General Category => John F. Kennedy 1917 - 1963 => Topic started by: echelon on September 01, 2013, 07:01:17 AM

Title: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on September 01, 2013, 07:01:17 AM

[start edit]

I came back to this post after thinking about it during the day.  Perhaps it would be more useful to have a general thread in which members can record all interesting media reports in the lead up to the 50th, rather than just this particular one.  So I changed the title.  [Alan, can you move it to JFK General?]

What do you think?

Please feel free to add your own news stories.  Here is my first offering.

[end edit]

Oswald in Minsk (BBC report)

For members' interest, a BBC radio report from Minsk which attempts to follow in some of Oswald's footsteps.

Surprisingly balanced, I thought, for an MSM point of view:

Kate Adie (introduction): "It might be 50 years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but there is still heated debate about the circumstances of his death, and particularly about Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of killing him."

KA: "... and he [David Stern] found that people there still remember Kennedy's supposed killer ...".

David Stern (reporter): "Lee Harvey Oswald - his name can evoke a range of emotions: anger among those who believe him to be the lone gunman who assassinated President Kennedy, militant disbelief among those who don't.  And perhaps most of all, a yearning among those who want to know what exactly happened during those fateful November days in Dallas ...".

DS:  "I was not hoping to find the smoking gun, so to speak, conclusive proof that Oswald was, in fact, Kennedy's killer.  No, too many people had sifted through the details of Oswald's life ... and failed to come up with any nugget of evidence."

DS:  [reporting Ernst Titovets] "I couldn't believe my ears.  I deeply believe he was innocent.  He was incapable of killing anybody."

DS:  "No-one believed that Oswald could have assassinated the US President."

DS: [reporting Vladimir Dzedovich (sp?)] "If [you] ever go to Dallas, [please] lay some flowers on Oswald's grave, from [me] and the other colleagues at the factory."

DS:  "Dzedovich's appeal came from the heart.  He obviously cared for Oswald."

Maybe, just maybe, there is hope that one day the MSM facade will crack.  (OK, lock me up).

Full report available from:  www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fooc/all

Scroll down to the August 17th edition and download to listen.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Redfern on September 02, 2013, 02:30:18 PM

I don't pay much attention to the media these days.

In fairness, most of the comments seem reasonable, although I suspect we'll see something of a LN onslaught in the months ahead.


The BBC lowered its standards on the 40th anniversary with a programme based on Gerald Posner's nonsense.

One senior journalist (Gavin Esler) and a prominent contrivbutor (David Aaronovich) bought into this.

Title: JFK versus The Military
Post by: echelon on September 12, 2013, 05:59:58 AM

I understand that this writer is an adherent of the Oswald-done-it theory.  Nevertheless, his article does illustrate nicely the stresses and strains between JFK and his military chiefs in the years leading up to Dallas.

We are free to decide if this adds weight to the MIC-done-it theory.

JFK vs. the Military
by Robert Dallek

The Atlantic
August 2013

From the start of his presidency, Kennedy feared that the Pentagon brass would overreact to Soviet provocations and drive the country into a disastrous nuclear conflict. The Soviets might have been pleased—or understandably frightened—to know that Kennedy distrusted America’s military establishment almost as much as they did.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff reciprocated the new president’s doubts. Lemnitzer made no secret of his discomfort with a 43-year-old president who he felt could not measure up to Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former five-star general Kennedy had succeeded. Lemnitzer was a West Point graduate who had risen in the ranks of Eisenhower’s World War II staff and helped plan the successful invasions of North Africa and Sicily. The 61-year-old general, little known outside military circles, stood 6 feet tall and weighed 200 pounds, with a bearlike frame, booming voice, and deep, infectious laugh. Lemnitzer’s passion for golf and his ability to drive a ball 250 yards down a fairway endeared him to Eisenhower. More important, he shared his mentor’s talent for maneuvering through Army and Washington politics. Also like Ike, he wasn’t bookish or particularly drawn to grand strategy or big-picture thinking—he was a nuts-and-bolts sort of general who made his mark managing day-to-day problems.

To Kennedy, Lemnitzer embodied the military’s old thinking about nuclear weapons. The president thought a nuclear war would bring mutually assured destruction—MAD, in the shorthand of the day—while the Joint Chiefs believed the United States could fight such a conflict and win. Sensing Kennedy’s skepticism about nukes, Lemnitzer questioned the new president’s qualifications to manage the country’s defense. Since Eisenhower’s departure, he lamented in shorthand, no longer was “a Pres with mil exp available to guide JCS.” When the four-star general presented the ex-skipper with a detailed briefing on emergency procedures for responding to a foreign military threat, Kennedy seemed preoccupied with possibly having to make “a snap decision” about whether to launch a nuclear response to a Soviet first strike, by Lemnitzer’s account. This reinforced the general’s belief that Kennedy didn’t sufficiently understand the challenges before him.

[...]

During the Cold War, LeMay was prepared to launch a preemptive nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. He dismissed civilian control of his decision making, complained of an American phobia about nuclear weapons, and wondered privately, “Would things be much worse if Khrushchev were secretary of defense?” Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy’s speechwriter and alter ego, called LeMay “my least favorite human being.”

The strains between the generals and their commander in chief showed up in exasperating ways. When Bundy asked the Joint Chiefs’ staff director for a copy of the blueprint for nuclear war, the general at the other end of the line said, “We never release that.” Bundy explained, “I don’t think you understand. I’m calling for the president and he wants to see [it].” The chiefs’ reluctance was understandable: their Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan foresaw the use of 170 atomic and hydrogen bombs in Moscow alone; the destruction of every major Soviet, Chinese, and Eastern European city; and hundreds of millions of deaths. Sickened by a formal briefing on the plan, Kennedy turned to a senior administration official and said, “And we call ourselves the human race.”

[...]

“The first thing I’m going to tell my successor,” Kennedy told guests at the White House, “is to watch the generals, and to avoid feeling that just because they were military men, their opinions on military matters were worth a damn.”

Persuading the military chiefs to refrain from attacking the test-ban treaty in public required intense pressure from the White House and the drafting of treaty language permitting the United States to resume testing if it were deemed essential to national safety. LeMay, however, testifying before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, could not resist planting doubts: Kennedy and McNamara had promised to keep testing nuclear weaponry underground and to continue research and development in case circumstances changed, he said, but they had not discussed “whether what [the chiefs] consider an adequate safeguard program coincides with their idea on the subject.” The Senate decisively approved the treaty nonetheless.

This gave Kennedy yet another triumph over a cadre of enemies more relentless than the ones he faced in Moscow. The president and his generals suffered a clash of worldviews, of generations—of ideologies, more or less—and every time they met in battle, JFK’s fresher way of fighting prevailed.


www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2013/08/jfk-vs-the-military/309496/

Title: The Kennedy Assassination - The Reunion (BBC Radio 4)
Post by: echelon on September 12, 2013, 07:28:15 AM

A BBC Radio 4 programme on the Kennedy assassination.
First broadcast 1st September 2013.

In this special 100th edition of The Reunion recorded in Dallas, Sue MacGregor reunites five people who were intimately connected to the events surrounding the Kennedy assassination: Clint Hill, the former Secret Service agent who frantically climbed up the back of the presidential limousine as the shots rang out; Gayle Newman, who stood with her young family in Dealey Plaza and became one of the closest eyewitnesses; Hugh Aynesworth, then of the Dallas Morning News, who reported on the events in November 1963, Kenneth Salyer, who was part of the medical team at Parkland Hospital, desperately trying to revive the President; and James Leavelle, retired Dallas Homicide Detective, who was famously handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when he was shot by Jack Ruby.

Sadly, in the preamble to this programme it says:

In Dealey Plaza, Kennedy was shot in the head by an assassin's bullet. Less than half an hour after the shooting, 75 million Americans had heard the news. President Kennedy was declared dead at 1pm, Dallas time.  Within three chaotic days, three murders rocked the city of Dallas. After President Kennedy, police officer J.D. Tippit was shot and killed by the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, who himself was later fatally shot on live television.

... but who knows, the interviewees might say something interesting (I haven't listened to it yet).  Probably they won't.

Actually, I don't know if our friends outside the UK can listen to this programme in any case, but please let me know.  I offer you two links that might work:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039b6w0

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b039b6w0/The_Reunion_The_Kennedy_Assassination/

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on September 13, 2013, 05:52:53 AM

[I feel as though I am talking to myself]

The JFK anniversary: What if Kennedy had lived?

The New Statesman
By James Blight and Janet Lang
15th August 2013

The two writers hypothesise about what might have happened had Kennedy lived.

www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/jfk-anniversary-what-if-kennedy-had-lived


Would the world have been a better place if John Kennedy had lived?

The Daily Telegraph
By Tim Stanley
8th August 2013

The writer takes offence (in advance) to almost every point raised by Blight and Lang!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100230215/would-the-world-have-been-a-better-place-if-john-kennedy-had-lived/

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on September 13, 2013, 09:36:56 AM

Thanks for posting the Dallek article, Echelon. That was a good one. I wonder if Dallek and historians like him privately suspect something different about JFK's death, but fear it would not be "good for the country" to talk about it.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on September 13, 2013, 10:24:19 AM

I'm reading Joseph McBride's new book Into the Nightmare. He was 16 when JFK was killed, came from a political family of activist Democrats, and was a big Kennedy fan (he actually met him a few times).

He describes how the entire country sat in front of televisions for 4 days being assured about the "orderly transfer of power," the "stability of the American system" during the non-stop news coverage with no commercials or other TV shows. He feels the public, and many people overseas, were lulled into a passive state of acceptance by the media, with people like Cronkite reassuring them that everything was OK, nothing would change, this random act of madness could not upset the American system.   

Title: Jerome Corsi - Who Really Killed Kennedy?
Post by: echelon on September 22, 2013, 05:41:37 AM

Investigative journalist Dr. Jerome Corsi tells NewsmaxTV that Oswald didn't act alone in assassinating President Kennedy.  Corsi says the CIA was involved in the killing that Corsi describes as a triumph of the "new world order".

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ-gC4p_lUE

Title: Re: JFK versus The Military
Post by: echelon on October 05, 2013, 07:41:14 PM

[Text deleted - the system keeps chopping off the latter part of the post, and I haven't time to re-edit and repost it right now.

BTW I encounter this same problem on two different computer platforms.]

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Cutty on October 05, 2013, 09:12:54 PM

^ Computer platforms? Such as Mac or Windows?

Did you see my reply to you, echelon, in another thread about trying alternate browsers? Helluva thing, most members aren't having the problem. We have seen updates to browsers cause some temporary incompatibility in the past and actually had a member unable to sign on from his computer yet he could go over to his sister's house and get in. ???

Title: Re: JFK versus The Military
Post by: echelon on October 06, 2013, 05:07:55 AM

Quote from: echelon on September 12, 2013, 05:59:58 AM

JFK vs. the Military
by Robert Dallek

The Atlantic
August 2013

From the start of his presidency, Kennedy feared that the Pentagon brass would overreact to Soviet provocations and drive the country into a disastrous nuclear conflict. The Soviets might have been pleased - or understandably frightened - to know that Kennedy distrusted America's military establishment almost as much as they did.

[...]

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2013/08/jfk-vs-the-military/309496/

Jeff Morley discusses Dallek's article over at JFK Facts:

Dallek would probably say there is no evidence to connect the Northwoods schemes to the events in Dallas. But the fact that the Northwoods documents were hidden from JFK investigators and the public for 35 years and were then uncovered by an independent civilian review panel looking for JFK assassination records is surely worth mentioning. Maybe Dallek will elaborate in his book.

Others see a media conspiracy to protect the national security state. I think Dallek()s all-too-typical lack of curiosity is more the product of a liberal culture where the efficacy and integrity of the federal government is idealized and [where] being perceived as a JFK conspiracy theorist imposes serious professional costs.

Outside of the the ivory tower and the newsrooms, where believing JFK was killed by his enemies does not have negative material consequences, I find people are much more open-minded about the causes of JFK()s assassination (hyphen) and often just as well informed.

One definition of denial is (quote) a state of mind marked by a refusal or an inability to recognize and deal with a serious personal problem (unquote). The reality of the JFK assassination story isn()t Dallek()s personal problem. But it is a serious national political problem that isn()t going away, even if professional historians shy from talking about it. Indeed we can already see that the JFK questions are returning in a media tsunami that will crest on November 22, 2013.

Dallek()s illuminating account of JFK()s struggles with the national security barons of his own government also illuminates the state of mind called denial.

http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/dallek-denial-and-jfk-assassination-story/

[Some apostrophes, double apostrophes and hyphens removed.  The system appears to cut the text at the point they appear.  Other hyphens and apostrophes appear OK.  Weird!]

Title: Re: The Kennedy Assassination - The Reunion (BBC Radio 4)
Post by: echelon on October 07, 2013, 04:02:32 AM

A BBC Radio 4 programme on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
First broadcast 15th September 2013.

