Paul Rigby

Revealing timing, Maggie, with the US and its Georgian puppets seeking to use the imminent Olympics as a wedge to be driven between Russia and China, the two key components of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The thinking seems to be as follows: Chinese fears that their great showpiece will be ruined is calculated to induce caution or paralysis in Peking, thus depriving Russia of support in its response to the US-sponsored invasion of South Ossetia. Russia, Washington appears to be gambling, will thus be left on its lonesome to deal with this attack.

The US game plan would appear to be, first, to provoke Russian military intervention, then permit a brief truce, followed by a massive escalation – almost certainly a false flag attack of considerable cost in human life - calculated to force reluctant and opposed European states into backing Georgia’s full integration into NATO.

The US, we can now be certain, will launch a comprehensive assault on the SCO elsewhere, too, from Tibet to Xinjiang and beyond, not excluding SCO allies in Africa and the Americas – and Iran. In short, the last, desperate, throw of US military-imperialism has begun.

Paul

You are right Paul. But I think Russia might not be left all alone. I wonder if the Chinese will call in some treasury bonds? It would make economic sense.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia are needed by Georgia, US or the Nordic, Aryan, Tutonic Order (all the same really) for control of the pipeline from the Caspian sea project. And as your previous excellent post on the Turkmenistan Russian oil deal clearly illustrates the US is out in the cold and Europe will have to deal with Russia on their terms to receive gas and oil supplies. This is a desperate attempt by the US and those who've hung their wagon to that star to change the game in their favor.

Before Georgia can join NATO they were told to fix their 'frozen conflicts' and get their minorities under control so annex and repress them. The opposite for Yugoslavia where they want another pipeline to go. It was dismembered. Divide and rule. It works so well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...georgia.russia1

Plucky little Georgia? No, the cold war reading won't wash

It is crudely simplistic to cast Russia as the sole villain in the clashes over South Ossetia. The west would be wise to stay out

By Mark Almond

The Guardian, Saturday, August 9, 2008, p.29

For many people the sight of Russian tanks streaming across a border in August has uncanny echoes of Prague 1968. That cold war reflex is natural enough, but after two decades of Russian retreat from those bastions it is misleading. Not every development in the former Soviet Union is a replay of Soviet history.

The clash between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, which escalated dramatically yesterday, in truth has more in common with the Falklands war of 1982 than it does with a cold war crisis. When the Argentine junta was basking in public approval for its bloodless recovery of Las Malvinas, Henry Kissinger anticipated Britain's widely unexpected military response with the comment: "No great power retreats for ever." Maybe today Russia has stopped the long retreat to Moscow which started under Gorbachev.

Back in the late 1980s, as the USSR waned, the red army withdrew from countries in eastern Europe which plainly resented its presence as the guarantor of unpopular communist regimes. That theme continued throughout the new republics of the deceased Soviet Union, and on into the premiership of Putin, under whom Russian forces were evacuated even from the country's bases in Georgia.

To many Russians this vast geopolitical retreat from places which were part of Russia long before the dawn of communist rule brought no bonus in relations with the west. The more Russia drew in its horns, the more Washington and its allies denounced the Kremlin for its imperial ambitions.

Unlike in eastern Europe, for instance, today in breakaway states such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Russian troops are popular. Vladimir Putin's picture is more widely displayed than that of the South Ossetian president, the former Soviet wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity. The Russians are seen as protectors against a repeat of ethnic cleansing by Georgians.

In 1992, the west backed Eduard Shevardnadze's attempts to reassert Georgia's control over these regions. The then Georgian president's war was a disaster for his nation. It left 300,000 or more refugees "cleansed" by the rebel regions, but for Ossetians and Abkhazians the brutal plundering of the Georgian troops is the most indelible memory.

Georgians have nursed their humiliation ever since. Although Mikheil Saakashvili has done little for the refugees since he came to power early in 2004 - apart from move them out of their hostels in central Tbilisi to make way for property development - he has spent 70% of the Georgian budget on his military. At the start of the week he decided to flex his muscles.

Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan - and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger's dictum: "Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies." Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let's hope not.

Like Galtieri in 1982, Saakashvili faces a domestic economic crisis and public disillusionment. In the years since the so-called Rose revolution, the cronyism and poverty that characterised the Shevardnadze era have not gone away. Allegations of corruption and favouritism towards his mother's clan, together with claims of election fraud, led to mass demonstrations against Saakashvili last November. His ruthless security forces - trained, equipped and subsidised by the west - thrashed the protesters. Lashing out at the Georgians' common enemy in South Ossetia would certainly rally them around the president, at least in the short term.

Last September, President Saakashvili suddenly turned on his closest ally in the Rose revolution, defence minister Irakli Okruashvili. Each man accused his former blood brother of mafia links and profiting from contraband. Whatever the truth, the fact that the men seen by the west as the heroes of a post-Shevardnadze clean-up accused each other of vile crimes should warn us against picking a local hero in Caucasian politics.

Western geopolitical commentators stick to cold war simplicities about Russia bullying plucky little Georgia. However, anyone familiar with the Caucasus knows that the state bleating about its victim status at the hands of a bigger neighbour can be just as nasty to its smaller subjects. Small nationalisms are rarely sweet-natured.

Worse still, western backing for "equip and train" programmes in Russia's backyard don't contribute to peace and stability if bombastic local leaders such as Saakashvili see them as a guarantee of support even in a crisis provoked by his own actions. He seems to have thought that the valuable oil pipeline passing through his territory, together with the Nato advisers intermingled with his troops, would prevent Russia reacting militarily to an incursion into South Ossetia. That calculation has proved disastrously wrong.

The question now is whether the conflict can be contained, or whether the west will be drawn in, raising the stakes to desperate levels. To date the west has operated radically different approaches to secession in the Balkans, where pro-western microstates get embassies, and the Caucasus, where the Caucasian boundaries drawn up by Stalin, are deemed sacrosanct.

In the Balkans, the west promoted the disintegration of multiethnic Yugoslavia, climaxing with their recognition of Kosovo's independence in February. If a mafia-dominated microstate like Montenegro can get western recognition, why shouldn't flawed, pro-Russian, unrecognised states aspire to independence, too?

Given its extraordinary ethnic complexity, Georgia is a post-Soviet Union in miniature. If westerners readily conceded non-Russian republics' right to secede from the USSR in 1991, what is the logic of insisting that non-Georgians must remain inside a microempire which happens to be pro-western?

Other people's nationalisms are like other people's love affairs, or, indeed, like dog fights. These are things wise people don't get involved in. A war in the Caucasus is never a straightforward moral crusade - but then, how many wars are?

• Mark Almond is a history lecturer at Oriel College, Oxford mpalmond@aol.com

So so easily deceived.....

Paul by the way where is your Forum required bio?

No idea. You?

Let me know if you find it.

Paul

When I think of Russia, I think of Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn and gulags, not peacekeepers

Then a) you're education is shamefully limited, as the Soviet period of Russian history lasted a mere 70+ years; and you've a very selective memory - not recall what he had to say about the US?

Georgia, with obvious US approval, attacked a province of the former USSR which made the same decision to divorce as Georgia did - only the South Ossitians chose to remain with Moscow. Your inability to comment on the obvious fact of Georgian aggression represents precisely the kind of divorce from observable reality that characterises the Bush White House.

Paul

In conclusion.

There was no hole in the glass, the artifact that has been labeled a hole is even to small to have been a hole from a rifle bullet, unless of course some half crazed assassin out there was shooting at the Limo with a .177 caliber pellet gun, which I might add is still to LARGE to have created the hole in the parkland photo.

Physical evidence beats witness testimony any day.

I am sure there will be those who will say “well we are looking at this on an angle.” I do not care how you turn it you can not make a 1/8” hole into a 3/8” hole. Not gonna happen within the realm of logic.

Best to all,

Mike

For a very different view:

Fred Newcomb & Perry Adams. Murder From Within (Santa Barbara, California: 1974): Extract from Chapter 3, “Execution”:

The Fifth Shot

When Mrs. Kennedy was about to climb out of the Presidential limousine and Governor Connolly pulled himself up and looked over into the front seat, another shot was fired. That bullet hit the windshield of the limousine (88). The damage can clearly be seen in one of Altgens' photographs (Fig. 3-9).

The bullet hole was noted by reporter Richard Dudman (89). Sgt. Stavis Ellis described it: "Well, it was a hole. You could put a pencil through it. I showed it to Officer Chaney out there at the hospital [Parkland]…you could take a regular standard writing pencil - wood pencil - and stick it through there…and some Secret Service agent run up there and said, 'That's no bullet hole, that's a fragment.' It wasn't a damn fragment; it was a hole” (90).

There was a bullet scar on the curb near the triple underpass (91). By projecting a line, from the curb, through the windshield of the limousine at that point in time, it aligns near the centre of the road.

The line of trajectory points to a source within the motorcade.

Because of the steep angle - 45 degrees - of the front windshield, this shot must have been fired at or about ground level from some point behind the limousine. A shot fired from above the motorcade, such as from the sixth floor of the depository, would have hit either the windshield or the curb, not both.

Footnotes:

(88) Zapruder frame number 330.

(89) Charles Roberts, op. cit., p. 17.

(90) Ellis, loc. cit.

(91) Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, “Shaneyfelt Exhibit No. 26. ‘FBI report, dated July 17, 1964, concerning investigation into curb mark on Main Street in Dallas,’” in Hearings, v. 21, pp. 472-474.

Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, “Shaneyfelt Exhibit No. 27. ‘Letter from the FBI to the Commission, dated August 12, 1964, concerning investigation into curb mark on Main Street in Dallas,’” in Hearings, v. 21, pp. 475-477.

Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, “Shaneyfelt Exhibit No. 29-30. ‘Charts prepared by Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt showing locations of curb mark on Main Street in Dallas,’” in Hearings, v. 21, pp. 478-480.

Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, “’Shaneyfelt Exhibit No. 34. ‘Piece of curb containing lead markings removed from Main Street in Dallas,’” in Hearings, v. 21, p. 482.

According to Shaneyfelt, “These metal smears [on the curb] were spectographically determined to be essentially lead with a trace of antimony. No copper was found. The absence of copper precludes the possibility that the mark on the curbing section was made by an unmutilated military full metal-jacketed bullet such as the bullet from Governor Connally’s stretcher.” [Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, “Testimony of Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt [dated Sept. 1, 1964],” in Hearings, v. 15, p. 700.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/russia-re...8139076806.html

Russian warplanes bombed Georgian targets yesterday, the Tbilisi government said, after Georgian forces surrounded and shelled the capital of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

Amid spiralling tensions, reports said Russian forces on peacekeeping duty in South Ossetia had been killed and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned his country would retaliate against Georgia's offensive in the Caucasus trouble spot.

At least 15 civilians were killed in the fighting and Georgian shelling and air raids on the separatist capital Tskhinvali, reports and South Ossetian officials said.

The European Union and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) led international calls for a ceasefire in South Ossetia - which broke away from Tbilisi's control in the early 1990s - but the United Nations failed to agree on a Russian statement urging Georgia and the rebels to halt the fighting.

Georgia accuses Russia of seeking to take over South Ossetia.

A witness saw Georgian forces fire more than a dozen missiles towards South Ossetia from a position inside Georgia and witnessed helicopters and hundreds of soldiers in trucks moving towards the region.

A large plume of smoke rose from Tskhinvali shortly after dawn and explosions and heavy weapons continued regularly as they had all night.

The Russian military said a barracks for Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali was hit and that some troops were killed, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.

"As a result of the Georgian artillery shelling there are fatalities among the peacekeepers," a representative of the Russian command was quoted as saying.

Three Russian Sukhoi-24 aircraft entered Georgian airspace, a Georgian interior ministry spokesman told Agence France-Presse.

"One of them dropped two bombs close to the police station in Kareli," spokesman Shota Utiashvili said, referring to a Georgian village near South Ossetia.

There were also reports of a Russian air raid near Gori, the main Georgian city near South Ossetia.

In announcing that Georgia's operation had succeeded, President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russian bombers had attacked "peaceful" Georgian cities.

"Most of South Ossetia's territory is liberated and is controlled by Georgia," Saakashvili said in televised comments.

He said Russia was conducting flights over Tskhinvali and added: "I demand Russia stop bombardment of peaceful Georgian cities."

But Putin, the former Russian president who is now its influential prime minister, condemned Georgia's "aggressive actions" and said his country would have to retaliate.

"It is regrettable that on the day before the opening of the Olympic Games, the Georgian authorities have undertaken aggressive actions in South Ossetia," said Putin in Beijing.

"They have in effect begun hostilities using tanks and artillery," he added.

"It is sad, but this will provoke retaliatory measures."

Putin said he had discussed the crisis with Chinese leaders and with US President George Bush.

"Everybody agrees - nobody wants to see a war."

A Kremlin spokesman said President Dmitry Medvedev was considering "emergency measures" in response to the Georgian attack.

Russia called a special meeting of the UN Security Council which expressed concern over the fighting but could not agree on a Russian statement urging the warring sides to end the violence and return to the negotiating table.

The United States called on both sides to stop the fighting.

"We're urging Moscow to press South Ossetia's de facto leaders to stop firing. We're urging Tbilisi to maintain restraint," Gonzalo Gallegos, a US State Department spokesman, told reporters.

South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity said earlier that his forces still controlled Tskhinvali.

"We fully control our capital. The battle is continuing on the outskirts of Tskhinvali," Kokoity was quoted as saying by Interfax. "The situation is completely under control."

In recent months, Moscow and Tbilisi have sparred repeatedly over South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian region, Abkhazia.

Georgia's pro-Western government accuses Moscow of seeking to annex the two regions and derail its efforts to join the transatlantic NATO alliance, which Russia vehemently opposes.

The Georgian offensive came within just hours of reports that Georgia and South Ossetia agreed to meet today for talks and the declaration of a unilateral ceasefire by the Georgian president.

Revealing timing, Maggie, with the US and its Georgian puppets seeking to use the imminent Olympics as a wedge to be driven between Russia and China, the two key components of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The thinking seems to be as follows: Chinese fears that their great showpiece will be ruined is calculated to induce caution or paralysis in Peking, thus depriving Russia of support in its response to the US-sponsored invasion of South Ossetia. Russia, Washington appears to be gambling, will thus be left on its lonesome to deal with this attack.

The US game plan would appear to be, first, to provoke Russian military intervention, then permit a brief truce, followed by a massive escalation – almost certainly a false flag attack of considerable cost in human life - calculated to force reluctant and opposed European states into backing Georgia’s full integration into NATO.

The US, we can now be certain, will launch a comprehensive assault on the SCO elsewhere, too, from Tibet to Xinjiang and beyond, not excluding SCO allies in Africa and the Americas – and Iran. In short, the last, desperate, throw of US military-imperialism has begun.

Paul

The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5

Film Showing Assassination Is Released

NEW YORK (UPI) — United Press International Newsfilm early today was first on the air with exclusive film showing the assassination of President Kennedy.

The film is 16mm enlarged from 8mm. It was shown on a New York City television station.

The sequence, shot by an amateur photographer in Dallas Friday, begins with motorcycle police coming around the corner followed by the Kennedy motorcade.

The President is then seen leaning over when the bullets strike. Mrs. Kennedy puts her right arm around the President and he slumps out of view. The film then shows a Secret Service agent running toward the car.

The film was shown in slow motion and also stopped at key points in the assassination. The scene was shown four times at different speeds and under different magnifications.

Copies have been rushed to United Press Newsfilm clients all over the world.

Anyone desirous of checking the source of this piece should click on the following link and follow the instructions beneath it:

http://www.kennedyassassinationarchive.com/Home.aspx

Click on “Advanced Search” tab

In the “exact phrase” search box, type “exclusive film” (without the quotes)

Under “Publication Date,” select “exact date” & specify “1963, November, 26”

Up should pop the example I’ve cited in this thread.

Oh – and these additional copies, albeit with slightly different titles:

1. “Exclusive Films Show Shooting of Kennedy in Dallas,” Logansport Pharos-Tribune, (Logansport, Indiana), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 2

2. “UPI Newsfilm First On Air With Exclusive,” Great Bend Daily Tribune, (Great Bend, Kansas), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 9

3. “UPI Newsfilm Has Shooting On Film,” Humboldt Standard, (Eureka, California), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, p.2

Paul

Georgian Times

August 4, 2008

UN Blames Georgians For Khurcha Incident

I.G. Chopan

Report states that Georgian civilians were attacked

from Georgian side of Abkhaz border

-Though Georgia has claimed the attack was the work of Abkhaz separatists, UNOMIG has found that the grenades were fired from the Georgian side of the ceasefire line, from about 100 metres away from the buses. The report also notes that the presence of TV crew at the football field by prior invitation suggests that the attack was anticipated by whoever sent the TV

crews there.

http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=11796

Fascinating piece, Maggie, to which I add the following:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9750

On the Brink of War: The Caucasian conflict in the context of world politics

By Fyodor Lukyanov

Global Research, August 5, 2008

RIA Novosti

South Ossetia is once again on the brink of war. Alarming reports are coming from Abkhazia, and Russian-Georgian relations continue to be tense.

Why have these two unresolved conflicts on Georgian territory grown so markedly worse? Their indefinite status is by definition volatile, and sometimes a minor event can turn a frozen conflict into a hot one. In this case, however, we are seeing a major change that reflects a fundamental process.

Kosovo's unilateral proclamation of independence from Serbia last February played a key role in these developments. There may be endless disputes over whether this has created a legal precedent or not, but realpolitik takes its course regardless.

Moscow and quite a few other capitals considered the move a serious step toward the degradation of international law and the triumph of arbitrary approaches to the resolution of global problems.

Nonetheless, Russia has chosen a course of compromise. Russia's leaders could not ignore what happened in the Balkans, but they chose not respond by recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, even though they believe that after Kosovo was proclaimed independent they had every right to do so.

Reluctant to complicate an already difficult situation, Russia is ready to continue recognizing Georgia's formal territorial integrity. But it has opted for fully-fledged relations with both of the breakaway territories. This approach is manifest in Moscow's decision to withdraw from sanctions against Abkhazia and the Russian president's April decree on practical aid to the residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Tbilisi understands that after Kosovo the prospect of restoring Georgia's territorial integrity has become even vaguer. If the status taking shape after Russia's move is accepted and everything is left as it is, it will soon be pointless to talk about re-integration even in theory. Abkhazia will become an element of an enormous economic project called "the Sochi Olympics." South Ossetia is already de facto a subsidized region of the Russian Federation.

Tbilisi must show resolve if it wants to break this trend. It can make diplomatic initiatives, exert military pressure and attract the attention of its Western allies by escalating tensions. Georgia's leaders believe that closer relations with NATO and future membership in the bloc will help secure their territorial integrity. Washington shares this view. According to this logic, NATO's failure to welcome Georgia and Ukraine into a Membership Action Plan in April was a sign of weakness that prompted Russia to step up its actions toward "annexing" the territories. If Moscow is told in no uncertain terms that the decision will be made, this will ostensibly promote stabilization.

But Russia's position on this issue is just the opposite. The closer Georgia is to NATO, the more resolute steps Moscow will take toward recognizing the territories which Georgia no longer controls, because Tbilisi could see some of NATO's formal commitments as a chance to resolve the conflicts militarily.

The United States has been contributing to the tension. Six months before the end of his presidency, George W. Bush badly needs some international success, if he does not want to be remembered for a chain of failures. Approval of the Membership Action Plan for Ukraine and Georgia (or at least one of them) at NATO's ministerial meeting next December is fast becoming his only chance to leave a tangible achievement.

This is why Washington is being more vocal in its support for Georgia and bringing more pressure to bear on those of its European allies who question the wisdom of such a course. One example is the recent visit to Tbilisi by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Needless to say, Georgia perceives Washington's unequivocal position as a green light to take more active steps.

Tensions are likely to reach a peak in late fall. In December, the current U.S. administration will make its last attempt to push through the Membership Action Plan. As a prelude to this, Washington will sharply step up its political activities, thereby increasing the risk of armed conflicts in the region.

Fyodor Lukyanov is the editor-in-chief of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/St...ent=strParentID

US accused of backing terrorism in Pakistan

Indo-Asian News Service

Islamabad, August 05, 2008

Pakistan has accused the US of backing militancy within the country, saying this goes against the grain of the Washington-led global war against terror.

Quoting "impeccable official sources", The News reported on Tuesday that "strong evidence and circumstantial evidence of American acquiescence to terrorism inside Pakistan" was outlined by President Pervez Musharraf, army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj in separate meetings with two senior US officials in Islamabad on July 12.

The visit of the Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and CIA Deputy Director Stephen R. Kappes, "carrying what were seen as India-influenced intelligence inputs had hardened the resolve of Pakistan's security establishment to keep supreme Pakistan's national security interest even if it meant straining ties with the US and NATO", the newspaper said.

It quoted a senior official with direct knowledge of the meetings as saying that Pakistan's military leadership and the president asked the American visitors "not to distinguish between a terrorist for the United States and Afghanistan and a terrorist for Pakistan".

"For reasons best known to Langley, the CIA headquarters, as well as the Pentagon, Pakistani officials say the Americans were not interested in disrupting the Kabul-based fountainhead of terrorism in Balochistan nor do they want to allocate the marvellous Predator (unmanned armed aerial combat vehicle) resource to neutralise the kingpin of suicide bombings against the Pakistani military establishment now hiding near the Pakistan-Afghan border," The News said.

During the meetings, the US officials were also asked why the CIA-run Predators and the US military did not swing into action when they were provided the exact location of tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud, "Pakistan's enemy number one and the mastermind of almost every suicide operation against the Pakistan Army and the ISI since June 2006", the newspaper added.

One such precise piece of information was made available to the CIA May 24 when Mehsud drove to a remote South Waziristan mountain post in his Toyota Land Cruiser to address the media and returned to his safe abode.

"The United States military has the capacity to direct a missile to a precise location at very short notice as it has done close to 20 times in the last few years to hit Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan," The News noted.

Pakistani officials, according to the newspaper, "have long been intrigued by the presence of highly encrypted communications gear with Mehsud. This communication gear enables him to collect real-time information on Pakistani troop movements from an unidentified foreign source without being intercepted by Pakistani intelligence".

Mullen and the CIA official were in Pakistan on an unannounced visit July 12 to present what the US media claimed was evidence of the ISI's ties with Taliban commander Maulana Sirajuddin Haqqani and the alleged involvement of Pakistani agents in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.

"Pakistani military leaders rubbished the American information and evidence on the Kabul bombing but provided some rationale for keeping a window open with Haqqani, just as the British government had decided to open talks with some Taliban leaders in southern Afghanistan last year," The News said.

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2008/07/court-d...ght-on-cia.html

From the blog: Against All Enemies

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas

Sibel Edmonds State Secrets Gallery Connects Pipeline Politics, Madrassas & the Turkish Proxies

In a recent immigration court case involving Turkish Islamic Leader, Fetullah Gulen, US prosecutors exposed an illegal, covert, CIA operation involving the intentional Islamization of Central Asia. This operation has been ongoing since the fall of the Soviet Union in an ongoing Cold War to control the vast energy resources of the region - Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan - estimated to be worth $3 trillion.

Court Case

The scene for these dramatic disclosures was an application for a Green Card in the Eastern District Court in Philadelphia by "controversial Islamic scholar" Fetullah Gulen. Gulen, who has been living in the United States since 1998, argued that he qualified for the Green Card as "an extraordinarily talented academic."

The court case was covered extensively by the Turkish press. Leading Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported:

"Gülen's financial resources were detailed in the public prosecutor's arguments, which claimed that Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Turkish government, and the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, were behind the Gülen movement. It stated that some businessmen in Ankara donated 10 to 70 percent of their annual income to the movement and that it corresponded to $20,000 to $300,000 per year per person. It added that one businessman in Istanbul donated $4-5 million each year and that young people graduating from Gülen's schools donated between $2,000 and $5,000 each year."

Another leading Turkish newspaper reported (translated by Rastibini)

Among the reasons given by the US State Department's attorneys as to why Gülen's permanent residence application was refused, is the suspicion of CIA financing of his movement.

"There is even CIA suspicion"

"Because of the large amount of money that Gülen's movement uses to finance his projects, there are claims that he has secret agreements with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkic governments. There are suspicions that the CIA is a co-payer in financing these projects," claimed the attorneys.

Among the documents that the state attorneys presented, there are claims about the Gülen movement's financial structure and it was emphasized that the movement's economic power reached $25 billion. "Schools, newspapers, universities, unions, television channels . . . The relationship among these are being debated. There is no transparency in their work," claimed the attorneys."

Who is Gulen?

Fetullah Gulen is "a 67-year-old Turkish Sufi cleric, author and theoretician," according to a recent profile in the UK's Prospect magazine. Prospect ran a public poll last month to find the world's greatest living intellectual. Gulen 'won' the poll after his newspapers alerted readers to the poll's existence. Gulen is also the leader of the so-called 'Gulen Movement' which claims to have seven million followers worldwide. The Gulen Movement has extensive business interests, including "publishing activities (books, newspapers, and magazines), construction, healthcare, and education."

Gulen and the CIA

The fact that the prosecutors in the court cite documents that claim that Gulen has been financed in part by the CIA is remarkable for a number of reasons, even though there have been strong suspicions about the CIA's involvement in the Gulen Movement for years. The Russian intelligence agency, the FSB, has repeatedly taken action against the Gulen movement for acting as a front organization for the CIA. In December 2002, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported:

Russian secret service claims: Turkish religious brotherhood works for CIA

The FSB, the Russian intelligence organization formerly called the KGB, has claimed that the 'Nurcus' religious brotherhood in Turkey has engaged in espionage on behalf of the CIA through the companies and foundations it has founded. FSB head Nikolay Patrushev has mentioned the names of these companies and foundations, saying, 'The brotherhood engages in anti-Russian activities via two companies, Serhad and Eflak, as well as foundations such as Toros, Tolerans and Ufuk.' Patrushev has accused the brotherhood of conducting pan-Turkish propaganda, of trying to convert Russian youths to Islam by sowing the seeds of enmity, and of engaging in certain lobbying activities. These companies and foundations have turned up in the internet site of Fethullah Gulen [alleged leader of the Nurcu religious community currently living in the United States who is a defendant in several court cases in Turkey, accused of engaging in anti-secularist activities.]""

Russia has banned all of Gulen's madrassas, and in April of this year, banned the Nurcu Movement completely.

Gulen's Madrassas

The Gulen Movement founded madrassas all over the world in the 1990's, most of them in the newly independent Turkic republics of Central Asia - Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan - and Russia.

These madrassas appear to be used as a front for enabling CIA and State Department officials to operate undercover in the region, with many of the teachers operating under diplomatic passports.

Why Central Asia?

Central Asia, with its vast energy wealth, is of major interest to US oil and gas companies. The region is also of key strategic interest in the 'Great Game' as Russia, China and the US compete for dwindling energy supplies. The US government has been using Turkey as a proxy to gain control over Central Asia via Pan-Turkic nationalism and religion.

Sibel Edmonds Case

Twenty six people wrote reference letters supporting Gulen's application for a Green Card - most notably ex-CIA agent George Fidas, former Turkish ambassador Morton Abramowitz, and former CIA Deputy Director Graham Fuller who appears in Sibel Edmonds' State Secrets Privilege Gallery.

I called Sibel Edmonds to comment on the latest revelations. She said:

You've got to look at the big picture. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the super powers began to fight over control of Central Asia, particularly the oil and gas wealth, as well as the strategic value of the region.

Given the history, and the distrust of the West, the US realized that it couldn't get direct control, and therefore would need to use a proxy to gain control quickly and effectively. Turkey was the perfect proxy; a NATO ally and a puppet regime. Turkey shares the same heritage/race as the entire population of Central Asia, the same language (Turkic), the same religion (Sunni Islam), and of course, the strategic location and proximity.

This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.

This is why I have been saying repeatedly that these illegal covert operations by the Turks and certain US persons dates back to 1996, and involves terrorist activities, narcotics, weapons smuggling and money laundering, converging around the same operations and involving the same actors.

And I want to emphasize that this is "illegal" because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.

And one last thing, take a look at the people in the State Secrets Privilege Gallery on my website and you will see how these individuals can be traced to the following; Turkey, Central Asia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - and the activities involving these countries.

Many of the people in Sibel's State Secrets Privilege Gallery are closely connected to Gulen, and each other, as well as the operations that Sibel mentions. Many of them have actively advocated for using Muslims to further their own needs - from Turkistan to Albania and Central Asia.

Marc Grossman, former State Department #3 and former Turkish ambassador, and one of the key named individuals in Sibel's case, is currently receiving $1.2 million per annum from Ihlas Holding, a Gulen-linked Turkish conglomerate. Sibel has previously referred to Ihlas as 'semi-legitimate' and 'alleged shady' - and emphasized that Grossman's current payoff is a result of services performed while he was in office.

Grossman's predecessor as ambassador in Turkey was Morton Abramowitz - in fact, Grossman actually worked under Abramowitz in Ankara for a number of years. During that period, the US opened an espionage investigation into activities at the embassy involving Major Douglas Dickerson, a weapons procurement specialist for Central Asia. Dickerson and his wife, an FBI translator, later became famous when they tried to recruit Sibel to spy for this criminal network.

Abramowitz, who is not listed in Sibel's State Secrets Privilege Gallery, wrote a letter in support of Gulen for his immigration case. He has long advocated the use of Islamic fighters in furtherance of US interests, including the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets and the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war in the Balkans, acting as an advisor to the Kosovar Albanians.

Another player from Sibel's Gallery is Enver Yusuf Turani - Prime Minister of East Turkistan, a 'country' recognized by only one country, the United States. East Turkistan, aka Xinjiang, is officially a part of China, and home to the Uyghur people and the "Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement," a UN-nominated terrorist organization "funded mainly by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and received training, support and personnel from both the al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan." In fact, the Uyghurs constitute a significant percentage of detainees - at least 22 - at Guantanamo Bay since 2001. Five of those have been set free, and were eventually sent to Albania, amid much controversy.

According to TurkPulse:

"One of the main tools Washington is using in this affair in order to get Turkey involved in the Xinjiang affair is some Turkish Americans, primarily the Fetullah Gulen team who are prosecuted in absentia in Turkey for trying to found a theocratic State order in this country because he runs his activities from the United States, his protégé. Another Turk used in this affair is Enver Yusuf Turani, who is the self styled Foreign and Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in exile. He has been an American citizen since 1998. Enver Yusuf is in close cooperation with Fetullah Gulen... Their activities for the government in exile are based on a report entitled “the Xinjiang Project” drafted by Graham Fuller in 1998 for the Rand Corporation and revised in 2003 under the title “the Xinjiang Problem.” It emphasises the importance of the Xinjiang Autonomous region in encircling China and provides a strategy for it."

In fact, Abramowitz and Fuller were key players in the establishment of 'East Turkistan,' "proclaiming the government in exile within 4-5 months, starting in May (2004) and completing the proclamation in mid- September. The ceremony was held at Capitol Hill under American flags in Washington."

Two others from Sibel's gallery, Sabri Sayari and Alan Makovsky, have been similarly involved with Gulen, Fuller, and Abramowitz - co-authoring books and articles, making joint appearances, dinners etc.

Illegal Operations

Earlier I quoted Sibel saying "And I want to emphasize that this is "illegal" because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities."

Where does this funding come from? Narcotics trafficking, nuclear black market, weapons smuggling, and terrorist activities. As Sibel makes clear in her The Highjacking of a Nation article, the management of the heroin industry from the farms in Afghanistan to the streets of London and elsewhere "requires highly sophisticated networks," from the protection of the convoys from Afghanistan through Central Asia to their final destination, to the laundering of the billions of dollars in proceeds in Central Asian casinos and financial institutions in Dubai and Cyprus. "So, who are the real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields?" Sibel asks. The heroin trade finances al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but they aren't the real lords of the poppy fields. Journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia " and other similar books about these issues recently noted on Democracy Now that a "cartel" controls Afghanistan's heroin, which supplies 93% of global heroin supply.

Sibel has been trying to tell us about these operations for years, but has been gagged by the State Secrets Privilege which was invoked citing certain 'sensitive foreign diplomatic and business relationships.' These 'sensitive relationships' have now been exposed to a degree, thanks to the immigration case against Mr Gulen - one of the Turkish operatives who have been fronting for the CIA in the Islamization of Central Asia, incorporating drug trafficking, money laundering, and the nuclear black market, and the convergence with terrorism.

One Last Question

At the end of our interview, Sibel asked me to leave you with this question:

"After 911, the US Government engaged in mock investigations and shut down many small Islamic charities and organizations, giving the appearance of action in the so-called 'War on Terror.' Why did they harbor, support and resource Fethullah Gulen's $25 billion madrassa-and-mosque-establishment efforts throughout the Central Asian region and the Balkans?"

All that was missing then was a President willing to do the right thing. Lucky for us that President was in charge on 9/11.

A direct quote from Putin?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JG30Ag01.html

Russia takes control of Turkmen (world?) gas

By M K Bhadrakumar

From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn...

A self-described "Conservative Republican's" take on the same subject:

http://www.rense.com/general82/dite.htm

Phew! Bush Dirty Diapers!

By Karl Schwarz

8-2-8

As the bad news unfolds in the Caspian Basin that the US is being 'shut out' of its delusional Grand Chessboard scheme, there are other forest fires, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting in the US and UK that may well spell the doom of BushCo and the Imbecile Great Decider at the helm. He is now expendable and vulnerable to both impeachment and possible war crimes charges. Pay attention to how expendable 'Gorgon' Brown suddenly has become. Bush is next as should be most of those in DC.

The Russians are often brilliant strategists, and never, even for a moment underestimate, them.

Some time around 2000, there was an "investment club" created. It was somewhere around $20 to $22 billion dollars and was promoted by a lot of high profile names mentioned often in this 9-11 / Caspian Basin fiasco, and some not mentioned at all. Names like George H W Bush, Tricky Dick Cheney, Nicholas Brady, John Sununu and others. All of their names surfaced in our investigation of what was going on in the Caspian Basin. They had all purchased front row seats to get at those trillions, and trillions and trillions of dollars in Caspian oil and gas.

Of course, that is the same John Sununu that had to resign from the Reagan Administration. Not sure what the connection was but the day he resigned Pan Am filed for bankruptcy. They must have seen trouble coming in losing their 'best customer.' Then there is the same Nicholas Brady of the GHWB Administration, the Brady Bonds fiasco and board member of Amerada Hess. The 9-11 Commission Chairman, Thomas Keane, is chairman of Amerada Hess and major shareholder, so, yes, he probably would have ignored the 'truth' for a board member involved in this Caspian Basin Investment Club.

There is a very real possibility that this 'investment club' was involved in getting 9-11 done, and it is also a possibility that they are about take a major hit due to Junior losing the Caspian Basin. I frankly hope they take a mega-billion dollar red ink shower and lose it all.

I hope they enjoy their front row seat for the aria, as the Fat Lady begins to sing, and that they lose those billions of still more stupidity of what they thought they could pull off and rip-off via the Caspian Basin.

The days of oil are numbered except for petrochemicals, the days of natural gas run as long as the Earth produces natural gas as a natural process of our planet. It is very apparent that Russia has now emerged as the dominant global giant in natural gas. What they control and how they will use that if pushed the wrong way could cause a meltdown in many parts of the world. The EU is paying attention and it is past time the US did, too.

The day is coming fast that automobiles will be powered by hydrogen and water, not oil and gasoline. I cannot foresee a time in the future that natural gas will NOT be the KEY energy issue, and Russia has already won that war, hands down. If this were a hockey game it would be Russia 50, US 0. If it were a basketball game it would be Russia100, US 0. If it were a tennis match it would be Russia 6-0, 6-0, 6-0.

We lost, that's the proverbial bottom line. Game, set and match. It is over. Finis.

The next generation of and for mankind is nanotechnology, and it will be powered by natural gas, not oil. My company scientists are experts in that matter. Russia has just taken the lead on the NOW and the FUTURE, and has left the US behind, wallowing in its Oil-on-the-Brain mindset.

My sources in Houston inform that Big Oil is realizing fast that the BushCo brain-damaged fraud of its 'Global War on Terror' has blown up in its face like a nuclear bomb. To that extent, Big Oil is no longer heeding Daddy Bush's calls to go help Junior with his dirty diapers.

Why it took them so long to recognize 'catastrophe' is incredible. Maybe it is due to their blinding, delusional blizzard of '$$$' they were dreaming of making from the Caspian Basin, like sugar plums dancing in their heads. Maybe it is because the wealthy can afford to not pay attention to the realities right in front of their noses. I have suspected for a long time that many of the Wealthy Elite in the US are running on either 'lobotomy mode' or autopilot in 'stuck-on-stupid' gear.

There is indeed a 'core group' of Big Oil tycoons in Texas who have been called upon over the years to provide 'opportunities' for Junior, so the moron will have something to do other than be 'unemployed.' They have always received '911 emergency' phone calls from Daddy that dirty diaper duty is a must. One of those major Houston 'players' and I have spoken often. My friend is astounded at the lack of perception of the Houston and Washington power players and how it took them so long to figure out what 'stupid' looks like.

As he said to me once, "Hey, I know stupid xxxx when I see it." He does, indeed, and his comment was about Junior's cabal's likelihood of success stealing the Caspian Basin. That comment was made in 2002.

Such a call to duty is even a requirement of not being put on the 'Bush xxxx List.' Frankly, I think it's about the Best list in the world to be on these days. I have been thrown out of better clubs than BushCo and damned proud that 'smudge' is not on my resume.

This diaper is so dirty, so putrid, people have decided they have better things to do with their time and money. They invested heavily in this Grand Chessboard scheme and now it is every man for himself to see how much they can limit the damage and control their losses. My bet is there are not enough lifejackets on the USS Bush Titanic for all to survive and some have reached that pregnant "moment of truth' stage. Cut the losses with BushCo or sink with them.

The Great Decider Bush and Daddy Bush are probably already making plans to push more than a few overboard from the USS Bush Titanic just to save their pathetic Presidential 'legacies.' They have already made a 'Bush xxxx List' and it grows daily due to people turning and walking away in disgust.

There are three American Presidential legacies that should be stricken from every book, every building and aircraft carrier and every other place of 'honor'...and they are those of George H W Bush, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. We could not combine the best from these three deceitful, traitorous, treasonous, genocidal morons and come up with a single decent American President.

America, face up to this simple reality: The Bush Family has raped, ravaged and thrown you into the trash heap. They screw up everything they touch with their lie-based schemes, and their treasonous sales of our best technology to our enemies and 'friends' has tossed away decades of the best R&D any nation ever achieved. Get over the reality of the matter and figure out how you are going to survive the Sinking of America. If you do not have a lifejacket, you had better find one...and fast.

There is a very real possibility that major oil companies and major billionaire Bush Buddies are about to take a bath to the point that even the money and power landscape of America will change significantly. Yeah, some of the Wealthy Elite are way, way past angry and fed-up with the Bush Show. They are going to get hosed by this stupid strategic plan and so is the rest of America. We may soon see some down on their luck billionaires due to collective Bush Stupidity.

It is one thing to 'crap' on the presidency and the Oval Office as Clinton did, but it is quite another matter to decimate/annihilate Iraq and Afghanistan (and slaughter a couple million human beings), and to dump on Russia and China, bungle the entire Caspian Basin scheme, stab America in the back and essentially blow the entire game in spades. Only George W Bush could pull of that hat trick. Even if we had Mr. MaGoo and Elmer Fudd as president and vice president, more accomplishments would have been realized since the 2000 'elections.'

These two morons, Bush & Cheney - and their Zionist NeoCon parasites and pathological killers - are a hideous, evil plague on the planet by ANY measure. Remember, I am a Conservative Republican and I know what of I speak.

In my opinion, Bush has blown more opportunities than any President in my lifetime due to his arrogance and self-inflicted ignorance.

I told one of my readers that what is happening right now is the equivalent of being hit in the head with a (Russian) Nolan Ryan fastball, and then the umpire takes the bat and hits the batter in the head again for being too stupid to see it coming and too stupid to duck. The analogy is simply that BushCo has been knocked out, lights out, and Americans are beyond stupid if they do not wake up and look at the realities of the situation.

I know many Americans who feel that way (hit in the head by a fastball) and are stunned at what they are witnessing. This is indeed a Major National Embarrassment and it is the folks in DC, the Fed, Wall Street and corporate America who are to blame. Stay focused on that. It is not your idiot next door neighbor who thinks Bush is "hot" or the one across the street who thinks the only 'truth' in America drivels from the mouths of O'Reilly and Limbaugh. The real problem is inWashington, DC and the lunatic policies these power-drunk morons keep pushing.

They all are lying to you, folks, so get it straight in your head. Those 'leaders' in Washington, DC are LIARS. When their lips are moving be very wary, be afraid of what they are *really* saying. Very afraid.

These events also raise serious questions about the sanity of the Barky Obama Black Bush strategery of 'refocusing' on Afghanistan (to try to get that pipeline deal finally done.) I can think of no reason whatsoever to spend even one second or $1 to save the reputation of Zbigniew Brzezinski and his lunatic vision for the world. The man is an idiot and Russia just proved it by pushing the US out of the Caspian Basin in one fell swoop with a contract and a pen. Seriously, his idea was dim and dumb in 1979 and it is still so in 2008. As we now know, it is dead meat lying at the bottom of the sea. Get over it and come up with a better plan.

And for the love of God, we must not allow the squander of the life of even one more American soldier on this Grand Lie.

I can bet there are plenty of 'CYA' handwringing strategy sessions going on over at Obamanation HQ and BushCo about how they are going to try to explain away this colossal failure to America. I still have yet to see that McCain has a clue as to what is unraveling right before his eyes.

Seriously, there is FUBAR, and then there is "W FUBAR" which makes the original military term mild in comparison.

Russia just made it clear to McCain: "We can afford to cut off relations with any of our partners if that's what they want. We're not interested in what [John] McCain has to say. Let him become president first, then we'll listen to him," a senior Russian diplomat told reporters on Tuesday, according to AFP.

That was in response to all of the John McGoo 'tough talk' about how he is going to reign in Russia, 'correct their attitude' and get the BushCo plan back on track.

Hint ­ cut a deal with IRAN or pack your bags in the entire Centcom area of the Middle East and Central Asia. You Bush sycophants are stinking up the world stage with your incompetence.

Another dynamic is the call for 'Gorgon' Brown to resign. Just like Tony Blair, his oratory, bullxxxx and pontificating is just making the hole deeper. Of concern there is that the Rothschild family is apparently pushing either Zionist Jack Straw or Zionist David Miliband to replace Brown so they can try to get their greed-lust game plan back on the track. Folks, it is not happening and it is not going to happen.

The Rothschild family is going to have to come to grips with the fact that they are not going to survive this intact. One of their heirs and author of "Global Warming Survival Handbook", David de Rothschild, was quoted saying that 'Jupiter and Saturn are closer to the Sun than Earth', so that is why his theory of Global Warming was valid. Yeah, well, money can't buy a brain.

I know, Forrest, stupid is as stupid does. Nothing is quite so revealing as inbreeding.

Well, the train wreck is total and getting it back on the rails might well take a generation. They just don't want Americans to figure that out yet and rise up and cast out their handpicked morons from power in the United States. That would be their worst nightmare come true...an awakened America that will not play along any more with these stupid schemes.

America, take a hint. Learn the joy of saying NO. We can stop this insanity so fast Washington, DC would need a chiropractor due to whiplash.

In a non-tearjerker moment, Ehud Olmert announced July 30 that he is stepping down...so there will be regime change in Israel, too. That one is more problematic because Olmert was pushing for peace with the Palestinians and the powers-that-be do not wish for that to happen. They want war, so the Musical 'War' Chairs game is now being played out in the US, UK and Tel Aviv to get the War Plan back on track.

Bush wants a 'peace deal' by the end of his term between Israel and the Palestinians. Well, as of Olmert's announcement that is not happening either.

This is yet another example of 'brain flatulence' that will backfire in their faces because Iran will not budge and neither China nor Russia are going to let anyone control their economies. Russia could cut the natural gas and oil off to EU and put the entire EU economy on its knees in a matter of hours...just turn off a few

master valves, and the party's over. Talk about NUKE capability and there's not a damned thing the bogus Bush Missile Shield can do about that.

Russia is now more powerful than ever, and so is China. They (the US, UK and Israel) seem to be forgetting that in the grand scheme they have created the perfect storm that can end their rule. They forgot that they are no longer in charge and in no position to dictate terms to any nation, especially to China or Russia.

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have proven to be chess masters of the first order and our Imbecile Great Decider can't even play a game of checkers without lying, cheating or screwing it up.

Hello, they cannot handle Afghanistan or Iraq Any American who thinks they can handle China or Russia does not have enough brain cells firing at the same time to find a light switch. They also cannot handle America if we all stand up in unison and say 'NO!'

If you have been paying attention, the Russian-UK oil partnership of TNK-BP is imploding. The people at BP recently announced that they had recalled the remaining 60 employees from Russia and powerful forces inside of Russia are forcing out the British CEO of TNK-BP. This all coincided with the recent announcement that TNK-BP was one of the three Russian oil and gas giants that were granted full access to develop Venezuela's vast oil reserves...perhaps as much as 4 trillion barrels. My bet is BP has not been invited along for the party in Venezuela.

This was in part predictable since the UK is harboring wanted fugitive Boris Berezovsky. Mr. Berezovsky was the former Yeltsin man and liaison to those same Caspian Basin nations that BushCo and the UK allies so desperately wanted to take over and control. They lost, now they are scrambling to turn their loss into a victory without America figuring out that the official clock reads '00:00' left in the game.

Simple rule ­ when a 'team' of schemers and liars cannot get a deal done after 30 years of lying and scheming, it is time for both a new plan and a new team. This has now turned out to be 'a swing and a miss' for three long, agonizing decades.

Of course, it did not help matters when Alexander Litvinenko was murdered on British soil and the UK pointed the finger of blame at Putin. That was a stupid move on the part of the Brits, but like Bush, they specialize in stupid moves over in London. That ranked right up there with our Black Poodle Condi Rice jetting all over the world to do 'arf-arf photo ops' and then scurrying around to piss on the feet of the Russian Bear.

Matters inside of TNK-BP started coming unraveled when the UK continued its protection of their CIA-MI6 Zionist ex-oligarch Berezovsky and would not extradite him to Russia to face charges for crimes against Mother Russia. It was Berezovsky who tried to sell out the Caspian Basin to the US and UK and the entire Caspian Basin despises this Zionist Jew traitor.

One of the little known facts about how Big Oil is positioned in this global game is that Conoco owns 35% of LUKOil and there are no problems whatsoever between Russia and Conoco. They are getting along fine and kicking BushCo black and blue all over the world with LUKOil as their partner.

Evidently, the management of that American oil company figured out long ago that BushCo would crap the diaper, and they wisely chose to team up with who the winners would eventually be.

Just think, BushCo could have spent that $5 trillion Iraq war waste on alternative energy and domestic oil and gas production...and completely weaned the US from dependence on foreign oil. No, that was too logical and would mean that the Caspian Basin profits would be lost to them and their cronies.

But I digress, that would require that the goons in DC be able to grasp idea that is was worthy for them to develop a real energy strategy, that to do something for America just might be the moral thing to do. No, alas, we cannot have realities contradict the delusional bullxxxx of the current regime in Washington, DC.

Well, those profits from global oil and gas control are being lost to 'others' anyway, so now it is time for America to demand a 'full accounting' regarding Use of Funds on that $5 trillion Bush blew through. It is way past time for a full accounting on what these idiots in DC did with $5 trillion that they heaped on the backs of the American taxpayers and have nothing to show for it but lies and failure, two destroyed nations and at least two million dead people.

Such is the tragedy of myopic, arrogant, greedy people chasing stupid strategic visions and plans that were, in reality, nothing but a stinky dirty diaper from the day they launched their grand scheme on September 11, 2001.

Folks, just prepare yourself for this: Not only is the Fat Lady about to sing the aria but it will be in an ear-shattering alto in B flat that will shatter 'Glass Towers" in DC, London and Wall Street. And, damn, is she one Ugly Fat Lady.

Ugly has come home to roost on the New World Order as defined by the Bush Family. Unfortunately, it has come home to roost on America, too. Maybe God will help us through this but, if so, it will not be because of these evil idiots in DC.

The American elite has repeated the same cardinal errors the its British forbears did. In the latter case, the strategic geniuses of the Foreign Office and what Veblen called "the clubs" destroyed their own empire at vast expense - and at the cost of tens of millions of lives in the process. Because Britain was (is) not a democracy, no one was held accountable, and no lessons were learned.

How does bumping a thread with the same old responses going to advance anything. Have you contacted Lane about any of this or would that be too risky?

Bill Miller

"Same old responses"? Go on then, Bill, tell me where you've seen the UPI despatch in question before?

Let me guess - in a box at the Sixth Form Museum? The one marked "Not to be released under any circumstances," perhaps?

Paul

Will the truth set us free? Probably not, but it's always a very useful place to begin.

The truth must first be sought to even begin to find it.

Bill Miller

Still time to start, Bill - better late than never.

Paul

This extract is from the expanded – eight-page pamphlet version – of Mark Lane’s original article on the case, “Lane’s Defense Brief for Oswald,” published by the National Guardian, 19 December 1963:

”A motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat, was fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show show exactly the same situation.”

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/L...l_Guardian.html

The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5

Film Showing Assassination Is Released

NEW YORK (UPI) — United Press International Newsfilm early today was first on the air with exclusive film showing the assassination of President Kennedy.

The film is 16mm enlarged from 8mm. It was shown on a New York City television station.

The sequence, shot by an amateur photographer in Dallas Friday, begins with motorcycle police coming around the corner followed by the Kennedy motorcade.

The President is then seen leaning over when the bullets strike. Mrs. Kennedy puts her right arm around the President and he slumps out of view. The film then shows a Secret Service agent running toward the car.

The film was shown in slow motion and also stopped at key points in the assassination. The scene was shown four times at different speeds and under different magnifications.

Copies have been rushed to United Press Newsfilm clients all over the world.

False memory (or memory merge) can happen. For years I merged two events, one in

1944 and one in 1949, both concerning the same location. As a result, I remembered

a person being there in 1944 who was not; he was not employed there till 1947...but I

would have sworn he was there in '44, until once someone proved my memory wrong.

Jack

Entirely True!

Not too many years back I was discussing with Barbara various events which actually transpired in Vietnam in early 68.

In my "mind" for many a year, events of two seperate and different encounters with NVA forces, had been combined into a single encounter/firefight.

Barbara, who had received letters from me, stated that I was incorrect and that it was two separate events, to which I protested.

She then showed me the letters written on the subject, which, as she had stated, was two distiinct and seperate events.

Being the "doubting Thomas", I thereafter dug out my diary which was written at the time of the events, and it too stated that this was too separate events with totally seperate dates.

To this day, my "memory" still has these events combined into a single combat event, yet I know beyond any doubt that the memory is incorrect as the letters and diary were written at the time of occurence.

Therefore, when one places their faith in "memory" alone, then they are on quite shaky ground.

And the older one gets, the worse it also appears to be.

Guess one should be thankful that they can remember anything!

Jack, Tom, I sympathise with – and share – the proclivity to conflate memories. So let us thank the lucky stars that Mark Lane committed his (television viewing) to paper, just as Tom did in his diary, so contemporaneously:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...rt=#entry148026

The following extract is from the expanded – eight-page pamphlet version – of Mark Lane’s original article on the case, “Lane’s Defense Brief for Oswald,” published by the National Guardian, 19 December 1963:

“A motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat, was fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show exactly the same situation.”

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/L...l_Guardian.html

Note the order: Lane first saw the film was on television, then a few stills from it in Life’s first post-assassination issue of November 29.

Paul

Lane was telling the truth in his original defense brief (aka the newspaper despatch from UPI which Gary Mack doesn't want you to read):

The Valley Independent, (Monessen, Pennsylvania), Tuesday, November 26, 1963, Page 5

Film Showing Assassination Is Released

NEW YORK (UPI) — United Press International Newsfilm early today was first on the air with exclusive film showing the assassination of President Kennedy.

The film is 16mm enlarged from 8mm. It was shown on a New York City television station.

The sequence, shot by an amateur photographer in Dallas Friday, begins with motorcycle police coming around the corner followed by the Kennedy motorcade.

The President is then seen leaning over when the bullets strike. Mrs. Kennedy puts her right arm around the President and he slumps out of view. The film then shows a Secret Service agent running toward the car.

The film was shown in slow motion and also stopped at key points in the assassination. The scene was shown four times at different speeds and under different magnifications.

Copies have been rushed to United Press Newsfilm clients all over the world.

Will the truth set us free? Probably not, but it's always a very useful place to begin.

Something I've always wondered about--

Why would the CIA or the DPD (or whomever) create photos, ostensibly of LHO, in which the subject ends up appearing to be leaning so impossibly far to his right as to make the photos look fake? Did someone want them to look bogus or was it just incompetence?

--Thomas

I disagree with all sorts of particulars in the essay below. Yet I regard it as one of the most important contributions to an adult understanding of the case. It goes a deal of the way to answering your question.

Paul

Note: Except for the Introduction, the following article was first published in People and the Pursuit of Truth, April 1977, Vol. 2, No. 12, and appears here with the permission of its author.

The Design of the Warren Report - to Fall to Pieces

by Vincent J. Salandria

Introduction – 1999

After re-reading this twenty-two year old piece, I would not change much. My current judgment is that events seem to bear out that the military did in fact join with the Eastern establishment and the U.S. intelligence services in the conspiracy to kill and to obfuscate the reasons for the killing of President John F. Kennedy. The bloated U.S. military budget, in the absence of credible enemies, convincingly speaks to the rich benefits derived by the military and to the military-industrial complex for their role in the assassination of JFK.

The killing of President Kennedy and the layers of transparent conspiratorial contradictory explanations for this killing disseminated by our Eastern establishment and its mainstream media enabled the national security state to increase its hold over political power and the economy domestically and globally. This power structure used the killing of President Kennedy and the false debate over it to extend its capacity to frame and to shape the current thinking of our citizens. By achieving an understanding of the true reasons for the killing of President Kennedy we will be able to free ourselves from the Orwellian paralysis of thinking which grips our people.

The Design of the Warren Report - to Fall to Pieces

We must hunt out the truth of why John F. Kennedy was killed.

Bertoldt Brecht said in 1935 on the problems of uttering the truth on important social questions:

Nowadays, anyone who wishes to combat lies and ignorance and to write the truth must overcome at least five difficulties. He must have the courage to write the truth when truth is everywhere opposed; the keenness to recognize it, although it is everywhere concealed; the skill to manipulate it as a weapon; the judgment to select those in whose hands it will be effective; and the cunning to spread the truth among such persons.

Yes, Brecht wrote that in 1935. In 1977 I am sorry to have to say that I feel truth is even more difficult to express. In keeping with the prerequisite of truth hunting set forth by Brecht, many earnest people will be a match for the murderers of John F. Kennedy in terms of courage, keenness, skill and judgment. But with regard to cunning, that is an entirely different matter, for in cunning the murderers eclipse many earnest people. So instead of cunning let us substitute our love of life and humanity, and armed with such we will perhaps be a match for the assassins.

Questions to Arlen Specter, 1964

On October 22, 1964 Arlen Specter, who did the work on the Warren Commission in explaining the shots, trajectories and wounds of the assassination, spoke before the Philadelphia Bar Association. I attended that meeting and directed some questions to him. Following the meeting, some colleagues at the bar suggested that I write an article presenting a dissenting point of view. I did that during the same evening of that day. It was published on November 2, 1964 in The Legal Intelligencer at the behest of the then-Chancellor of the Bar, Theodore Voorhees.

In that early article I critiqued the shots, trajectories and wounds analysis of the Warren Report. The article ended with the following comment:

Having read the Report, I conclude that the evidence offered by the Commission indicates there was more than one rifleman firing on November 22, 1963. There were more than three shots. If Oswald was one of the gunmen, then with that gun, from that vantage point, in that time span suggested by the Commission, he could not have been alone in the performance of the terrible work that destroyed our President and wounded two other men.

The Design of the Warren Report...to Reveal Conspiracy

What I did not know when I wrote that article in 1964 was that the Warren Commission's single assassin conclusion was designed to fall to pieces, was designed to be incredible, was designed to self destruct.

To my friend, Professor Thomas Katen, I owe the brilliant insight which he has characterized as the "transparent conspiracy". Tom propounded the view that the Warren Report was not a cover-up, but rather was a transparent conspiracy, the purpose of which was to reveal the assassination to be a conspiracy although the Report seemed to have been endeavoring to prove a single assassin killing.

Tom's concept was that the Warren Commission covered up the conspiracy in such a gross and clumsy way so as to reveal intentionally the existence of conspiracy. Make no mistake about it, the Warren Commission and its staff were made up of very able men. If these men had wanted to cover up the conspiracy more effectively they could have done so. As we shall see, the cover-up was accomplished in such a self-defeating fashion that one would have to suspend common sense and respect for evidence in order to accept the Report's conclusions.

Through the prism of the transparent conspiracy concept, let us look briefly at some of the evidence considered by the Warren Commission. Through this analysis let us make our own assessment of whether the Warren Report was ever meant to result in a reasonable inference of a single assassin killing.

The Presidential Limousine

The Warren Report tells us that the presidential limousine, onto and into which bullets rained that killed the President, wounded Governor Connally, and damaged the vehicle, was removed with the Presidential party from Dallas on November 22. The removal of that limousine, with its vital evidence of bullet strikes, from Texas, the jurisdiction of the crime, was an illegal act. The Federal government chose to show the world that it was from the beginning with respect to this assassination engaging in patent illegality.

Governor Connally's Clothing

From the Warren Report we learn that Governor Connally' s clothing was dry cleaned and pressed prior to being turned over for analysis. This clothing was critical to answering the question of whether Connally was hit with a bullet which was separate from any which had struck Kennedy. If Governor Connally had been hit with a separate bullet then more than three shots had been fired and a conspiracy would have been proved. The dry cleaning and pressing of Connally's clothing was the rough equivalent of wiping fingerprints from a murder weapon. Yet the Warren Commission revealed this dry cleaning and pressing to the reader without comment.

The Burned Notes of Commander Humes

Commander James J. Humes, who prepared the original autopsy notes at Bethesda Naval Hospital, burned the original autopsy notes of the Kennedy autopsy in his fireplace at his home. The Warren Commission exhibits contain Commander Humes' certification to this effect.

Denial of Access to the Photographs and X-Rays

The Warren Commission not only revealed that the original autopsy notes were burned, but furthermore advised the reader that the Commission never had access to the photographs and x-rays taken of the Kennedy body. So on the one hand the Commission informed us that the government destroyed vital evidence, and on the other hand the Commission revealed that vital evidence was withheld from the Commission. Such revelations were hardly designed to inspire confidence in the Commission's conclusions.

Contradictions in the Exhibits

The Commission's exhibits clashed with one another. The various exhibits such as the autopsy face sheet, the drawings of the wounds, the clothing of President Kennedy --- all contradicted one another as to the nature and positions of the Kennedy wounds. Here again the inevitable result of these Commission contradictions was to serve as a self-repudiation of the Commission's conclusions as to the non-existence of a conspiracy.

The "Cheap Old Weapon" that Oswald Allegedly Fired

The alleged murder rifle which Oswald, according to the Commission, was supposed to have used at Dealey Plaza, was even at its best, during World War II, described as "the humanitarian" rifle because of its ineffectiveness in combat. But this specific rifle to which the Commission had attributed all the shooting was by no means at its best. The rifle which according to the Commission was fired three times in no more than 5.6 seconds, and in that time period hit the President twice and two other men each at least once, was a bolt action rifle. The Commission evidence tells us that this Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was described as a "cheap old weapon." It "could have been purchased for $3.00 each in lots of 25." This particular rifle had a defective bolt that required considerable effort to work. The trigger had a two-stage operation. The telescopic sight was defective and caused the rifle to fire high and to the right. The firing pin of the rifle was worn on the nose and was rusty. All of these problems of this tremendously lethal junk rifle were revealed to us by the Commission. Again, none of these problems inspire confidence in the Commission's conclusions.

The problems which the Warren Commission made for itself have led to the inevitable repudiation of its conclusions. Let us examine the thesis that the Warren Report's actual purpose was to reveal a conspiracy and not to conceal it.

The Zapruder Film

Let us consider an item of evidence which the United States government had in its possession the afternoon of the assassination and which the Warren Commission did review in detail: the Zapruder film. This item of evidence proves conspiracy for anyone who wishes to spend six seconds of viewing time. This 8mm film of the assassination taken by Abraham Zapruder while positioned on the grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza destroys the Warren Report's conclusions. The Zapruder film demonstrates, among other things, that the impact of the head shot in Frame 313 of the Zapruder film forced President Kennedy abruptly leftward and backward, slamming him off the back seat of the limousine. Such a bullet strike, in order to have caused Kennedy to be driven leftward and backward, would have had to have been fired from the right front of the President. But the Commission, which posited a single assassin killing, placed its alleged assassin in the rear of the President, and therefore the Commission, in having Kennedy propelled leftward and backward by a shot delivered from the rear, suspended Newton's second law of motion.

The government had the Zapruder film in its possession from the afternoon of the assassination. Yet the government persisted in adhering to a single assassin theory. The Commission, in its Report, never mentioned that Kennedy's body was forced leftward and backward.

The Warren Commission's Report "Disproved" the Laws of Physics

But this movement of recoil of the President is so dramatic and unmistakable that the Commission's conclusion that this shot was fired from the back of the President is the reductio ad absurdum of the Commission. This film, as you will see, compels all to reject the Commission's conclusions as criminally irresponsible. A look at the film reduces the Commission's report to obvious fraud.

The fact that the Zapruder film was inaccessible to viewing year after year from 1963 to 1968 by the public, and is still bootlegged and shown to small groups instead of being shown in theaters all over the United States is very close to proof of conspiracy existing in the United States on a massive scale.

Once having seen the Zapruder film it becomes clear that the Warren Commission had to have been deliberately structured to reduce itself to absurdity. For the evidence of the assassination was such that a single-assassin idea could not have been made consistent with the Dealey Plaza ambush. That ambush had assassins positioned in and firing from more than one vantage point. Again I must assure you that the Commission and its staff, made up as they were of able men, once having seen Zapruder frame 313 and the frames that followed, knew as well as you and I know that there was more than one assassin.

The Design of "Concealment"

And the Commission and its staff could have concealed the multiple assassin killing more successfully than they did. But ultimately, the very nature of the killing was itself designed to reveal a conspiracy. Then why did the killers --- if their purpose was solely to do away with Kennedy --- not undertake to kill him in a manner which would have concealed, rather than revealed, conspiracy?

You will recall that the good Dr. Martin Luther King was dispatched quickly and eternally with a single life-extinguishing bullet. The veritable fusillade of shots fired from a complex ambush was not required to dispose of Kennedy. What then were the many angry voices of those excessive overkilling guns telling us while they were accomplishing their deadly work? Bullets were the medium of Kennedy's death, but was there for us a message in that medium?

The Level of Power Behind the Assassination of Kennedy

What purpose could have been served by the killers having executed the assassination in such a manner so as to signal to the whole world that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy? How could the killers have been brazen enough to have had the conspiracy perpetrated in such a way so that people would know at some time and at some level of consciousness that there was a conspiracy? Could assassins who possessed little or no power have dared deliberately to reveal a conspiracy? Then what does the transparent nature of the killing tell us about the level of power which as behind the assassination?

How could the killers have known that in the midst of a Cold War that the governments under the influence of Soviet Russia would cooperate with our government by not pointing an accusatory finger at the government of the United States? Why did the Soviet government not make an effort to demonstrate that the government of this country, in contradistinction to its image as the leader of the free world, in fact had the odor of a banana republic? How could the killers have known that Russia would cooperate in this respect when the idea of a single assassin killing was not accepted by the people of any country either in the East or the West (except the United States)?

Who Benefited from the Conspiracy? and What Effects Did It Have?

What benefits were derived from the United States government peddling this giant falsehood to the whole world when the transparent nature of the conspiracy made the lie as capable of being swallowed as a flea is capable of swallowing a watermelon? What benefits were intended to flow to the killers by having the people forced to know by the transparent nature of the conspiracy the real truth? What purpose was served by the government's use of Orwellian doublethink in vigorously denying conspiracy on the one hand while presenting overwhelming evidence of conspiracy on the other hand?

Who benefited from having Earl Warren, the beloved Chief Justice of our august Supreme Court, conduct secret Warren Commission hearings? What purpose was served in having liberal and distinguished Earl Warren sponsor the Warren Report which from the beginning, through its own evidence, revealed itself to be an ugly abortion of the truth? What effect did Earl Warren's lending his name to the Report's lies have on the people's confidence in our court system to accomplish truth and justice under the law?

What effect did the transparency of the conspiracy have on the people in terms of how they looked upon their Congress? For Congress was represented on the investigating Commission, and Congress maintained silence about the conspiracy and raised no questions in the face of deep skepticism by a majority of the American people. In the face of Congress' failure to give voice to the people's doubts, what confidence could the people have regarding the representative nature of the Congress?

What effect did the transparency of the conspiracy have in terms of how people looked at their local police forces in the face of the less than illustrious job the Dallas police did in protecting first the President's life, and then the life of Oswald, the alleged assassin? Was it not immediately after the assassination that the counter culture began its campaign to have the police considered not as human beings which they are, but rather as pigs?

What effect did the transparency of the conspiracy have in terms of how people viewed the Presidency when Kennedy, a popular, loved, independently rich, and world-renowned President could be killed without the courtesy of a common-law inquest which is a basic right of Anglo-Saxon justice extended to the most humble of citizens? And if President Kennedy had no rights, then what effect did the transparency of the assassination have on the way people looked upon the inviolability of their own civil rights?

And if a President with a powerful and rich family and many friends from around the world could be killed by a transparent conspiracy and all of the family and all the friends would not dare raise their voices in outrage, then what effect did this have on people? What effect would the silence of the Kennedy family have on the way our youth would feel toward people over thirty? What value would people see in maintaining old and committed friendships? And isn't this loss of confidence in family and friends that special type of despair which we call alienation?

What effect did the transparency of the conspiracy have on the way people looked at the constitutional and electoral structure when under a hail of bullets a duly-elected President was literally fired from his office and was then buried under another hail of lies issued by the same government which he had been elected to lead? What happens to the importance to which people attach to elections when power shifts without the benefit of elections?

Is not the answer to all of these questions self-evident and known?

Possible Models of Explanation

Let us explore possible models of explanation for the transparent nature of the Kennedy conspiracy. In brief fashion let us assess possible explanations of why the conspiracy to kill Kennedy was transparent.

The "Psychoanalytic" Model

First we might consider the psychoanalytic theory. Under this theory the killers and those assigned the task of covering up the conspiracy consciously wanted to cover up a conspiracy but because of their heavy burden of guilt unconsciously blundered and revealed the truth. But the evidence does not support this view.

The cover-up of the conspiracy was systematically bad and incredible. The Warren Commission Report produced twenty-six volumes of exhibits and transcripts and an enormous archives which abounded in proof of conspiracy. So much guilt does not systematically reveal itself in an organized and careful way unless there is a conscious --- and not an unconscious --- desire to advertise the guilt.

The "Military-lndustrial Complex" Model

Another theory is the hostage theory. This idea is that a military-industrial complex was behind the assassination and forced the Warren Commission to lie by holding the Commission and its staff captive. This theory would hold to the view that, pretending to follow orders, the liberal Warren Commission and staff let us see the truth while ostensibly supporting the lone assassin cover story. But the military-industrial complex, if it had killed Kennedy, would have had a very different post-assassination history.

Once having framed Castro by using Oswald, an apparent pro-Castroite, as a scapegoat, would not the American military have sought to invade Cuba? Would not North Viet Nam have been bombed into the Stone Age by our military, if they had free reign? Would not the society have been militarized rather than becoming remarkably antimilitarist? Would not the peace movement have been crushed rather than have grown to such hefty proportions? Would not a larger share of the country's wealth have been allocated to the military budget? Would the draft have been abolished? Would the military have been made to look guilty by burning the autopsy notes prepared at the Bethesda Naval Hospital? No, the evidence is much against the proposition that the military-industrial complex killed Kennedy.

The Russian or Cuban Model

Next let us explore whether the Castro or the Russian governments were behind the killing of Kennedy. Would Castro have selected Oswald, who headed up a Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans (of which incidentally he was the only member) as the killer? Would the Russians have chosen Oswald who had been ostensibly a defector to the Soviet Union? Would Castro or the Soviet Union have risked the transparent nature of the assassination in killing Kennedy so as to invite hydrogen war? Was it worth killing liberal John F. Kennedy for Cuba and Russia to get very conservative L.B.J. as the head of the United States government? Would the FBI and CIA have covered for the Cuban or Russian governments? Would Warren have lent his liberal name, long attached to human rights, to a Warren Report which had as its purpose to protect collectivist totalitarian governments? Would our military have remained silent, especially when so much of the blame for the cover-up was heaped on the military, if the Cuban and Russian governments were behind the killing? No, Cuba and Russia did not kill Kennedy.

The "Eastern Establishment" Model

Then what was the purpose or purposes behind the killing of President Kennedy in a transparently conspiratorial way? The purpose for the transparent conspiracy to kill Kennedy, in my judgment, was to attain for the Eastern establishment, through the use of the intelligence community as its executive and executing arm, power over American politics and ultimately pre-eminent power over the minds of the American citizenry.

How This Model Explains and Explains Well

The transparent nature of the conspiracy was designed to frame the right, the liberals, and the left, so as to make us all feel alienated politically from one another.

The right was framed by having the killing occur in Dallas, a citadel of conservatism. The right was further framed by throwing guilt on the Dallas police the FBI and the military. Oswald was, after all, a Marine.

The liberals were framed because Oswald, after all, was a member of the ACLU. The liberals were also implicated because Warren was a liberal.

But the left was also framed. Oswald, after all, was a defector to Russia. Oswald, after all, headed up a Fair Play for Cuba Committee. And Oswald, after all, was in communication with the Communist Party the Socialist Workers' Party, the Socialist Labor Party, and the Cuban and Russian embassies. Those who believed in the socialist countries could only suffer quiet humiliation and disillusionment from Soviet Russia's indiscreet silence in this matter which concerned all of mankind.

The Court system was framed by having its most respected and prestigious member involved in the transparently fraudulent cover-up of the assassination.

