learning about the world in the most shallow, superficial, fragmented way, because by keeping the public awareness at that level, our political leaders can then come forward with bogus solutions to those problems, that in reality only support the agendas of themselves and their wealthy patrons.

People like to say the media is biased in either a "liberal" or "conservative" direction. While this may be superficially true, both are smokescreens for the larger bias - towards those with money and power. Especially as regards news and political coverage, those with the money and political clout get covered, period. This guarantees a very narrow range of views is ever presented, thus effectively marginalizing alternate perspectives, which in the real world are quite abundant.

The media are complicit in making us think it's only Coke or Pepsi. Red or blue. Us vs them. Freedom vs evil. This false reduction of reality down to a fake paradigm of only two choices is the big lie.

What do you think the consolidation of so much of the multimedia landscape down to just a handful of mega-corporations has to do with this? Hmm, another blog post...

This is not to say that there is no good information out there, or no good journalism going on. There most certainly is. But in today's world, we must go after it, seek it out, and find it for ourselves. It usually is just laying on the ground, un-noticed, waiting to be picked up, or it has fallen down the memory hole, and must be dug out. And even then, we must frequently do our own work to learn the actual context, history and background of the story for ourselves. It is always there, but almost no one in the mainstream media bothers to connect the dots. We have to do it for ourselves, and you know what? We're actually better off if we do.

There are some people whose work has been incredibly helpful to me, and has inspired me to work much harder at learning for myself, researching and thinking critically about what I see and hear. I will be highlighting their work in future blog posts, in hopes they might give someone else the kick start they gave me.

For this post I have leaned heavily on two brilliant books which I highly recommend:


 News: The Politics of Illusion (9th Edition, by W. Lance Bennett

and:


Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman