On this week’s edition of Real Politik, Temple University Professor Joan Mellen joins James to discuss Jim Garrison’s landmark investigation of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the 50th anniversary of the Warren Commission Report’s release.
Professor Mellen is a New York Times best-selling author of over twenty books on film studies, popular culture, and biography. She is a foremost authority on the Garrison 1967-69 investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency’s attempts to undermine the probe. Mellen’s most recent titles include Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic (2012), The Great Game in Cuba: How the CIA Sabotaged Its Own Plot to Unseat Fidel Castro (2013), and a second edition of A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History (2005/2013).
Professor Mellen met Jim Garrison in 1969. “He had just lost the Shaw trial,” she recalls.
Clay Shaw was acquitted. And my husband and I went down to New Orleans to meet Jim Garrison because my husband had sent him a series of articles from the Paesa Sera newspaper that coincided with the March 1, 1967 arrest of Clay Shaw. Those articles pointed out that Shaw had been an officer of a CIA front called PERMINDEX. It had an Italian branch called Centro Mondiale Commerciale.
Garrison could not use those articles at the Shaw trial because they were foreign newspapers. They were [considered] hearsay. He didn’t have the resources to investigate in Italy. But he was grateful to have the articles and so he invited us to New Orleans, where he registered us at the Monteleone Hotel in the Quarter as Mr. and Mrs. Lyndon Baines Johnson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTXZpFmkb9o
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Mellen’s research has soundly addressed numerous inconsistencies and lacunae in JFK assassination research often propelled by typically sincere yet sometimes shoddy work. “The level of scholarship isn’t what it should be in this research community,” Professor Mellen remarks. This is due to the fact that conventional historians are reluctant to examine one of the most significant events in modern history. “It has to do with the co-opted media. The writers–especially the mainstream historians–don’t want to be ostracized as ‘conspiracy theorists,’ as ‘kooks,’ and to mention the Kennedy assassination is taboo.”
Mellen cites historian Robert Caro as an example. “Caro is very careful to say there were only three shots at Dealey Plaza” in his multi-volume biography of President Johnson. “That’s a signal to the mainstream media, to the mainstream critics, to the Pulitzer Committee, that he’s a good boy, and that he’s going to follow the findings of the Warren Commission, which have been totally discredited over all these years.”
Mellen notes how forthright and painstaking research into the Kennedy assassination tends to burst any romantic notions of political figures–including the Kennedys themselves. For example, evidence suggests Robert Kennedy actively pursued a mafia hitman to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. “Now here’s Bobby Kennedy on the one hand pursuing the mafia. That’s what he was famous for. On the other hand, [he’s] looking for mafia figures to kill Castro. Bobby Kennedy had a lot to hide.”
Mellen continues. “The thing is, there can’t be too much sentimentality in this. If you’re going to do research and serious scholarship there’s no room for idealizing politicians, whether they’re named Kennedy or anything else.” Accordingly, “the Kennedy family have been destructive of any serious investigation. They do everything in their power to this day–long after the older generation is gone–not to participate. And people are shocked. ‘Why is this?’ It’s to protect Bobby Kennedy and what he was doing in those years, which is why many of Bobby Kennedy’s papers at the Kennedy Library are still sealed.”
When Jim Garrison passed on in 1992, he still harbored doubt on the worth of his investigation and prosecution of Clay Shaw, and this is how Mellen ends the book. “The original version of A Farewell to Justice ends with Jim Garrison calling Thomas Edward Beckham” shortly after Shaw’s acquittal, and “after Beckham has lied his head off at the Grand Jury,” Mellen notes. Beckham was a key witness and figure in the assassination plot. “Garrison asks [Beckham], ‘While tell me, was I close? Was I right about anything?'” In a rare interview, Beckham later told Mellen, “‘I wished I could have told him how close he was.'”