The Congress was demonstrated to be impotent by having it remain silent in the face of massive repudiation of the Warren Report by the American people whom the Congress was supposed to have served.

The new President was framed by having the killing occur in Dallas in his very back yard, and therefore having the suspicion hang heavy over him that his boys may have done it for his benefit.

The people were paralyzed by steeping them in mourning and having them retreat to their television sets to fix with glassy and unthinking stares on those hypnotic screens, while the roll of the death drums pounded home to them their own helplessness in the face of the extinction of American democracy. And to deepen the despair, Oswald was dispatched by Ruby on camera.

Frame-up, Paralysis, and Alienation: "DIVIDE ET IMPERA"

So the transparent nature of the assassination in a very real sense framed us all; made us feel guilty, and served to paralyze us in a gripping sense of inadequacy. The transparent conspiracy paved the way for our despair and demoralization of the people. It eroded our trust in the nation states. But the alienation was deeper and more personal than the separation of people from confidence in their governments. The transparency of the assassination effectively destroyed politics. A counter culture was cultivated by the media and supported by the establishment which was to substitute for constitutional democracy and serve as an outlet for dissident energies.

And thus a post-Orwellian, Huxleyian world was ushered in by the new rulers. The drug culture was promoted. Individuality gave way to the abandonment of freedom and dignity and responsibility. The mind-expanding properties of drugs were to take us beyond human freedom and dignity. The embracing of our new servitude brought on by drug-induced pleasure and/or new charismatic mystical and religious movements moved people away from rationality.

The importance of education was downgraded. Only that was worth learning which was "relevant". Relevant was a catch word to describe that which gave us immediate sensory kicks. Nothing that required tough analysis and drudgery therefore was worth learning.

Work was rendered less and less essential. The accelerated application of computers to production --- the cybernetic revolution --- made all the more imminent and possible the nightmare of human beings being relegated to the status of mere means to technological ends. Teenage unemployment in our society grew to frightening proportions. Was it just accident which caused the teenagers to drop out of society just before society's use of the computer rendered the work of many of our teenagers unnecessary for production?

Orwellian Result

Thus deprived of a hopeful and useful future it was no difficult matter to turn teenagers against their parents by the invention of an artificial barrier called the generation gap. The young were taught to distrust everyone over thirty years of age. They were instructed that there was nothing to be learned from the past. They were taught to have contempt for the future. They became "the now generation". A generation without a past and without a future is not a now generation but a forever lost generation.

The sexual revolution threatened the elimination of family structure and mocked the long-term committed and responsible love relationship. To a large extent the woman's liberation movement was perverted to set woman apart from man in opposition to natural chemistry. Unisex was pushed by the media as chic instead of sick. Sexual license was passed off as a satisfactory substitute for free society.

Either Aldous Huxley anticipated all of this or the killers of Kennedy, having read Huxley well, employed his work as a model for our society. I excerpt from what Huxley said in 1958 in a preface to a reprinting of his Brave New World:

...the immediate future is likely to resemble the immediate past, and in the immediate past, rapid technological changes, taking place in a mass-producing economy and among a population predominantly propertyless, have always tended to reduce economic and social confusion. To deal with confusion, power has been centralized and government control increased...

"There is no Reason why the New Totalitarianism Should Resemble the Old"

...There is, of course, no reason why the new totalitarianism should resemble the old. Government by clubs and firing squads, by artificial famine, mass imprisonment and mass deportation, is not merely inhumane (nobody cares much about that nowadays); it is demonstrably inefficient, and in an age of advanced technology, inefficiency is the sin against the Holy Ghost. A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced because they love their servitude. To make them love it is the task assigned in present-day totalitarian states to ministries of propaganda. The most important Manhattan Projects of the future will be vast government-sponsored enquiries into what the politicians and participating scientists will call "The problem of happiness" --- in other words the problem of making people love their servitude ... The love of servitude cannot be established except as the result of a deep personal revolution in human minds and bodies.

"Bread and Circuses" = Welfare and TV

In Brave New World Revisited Huxley said: "Individuals must be suggestible enough to be willing and able to make their society work, but not so suggestible as to fall helplessly under the spell of professional mind-manipulators ... Probably the happy mean between gullibility and a total skepticism can never be discovered and maintained by analysis alone. This rather negative approach to the problem will have to be supplemented by something more positive --- the enunciation of a set of generally acceptable values based upon a solid foundation of facts. The value, first of all, of individual freedom based upon the facts of human diversity and genetic uniqueness; the value of charity and compassion based upon the old familiar fact, lately rediscovered by modern psychiatry --- the fact that, whatever their mental and physical diversity, love is as necessary to human beings as food and shelter; and finally the value of intelligence without which love is impotent and freedom unattainable.

"...The older dictators failed because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. Nor did they possess a really effective system of mind-manipulation. Under a scientific dictator education will really work --- with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown.

"Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom, but some of us still believe that without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them."

What Are We to Do?

In accord with Huxley's sense of duty, what can we do? We can look at humanity as a species with a proud past, a difficult present and a troubled but still-hopeful future. Each of us can draw strength from the past. From the past we must draw upon those traditions which offer to mankind purpose, identity and love of his fellow man.

Each of us must draw strength from the present. From the present we must seek to understand power and the tools of mind control. We must presently accept that tyranny has gained new and effective technology in its age-old war against man's liberty. In studying the present we must raise our threshold of fear so that we can face hard truth. Hard truth will tell us that everywhere power seeks to defeat man's individuality, to program man to be alienated from all other men; to manipulate man to seek pleasure and not responsibility. The present task of those who love humanity is to get men and women to move, work, and join together in common love of human freedom, knowledge and justice.

For the future, what are we to do? We must unite in the task of freeing humanity from a drugged and pleasure-driven servitude. Should we be successful in joining people together, this work will transform our future world into one which is marked by social justice, human freedom and a more equitable distribution of wealth.

As a first small effort toward these ends, let us engage now in a discussion wherein we will use the Kennedy assassination not as a mechanism for practicing a debilitating exercise in double-think, but rather let us use the assassination as a means of expanding our understanding of our times.

Reprinted with permission from People and the PURSUIT of Truth, April 1977. Copyright © 1977 by and published by Berkeley Enterprises Inc., 515 Washington St., Newtonville, Massachusetts 02160.

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All I ever see are claims against the US government, claims of secret societies or New World Orders, calls for people to throw off chains of supposed oppression by the US (and on far lesser occasions, the UK).

Does no-one care about Zimbabwe? Why aren't Forum members voicing concerns that the western world is not doing anything (or much) to stop a dictator, whether that action be political, economic, or military?

A lessor situation occurs in Fiji, where a military junta rules. Is this fair to the Indian population? Are they being treated justly?

Why aren't Forum members (specifically those who spend the majority of their time here making posts) making people aware of these situations, instead of concentrating on anti-US comments? Do they not care? Are they biased?

Mugabe’s Biggest Sin: Anglo-American and Chinese interests clash over Zimbabwe’s strategic mineral wealth

by F. William Engdahl

July 30, 2008

Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, presides over one of the world’s richest minerals treasures, the Great Dyke region, which cuts a geological swath across the entire land from northeast to southwest. The real background to the pious concerns of the Bush Administration for human rights in Zimbabwe in the past several years is not Mugabe’s possible election fraud or his expropriation of white settler farms. It is the fact that Mr. Mugabe has been quietly doing business, a lot of it, with the one country which has virtually unlimited need of strategic raw materials Zimbabwe can provide—China. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is, along with Sudan, on the central stage of the new war over control of strategic minerals of Africa between Washington and Beijing, with Moscow playing a supporting role in the drama. The stakes are huge.

Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe is a very very bad man. This we all know from reading the newspapers or hearing the pronouncements of George W. Bush, earlier Britain’s Tony Blair and more recently Gordon Brown. In their eyes he has sinned badly. They charge that he is a dictator; that he has expropriated, often with violence, the farms of whites as part of land reform; they claim he rigged his re-election by vote fraud and violence; that he has ruined the economy of Zimbabwe.

Whether Robert Mugabe deserves to be in Washington’s honor roll of villains alongside Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Ahmadinejad, and Adolf Hitler, however, it is not the reason Washington and London have made Zimbabwe regime change priority number one for their Africa policy.

What his sin is seems to have more to do with his attempts to get out from under Anglo-American neo-colonial serfdom dependency and to pursue a national economic development independent of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. His real sin seems to be the fact that he has turned to the one nation that offers his government credits and soft loans for economic development with no strings attached—The Peoples’ Republic of China.

Western media accounts conveniently tend to omit the second major party to what is a huge tug of war between Anglo-American interests and China to get control of Zimbabwe’s vast mineral wealth. We should keep in mind that for Washington there are always "good dictators" and "bad dictators." The difference is whether the given dictator serves US national interests or not. Mugabe clearly is in the latter category.

Cecil Rhodes’ legacy

Zimbabwe is the name of what under the era of British Imperialism a century ago was named Rhodesia. The name Rhodesia came from the British imperial strategist and miner, Cecil Rhodes, founder of the Rhodes scholarships to Oxford, and author of a plan for a vast private African zone, to be chartered from the Queen of England, from Egypt to South Africa. Cecil Rhodes created the British South Africa Company, modeled on the East India Company, along with his partner, L. Starr Jameson of Jameson Raid notoriety, to exploit the mineral riches of Rhodesia. It controlled what was later named Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia-Nyasaland. The model was that the British Government would assume all risks to militarily defend Rhodes’ looting while Rhodes and his London bankers, above all Lord Rothschild, who was a close associate, would assume all the gains of the business.

Rhodes, a seasoned geologist, knew well that there was a remarkable geological fault running from the mouth of the Nile at the Gulf of Suez south through Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, down through today’s Zimbabwe on to South Africa. Rhodes had already instigated several wars to gain control of the diamonds of Kimberly and the gold of Witwatersrand in South Africa. This geological phenomenon he, as well as enterprising German explorers, had discovered in the 1880’s. They named it the Great Rift Valley.

Rhodesia, like South Africa after the bloody Boer wars, was settled by white settlers to secure future minerals gains for allied interests of the City of London, mainly those of the powerful Oppenheimer family and their gold and diamond enterprises in the region.

In 1962 when Africa was undergoing the wave of national liberation from colonial rule, a wave calculatedly supported by "non-colonial power" Washington, Rhodesia was one of the last bastions, along with former British colony South Africa, of white Apartheid rule. Whites in Rhodesia constituted only 1-2% of the total population so their methods of holding on to power were rather ruthless.

White supremacist Prime Minister, Ian Smith, declared Rhodesian independence from Britain in 1965 rather than agree to the slightest compromise on race or power sharing with black nationalists. Britain got UN trade sanctions imposed to force Smith to buckle under. Despite sanctions, there was considerable support from conservative business interests in London. Britain’s Tiny Rowland, head of the Lonrho mining conglomerate, secured the bulk of his African profits from Rhodesian copper mining and related ventures under the Smith regime. The City of London knew very well what riches lay in Rhodesia. The question was how to secure enduring control. Smith’s Rhodesian backers had little interest in giving it all to London.

Following a long and bloody struggle, in 1980 the leader of the black African Popular Front coalition, Robert Mugabe, overwhelmingly won election as the first Prime Minister of a new Zimbabwe. Twenty eight years later, the same Robert Mugabe is under escalating attack from the West, especially Zimbabwe’s former colonial master, England, including strong economic sanctions designed to bring the country to the brink of collapse, to force him to open the economy to foreign (read Anglo-American and allied) investment. Ironically, the issue seems not all that different from the Ian Smith era: London and US control of the resources of the rich land, and Zimbabwean efforts to resist that control.

The Great Dyke

Within Zimbabwe, a portion of the rich Great Rift is called the Great Dyke, an intrusive geological treasure zone running over 530 kilometers from the northeast to the southwest of the country, in places up to 12 kilometers wide. A river runs along the fault and the region is volcanically active. Here also lie vast deposits of chromium, of copper, platinum and other metals.

The US State Department, as well as London, is aware of the vast minerals and other riches of Zimbabwe. It states in a recent report on Zimbabwe,

"Zimbabwe is endowed with rich mineral resources. Exports of gold, asbestos, chrome, coal, platinum, nickel, and copper could lead to an economic recovery one day...The country is richly endowed with coal-bed methane gas that has yet to be exploited.

With international attractions such as Victoria Falls, the Great Zimbabwe stone ruins, Lake Kariba, and extensive wildlife, tourism historically has been a significant segment of the economy and contributor of foreign exchange. The sector has contracted sharply since 1999, however, due to the country's declining international image.(sic).

Energy Resources

With considerable hydroelectric power potential and plentiful coal deposits for thermal power station, Zimbabwe is less dependent on oil as an energy source than most other comparably industrialized countries, but it still imports 40% of its electric power needs from surrounding countries--primarily Mozambique. Only about 15% of Zimbabwe's total energy consumption is accounted for by oil, all of which is imported. Zimbabwe imports about 1.2 billion liters of oil per year. Zimbabwe also has substantial coal reserves that are utilized for power generation, and coal-bed methane deposits recently discovered in Matabeleland province are greater than any known natural gas field in Southern or Eastern Africa. In recent years, poor economic management and low foreign currency reserves have led to serious fuel shortages."

In short, chrome, copper, gold, platinum, huge hydroelectric power potential and vast coal reserves are what is at stake for Washington and London in Zimbabwe. The country also has unverified reserves of uranium, something in big demand today for nuclear power generation.

It is clear of late that so long as the tenacious Mugabe is running things, not the Anglo-Americans, but rather the Chinese, are Zimbabwe’s preferred business partners. This seems to be Mugabe’s greatest sin. He’s not reading from the right program as George W. Bush’s friends see it. His real sin seems to be turning East not West for economic and investment help.

The Chinese connection

During the Cold War China recognized and supported Robert Mugabe. In recent years as China’s search for secure raw materials escalated its foreign diplomacy, relations have become stronger. According to the Chinese media, China has invested more in Zimbabwe than any other nation.

Already back in July 2005 as Tony Blair turned the sanctions screws tighter on Zimbabwe, Mugabe flew to Beijing to meet with the top Chinese leadership, where he reportedly sought an emergency loan of US$1 billion and asked increased Chinese involvement in the economy.

It began to bear fruit. In June 2006 state--owned Zimbabwean businesses signed a number of energy, mining and farming deals worth billions of dollars with Chinese companies. The largest was with China Machine-Building International Corporation, for a $1,3bn contract to mine coal and build thermal-power generators in Zimbabwe, to reduce Zimbabwe’s electricity shortage. The Chinese company had already built thermal-power stations in Nigeria and Sudan, and had been involved in mining projects in Gabon.

In 2007 the Chinese government donated farm machinery worth $25 million to Zimbabwe, including 424 tractors and 50 trucks, as part of a $58 million loan to the Zimbabwean government. The Mugabe administration had previously seized white-owned farms and gave them to blacks, damaging machinery in the process. In return for the equipment and the loan the Zimbabwean government will ship 30 million kilograms of tobacco to the People's Republic of China.

Other Zimbabwe-China agreements included a deal between the Zimbabwe Mining Development and China’s Star Communications, forming a joint venture to mine chrome, with funding from the China Development Bank. Zimbabwe also agreed to import road-building, irrigation and farming equipment from the China National Construction and Agricultural Machinery Import and Export Corporation and China Poly Group. Zimbabwe also relies on China for imports of telecommunications equipment, military hardware and many other critical items it can no longer import from the west because of the British-led sanctions.

Relations have become so important that Zimbabwe’s police have a dedicated "China desk" to protect Chinese interests in the country.

In April 2007 the chairman of China’s top political advisory body, Jia Qinglin, head of the National Committee of the Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Conference, flew to Harare to meet with Mugabe. It was a follow-up to the 2006 Beijing China-Africa Cooperation Summit where the Chinese government invited the heads of more than 40 African states to discuss relations. Africa has become a diplomatic and economic priority for China and its economy.

At that time, Beijing got an open invitation to help develop dormant mines in the country. The deputy speaker of Zimbabwe's parliament called for more Chinese investment in the country's mining sector, according to China's Xinhua news agency. Zimbabwe's mining laws were changed to allow the government to reallocate mining claims that were not being exploited.

Mining generates half of Zimbabwe's export revenue. It is the only sector in the country that still has foreign investors after the collapse of the main agricultural sector. Western companies with mining claims in Zimbabwe were not exploiting them. "We would appeal to the Chinese government to come in full force to exploit these minerals," Zimbabwean Deputy Parliamentary Speaker, Kumbirai Kangai said to the official Xinhua.

Kangai assured potential Chinese investors that they would not expose themselves to legal action if they took over claims held by Western companies.

A few months after, in December 2007, Chinese company, Sinosteel Corporation, acquired 67 percent stake in Zimbabwe's leading ferrochrome producer and exporter Zimasco Holdings. Zimasco Holdings is the fifth largest high carbonated ferrochrome producer in the world. It used to produce 210,000 tons of high-carbon ferrochrome per year, nearly all of it along the mineral-rich Great Dyke, accounting for 4 percent of global ferrochrome production.

Zimasco has also the world's second largest reserves of chrome, after South Africa. It was formerly owned by Union Carbide Corporation, now part of Dow Chemicals Corp.

Oh, oh! Alarm bells went ringing in London and in Washington at that news.

China clearly views Africa as a central part of its strategic plan, most notably for its oil reserves and vital raw materials such as copper, chrome, nickel. The continent is also at the same time becoming an important region for Chinese manufactured exports. But the raw materials battle is at the heart, and the real reason by all accounts, why Washington recently decided to form a separate Africa Command in the Pentagon.

Controlling China’s economic emergence is an un-stated strategic priority of United States foreign and military policy and has been since before September 11, 2001. The only delicate point in the business is the fact that China, with well over $1.7 trillions of foreign exchange reserves, most believed in form of US Treasury securities, could trigger a complete dollar panic and further collapse of the US economy should she decide for political reasons it were too risky to continue holding its hundreds of billions of US dollar debt. In effect, by buying US Government debt with its trade surpluses, China has been indirectly financing US policies counter to Chinese national interest such as the Iraq war, or even the $100 million or so annually that Condi Rice’s State Department spends on Tibet.

China is refusing to play by the rules of the Anglo-American neo-colonial game. It does not seek IMF or World Bank approval before dealing with African countries. It makes soft loans, regardless who might be running the country. In this it does nothing different from Washington or London. The Chinese see American influence in Africa less entrenched than in the rest of the world, thus offering unique opportunities for China to pursue its economic interests.

It may or may not be cynical. It may be Realpolitik. If it results in the ability of certain African countries to use China as a political counterweight to the one-sided Anglo-American domination of the Continent, that itself could be a major benefit to Africans depending on how they use it.

Clearly, it has been extremely positive for Chinese access to vital economic minerals for its economy as well as oil from places such as Darfur and southern Sudan, or Nigeria.

Mineral wealth has once more put Africa on center stage of a battle for mineral riches between East and West. This time, unlike during the Cold War era, however, Beijing is playing with far more assets, and Washington with far less.

F. William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press), and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca). He may be contacted through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net .

:: Article nr. 46093 sent on 31-jul-2008 08:05 ECT

www.uruknet.info?p=46093

Link: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9707

False memory (or memory merge) can happen. For years I merged two events, one in

1944 and one in 1949, both concerning the same location. As a result, I remembered

a person being there in 1944 who was not; he was not employed there till 1947...but I

would have sworn he was there in '44, until once someone proved my memory wrong.

Jack

Entirely True!

Not too many years back I was discussing with Barbara various events which actually transpired in Vietnam in early 68.

In my "mind" for many a year, events of two seperate and different encounters with NVA forces, had been combined into a single encounter/firefight.

Barbara, who had received letters from me, stated that I was incorrect and that it was two separate events, to which I protested.

She then showed me the letters written on the subject, which, as she had stated, was two distiinct and seperate events.

Being the "doubting Thomas", I thereafter dug out my diary which was written at the time of the events, and it too stated that this was too separate events with totally seperate dates.

To this day, my "memory" still has these events combined into a single combat event, yet I know beyond any doubt that the memory is incorrect as the letters and diary were written at the time of occurence.

Therefore, when one places their faith in "memory" alone, then they are on quite shaky ground.

And the older one gets, the worse it also appears to be.

Guess one should be thankful that they can remember anything!

Jack, Tom, I sympathise with – and share – the proclivity to conflate memories. So let us thank the lucky stars that Mark Lane committed his (television viewing) to paper, just as Tom did in his diary, so contemporaneously:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...rt=#entry148026

The following extract is from the expanded – eight-page pamphlet version – of Mark Lane’s original article on the case, “Lane’s Defense Brief for Oswald,” published by the National Guardian, 19 December 1963:

“A motion picture taken of the President just before, during, and after the shooting, and demonstrated on television showed that the President was looking directly ahead when the first shot, which entered his throat, was fired. A series of still pictures taken from the motion picture and published in Life magazine on Nov. 29 show exactly the same situation.”

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/The_critics/L...l_Guardian.html

Note the order: Lane first saw the film was on television, then a few stills from it in Life’s first post-assassination issue of November 29.

Paul

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JG30Ag01.html

Russia takes control of Turkmen (world?) gas

By M K Bhadrakumar

From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market.

Gazprom, Russia's energy leviathan, signed two major agreements in Ashgabat on Friday outlining a new scheme for purchase of Turkmen gas. The first one elaborates the price formation principles that will be guiding the Russian gas purchase from Turkmenistan during the next 20-year period. The second agreement is a unique one, making Gazprom the donor for local Turkmen energy projects. In essence, the two agreements ensure that Russia will keep control over Turkmen gas exports.

The new pricing principle lays out that starting from next year, Russia has agreed to pay to Turkmenistan a base gas purchasing price that is a mix of the average wholesale price in Europe and Ukraine. In effect, as compared to the current price of US$140 per thousand cubic meters of Turkmen gas, from 2009 onward Russia will be paying $225-295 under the new formula. This works out to an additional annual payment of something like $9.4 billion to $12.4 billion. But the transition to market principles of pricing will take place within the framework of a long-term contract running up to the year 2028.

The second agreement stipulates that Gazprom will finance and build gas transportation facilities and develop gas fields in Turkmenistan. Experts have estimated that Gazprom will finance Turkmen projects costing $4-6 billion. Gazprom chief Alexei Miller said, "We have reached agreement regarding Gazprom financing and building the new main gas pipelines from the east of the country, developing gas fields and boosting the capacity of the Turkmen sector of the Caspian gas pipeline to 30 billion cubic meters." Interestingly, Gazprom will provide financing in the form of 0% credits for these local projects. The net gain for Turkmenistan is estimated to be in the region of $240-480 million.

From all appearance, Gazprom, which was headed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for eight years from 2000 to May 2008, has taken an audacious initiative. It could only have happened thanks to a strategic decision taken at the highest level in the Kremlin. In fact, Medvedev had traveled to Ashgabat on July 4-5 en route to the Group of Eight summit meeting in Hokkaido, Japan.

Curiously, the agreements reached in Ashgabat on Friday are unlikely to enable Gazprom to make revenue from reselling Turkmen gas. Quite possibly, Gazprom may now have to concede similar terms to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the two other major gas producing countries in Central Asia. In other words, plain money-making was not the motivation for Gazprom. The Kremlin has a grand strategy.

Coincidence or not, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin traveled to Beijing at the weekend to launch with his Chinese counterpart, Vice Premier Wang Oishan, an energy initiative - a so-called "energy negotiation mechanism". The first round of negotiations within this framework took place on Saturday in Beijing. There has been an inexplicable media blackout of the event, but Beijing finally decided to break the news. The government-owned China Daily admitted on Monday, "Both China and Russia kept silent on the details of the consensus they reached on energy cooperation in the first round of their negotiation in Beijing on the weekend."

Without getting into details, China Daily merely took note of the talks as "a good beginning" and commented, "It seems that a shift of Russia's energy export policy is under way. Russia might turn its eyes from the Western countries to the Asia-Pacific region ... The cooperation in the energy sector is an issue of great significance for Sino-Russian relations ... the political and geographic closeness of the two countries would put their energy cooperation under a safe umbrella and make it a win-win deal. China-Russia ties are at their best times ... The two sides settled their lingering border disputes, held joint military exercises, and enjoyed rapidly increasing bilateral trade."

It is unclear whether Gazprom's agreements in Ashgabat and Sechin's talks in Beijing were inter-related. Conceivably, they overlapped in so far as China had signed a long-term agreement with Turkmenistan whereby the latter would supply 30 billion cubic meters of gas to China annually for the 30-year period starting from 2009. The construction work on the gas pipeline leading from Turkmenistan to China's Xinjiang Autonomous region has already begun. China had agreed on the price for Turkmen gas at $195 per thousand cubic meters. Now, the agreement in Ashgabat on Friday puts Gazprom in the driving seat for handling all of Turkmenistan's gas exports, including to China.

Russia and China have a heavy agenda to discuss in energy cooperation far beyond the price of Turkmen gas supplies. But suffice it to say that Gazprom's new stature as the sole buyer of Turkmen gas strengthens Russia's hands in setting the price in the world gas (and oil) market. And that has implications for China. Moscow would be keen to ensure that Russian and Chinese interests are harmonized in Central Asia.

Besides, Russia is taking a renewed interest in the idea of a "gas cartel". Medvedev referred to the idea during the visit of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Moscow last week. The Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on Friday that "Moscow finds the idea of coordination of gas production and pricing policy with other gas exporters to be too tempting to abandon". The daily quoted Miller as saying, "This forum of gas exporters will set up the global gas balance. It will give answers to the questions concerning when, where and how much gas should be produced."

Until fairly recently Moscow was sensitive about the European Union's opposition to the idea of a gas cartel. (Washington has openly warned that it would legislate against countries that lined up behind a gas cartel). But high gas prices have weakened the European Union's negotiating position.

The agreements with Turkmenistan further consolidate Russia's control of Central Asia's gas exports. Gazprom recently offered to buy all of Azerbaijan's gas at European prices. (Medvedev visited Baku on July 3-4.) Baku will study with keen interest the agreements signed in Ashgabat on Friday. The overall implications of these Russian moves are very serious for the US and EU campaign to get the Nabucco gas pipeline project going.

Nabucco, which would run from Turkey to Austria via Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary, was hoping to tap Turkmen gas by linking Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan via a pipeline across the Caspian Sea that would be connected to the pipeline networks through the Caucasus to Turkey already existing, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

But with access denied to Turkmen gas, Nabucco's viability becomes doubtful. And, without Nabucco, the entire US strategy of reducing Europe's dependence on Russian energy supplies makes no sense. Therefore, Washington is faced with Hobson's choice. Friday's agreements in Ashgabat mean that Nabucco's realization will now critically depend on gas supplies from the Middle East - Iran, in particular. Turkey is pursuing the idea of Iran supplying gas to Europe and has offered to mediate in the US-Iran standoff.

The geopolitics of energy makes strange bedfellows. Russia will be watching with anxiety the Turkish-Iranian-US tango. An understanding with Iran on gas pricing, production and market-sharing is vital for the success of Russia's overall gas export strategy. But Tehran visualizes the Nabucco as its passport for integration with Europe. Again, Russia's control of Turkmen gas cannot be to Tehran's liking. Tehran had keenly pursed with Ashgabat the idea of evacuation of Turkmen gas to the world market via Iranian territory.

There must be deep frustration in Washington. In sum, Russia has greatly strengthened its standing as the principal gas supplier to Europe. It not only controls Central Asia's gas exports but has ensured that gas from the region passes across Russia and not through the alternative trans-Caspian pipelines mooted by the US and EU. Also, a defining moment has come. The era of cheap gas is ending. Other gas exporters will cite the precedent of the price for Turkmen gas. European companies cannot match Gazprom's muscle. Azerbaijan becomes a test case. Equally, Russia places itself in a commanding position to influence the price of gas in the world market. A gas cartel is surely in the making. The geopolitical implications are simply profound for the US.

Moreover, Russian oil and gas companies are now spreading their wings into Latin America, which has been the US's traditional backyard. During Chavez's visit to Moscow on July 22, three Russian energy companies - Gazprom, LUKoil and TNK-BP - signed agreements with the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company PDVSA. They will replace the American oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips in Venezuela.

At the signing ceremony, Medvedev said, "We have not only approved these agreements but have also decided to supervise their implementation." Chavez responded, "I look forward to seeing all of you in Venezuela."

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Meanwhile, the US elite wastes billions in futile wars of occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq...