On the evening of 22 October 1962 President John F Kennedy announced to a shocked American nation that Soviet missile sites had been discovered in Cuba. While much of the western world held its breath, terrified by the prospect of imminent nuclear war, what was happening in the USSR and Cuba? Until now little has been known about what was happening inside Khrushchev's Kremlin and Castro's Havana headquarters. Using documents from the KGB archive and interviews with key Soviet and Cuban insiders who were present as the crisis unfolded, the BBC's former Moscow correspondent Allan Little pieces together the "untold" side of the story.

Hopefully, if you are outside the UK you can still listen to this programme (45 mins).  Please let me know.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039kv61


[Admin, please can we move this thread to the general JFK board.  Thanks.]

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Cutty on October 07, 2013, 09:30:54 AM

Yes, it plays fine, thank you!  ;)

Title: 50 years of conspiracy in fiction and film
Post by: echelon on November 03, 2013, 05:43:36 AM

John F. Kennedy assassination: 50 years of conspiracy in fiction and film
By Colin Kidd

The Guardian
Friday 1 November 2013

The grassy knoll. The book depository. Any further description of the location is superfluous. We know where we are, and when. Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963: the scene of the assassination of President John F Kennedy. History assumes mythic proportions when its very familiarity requires no further explanation or scene-setting; when it provides instead a well-signposted point of departure for artistic creativity. The matter of Dallas has been as resonant in the fiction and film of the past half century as the story of the  Trojan war was in the literature of classical antiquity. Only Hitler and the Nazis rival its influence on the modern imagination.

Yet the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination will not be marked by consensus. Two contrasting versions of these mythic events remain in circulation, as hotly disputed on the web today as they were in radical magazines during the 1960s. Are we commemorating the meaningless assassination of Kennedy by a lone dysfunctional misfit, Lee Harvey Oswald, who fired on the presidential motorcade from behind, from a window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository? Or are we marking a much more sinister incident, the shooting of Kennedy by more than one gunman, including, perhaps, a sniper on the grassy knoll firing at the president from the front? If the latter, was this a conspiracy so successful that the authorities still, for whatever reason, don't - or won't, or can't - acknowledge it?


It's all a world of wackos with febrile imaginations, right?  Move along, sir.  There's nothing to see here.

Sadly (or perhaps not) no mention of two other sweeping works of fiction - Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi, and Case Closed by Gerald Posner!


www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/01/john-f-kennedy-assassination-50-years-conspiracy-books-film/

Title: Who shot JFK? [Don't] ask Hugh Aynesworth
Post by: echelon on November 03, 2013, 06:30:49 AM

Who shot JFK? Ask the man who was there
By Nigel Richardson

The Daily Telegraph
Friday 1 November 2013

An interview with Hugh Aynesworth, formerly a reporter with the Dallas Morning News.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10420732/Who-shot-JFK-Ask-the-man-who-was-there.html

It contains so many old canards that I can't bring myself to highlight a single quote.

Oh, go on.

OK, one then.

But [Aynesworth] has always refused to make a killing from the killing. "Who do you think, given my background, would like to 'solve' the assassination more than me? God! All I can say is, there's not one scintilla of evidence to the contrary [that both Oswald and Ruby acted alone]."

"He's a beautifully humble man," chips in [his wife] Paula. "If he was a liar, he'd be so rich."


Hold that thought, lady.


[Edit - had to replace all the single and double quotes to get the full text to post.]

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 03, 2013, 07:34:04 AM

From a 1967 letter by researcher Shirley Martin after she spoke to Aynesworth:

"Aynesworth was extremely bitter that Merriman Smith had won the Pulitzer for his coverage of the assassination. Aynesworth sarcastically remarked that Smith "did nothing and saw less" on the day in question, whereas he, Aynisworth was "...the only reporter in America to make all four big scenes."
In addition, Aynesworth boasted that a Commission attorney had already confided to him (in July) what the Commission verdict was to be (in September). Oswald would be named, but according to Aynesworth it was in reality "...a communist plot. Warren will do a cover-up for Moscow."
Aynesworth insisted that Marina had had an affair with him after the assassination, and that during this period she had revealed to him that she and Ruth Paine had shared a Lesbian relationship prior to November 22, 1963. Aynesworth also declared that he had been on 10th Street "looking down on the Tippit murder scene at 1:05pm, not later than 1:10..." on November 22nd. Needless to say, the "only reporter in America" to be in on all four "big scenes" was NOT called to testify before the Warren Commission, which did, however, call Thayer Waldo, Fort Worth reporter, because he had been in the police basement when Ruby shot Oswald. Finally, I have the statement by an employee of the Dallas Morning News that Aynesworth was deliberately and ILLEGALLY given the allegedly stolen Oswald diary story by a Commission attorney who was in Dallas on business at that time. Earl Warren later put the FBI on the trail of this illegal "leak", but as was to be expected no discoveries were made. This, then, is the man chosen by Newsweek to rebut you. What a pity Newsweek's taste is so concentrated in its tail.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 03, 2013, 07:34:57 AM

Yay! Looks like we've got the paste feature fixed.  :)

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on November 03, 2013, 09:30:41 AM

Quote from: TLR on November 03, 2013, 07:34:57 AM

Yay! Looks like we've got the paste feature fixed.  :)

Umm.

Well, I can copy and paste from a Word document if that is what you mean.  I've had to do that as a precautionary measure for months given that the system still cuts text from some posts.

However, in my earlier post on this thread I had to manually replace all the original apostrophes and double apostrophes.  If I did not the system cut the text at those points.  So in that sense the problem is not resolved.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Alan Dale on November 03, 2013, 10:11:01 AM

I'm very grateful for the persistence required.

I appreciate the participation of all.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 03, 2013, 10:41:12 AM

Actually, see my post on the Essential List for more about the problem.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on November 05, 2013, 05:16:35 AM

The reclusive widow of Lee Harvey Oswald
By Lizzie Parry and Damien Gayle

The Daily Mail
Saturday, 2 November 2013

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485077/Pictured-time-25-years-The-reclusive-widow-Lee-Harvey-Oswald-lives-fear-killed-Secret-Service-turned-3m-talk-JFK-assassination-ahead-50-year-anniversary.html

She could be just another pensioner out for her weekly shop. But the guarded and fearful look in this woman's eyes tells a different story. Fifty years ago, her life changed forever when gunshots rang out across Dallas's Dealey Plaza and John F Kennedy died before a crowd of thousands.

She is the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald, the former marine who was blamed for the assassination of the U.S.'s most loved president of the modern era. Astonishingly, these are the first images of reclusive Marina Oswald in 25 years.

[...]

Immediately after the assassination the then mother-of-two told the Warren Commission investigating the assassination that she thought her 24-year-old husband was guilty. But after reading some of the 40,000 books and conspiracy theories about the shooting, she - like the majority of U.S. citizens - has changed her mind.

She now believes that the truth of Kennedy's murder has been hidden by a cover up at the highest levels of the U.S. state. Close friend and documentary film maker Keya Morgan, said Mrs Porter now believes her first husband was set up to take the fall for conspirators in the CIA and Mafia. The grandmother is said to be convinced her phones are still tapped by the Secret Service and lives in fear of being targeted and killed by spooks herself.

[...]

Oswald met Marina Prusakova while living in Minsk in 1961. The former U.S. Marine had defected to the Soviet Union two years earlier, but soon began to have second thoughts about his decision. Six weeks after meeting Marina, then a 19-year-old pharmacology student, they were married. The next year Oswald took his new wife and their four-month-old daughter back to America. The couple settled in Dallas but struggled to find a place for their young family and Oswald was living apart from Marina and their two young daughters when President Kennedy was shot dead on November 22, 1963. The night before the assassination she remembers him bringing his rifle to her home and putting it in the garage. The next day, she noticed it was gone.


Does anybody remember hearing this before?  That Oswald brought his rifle to the Paine house on the Thursday evening?  Or is this just the Daily Mail ... err ... misspeaking?

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 05, 2013, 08:38:47 PM

I've never heard that before. It is the Daily Fail, after all. Either the writer got careless, or he mixed up the story about the paper bag.

Title: Some JFK assassination files still sealed
Post by: echelon on November 06, 2013, 04:17:38 AM

5 decades later, some JFK assassination files still sealed
By Associated Press

The Washington Post
November 3, 2013

Five decades after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot and long after official inquiries ended, thousands of pages of investigative documents remain withheld from public view. The contents of these files are partially known - and intriguing - and conspiracy buffs are not the only ones seeking to open them for a closer look. Some serious researchers believe the off-limits files could shed valuable new light on nagging mysteries of the assassination - including what U.S. intelligence agencies knew about accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald before Nov. 22, 1963.

It turns out that several hundred of the still-classified pages concern a deceased CIA agent, George Joannides, whose activities just before the assassination and, fascinatingly, during a government investigation years later, have tantalized researchers for years. “This is not about conspiracy, this is about transparency,” said Jefferson Morley, a former Washington Post reporter and author embroiled in a decade-long lawsuit against the CIA, seeking release of the closed documents. “I think the CIA should obey the law. I don’t think most people think that’s a crazy idea.”

[...]

[P]lenty was learned about Oswald after the shooting in Dallas. And, it’s now clear, he was not unknown to the U.S. government before that. Assassination investigators learned that Oswald had formed a group in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 that ostensibly supported Cuban leader Fidel Castro (Oswald was the only local member) and had been involved in a street altercation with anti-Castro demonstrators that was captured by a local television station.

Pamphlets Oswald had in his possession bore an address of a local anti-Castro operation connected to a former FBI agent with ties to organized crime, investigators discovered. That and other information has led researchers to believe that Oswald may have been part of a counterintelligence operation to discredit the group he had joined, the Fair Play For Cuba Committee, and that the street scene was a setup.

If so, who would have overseen such an operation?

Declassified documents show that Joannides, while based in Miami, was the CIA case officer for the anti-Castro Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE), the group involved in the street fracas with Oswald.

Wow!  This seems quite open, truthful and neutral from the Washington Post.  What is going on?  Am I missing something?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/5-decades-later-some-jfk-assassination-files-still-sealed-researchers-demand-transparency/2013/11/03/768eb13e-4496-11e3-95a9-3f15b5618ba8_story.html

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on November 06, 2013, 04:22:31 AM

Quote from: TLR on November 05, 2013, 08:38:47 PM

I've never heard that before. It is the Daily Fail, after all. Either the writer got careless, or he mixed up the story about the paper bag.

Or ... something more sinister?

It's so easy to get paranoid about these things.  But it is concerning that so many newspaper reports drift off into myth and speculation, but always at the expense of Oswald.

If they were truly genuine mistakes, you would expect a more random set of errors.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 06, 2013, 08:43:31 PM

The mainstream media is almost as bad as Fox when it comes to just making stuff up, so it's hard to tell.

The AP/Post story is surprising, but they have a history of occasionally writing a good story (usually buried in the back of the paper).

Title: 50 years on and no end to questions. Who said that?
Post by: echelon on November 09, 2013, 05:24:05 AM

50 years on, no end to questions on JFK death
AFP

The Times of India
2 November 2013

A syndicated story which tells us nothing new.  But at least it gets to appear in several newspapers worldwide, including The Times of India, The China Post, The Taipei Times, etc. ...

For Jesse Ventura, the professional wrestler turned independent politician, John F Kennedy was the greatest president in modern US history - and the proof lies in his 1963 assassination.

"They wouldn't even let him do one term. That's what showed his greatness," said Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota and author of the new book, "They Killed Our President."

Ventura believes that Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas probably because he sought to make peace with the Soviet Union and challenge the military-industrial complex following the CIA's botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.


http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-11-02/us/43610867_1_jesse-ventura-assassination-warren-commission

Title: JFK and me: pictures of the president
Post by: echelon on November 11, 2013, 04:47:44 AM

JFK and me: pictures of the president
Interviews by Corinne Jones, Kathy Sweeney, Killian Fox and Ursula Kenny

The Observer
Sunday, 10 November 2013

John F Kennedy's untimely death has meant that the president remained for many a symbol of youth and promise, frozen in time in a series of iconic photographs. To mark the 50th anniversary of his assassination we ask those whose paths crossed his to choose the photograph of him that means most to them – and to tell us why.


www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/10/john-f-kennedy-jfk-50-years-photographs

Title: Calls to exhume JFK
Post by: echelon on November 17, 2013, 05:01:44 AM

Calls to exhume John F Kennedy and finally solve JFK murder riddle
By James Murray

The Sunday Express
November 17 2013

THE body of US president John F Kennedy should be exhumed for analysis by forensic experts to see if he was the victim of a military-style ambush by several assassins, a British author said last night.

[...]

As the world remembers the 50th anniversary of the assassination this Friday, [Matthew Smith] says the macabre demand could finally resolve the greatest mystery of the past century.

[...]

Mr Smith believes Oswald was a CIA spy, who was also doing shady work for the FBI. He believes the shot to his back did come from the sixth floor of the depository or another nearby building, but Oswald was not the shooter. He also claims two other rifle shots came from two different positions on the grassy knoll to the front and right of the presidential Lincoln, the first bullet hit him in the throat. The fatal shot, he says, came from another assassin on the knoll and entered his right temple before exploding out of the rear of his head.


www.express.co.uk/news/world/443466/EXCLUSIVE-Calls-to-exhume-John-F-Kennedy-and-finally-solve-JFK-murder-riddle

Title: Kennedy's Nuclear Nightmare
Post by: echelon on November 17, 2013, 05:12:24 AM

Kennedy's Nuclear Nightmare

Channel 4 (UK television)
First broadcast Saturday, November 16, 2013

The story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, told in the words of key witnesses from the US, the former USSR and Cuba.

Actually, very fair and objective and it showed tantalising glimpses of the internal conflicts on the American side between JFK and the hawks in his government.

I don't know if you can see this outside the UK, but a playback option is here:

www.channel4.com/programmes/kennedys-nuclear-nightmare/4od#3608741

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Alan Dale on November 18, 2013, 01:39:39 AM

^ Thank you for sharing the link, ech...

Unfortunately, it looks like the video program may not be viewed in my area (which may mean my entire country).  I do appreciate the effort.

Have you seen JFK: A President Betrayed?

http://apresidentbetrayed.stta.us/

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on November 18, 2013, 04:24:30 AM

Yes, Alan, I suspect that playback is limited to UK IP addresses.

How do I watch A President Betrayed?  Is it on cable or pay TV?  The link you gave just shows a trailer.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 18, 2013, 10:01:43 AM

Echelon, it was only broadcast on one US cable channel, and is being shown in selected US theaters. I think they will be selling a DVD, and I expect someone will upload it to Youtube soon.

Title: John F. Kennedy – Treason Doth Never Prosper
Post by: echelon on November 18, 2013, 03:59:24 PM

(^ Thanks TLR)

John F. Kennedy – Treason Doth Never Prosper
By Daniel Worku

The Guardian Express
17 November 2013

The assassination is one of the most discussed and hotly debated events of the 20th century. Although there have been numerous “official reports” and statements released stating the “consensus” opinion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, the public appears to have resisted accepting that version of events, and maybe for good reason. Like many other landmark controversies throughout this nations history, the official story has been anything but flawless, leaving many a place for the conspiracy researchers to grasp onto as evidence to argue that a more coordinated action occurred. Listening and reading over the copious works expounding on the suggestion that the killing of John F Kennedy in Dealey Plaza was of a coordinated conspiratorial nature, one can certainly conclude that “treason doth never prosper.” This to suggest, that in the instance that some kind of conspiracy was indeed successfully executed, official answers would be the last thing to expect.

You can say that again.

John F Kennedy was also a man who occupied the highest post in the land during a momentous time in history. The cold war (along with fear of nuclear action) was in full swing, US-Russia relations were extremely fragile, Vietnam was claiming priceless lives, the US debt-based economy was in question, and the society-shaking civil rights movement was under way. Kennedy, like many a man in leadership had his hands full with issues known leave battle-scars like gray hairs and a creased brow. The position taken by Kennedy in a number of these matters along with others could certainly have left him with many an interest group, organization, and scorned individual fervently wishing him harm. John F Kennedy took the controversial position of wanting to end the Vietnam War, he took responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco (leaving an entire agency feeling abandoned and possibly embarrassed), he supported his Attorney General brother Bobby in his harsh stance toward the mafia, and he even signed executive order 11110 in accordance with a suggestion of the coinage of silver again. Certainly many a man has died for much less than the combination of these momentous actions. Whether these actions in themselves are grounds to conclude a conspiracy has been answered by the official channels such as the Warren Commission and others over and over, but the case has also been tried in the court of public opinion, and shows a nearly even split decision.

Oh dear.

As preparations for the the 50th anniversary of the assassination are being made, we can expect that the debate over lone gunman vs coordinated conspiracy will likely accompany the event. Born in 1561, [Sir John] Harington, the 16th century studied author and master of art has left some words that might comfort the conspiracy crowd of the John F Kennedy assassination, “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” So, even if there was a conspiracy, answers (though they may be inferred) would probably never be found.

Amen, brother.

My dear old gran would have said that the author is running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

I wonder why ...  ;)

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 18, 2013, 07:40:02 PM

I love that quote. And it really demonstrates the extent of the conspiracy. If it was just the Mafia or Castro or some Cuban exiles, they would have admitted that to us by now. We wouldn't be getting this pathetic deluge of propaganda from the "Free Press." 

Title: Just Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald
Post by: echelon on November 21, 2013, 08:56:36 AM

JFK Assassination: Just Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?
By Joseph Lazzaro

The International Business Times
18 November 2013

In September 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he assassinated President John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States and the only Roman Catholic elected to the office.  [...]

Further, the accepted and widely published profile of Oswald in the initial months and years after the assassination was that of a “low-achievement, socially isolated, ill-educated Communist determined to kill someone of significance in the United States.” He was portrayed in the media as “a revolutionary who sought a change in the economic order from capitalism to communism by violent means,” or as a “mentally unstable/crazy person,” or some combination of the above.  [...]

However, the release of documents and research by historians, assassination researchers and other investigators indicates that Oswald was a much different person than the one who was initially portrayed after the assassination of President Kennedy. Further, some of the recent, hard evidence on Oswald - far from confirming a low-achievement individual - reveals that he was a multiskilled individual who had a number of accomplishments. And while other pieces of hard evidence increase historians' clarity about various periods in Oswald’s life, much of it nevertheless begs other questions.

Leading to (cue drum roll):

18 Questions That May Get the Nation Closer To The Truth


www.ibtimes.com/jfk-assassination-just-who-was-lee-harvey-oswald-1474038


Also by this author:

www.ibtimes.com/jfk-assassination-cia-lee-harvey-oswald-questions-remain-1472050

www.ibtimes.com/jfk-assassination-50-years-later-dealey-plaza-it-always-nov-22-1963-1450282

www.ibtimes.com/jfk-assassination-50th-anniversary-4-files-cia-must-make-public-analysis-1440286

Title: [Did the] CIA and mafia kill JFK? Does a bear ...?
Post by: echelon on November 21, 2013, 09:09:10 AM

I think we are getting a bit desperate when we have to rely on the Russians to get indignant about assassinations (and I'm not sure about the "mainstream" tag either), but here goes ...

CIA and mafia kill John F. Kennedy?
Author unknown

The Voice of Russia
Published 20 November 2013

The House Select Committee on Assassinations established in 1976 was on the right path to find out who really killed President Kennedy but the CIA pressed to prevent further investigation, states David Talbot, American progressive journalist and writer. In an exclusive interview with "Voice of Russia" the author of bestselling book "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years" revealed who assassinated Kennedy.  [...]

So which theory of the assassination of JFK do you personally support, which do you consider most plausible and why?

I think it has become quite clear by now - fifty years later - that President Kennedy was the victim of high-level plot, conspiracy within his own government. The Kennedy presidency split apart over the issue of the Cold War. And Kennedy, who was very concerned about the possibility of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, was determined to end the Cold War in
partnership with Premiere Khrushchev.  [...]

Why was the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations established only in 1976, 13 years after Kennedy's murder? Was it somehow connected with President Ford's activities against the CIA and the FBI and the Church committee investigation on the CIA?

I think there was a process of the truth actually starting to come out in America 10-15 years after the assassination of President Kennedy. And that was a result of a crisis in the US political system because of the Vietnam War, because of the Watergate scandal during President Richard Nixon's administration. And because of this political crisis the system itself began to crack open and the truth started to leak out. President Ford and his administration put together a commission under his vice-president Nelson Rockefeller to begin to look into some of the CIA scandals. That was allegedly a cover-up as well. But then under Senator Frank Church the following year more truth began to come out. And, finally, because there was so much public and political pressure to get to the truth about the CIA scandals and the possible connection of the CIA and organized crime to President Kennedy's assassination, a congressional committee the House Select Committee on Assassinations was established. They delivered their report in 1979 and that was a shocking report. Most people in America, not to mention across the world are not aware of this report. But that report by the Committee of Congress in 1979 overturned the official version of the JFK assassination, the Warren Commission. It said that President Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy.


http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_11_20/CIA-and-mafia-kill-John-F-Kennedy-7549

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: D.K.Garretson on November 21, 2013, 10:01:50 PM

Here's a short film posted today:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/11/21/november_22_1963_documentary_errol_morris_short_film_on_jfk_assassination.html

Yes, the photo evidence lays it out, but obviously 'Tink' is unaware of Fiester's work, or unwilling to get into that discussion in this film.  And to suggest we don't know the 'why'? Is Douglass' work not clear enough? And to suggest JFK's murder was not a "tectonic" shift, on the level with a Pearl Harbor or a 9/11? Is this just ignorance? or purposeful omission?  Or maybe I'm the crazy one ;-)

Ken

Title: JFK had a large wound at the back of his head
Post by: echelon on November 22, 2013, 04:20:36 AM

Rest in peace, Mr President.

This is a good day not to watch any news programmes or TV specials, as we all know what they will do to you (again).

However, at least one person is still on your side, 50 years after the event:

JFK had a large wound at the back of his head

Piers Morgan on CNN
Broadcast on 13 November, 2013

Dr Robert Jones was one of the first doctors at Parkland to try to save the President's life.  He discusses what he saw with Piers Morgan.

"We thought he'd probably been shot, chest or the abdomen, and we could revive him and take care of him surgically, but when we reached the emergency room, that was a different story," said Jones, the then Chief Resident at Parkland Hospital. "As soon as I walked into Trauma Room One and saw him – Mrs. [Jacqueline] Kennedy was on the left inside the room – he was on a stretcher, arms were out on arm boards, and I saw a small wound in his neck, but I knew he had a large wound in the back of his head and I saw no evidence of life."

(Emphasis added).

How incredible (and predictable) that Morgan does not react in any way to this bald and on the record statement.  What a magnificent exemplar of an investigative journalist ...

(Thanks to Anthony DeFiore for spotting it).

http://piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/13/dr-ronald-jones-on-seeing-jfk-arrive-at-the-hospital-after-being-shot-i-knew-he-had-a-large-wound-in-the-back-of-his-head-and-i-saw-no-evidence-of-life/

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 22, 2013, 01:39:00 PM

Morgan probably didn't recognize the significance of the statement; nobody else at CCN likely did either, which is why they let him say it.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on November 23, 2013, 06:38:39 AM

Quote from: D.K.Garretson on November 21, 2013, 10:01:50 PM

Here's a short film posted today:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/11/21/november_22_1963_documentary_errol_morris_short_film_on_jfk_assassination.html

Yes, the photo evidence lays it out, but obviously 'Tink' is unaware of Fiester's work, or unwilling to get into that discussion in this film.  And to suggest we don't know the 'why'? Is Douglass' work not clear enough? And to suggest JFK's murder was not a "tectonic" shift, on the level with a Pearl Harbor or a 9/11? Is this just ignorance? or purposeful omission?  Or maybe I'm the crazy one ;-)

Ken

(05'55) "The beauty of all this is ... Look, none of this stuff is controlled by the government.  It's pristine, as it were.  It's a great source of evidence."

Yes ... probably.  The difficulty is that the government allowed a private organisation to hide away from public view for 12 years one of the most important pieces of this "pristine" evidence.  Then some frames from it were (ooops) printed "accidentally out of order".  Other pieces of this pristine evidence were (ooops) "lost" in the system, never to be seen again.  Others were (ooops) "accidentally damaged" in very relevant and therefore suspicious areas.

Not conclusive of anything at all, of course, but if you want to be perceived as a reputable researcher you would think that you would mention it.  In the interests of balance, if nothing else.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: D.K.Garretson on November 23, 2013, 09:05:52 AM

yep yep....that quote is a perfect example of how these shows mislead

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Leslie Sharp on November 23, 2013, 02:45:29 PM

"Morgan probably didn't recognize the significance of the statement; nobody else at CCN likely did either, which is why they let him say it."

Speaking of which, did anyone catch the phrase buried in Bishop Farrell's invocation:  ". . . from the shock and horror that gripped our nation|and from the years when we as citizens of this city suffered and were implicated by the gun shot by one man that killed a President in whom many of us had set our hopes and dreams for a better America."

I suppose one could give the Bishop the benefit of doubt and not accuse him of obfuscating - one bullet, well maybe two or ?, fired by one person - which one? -  did bring an end to Kennedy's life. But surely he knew the nuances that would be imposed on his words.  The organizers of the commemoration most certainly knew what they were doing by selecting a Dublin-born priest to tug at the heartstrings, but they maintained control in that Farrell came out of one of the most conservative, in fact it has been labeled neocon, religious orders (the Legionaires of Christ) in the Roman Catholic church. 

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Kelly on November 23, 2013, 03:20:00 PM

So po'ed at NBC, Tom Brokaw, et al concerning their news special last night (Nov. 22, 2013). All through the broadcast all they talked about was Oswald alone doing the shooting, JFK shot from the rear in the back of the head, etc. Is this the way it's going to stand? I'm so discouraged about this. They act as though there's no question that Oswald was the lone shooter and all the other fiction the Warren Commission and their supporters have spewed out all these years. This is so sad.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on November 24, 2013, 08:31:48 AM

Don't let your blood boil, Kelly.

You should have known it would be like this.  The 50th was always going to be stage-managed down to the nth degree.  Now that the anniversary is over, the cameras and lights can move on, and we can get back to a steady, sober analysis of what really happened that dreadful day.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on November 24, 2013, 11:33:47 AM

Quote from: Kelly on November 23, 2013, 03:20:00 PM

So po'ed at NBC, Tom Brokaw, et al concerning their news special last night (Nov. 22, 2013). All through the broadcast all they talked about was Oswald alone doing the shooting, JFK shot from the rear in the back of the head, etc. Is this the way it's going to stand? I'm so discouraged about this. They act as though there's no question that Oswald was the lone shooter and all the other fiction the Warren Commission and their supporters have spewed out all these years. This is so sad.

This is the way it's been since 1964. How much media coverage did the MLK civil trial get? It should have been front-page news. Fortunately, fewer and fewer people are paying attention to the corporate media anymore.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: Kelly on November 24, 2013, 02:25:35 PM

Hi tlr. You are right, but they still have a way of coming off as the "know it all" and "official" experts of every tragedy and situation.  I guess if any of the reporters had a backbone, they would be banned and lose their jobs. This is just so sad and upsetting to me. I don`t know what I was expecting, but it wasn`t this.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on December 09, 2013, 05:01:15 AM

I think that this thread has had its day and should now be filed away in a dark corner, at least for ten more years.

Nonetheless ... one last throw of the dice (actually two long articles) by Pat Speer:

For decades now, single-assassin theorists and media pundits have been claiming 1) that the majority of Americans believe President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy because they've been exposed to so much conspiracy-oriented material, and 2) the creators of the conspiracy-oriented material do so to make money, because that's where the real money is, in claiming Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. These are truly some of the BIGGEST LIES ever told about the assassination. And yet they are repeated over and over. So, on the lead-up to the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination I decided to put this to the test, and record how much conspiracy-oriented material is pushed upon the public, versus how much Oswald did-it-all-by-his-lonesome-and-we-should-all-get-over-it material is pushed upon the public.

Part 1 - http://www.patspeer.com/the-onslaught

Part 2 - http://www.patspeer.com/the-onslaught-part2

(Only for those with a strong constitution - pun intended).

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on December 10, 2013, 10:32:48 AM

That was amazing. I don't know how Speer sat through all of that.

I've always felt that an entire (lengthy) book could be written on the media and the JFK assassination. No one has ever done it to my knowledge.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on December 10, 2013, 11:34:23 AM

Yes TLR, I have to admit I only skimmed his articles as I knew more or less what they contained.  He obviously has more staying power than me.

I also believe that both (a) the Phase 2 cover-up by the government and its associated agencies and (b) the failure of the media to follow-up anything of note are in many respects more serious concerns than the actual assassination itself.  After all, the killing was simply a criminal act.  The reactions to it demonstrate how far from the principles of the Founding Fathers America has fallen.

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: echelon on December 11, 2013, 07:41:55 PM

Larry Hancock comments on Speer's efforts over at EF:

All of which is idle speculation against one outstanding fact, the news media are simply not going to stand up one day and say hey, we, the established networks,  news services and our whole industry plus all of our most respected predecessors and the people who received our awards over the last few decades - including the most beloved nightly news figures in America - missed the biggest investigative story of the last century - but trust us, we are on top of it now.   That is just not going to happen.  The most you are going to get is just what we got - hey, I might have missed something but nobody else has come up with any solid proof of conspiracy so its unlikely we will ever know for sure.  Which of course is just about the best we did get.

How sad it all is.

Hope strings eternal that somebody will break ranks and somebody else will publish him/her.

Title: Doppler Effect as we approach the 50th and pass by
Post by: Phil Dragoo on December 12, 2013, 03:10:44 AM

It started with a whisper

Patricia Johnson McMillan who can be trusted to write what we want, who in 2007 was still lying her ass off:

After decades of speculation about a grassy knoll, the Zapruder film, and an acoustical tape, the man behind it all is too often overlooked. Lee Oswald was not a cardboard figure but a human being, and although he had barely turned twenty-four at the time he killed President Kennedy, he had a motive.

    Oswald was a believing Marxist, and his motive was to strike the deadliest blow he could imagine at capitalism in the United States. Oswald had been headed that way most of his sentient life.

http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2007/06/lho.html (http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2007/06/lho.html)

To today when O'Reilly and Matthews drink up and sing the prole songs in the pubs of Blair

Ozzie wuz a commie
an' his bullet sheer magic
No motive hae he
for lone acts so tragic

On textbooks, on wikis
on Google, on Yahoo
on DogPile, on LexisNexis,
on Ask and Bing
The ink-stained wretches
and the talking heads of flatscreen
the lefty and righty bloggers
the glossy magazine

Mockingbird, fly away

Lobotomy thy name is U.S. education
Newthink newspeak all abomination

From the far right Rush to the far left Rachel
they have no guts they have no spine and wear the Dulles facial

The shrieking fairies and carping harpies
flying monkeys sent by the witch
We have no one left to speak for us
isn't life a

(http://oi48.tinypic.com/feqark.jpg)

We know the significance:  a war ensued over his dead body, and exploitation proceeded apace

All this claptrap and jawflap over Mandela is of nothing when the Great Mandala
displays the shameful denial of the coup and the elevation of the cabal

Now the NSA morphs into an octopus entrapping the globe
boasting Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach

Going forward every newscast is propaganda/
every newspaper propaganda/
every war and rumor of war the new revelation

A two minute hate for Snowden
Duck Dynasty and Survivor
then Soma and football
and to all a krystal night
Happy 1984 everyone

(http://oi41.tinypic.com/98op.jpg)

Title: Re: MSM reports as we approach the 50th
Post by: TLR on December 12, 2013, 09:57:20 AM

Brilliant stuff, Phil. Love the parody photos.

The State and its Institutions must survive; the loss of men like Kennedy, Oswald and Tippit is inconsequential. History must be re-written, photos altered if necessary. All the great leaders have done it.

