Octafish
Octafish's Journal50 years of 'Money trumps peace.'
The very words of George W Bush on Feb. 14, 2007, uttered at a press conference in which not a single of the callow, cowed press corpse saw fit to ask a follow-up.
I remember Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention.
As for his Poppy: Bush Sr told the FBI he was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
If TIME-LIFE were honest, they'd address CIA-Mafia assassination plots.
Instead, they write glowingly about a self-described "debunker" who has demonstrated loyalty to CIA. "Trust us. We're innocent. There's nothing in those documents or in this documentary record of lies and obstruction of justice."
Of course, TIME-LIFE doesn't mention the importance of CIA officer George Joannides, who was part of the CIA anti-Castro activities in New Orleans at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald came in contact with same. Nor does TIME-LIFE mention how CIA pulled Joannides out of retirement to take over CIA-Congress "liaison" duties with the the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) and how he failed to inform our Representatives of his previous ties. Nor does TIME-LIFE mention the newly declassified records that show CIA lied to President Kennedy and Attorney General Kennedy after they ordered them to stop those programs that were started by CIA director Allen Dulles in the Eisenhower Administration. That was all covered at the Duquesne conference.
All that would be in TIME, if they were they honest. Instead we get John McAdams and his acolyte on DU, zappaman.
For those interested in learning more.
Letter demonstrates criminal negligence on the part of the national security services...
...including those charged with protecting President Kennedy. Plots were broken up in Miami, Tampa and Chicago.
All that was after Joseph Adams Milteer was taped by an FBI informant detailing what was to come.
Yet, JFK was encouraged to travel to Dallas.
''I heard the shots and thought they were coming from bushes of the overpass.'' - JM Smith, DPD
Joe Marshall Smith was not the only police officer who thought shots were fired from the Grassy Knoll.
Here is an excellent resource, with names, quotes and excerpts from interviews:
What 216 Witnesses to the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy reported to the Warren Commission.
http://www.history-matters.com/analysis/Witness/Index.htm
Another example:
Reading through the witness reports presents a different story than what the Warren Commission told.
Thanks for the heads-up, villager! I agree with Sen. Kerry.
McAdams in his own words...
http://mu-warrior.blogspot.com/...a real "authority" among "authoritarians."
Seven Days in May -- tonight on TCM
Seven Days In May (1964) -- An American military officer discovers his superiors are planning a military coup. Dir: John Frankenheimer Cast: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, Ava Gardner.
President John F. Kennedy liked the book so much he let Hollywood use the White House to make the film.
Thank you, tina tron.
Today on Composer's Datebook, the Pablo Casals and Aaron Copland performance Nov. 13, 1961, in honor of Gov. Luis Muñoz Marín, at the Kennedy White House:
MUSIC PLAYED ON TODAY'S PROGRAM:
Pablo Casals (1876-1973):
Song of the Birds (encore)
Patrick Demenga, cello;
Gerard Wyss, piano
Novalis 150117
&
Aaron Copland (1900-1990):
Billy the Kid Ballet
Dallas Symphony;
Eduardo Mata, cond.
Dorian 90170
More on music at Kennedy White House:
http://www.wosu.org/archive/jfk/highlights.php
Thanks for your input, Pretzel_Warrior.
Odd opinion, yours, for a DUer, let alone a Democrat.
A few important things to know about the assassination of President Kennedy:
President John F. Kennedy was proud to be a Liberal Democrat who worked every day he was in office to keep the peace and to make life better for all Americans. As President, Kennedy worked to make ours a stronger nation and this a better world.
Many in the country opposed him for his Liberal perspective on civil rights. Kennedy ordered the integration of more than college campuses, he ordered the FBI and Secret Service to hire African American agents.
Others opposed his Liberal policies towards other nations and regions. Kennedy favored economic development of the Third World, rather than the past approach of siding with a particular nation's strongman or oligarch to more economically steal the natural resources. In Africa, his policies were to help people learn to feed themselves, read to their kids, and take care of the sick and elderly. That policy, Kennedy believed, would make the United States longer and better allies. Most, if not all, of his successors returned to the traditional policy of stealing all that a nation had to offer.
JFK also made enemies with the most frightening elements of the psychology that is the United States. The monied elite that owns the contracts and politicians that put the pork on the table for their sponsors are no strangers to violence. They make their biggest money off of the most horrible thing there is.
So, for his less than three years as President, John F. Kennedy faced the War Party, the military-industrial-governmental complex that did all it could to make the Cold War Hot.
Still, the War Party tried to have war over the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy said, "No."
The War Party tried to have war over the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy said, "No."
The War Party tried to have war in Vietnam and southeast Asia. Then, as well, Kennedy said, "No."
Of course, all along -- even when they pushed for nuclear war with the Soviet Union -- President Kennedy said, "No."
The War Party presented Kennedy with Operation NORTHWOODS, a plan that suggested the US Government kill Americans and make it look like Cuba did it as a pretext for war with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Kennedy said, "No." And he fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who submitted it.
Then came November 22, 1963 and Dallas.