Professor Mellen will be speaking at the forthcoming Assassination Archive Resource Center Conference in Bethesda Maryland on September 27. More information is available at joanmellen.com/wordpress/
I find this discussion of the Garrison case by Joan Mellen puzzling for the following reason. If the Oswald shot by Jack Ruby actually knew Shaw and Ferry to the point of plotting with them about assassinating the President in a “crossfire”, then isn’t he guilty at some level, even though he did not fire any shots? Didn’t Garrison have a witness who thought he had seen them all together in the same room talking about this? Is Mellen really telling us that Oswald was not an unwitting patsy?
Or is this puzzle solved by the evidence pointing to the existence of two look alike “Oswald”s so admirably expounded by John Armstrong in his 2005 book “Harvey and Lee”? Was Garrison aware of this possibility?Most of this evidence was exposed after the Shaw case was settled.
Jim Marrs alludes to Armstrong’s argument in the panel discussion linked to in a previous MHB post. What does Joan Mellen think of this evidence, and how does she explain Oswald’s connection to Ferry, Shaw, Ruby and others involved in the plot to murder the President?Why does she not discuss the two “Oswald”s? Does she actually discount Armstrong’s voluminous and well researched evidence?
I also think it highly improbable that Bobby Kennedy would have impeded any real effort to expose his brother’s killers, as Joan suggests he did. Embarrassment over his own attempts to cultivate mob hit men to kill Castro would not have stopped him from trying to find the truth, in my opinion.
Concerning the witness who states that he sat in on the discussion between Shaw, Ferrie, and Oswald, that would be Perry Russo.
An argument can be made and substantiated that the Kennedy family remains complicit in the murders of both JFK and RFK through their own silence. They have made a conscious decision to do so, as did RFK when he was alive. Mellen provides additional evidence to make this claim–indeed, court decisions and appeals, hardly the stuff of hearsay or opinion. Perhaps you may wish to listen to the interview again.
The same is the case concerning just about the entire academy and progressive-left community from 1964 to this day, as Mellen points out (re academic historians) and authors such as Fred Cook and E. Martin Schotz have ably asserted. This is because they are, tacitly or otherwise, part of a broader conspiracy of silence abetted by the media that has discouraged serious inquiry or discussion of either assassination.
Christo,in Mr.Jim Garrison’s book,ON THE TRAIL IF THE ASSASSINS (1988)he mentions the observations by several witness describing those who may have been LHO lookalikes/impostures. It has been some time since I read the book,so that is all I remember.
Reblogged this on Today,s Thought.
In mitigation of the Kennedys, not my favorite family, Ted Kennedy was almost killed when his small plane crashed 7 months after his brother, the president, was murdered. the pilot and one passenger was killed, and Ted spent 5 months in the hospital.
When Bobbie was murdered, Jackie is reported to have said that they are killing Kennedys, and married outside the family. She had two (Kennedy) children at the time.
Being almost killed tends to concentrate the mind. The two Dem senators that opposed the Patriotic Act, Daschle and Leghy, were sent anthrax envelopes, which ultimately killed six people. They changed their votes to vote in favor of the Act.
You can call this kind of thing cowardliness, although I don’t know if I would. However, it is understandable, is it not. What can one political figure do against thousands of CIA agents who are utterly ruthless, and unaccountable.
This conversation needs to include the son of this great President, and should include the untimely death of his son, weep for what America what might of been,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_Jr.
I think that Mellen’s analysis here raises an important issue with regard to the Oswald we know’s complicity in the assassination. Was he or was he not aware that his acquaintances were planning to murder the President? She contends, along with Garrison, that Oswald knew about the conspiracy, yet was somehow tricked into becoming the fall guy. This idea seems, on the surface, to be supported by by Perry Russo’s testimony that he had seen Oswald, Shaw and Ferry discussing the assassination.
However, Mellen does not address the possibility, raised after the Shaw trial by John Armstrong and others, that this “Oswald” was not the same man as the Oswald accused of shooting the President. If the Oswald seen by Russo was the tall American born Lee, rather than the short Hungarian born and Russian speaking Harvey, then this latter Oswald, the one shot by Jack Ruby, may well have been an unwitting patsy.
This is an important distinction because the existence of two look alike Lee Harvey Oswalds operating in the same milieu clearly reveals the far reaching hand of US intelligence behind the assassination. If Oswald was just the unlucky accomplice who was implicated by his CIA connected cohorts, it points to a much more limited conspiracy.
Senator “Leahy”.
This is a reasonable defense of the Kennedy family’s decisions and activities, and at least part of what comprises its rationale toward silence. At the same time, however, if certain statesmen had such an impulse toward acquiescence with tyranny, I doubt there would be a United States of America today, or, in considering the Kennedys’ lineage, a Republic of Ireland.
If we can agree that the Kennedys had some inherent goodness in terms of executing wise national stewardship (the evidence is considerable as, for example, Jim Douglas observes), then this has largely been compromised for their own immediate gain, or, as you suggest, their personal safety; to shake hands with the devil, becoming subservient toward a regime to which its principals (and those of the American public) were and remain fundamentally opposed.
Yes, that is at the heart of where we find ourselves today. People have a tendency to idolize political figures, among others. This seems to defy logic. If we’re honest, we all know that these individuals are basically self-serving, no matter what their public persona appears to be.
I have no doubt whatever that a cabal of “controllers” ultimately calls the shots, worldwide. That renders any public figure merely an employee. They may wield apparent power locally, but, in the end, if they stray from their superior’s orders they are removed.
In the case of the Kennedy’s, they have an admirable public image, compared to many others. It is understandable that many confuse that image with reality. They represented “hope”. Hope is not a commodity that the controllers want their drones to aspire to.
In order to play in the “big leagues”, it is necessary to be driven. Despite the polished public image of the Kennedy’s, they, like others of their ilk, desire power and prestige. Only the Controllers possess the means to that end. Those who refuse to cooperate are “removed”.
The mistake that some make is to believe that they, or anyone else for that matter, are actually operating on their own. Bobby didn’t “choose” to remain silent on his brother’s murder, he chose to live. Whether that was an admirable decision or not depends on one’s perspective.
In the past we have discussed this at this site. The “Do Something” mentality vs the “Who Ya’ Gonna Call?” approach. Is it truly wise to storm the barricades with death your certain reward? Maybe, if there is a chance of overall success for the many. If not, it is a foolhardy exercise.
I personally do not believe that any meaningful change can come from elected officials in the current government. It is completely compromised and has been for a long time. So idolatry of politicians is equivalent to celebrity worship, in my book. All one is doing is expressing their favor with what a figure says, not what they do.
True, James, I never said they were heroes. Although John Kennedy may have known that he was risking a lot; probably did. And Bobbie Kennedy had a strategy for gaining power that he may have used to uncover the truth.
Alas, we are left with Teddy Kennedy, who endured, if he did not prevail.
He was not a great intellect or moral inspiration. Not a Hamilton, Jefferson, or Franklin. And certainly not a James Connolly, the great Irish socialist, who was so badly wounded in the 1916 rising that he had to be carried to his place of execution, and sat in a chair to be shot by the British.
And by doing so, inspired the Irish to revolt.
They were heroes, but in a different age. A religious age. John Bunyan writes of a traveler of “very stout countenance’ who was set upon by a bunch of brigands. He went up to the Keeper of the Book of Life and said: “Set down my name, Sir.” Then falling on his assailants, he cut his way into Heaven, after giving and receiving many wounds.
The question Mark raises and that James entertains, it seems to me, boils down to the question: What can actually be done?
I have become a great fan of Miles Mathis recently, and have read many of his papers (as he calls his articles). A great theme of his, the premise of many of these writings, is that the CIA essentially runs all the institutions of the modern world. The Intelligence community was already very entrenched and powerful when CIA was created in 1947, but it rapidly expanded (invisibly) like an explosively growing cancer.
Here is the first part of one paragraph, followed by the entire paragraph that follows, from Mathis’ article on watergate (http://mileswmathis.com/watergate.pdf):
In short, the CIA could see that Nixon couldn’t control public opinion or Congress, and couldn’t or wouldn’t promote the war economy to the fullest, so they had to step in themselves. In 1972, they got rid of Hoover. In 1974, they got rid of Nixon. And by 1976, they had gotten rid of Congress. You see, Watergate wasn’t a scheme by Nixon, it was a scheme against Nixon. Nixon was framed by the CIA…
Nixon may have thought he could avoid the CIA in some policy matters, but he at least knew what he was up against. After all, he had been installed with their help, and had to have known it. But many in Congress appear to have been ignorant of the deeper workings of the government they fronted. This is the only way to explain their repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1971. That was the stroke that led to everything else, and if Congress had been aware of the true state of things, they would never have dared repeal it. In this way, the Church Committee hearings were more the idea of the CIA than of the Senate. The CIA needed to make Congress aware of the true state of things, letting them know who was really in charge. And so the hearings were actually an extended briefing of Congress by the CIA. If you study the transcripts, I think that is what you will find. That is why the heart-attack gun was shown on floor of Congress, among other things. Believe me, Congress got the message, and it hasn’t been the same since. This is why I no longer bother to write letters to my representatives, or bother to blame them for anything. Their hands have been tied for a long time, and giving them low approval ratings is a waste of time. They are no longer anything but a decoy.
This tells me that the Kennedy family got the picture earlier than the rest of us did. The establishment did not like it one bit when Joe stole the election from their boy Nixon, and never forgave. Then John fired Allen Dulles (conspiring with his brother, Foster, Secretary of State under Eisenhower), who had spent the first decade of the CIA overthrowing the governments of countries, countries whose leaders did not agree with the Dulles brothers that the world is supposed to be run to empower American transnational corporations. Usually, this involved creating treasonous new political parties to offer America-favoring alternative candidates. And if that didn’t work, they just killed the stubborn fellow.
Kennedy, I believe, thought it was not too late to reverse the New Order of the Ages CIA represented, poor, deluded fellow. His family quickly learned not to share that delusion.
The establishment can adapt to new developments, and if John had agreed to be their sock puppet instead of a courageous leader with a mind of his own, they probably would allowed him to live. But his murder was the first solid evidence that they cannot be exposed or defied, and even in death the would-be “exposer” will not get his message across, because the CIA controls the media and the history guild and even the media-criticism academy (James Tracy being the exception that proves the rule).
Patrick, I’ve always wondered why Ted Kennedy stayed in the Senate assuming he knew what “they” had done to his brothers, or for that matter why any of the Kennedy’s would be interested in a political career. Surely he had money enough to have done any number of things, or nothing at all. I’d be interested in your opinion. Also, I too am a fan of Miles Mathis but I’ve not been able to acess his site of late except for cached copies of his articles. Wondering if other’s are having this problem too?
There is a Kennedy now running for Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. He is the son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver, and brother of Maria Shriver who may or may not still be married to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California. His uncles were JFK, RFK and Ted. He is also a former mayor of Santa Monica.
http://www.bobbyshriver.com/
It’s possible that he made a corrupt deal with the secret government. The time line is very interesting. John was killed in ’63; Ted very nearly died in a plane crash in ’64; in ’65 Ted pushed through a dramatic transformation of the demographic make up of America; Robert is killed in ’68. Then, in ’69 Ted murders that young woman and gets away with it.
His father, a dirty crook, had built the family into a vast empire, and had married into Boston royalty to legitimize it. He was deeply tied to both the American state and to organized crime. He had run into some trouble, though, with the mob, and there was a contract out on him on the East coast, so to save his life he made a deal with Sam Giancana in Chicago: he would intervene on his behalf, and steal the election in Illinois for John, in exchange for John leaving the Mafia alone. Not liking being beholden to anyone, Joe, he double-crossed Sam; he knew that if Robert destroyed the Mafia, they could do nothing about it, and he would no longer owe them anything. But he has a stroke in ’61, and is soon dead.
So what–or who–could maintain the illusion of glamor and legitimacy of the Kennedy name, after John’s murder by the very establishment Joe had swum so well alongside? The establishment, both the secret government and organized crime, could easily have put an end to the Kennedy family empire as a way of spitting on John’s grave, the way Rome crucified rebels and left their corpses hanging to rot, as a message to anyone who might think about defying Roman rule. But they didn’t. Instead, they manufactured the myth of Camelot, and elevated the Kennedy family mystique into a form of American aristocracy, that only grew over time no matter how despicable practically all of them were on a personal level. Why?
Because it served the establishment’s purposes even better than vindictiveness.
Here is where pure speculation comes in: connecting the dots. Ted would have been the key. He was the weakest of the boys. Robert was feisty, and I doubt they even approached him, knowing he wouldn’t be their sock puppet. Perhaps Ted said “no,” which caused that plane to fall out of the sky. That long stay in the hospital made his mind right, and to prove it, he became their point man in fundamentally transforming America via legislation. He would play ball, ensuring the status of his clan would continue to shine.
Robert had to die, to protect Lyndon Johnson (he was an even dirtier crook than Joe Kennedy) from going down in flames. And if Robert had not been murdered, he’d probably have won. Johnson was the most important identifiable individual in the plot to kill John, and Robert knew it. Robert could do real damage to the machine who killed his brother. (This part is not speculation.)
Speculating again, maybe Robert’s murder gave Ted second thoughts about playing front man for the secret government. Chappaquiddick took place right after Robert’s death Ted and Mary Jo had been at a party thrown for Robert’s campaign staff. There are two possibilities: (1) Ted was set up; (2) Ted’s brazen foolishness was a random gift to the secret government. Either way, Ted’s life would never be the same.
But almost like magic, Ted’s troubles were miraculously made to go away.
And he played ball ever since.
As for Miles Mathis, I too have noticed that his site is under attack. Hope he can recover control soon. I miss it.
Mathis site seems to be up and down a lot — keep trying.
At first I was taken by his stuff, but now I’m not so sure since his confident (arrogant?) writing allows him to get away with all sorts of leaps of logic in retrospect.
That said, for any Beatles/Lennon fans out there, seeing the 2009 movie “Let Him Be” in conjunction with Mathis’ lennon.pdf is transcendental, at least for 90 minutes or so.
He also advances the notion that Charles Manson & family is a huge psy-op being played out to this day. And of course the Tate and Zodiac murders are just hoaxes…
Patrick…VERY interesting observations. Now,just where does the enigma that is called Barack Hussein Obama fit into all this? (I am not being confrontational…I really want your understanding of this, as yet,unexplained man)
Perhaps, Patrick, but who controls the CIA? There are also the heads of the banks and corporations–the billionaire oligarchs-the military, the Israeli Lobby. When power systems become old, obsolete, and dysfunctional–and the American political system is well over two centuries old–the various ruling factions congeal into a oligarchical coalition. It’s power interests deviate sharply from those of the general population. But there is more than one faction.
The corporate media–the Free Press– is selectively controlled from Washington, since all the tv and radio stations, newspapers and magazines, and major book publishing companies are concentrated into a few huge corporations. But the policies that determine the media truth, and untruth, are threshed out, secretly it may well be, by a larger ruling coalition, the kind that killed the Kennedys.
The oligarchical ruling coalition must be overthrown historically along with the CIA, basically its servant. Obama comes from a CIA family, but he needed money to win the Election, now in the range of billions of dollars. And notice that when Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria, the head of the Chiefs of Staff told Congress that yes, there would be.
We need Heroes, Patrick, and as Brecht said, pity the country that needs Heroes. But first we must change the political culture of America, an historical task. The right populists, who are racist, must merge with the left populists, who are cowardly and anti-gun, to form a new ideology. It is currently in birth, and will eventually transform the childish American ideology of Freedom&Democracy. The Proclaimed Freedom and Democracy is a fraud except insofar as it applies to the powerful, and the moneyed and Educated classes that support them.
And when the change in political culture is underway, then comes the time of the Heroes.
You’re missing the point, Mark. The point is that the form of heroism you propose is a form of suicide.
The people who control the CIA are the nameless men depicted in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. They are in league with the darkest spiritual forces in the universe, who are engaged in a cosmic battle–and Earth is the battleground. For the purposes of the question at hand, it does not matter who they are. What matters is that when someone sufficiently powerful to challenge their position tries to do it, that someone will certainly die, and the truth will not be made known to the wide world.
Incidentally, what you call the American “power system” only came into existence when the wrong side won Lincoln’s war. Prior to that, the aristocratic South held the aspirations of the Yankee mercantilist/banking paradigm in check; the elimination of that alternative, equally powerful, vision constituted a genuine revolution. It made possible the creation of the Justice Department, which gave the federal state a role in law enforcement for the first time. It also made possible the creation of the Department of Agriculture, thus launching the transformation of our entire legal system, and the steady shift away from Congressional legislation to Administrative Law, which by now is pretty much all we have by this point.
This new government the Republicans began to craft, starting in the late 1860s, enabled the crony capitalism that made possible the amassing of vast family fortunes. By the turn of the century that oligarchical power was so entrenched that it could come out into the open; in 1913 they stole the Senate from the States, they created a central bank, handing themselves monopoly control over our money, and they imposed upon us an income tax, which is a form of enslavement. Next, they dragged us into Europe’s asinine squabble, launching a century of war.
The 20th century was not just the steady unfolding of a new form of government for America, it was the unfolding of an entirely new form of civilization, which only achieved completion with the 911 event. That is to say, it’s brand spanking new. If it is ever to become “dysfunctional,” it won’t be any time soon.
But the plan that Orwell exposed in 1984 holds the claim that this New World Order is intended to be permanent: it is spelled out in O’Brien’s book, which is read aloud by Winston Smith to Julia. The people behind the creation of this new civilization have studied the very cycles of history, and believe they have crafted a system to stop that process, bestowing upon themselves an eternal rulership. (Orwell was privy to this information, being both an intimate of the Fabian Society and British Intelligence.)
That is to say, your optimism is completely unwarranted. These people are fresh, and ready to begin, having patiently assembled all the pieces of a very large puzzle. The key piece is not found in Orwell, but in Huxley: they have found a way to make the people love their slavery, indeed deny that they are slaves. They would not part with the welfare state, for example, because they love it; Medicare is loved with almost religious devotion, as is Social Security. Asked to vote to eliminate the income tax, and the vast majority would vote to retain it. Asked to return to real money, with no fractional reserve banking allowed, they would certainly vote to keep our money system in the oligarchy’s hands. Eliminate the alphabet agencies? Not a chance. Our people are PROUD of what was done to them by the 20th century.
Patrick, that was brilliant! Yes, they are “proud”.
I take a broader view. I see this as akin to the monarchy never died. They have found different methods toward their relentless end, but the end remains the same.
The same technological improvements that allow us to discuss events “in real time”, allow the controllers to manipulate events just as quickly. If one has the resources (and they do), everything is an opportunity.
Governments are mere distractions. In return for their services in controlling the local herds, the political operatives are allowed to run their scams so long as they do not interfere with the controller’s programmed agenda.
The “art” of “government” is to keep the eaters at the brink of rebellion. As you so expertly pointed out, having the “governed” enjoy their enslavement is even better.
That leads to our ongoing study here of “media magic”. The use of psychological, technological and coercive techniques to create a false reality is really what we’ve been discussing. By these devices all perception is funneled through production facilities and distorted into a perverse version natural reality. That is the version they desire for us.
“I see this as akin to the monarchy never died. They have found different methods toward their relentless end, but the end remains the same.”
Yes, lophatt. The War of Independence indeed incorporated genuine innovations, philosophical possibilities never tried before–which is why the Articles of Confederation had to be crushed. The new government had to be stopped, at all cost. If people could be seen to actually self-govern, over time, it would be devastating to the existing order.
So we had less than a decade of true freedom, practicing the philosophy that inspired the break with Britain. The Constitutional Convention could be thought of as a coup d’etat, except that it wasn’t violent, and sudden. It was secretly arranged, but then debated (the Federalist and Antifederalist Papers).
If the Constitution had not been ratified, the States would certainly would not have remained united for very long. The Four British Folkways had too little in common to keep them together. This would have been a very good thing for the Indians (and the Africans who had been brought to our shores), because America would not have become an empire.
Alas, the 18th was a century of empire, as well as philosophical musings about true human freedom from state control, and power won out over decentralization. The one real attempt at genuine decentralization had to be crushed. But one of those Four British Folkways (two, actually, if we say the Scotch-Irish rode with the cavaliers) had enough civilizational power to hold un for seven decades, buying time for America to really become great (minus the horrors meted out to the Indians east of the Mississippi, and the black slaves their clearing out made way for).
There are lots of theories about the Rothschilds plotting all along to regain control of America over those golden decades, and I don’t really know how to sort them out. But in the end, it as you say: “the monarchy never died. They have found different methods toward their relentless end, but the end remains the same.” We stubbornly held on to a real freedom (from the state, which is the only freedom that matters) for a while, and the Masters could not allow that. (Too bad the Indians and the Africans on our shores could not share in that wonderful experiment, brief as it was.) They would have gotten us back into the corral somehow, even if Lincoln had lost his stinking war. The monarchy never gives up.
By now, they don’t need bound interments, of course. They do not fear us breaking away, and establishing small counties where we would live without a state dictating how we go about our business. As you say, “The use of psychological, technological and coercive techniques to create a false reality” has us well trained. We don’t WANT to be free anymore. Our masters have ensured that, by those very techniques.
This damned Mac. The sentence “By now, they don’t need bound interments, of course” obviously makes no sense. “bound interments.” That really helps, Apple.
I really need to proofread before clicking “Post Comment.”
I can’t remember what that sentence was meant to say, and it’s not necessary in any event, so just pretend it isn’t there.
In agreement.
I also posit that Ted was framed in the Chappaquiddick affair to silence him.
Gosh, Patrick, I actually agree with much of what you say, I must be getting sick. In a certain sense the War on Terrorism IS a new form of power system, where the people’s consciousness is manipulated by false flags to a degree not previously seen historically.
When the War on Communism of the 20th century segued into the War on Terrorism of the 21st, American power initiated a truth war against the American people. This involved a form of ideological truth inversion, where the Proclaimed truth of power was precisely contrary to the reality-based truth of the people. A selective despotism was institutionalized, functioning under the Porclaimed ideological guise of Freedom&Democracy.
In some real sense, this is quite unprecedented historically, although power has always deluded the people with religion. Traditional religion, particularly the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, have been a power ideology, legitimating Divine, and more covertly, earthly power. However, nowadays, the primary form of delusion, even in the USA, is civil religion, conveyed by political, economic, and scientific ideologies.
But to consider this permanent, the End of History, has no historical basis. Washington is losing world power at an accelerating rate, and the American people’s distrust of its power system is also increasing.
What has to be done is to change the political culture of the American people, who have been corrupted by the historical tendency of American power to engage in homicidal racist imperialism. This is the killing, or threat to kill, non-White people to subjugate them to steal their collective and personal property and power.
This is an historical process, changing political culture, but it can be done, to some extent, in a few decades. Look how Americans have changed their views on homosexuality in a few decades, a very explosive issue. Similarly, American racism and identification with violence can also be changed, even though it is institutionalized in American foreign and domestic policy. You have to take a longer view.
“But to consider this permanent, the End of History, has no historical basis.”
This is not my argument. It is Orwell’s. At least, it is Orwell’s description of the plans of the plotters to end the cycles of history, and retain power in perpetuity. I do believe that Kubrick is correct, and that these people believe they hold that key. I, of course believe the Bible, and Daniel, coupled with Revelation, informs us that their plan will end badly.
“Washington is losing world power at an accelerating rate, and the American people’s distrust of its power system is also increasing.”
As to this opinion, I would advise you to read Paul Craig Roberts’ most recent article. about China and Russia. He is mystified as to why they do not use the power in their hands to destroy the dollar, and thus the power Washington wields. I can tell PCR exactly why they are not doing it. It’s in the Bible. Kubrick’s nameless Masters hold veto power over even Russia and China. If you click on the Miles Mathis link, he produces a picture of the “heart attack gun” the CIA provided to the Senate, for display during the Church Committee hearings. Those weapons work in Russia and China, too.
No, the wide world is not going to defy Washington and break away, wish as we might, and the American people are not beginning to abandon the system that was built in the 20th century. The ugly machine has been set in motion, and it won’t stop because of wishes and happy thoughts.
Let’s not forget that Ted Kennedy ran for president in 1980, challenging Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination. What did him in was arguably not the Chappaquiddick affair but his interview with Roger Mudd. His answer to Mudd’s question ‘Why do you want to be president?” was actually not bad at all save a pause before he started speaking, but it was spun as a gaff by the media. Here’s the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6qLFAnBIFg
To many viewers, myself included, the pregnant pause was simply a moment to let the unspoken thought pass; that as President he would see to it that the truth about his brother’s murder was brought to light. This, however, is not a platform on which one can run for the white house.
I think that this episode illustrates why the Kennedy family did not make a primary cause out of the search for the truth about the JFK assassination. You can’t run for office as a public servant while harping on the need to overturn the verdict of the Warren commission. This goes unsaid.
In private, RFK did question the verdict, and his children have spoken out publicly about this. Charlie Rose interviewed them for the 50th anniversary of the assassination, though neither the video nor the transcript are available. They claimed that their father thought the Warren commission report was a shoddy piece of work, and that he believed that others were responsible. See this:
http://www.ctka.net/2013/The_MSM_and_RFKJr.html
I also want to reiterate my feeling that this Joan Mellen interview is misleading, as it glosses over the two Oswald deception. Anyone who ignores the research of John Armstrong has an alternate agenda. Here is Armstrong interviewed by Len Osanic on the Harvey and Lee evidence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvUvANFW6d8
Sorry about that last link. Here’s the Armstrong interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMAc7WKMP2c
Good interview with Professor Mellon.
Here’s an interesting recap of some of the speakers at the JFK event.
http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/oswald-dismissed-as-lone-gunman-in-jfk-killing/
The Chinese afraid of the CIA? The Chinese are afraid of Thucydides, and so are the Russians. He famously claimed that the war between Athens and Sparta occurred because Sparta was alarmed by the rise of Athenian power. So China downplays it increase in power, and ludicrously playacts as if their economic problems are insurmountable.
And America and the China-bashing community partially believe it. Because, like you, they identify emotionally with the Faith-based truth rather than the reality-based truth. And both China and Russia realize this is very dangerous, because these religious loonies have thermonuclear weapons.
But since the Kennedy assassinations, American power has been systematically deluding the American people with false flags, and the people have having their noses rubbed in it. Slowly, slowly, the distrust of American power is growing, not only among the earth’s people, but among the American people as well. We are witnessing, Patrick, the decline of the Western White Man, and it is so painful that we are doing so with our eyes wide shut.
What an interesting and lively near-lecture by the wonderful Joan! A pleasure to listen to…thanks for bringing her to us, Prof. Tracy!