(http://gajitz.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/historical-potlicial-photo-editing.jpg)

Title: Re: Doppler Effect as we approach the 50th and pass by
Post by: Alan Dale on December 12, 2013, 11:13:45 AM

Quote from: Phil Dragoo on December 12, 2013, 03:10:44 AM

It started with a whisper

Patricia Johnson McMillan who can be trusted to write what we want, who in 2007 was still lying her ass off:

After decades of speculation about a grassy knoll, the Zapruder film, and an acoustical tape, the man behind it all is too often overlooked. Lee Oswald was not a cardboard figure but a human being, and although he had barely turned twenty-four at the time he killed President Kennedy, he had a motive.

    Oswald was a believing Marxist, and his motive was to strike the deadliest blow he could imagine at capitalism in the United States. Oswald had been headed that way most of his sentient life.

http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2007/06/lho.html (http://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2007/06/lho.html)

To today when O'Reilly and Matthews drink up and sing the prole songs in the pubs of Blair

Ozzie wuz a commie
an' his bullet sheer magic
No motive hae he
for lone acts so tragic

On textbooks, on wikis
on Google, on Yahoo
on DogPile, on LexisNexis,
on Ask and Bing
The ink-stained wretches
and the talking heads of flatscreen
the lefty and righty bloggers
the glossy magazine

Mockingbird, fly away

Lobotomy thy name is U.S. education
Newthink newspeak all abomination

From the far right Rush to the far left Rachel
they have no guts they have no spine and wear the Dulles facial

The shrieking fairies and carping harpies
flying monkeys sent by the witch
We have no one left to speak for us
isn't life a

(http://oi48.tinypic.com/feqark.jpg)

We know the significance:  a war ensued over his dead body, and exploitation proceeded apace

All this claptrap and jawflap over Mandela is of nothing when the Great Mandala
displays the shameful denial of the coup and the elevation of the cabal

Now the NSA morphs into an octopus entrapping the globe
boasting Nothing Is Beyond Our Reach

Going forward every newscast is propaganda/
every newspaper propaganda/
every war and rumor of war the new revelation

A two minute hate for Snowden
Duck Dynasty and Survivor
then Soma and football
and to all a krystal night
Happy 1984 everyone

(http://oi41.tinypic.com/98op.jpg)

^ Superb.

Title: The Media’s Hypocritical Oath
Post by: echelon on December 15, 2013, 07:02:58 AM

The Media’s Hypocritical Oath - Mandela And Economic Apartheid
By David Edwards

Global Research
Published December 13, 2013

What does it mean when a notoriously profit-driven, warmongering, climate-killing media system mourns, with one impassioned voice, the death of a principled freedom fighter like Nelson Mandela? Does it mean that the corporate system has a heart, that it cares? Or does it mean that Mandela’s politics, and the mythology surrounding them, are somehow serviceable to power?

Consider, first, that this is what is supposed to be true of professional journalism:  ‘Gavin Hewitt, John Simpson, Andrew Marr and the rest are employed to be studiously neutral, expressing little emotion and certainly no opinion; millions of people would say that news is the conveying of fact, and nothing more.’ (Andrew Marr, My Trade – A Short History of British Journalism, Macmillan, 2004, p.279)

Thus, Andrew Marr, then BBC political editor, offering professional journalism’s version of the medical maxim, ‘First, do no harm’. First, do no bias.

The reality is indicated by Peter Oborne’s comment in the Telegraph:  ‘There are very few human beings who can be compared to Jesus Christ. Nelson Mandela is one … It is hard to envisage a wiser ruler.’

Responding to 850 viewers who had complained that the BBC ‘had devoted too much airtime’ to Mandela’s death, James Harding, the BBC’s director of news, also expressed little emotion and certainly no opinion when he declared Mandela ‘the most significant statesman of the last 100 years, a man who defined freedom, justice, reconciliation, forgiveness’.

In other words, the corporate media had once again abandoned its famed Hypocritical Oath in affirming a trans-spectrum consensus. As ever, a proposition is advanced as indisputably true, the evidence so overwhelming that journalists simply have to ditch ‘balance’ to declare the obvious.

[...]

Former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook also recognised Mandela’s ‘huge achievement in helping to bring down South African apartheid’. But:  ‘Mandela was rehabilitated into an “elder statesman” in return for South Africa being rapidly transformed into an outpost of neoliberalism, prioritising the kind of economic apartheid most of us in the west are getting a strong dose of now.’

And Mandela was used:  ‘After finally being allowed to join the western “club”, he could be regularly paraded as proof of the club’s democratic credentials and its ethical sensibility … He was forced to become a kind of Princess Diana, someone we could be allowed to love because he rarely said anything too threatening to the interests of the corporate elite who run the planet.’

[...]

The point is a simple one. State-corporate expressions of moral outrage and approval are never - not ever - to be taken at face value. While of course there may be some truth in what is being said, the systemic motivation will always be found in the self-interested head rather than the altruistic heart.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-medias-hypocritical-oath-mandela-and-economic-apartheid/5361399

Title: Anything China can do ...
Post by: echelon on December 27, 2013, 11:04:25 AM

... we can do better!

Politically bankrupt China dare not tolerate freedom of the press
By Will Hutton

The Observer
22nd December 2013

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/22/china-journalism-suppression-of-truth

According to Wang Qinlei, a former producer at China Central TV's top political programmes, who was fired a few weeks ago for publicly criticising its coverage of the concocted attacks on a famous social blogger, political influence is everywhere. His blog was deleted almost instantly. "In the space of a year, we get upwards of a thousand propaganda orders," he wrote. "How many of these orders were issued in the national interest and how many were issued to serve the political and economic interests of some individual, group or leader? And how often did we castrate ourselves as a result of trying to fathom the attitudes of high officials? Our leaders should understand that if the amount of news you can't report climbs too high, people won't believe the news you can report – because it's propaganda chosen with a purpose."

President Xi's response is to require every Chinese journalist to take an ideology exam early next year in order to qualify for their press cards. The manual on which the exam is based insists that journalists must not deviate from the party line and that the relationship between the party and news media is "one of leader and the led". The aim is to make sure any successors to Wang and Chen know their limits. Self-censorship, after all, is much better than censorship.

(Emphases added).

Ahh, those nasty, nasty Communists (sic)!

So glad such a thing could not happen here, in the free, open and democratic Western world.

This could be called a marvellous example of irony, although I doubt that's what Hutton intended.  Indeed, I've heard that our American friends don't "get" irony.