After President Kennedy was dead, the War Party made out like Lee Harvey Oswald did it. And the FBI, CIA and Warren Commission (as revealed through Dulles' "Mighty Wurlitzer"
left a trail of "fixed" evidence to make it out Oswald was working for Cuba and its master, the Soviet Union.
Yet, that is merely a falsehood perpetuated by the nation's political elite and mass media. For according to the records of the United States Government, Oswald worked for the United States.
JFK Conference: Lisa Pease Discussed the Real Harm of Corrupt Soft Power
As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University.
One of the important speakers there I was privileged to meet and hear is Lisa Pease, who discussed "The Covert Corruption of Culture: How Our Reaction to JFK's Assassination and Cover-Up Determines Our Future." A researcher, writer and editor, her presentation examined our information environment and what it means for our selves, our nation, and our planet.
Lisa Pease defined culture as what we experience on a shared basis. She described a talk with a colleague from China who told her about "Hard Power" and "Soft Power." A nation's military and police forces are examples of Hard Power. Soft Power is wielded through the mass media, entertainment industries, and the arts. The latter create culture. And culture shapes belief.
Ms. Pease said she likes to correct inaccuracies in the press and encourages us to do likewise. One egregious example is the treatment afforded the assassination of President Kennedy. Not only have the basic facts and questions around Dallas been misrepresented, information that indicates a conspiracy behind the assassination have been suppressed by the nation's news media. Despite the biased coverage and propaganda, a majority of Americans do not believe the Warren Commission case against Lee Harvey Oswald.
Professional propagandists shape the national information environment. To help We the People preserve democracy, she recommends everyone read "1984" by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair).
"That is the best book you all should read, because that is our future if we don't take back what's been done to us in the last, many years. 'Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.' And I'm adding who controls culture, controls the present, because culture shapes our beliefs. Every day, every minute, everything you hear is input, and our brains are just recording it all and making assumptions, rightly or wrongly. The goal of my talk here is to help you make, maybe, better decisions about which inputs to let reach you and maybe when to recognize you are being propagandized. There is a culture war going on, specifically about this issue."
Ms. Pease has worked in the news and entertainment industry. She originally hoped that the assassination of President Kennedy was the result of a lone madman. After starting to research the assassinations of President Kennedy -- and later that of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy -- she realized that the facts indicated conspiracy and that the perpetrators had not been brought to justice. She wanted to talk about her work on the national news media, but after being invited to appear on television, she would see her segments left off of broadcasts. A booking agent explained to her the true picture: "Unless you support the Warren Commission, you will not get on television."
I can personally attest to Ms. Pease's contention regarding biased coverage. In 1993, during the 30th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, I conducted a Content Analysis of New York Times coverage of the assassination anniversary as part of a college program. Using agreement by three coders, we examined the NYT coverage and found fully three-fourths of the paper's space that was devoted to Dallas went to one book, Gerald Posner's "Case Closed" which supported the Warren Commission's findings. Even though many important works were published around that year indicating conspiracy (including "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK" by Peter Dale Scott, "Destiny Betrayed" by James DiEugenio, and "The Last Investigation" by Gaeton Fonzi), they got near-zero coverage in the Paper of Record. In the 20 years since, much new has been learned. The Times, Washington Post and the few networks that produce most of the content Americans hear as news have stuck to the WC line.
"What's at stake are lives, literally lives, are at stake," Ms. Pease said. "By not reporting the truth about the assassination of President Kennedy, the media enabled the assassinations of others. Had the public known about the CIA's roles in coups and assassinations before Kennedy was killed, maybe we would have approached the Warren Report quite a bit differently. And, of course, by not prosecuting the agency for lying to the HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations), regardless, regardless -- i'm going to say it a third time -- regardless of whether the CIA was involved in the assassination, by not holding the CIA accountable for lying about anything to Congress is probably the worst mistake this country could make, because we cease to be a democracy when we give up oversight. We do not elect the people in the CIA. We do elect the people in Congress. And that is our only hold on this national security state. We need to hold our elected representatives accountable when they don't hold the national security state accountable. And that goes for all this stuff that's going on today with the NSA revelations. The former NSA director provably lied to Congress, it's right there on video; many of us have actually seen it. It's really important that man be held accountable, that agency be held accountable, because he's not just lying to congress, he's lying to all of us. That's not how democracy functions. These very types of lies that go unchallenged that led us to attack,
literally millions of innocent people in Iraq...These are people who have not done us any harm. Lies are killing people."
Ms. Pease cited several examples of important information that the nation's press have ignored from Kennedy Administration that are relevant for the public to know. Official documents from the CIA itself prove conclusively that President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, were unaware of CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro -- assassination plans that began in 1960 under President Eisenhower and DCI Allen Dulles. Yet, the news media continue to repeat the canard that Kennedy ordered the plan. I'm proud to say, we on DU have discussed the Truth -- what Democracy most needs to survive.
JFK Conference: Rex Bradford detailed the historic importance of the Church Committee
As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University.
One of the important speakers there I was privileged to meet and hear, Mr. Rex Bradford, president of the Mary Ferrell Foundation, discussed “Political Assassinations Revealed: The Church Committee.” In addition to documenting numerable illegal and unconstitutional actions by the CIA, FBI, Pentagon and others in the secret government, are more than willing to lie about it to Under Oath to Congress, meaning there is no accountability for extralegal action, including political assassination and mass murder, to We the People.
Mr. Bradford focused on the Church Committee and its investigations in 1975, the year after Richard Milhous Nixon resigned.
“I think what they did was very valuable work, doing the detailed documentation of the plots to kill Castro and others. Because, I have no doubt, if not for what the Church Committee did, the whole idea that the CIA plotted against these people would be one of these conspiracy theories you hear about with pros and cons, and, reminiscent of some of the other matter that’s before us this week. It’s also striking how much, I think, things have changed in America since 1975. Nowadays, the U.S. openly conducts drone strikes against foreign adversaries, whose senior officials we call, quote, bad guys; and along with collateral damage of family members, the associates who may or may not themselves be bad guys, and the occasional wedding party. In 1975, by contrast, it was a national scandal, the very idea that the executive branch of the U.S. government would contemplate targeted killings abroad.”
-- Rex Bradford, Oct. 18, 2013
Nixon, few remember, had been the victim of a Pentagon spy ring, the Moorer-Radford Affair, in 1971. The elections following Watergate, the resignation and revelations of the Church Committee brought us some important Liberal voices to Washington, including Henry Waxman and Patrick Leahy and other anti-war Democratic leaders. Their work included new laws for open government and sunshine statutes making public many records of import to democracy.
Gerald Ford, the first un-elected president and once a member of the Warren Commission, succeeded Nixon. With Ford, Donald Rumsfeld returned to the White House, accompanied by young Dick Cheney. Then, one day during an off-the-record luncheon for journalistic bigwigs, Ford accidentally revealed the CIA assassination program. One of the journalists present later related what happened to Daniel Schorr, who took the story worldwide via CBS News. The spaghetti hit the fan later on, during the congressional investigations, including the Pike Committee in the House.
“I can only imagine what Dick Cheney thought as New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug took on the National Security Agency,” Bradford said.
Bradford added that the Church Committee succeeded in opening up for full view the nefarious activities of U.S. intelligence agenencies: History. Rationales. Abuses. 14 Volumes of reports from a one-and-a-half-year investigation. The volumes' bland titles don't don’t cover the range of topics discussed within, from the FBI COINTELPRO operations for domestic disruption; to the harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; to the Joint FBI-CIA mail opening operation; to warrantless electronic surveillance and black bag jobs by FBI and CIA; illegal CIA domestic spying programs and operations, including CHAOS; covert operations and coup plotting against Chile and other nations; and other important topics. Bradford specifically mentioned:
The Church Committee revealed two important areas:
1.) Foreign assassination plotting by the CIA, and
2.) Limited review they conducted of some aspects of the (John F.) Kennedy assassination.
The Chuch Committee made public the secret history of the CIA Executive Action assassination program. It examined the CIA's efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba, Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, and Rene Schneider of Chile. The committee also received info, but didn’t examine the cases of Achmed Sukarno in Indonesia and Papa Doc Duvallier in Haiti.
It's interesting to remember that the press revealed some spectacular information about the CIA program, including exploding sea shells, chemical to make Castro's beard fall off. The reality that is not mentioned is the operations were not Keystone Kops: They were deadly serious. Most of the CIA plots involved machine guns, rifles, pistols, explosives, poisons. And four of the five on the list are dead. Only Castro survived.
In 1967, President Johnson ordered a CIA Inspector General to investigate and report on the Castro plots. The resulting record, Bradford reported, is incomplete, especially missing reports of any interviews with John and Robert Kennedy and CIA's Desmond Fitzgerald and Allen Dulles. Later on, when the Church Committee investigated, other important witnesses had passed, including Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli -- the former found shot five times in the mouth while in federal protective custody and the latter found cut in pieces inside a 55 gallon oil drum floating off the coast of Florida.
Of course, "Plausible Denial" ended many an investigation. What's telling are the phony "201 Files" and other forged, faked, and back-dated documents that were part of the plans of operations from their inception, making it difficult to investigate the connections between participants and events. The record extant, however, is sufficient for people to make clear connections between players and events. This all from Mr. Bradford also brought to my mind we don’t get this in the nation's news media.
Thankfully, while omitted from Corporate McPravda, we have talked about them on DU: Some of the players in ZR Rifle and Operation 40 rose to prominence, including Porter Goss and Friend of Poppy Bush Felix Rodriguez.
Sen. Frank Church led an investigation into the NSA. The NSA launched a secret investigation into Sen. Frank Church. Guess which one was in the public interest? Church lost re-election in the "Reagan Landslide" of 1980. One more thing to remember: The Church Committee was the last time Congress investigated and held to task the intelligence community and the national security establishment, the secret government, that drives the policy of wars for profit and to make the rich get richer.
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