According to 1327C, Perry and Clark described only two wounds, the entrance wound in the front of the throat (8), and “a large, gaping loss of tissue” (9) at “the back of his head” (10), “principally on his right side” (11). The questions attributed to the unnamed reporters present reinforces this two-wound scenario, for example, when one of them supposedly asked of Perry, following his pointing to this own throat to show where the bullet had entered, “Doctor, is it the assumption that it went through the head?” (12). So much for 1327C. Now let us turn to the contemporaneous news reports.

Here we find something very different. The Associated Press reported, shortly after 2 pm, CST, that ‘Dr. Perry said the entrance wound—which is the medical description—the entrance wound was in the front of the head’” (13); while WOR Radio, New York, quoted Perry to this effect at 2:43 pm, CST, (14). So, instead of just two wounds, the Parkland duo actually described three – there was, in addition to the entrance wound just below the Adam’s apple on the front of the throat, also an entrance wound “in the front of the head” (15). It is thus not merely a matter of altering a word or two, but, necessarily, considerable portions of transcript 1327C, including the questions attributed to the anonymous reporters.

To my surprise, the AP report of a frontal head entrance wound did make it into at least one newspaper on November 22:

"When asked to specify, Perry said the entrance wound was in the front of the head,"

AP, "Treatment Described," Albuquerque Tribune, 22 November 1963, p.58

I haven't read this entire thread, but I came across a few documents that might have something to do with bootleg Zapruders or another film of the assassination out there.

This report concerns the owner/bartender of the Golden Twenties Tavern in Dallas, whose patron, Jim Conners, claimed to have seen a film of the assassination, including the head shot, on a television at IBM on the afternoon of 11/22/63.

FBI 124-10276-10035

Thanks, Bill, that was very helpful. What I'm particularly keen to find is examples from 1975 of interviews with, and comments from, those who believed they'd seen the film well before: I dimly recall reading (or was it hearing?) such material years ago, but I'm damned if I can remember the source(s). It would be very instructive, of course, if those disparaging such recollections turned out to be connected with the false memory syndrome movement and its, er, financiers!

Paul

Here’s the kind of thing I had in mind:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn41...28/ai_n16644653

Time fogged my memory of Kennedy film

Chris Hicks, Deseret Morning News, Jul 28, 2006

Several alert readers sent e-mails regarding last week's column about Walter Cronkite, to point out that I was mistaken about having seen the Zapruder film on television within days of the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963.

Footage of the presidential motorcade was repeatedly shown during that dark period, but the Zapruder film -- the only footage to actually capture the assassination -- wasn't shown to the general public for another decade. (Although Life magazine purchased exclusive rights within days of the assassination and published film frames in print from a week later.)

One of those e-mails came from Steve North, now a senior producer at NBC: "The Zapruder film was never shown on TV until 1975, when Geraldo Rivera was given a bootleg copy and he aired it on his ABC late-night show, 'Good Night America.' I remember that moment well, as I watched at home, when the audience gasped at the violence they were witnessing.

"A couple of months later, I graduated from college and got my first full-time job in broadcasting ... which happened to be working for Geraldo. He asked me to put together a follow-up program to that first Kennedy show."

My thanks to Steve and to others who wrote in.

Like many people my age, I've now seen the film so many times since that first public showing in 1975 that I guess I let my memory of it morph with the events surrounding the 1963 assassination.

As humorist Peter De Vries said, nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,640196299,00.html

New anchors can't compare with Cronkite

By Chris Hicks, Deseret Morning News

Published: July 21, 2006

The lead story on this page today about Walter Cronkite brought back a flood of memories to me.

Cronkite was the big brother, the father figure, the witness reporter who, during my younger days, told us about some of the biggest news events of the late 20th century.

He had been anchoring the "CBS Evening News" for more than a year, and I had watched him many times, but he didn't really enter my consciousness until that day in November 1963 that no baby boomer will ever forget.

I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in class, when the crackly intercom interrupted the teachers in the middle of their lessons to announce that President Kennedy had been shot.

School was dismissed and I walked home, thinking about how my parents had talked about Kennedy a lot, about how he was a Catholic just like us, and all the good things they saw in him for the future of our country.

Some of those things would be deflated in subsequent years, but right now, Kennedy was a fallen saint, and in our house — as with most of the country — there would be mourning. And much of it would take place around the TV set.

When I got home, I found my mother watching television — most unusual in the middle of the day. She was also teary-eyed, even more unusual any time of day.

On that small black-and-white screen was an unending newscast about the assassination of our 35th president. And over the next several days it became a communal event; people all over the country were glued to their TVs, watching in disbelief as the Zapruder film was shown over and over, and then seeing all those connecting events: President Johnson being sworn in, Ruby shooting Oswald, the pageantry of the funeral. . . .

And there in the midst of it all was Walter Cronkite, telling us about each event as it unfolded. He was distinguished, assertive, somewhat paternal, and occasionally with a choke in his throat that told us it was OK to be sad, even to cry if we felt like it. And we did.

It's become a cliche to say you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot.

But I also remember where I was when Robert Kennedy was shot. And when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. And during all those reports about the Vietnam War and Watergate.

And Cronkite was there, too.

He's been off the nightly news for 2 1/2 decades now, but he's still been around, doing stories, hosting documentaries, writing memoirs — and even showing up with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir one year!

He's the favorite uncle who lives out of town but drops in to visit.

And I'll be watching when PBS's "American Masters" airs a profile of Cronkite on Ch. 7 next week. How could I miss it? It'll be like watching home movies.

Some of this has to do with his tenure as the ultimate news figurehead. And some has to do with the way TV news has changed.

There's so much happy talk, melodramatic background music and cheesy celebrity "news" that it's hard to take it seriously.

Cronkite could occasionally lose his objectivity — but would he interview Britney Spears for a prime-time newsmagazine or dress in drag for a Halloween show or engage in inane chitchat with a 20-year-old giggly anchor who looks like a runway model?

Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America." And he may be the last of a dying breed.

An interesting exchange on this subject took place in 2007 at the locations listed below. The debate began with a misunderstanding: An ardent defender of the anti-conspiratorial line mistakenly thought a previous contributor was referring to films of the assassination being shown repeatedly on TV in the immediate aftermath & set about correcting the “error.”

A third contributor recalled seeing just such a film of the assassination over and over on television at this time. Note how she brings her memory into line with the consensus that it had to be the Muchmore film; and the introduction of a televised interview with a psychologist to ram home the message.

By the way, the location of the broadcaster of the assassination film in the days following the coup was…New York.

http://community.comcast.net/comcastportal...d=25569#M100735

Clapton 71 wrote:

I do know that some people believe the Zapruder film was shown on tv and it certainly wasn't.

http://community.comcast.net/comcastportal...&format=one

Clapton71 wrote:

I don't know. I saw a show once where this psychologist was talking about how many people believed they actually saw the assassination film played on tv the weekend Kennedy was killed....which of course is not historically true. It's so burned into our psyche now that there's a distortion of time going on with many people.

http://community.comcast.net/comcastportal...d=26868#M100707

maggiemae656 wrote:

Apparently the film that was broadcast was not the Zapruder film...I remember seeing the broadcast, just as Sandy45 said, over and over. Possibly the one we saw was filmed by Marie Muchmore, who turned her undeveloped film over to the UPI on 11/25/63. It was first aired by WNEW-TV on 11/26/63.

http://community.comcast.net/comcastportal...d=26872#M100737

maggiemae656 wrote:

We only had a few channels back then, and we were able to access NY broadcasting.

You have to remember, in those days, we were not accustomed to the special effects and quality of video that we have today. That short little segment on Muchmore's film was very impactful. You look at it now, and possibly can't appreciate the effect that video had on people because you are used to the advancements in filmography that didn't exist back then. You may not be able to get that same shock value because of the technology we now have.

I was young, but I feel strongly that I saw a video shot before, during and after the assassination. I never really gave much thought as to who actually did the filming.

Fortunately for the puzzled lady - like Chris Hicks, armed only with her “false” memory - someone in Power had given much thought to the issue, and abundant reassurance was only a google search or two away, reconciling her to the historical “truth” of the matter. Ironically, the lady’s signature proclaims: “Just the issues, not a political party line.”

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m45927&hd=&size=1&l=e

Who Funds the Progressive Media?

By Michael Barker

July 24, 2008

Critiques of liberal philanthropy are nothing new: indeed such criticisms have regularly surfaced ever since liberal foundations were created in the early twentieth century. In the past few years, however, the number of critical scholars and activists writing about practices of liberal foundations has grown rapidly, and there is now a blossoming literature showing the funding strategies of these highly influential philanthropists are antidemocratic and manipulative. The antidemocratic nature of liberal foundations is epitomized by the long history of collaboration (that formerly existed) between the largest major liberal foundations (like the Ford Foundation) and the US Central Intelligence Agency. Moreover, recent research has demonstrated the key leadership role that liberal foundations played in developing the means by which powerful elites could manufacture public (and elite) consent.

By focusing on a variety of progressive media-related groups in North America (including most notably the Benton Foundation and the newly launched The Real News Network), this article will discuss the limits of current funding strategies, and reflect upon alternative, arguably more sustainable (and democratic) methods by which civil society media groups may be created and sustained. It will be argued that the integral hegemonic function of liberal philanthropy has already deradicalised all manner of progressive social movements, and that civil society media groups need to cut their institutional ties with such financing sources. Admittedly solutions cannot be implemented immediately, but considering the increasing ascendancy of neoliberal media regimes worldwide it is vital that progressive concerned citizens call attention to this significant issue.

Liberal philanthropy plays a critical role in promoting and sustaining progressive media outlets within civil society, which are also referred to as 'alternative’ or 'autonomous’ media. Historically, the 'big three’ US-based liberal foundations – the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation – have nurtured progressive causes on both the national and international scale, dealing with issues ranging from health care and civil rights to environmentalism. [1] In recent years increasing attention has been paid to the influence of conservative philanthropy, [2] however, the same has not been true for liberal philanthropy: two notable exceptions to this trend are Professor Joan Roelofs seminal book, Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, and INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence’s recent addition, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. This omission is problematic on a number of levels. Despite being ostensibly progressive, the major liberal foundations have at one time or another vigorously promoted all manner of not so progressive issues like eugenics, elite planning, and free trade; while they also worked hand-in-hand with the US Government’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In this context, the big three liberal foundations have also funded the research of many of the 'founding fathers’ of mass communications research, arguably helping them to develop the capabilities for 'manufacturing consent’ for elite interests. [3]

Although the importance of money to progressive social movements and their associated media outlets is obvious to most people, surprisingly few academics have addressed this subject. It is widely acknowledged that conservative funding has, over the past few decades, driven the ideological orientation of mainstream media outlets rightwards. Research also suggests that liberal funders have had a detrimental and antidemocratic influence on processes of social change in general. [4] Such research also questions the role that 'charitable’ donations arguably play in sustaining capitalist hegemony. However, what is the effect specifically on the development of progressive media? To date only Bob Feldman (2007) has provided a critical examination of the nexus between liberal philanthropy and alternative media operations. [5] The lack of critical enquiry into the influence of liberal philanthropy on the media of progressive social movements is problematic, as media are integral to the function of social movements. This article will try to address this blind spot.

Compared to today, in the late 1960s and 1970s critical awareness among media activists was relatively high, thanks in part to a series of articles in the influential Ramparts magazine which asked: [6]

"Can anyone honestly believe that the foundations, which are based on the great American fortunes and administered by the present-day captains of American industry and finance, will systematically underwrite research which tends to undermine the pillars of the status quo, in particular the illusion that the corporate rich who benefit most from the system do not run it – at whatever cost to society – precisely to ensure their continued blessings?"

More recently, building upon this commonsensical interpretation of the role of liberal philanthropy within capitalist societies, Andrea Smith points out that: "From their inception, [liberal] foundations focused on research and dissemination of information designed ostensibly to ameliorate social issues-in a manner, how­ever, that did not challenge capitalism". [7] Using this interpretation of the role of liberal philanthropy as a starting point and drawing upon Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony this article will expand upon Feldman’s ground-breaking study. It will document how liberal foundations have (and continue to) actively shape the evolution of progressive media groups in North America.

Initially, this article will introduce the work of the Benton Foundation, a liberal foundation that has played a pioneering and catalysing role in supporting progressive media ventures. It will then provide a detailed analysis of a globally significant media project, The Real News Network, which has been supported by liberal philanthropy. Drawing upon power structure research it will critically examine some of the key people and funders. [8] Finally, the article will discuss the limits of current funding strategies, and suggest an alternative, arguably more sustainable (and democratic) method by which civil society media groups may be created and sustained in the future.

Putting Progressive Communications on the Philanthropic Agenda

Upon the initiative of the late William Benton (1900-1973), the William Benton Foundation was incorporated as a 501©(3) private foundation in 1948, although in 1981 it was renamed the Benton Foundation. This foundation is now recognised as one of the leading sponsors of non-profit progressive media projects in the United States, alongside the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Its founder, William Benton is today credited as having "pushed the envelope… within the foundation world, urging them to take communications seriously and to use it to build democracy". [9] However, like most of the big liberal foundations in the US, the Benton Foundation has elitist roots: William Benton had strong links to the Rockefellers’ and other assorted corporate and political elites. Given this history, we must ask: "What type of democracy was William Benton trying to build?" This question will be addressed in the following.

The Benton Foundation is currently chaired by William Benton’s son, Charles Benton, who like his father maintains close ties to a number of less than progressive individuals, not least through his position on the Board of Trustees of The American Assembly. [10] Furthermore, he is a member of the international founding committee of The Real News (discussed later), and a trustee of the Education Development Center. The latter is a non-profit that describes its work as being "dedicated to enhancing learning, promoting health, and fostering a deeper understanding of the world." It was created in 1958, and from the beginning the Ford Foundation has been involved with its work. From 1958-68 the Ford Foundation helped the Center create a "complete high school physics curriculum" for US schools. [11] Another notable early supporter of the Education Development Center’s activities was the US Agency for International Development (AID), which between 1961 and 1976 funded their African Mathematics Programs. [12] Today the Center has a staff of over 500 people and a budget in excess of $90 million. Its funding comes from USAID and liberal philanthropic organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and George Soros’ Open Society Institute. [13]

Sitting with Charles Benton on the Board of Trustees of the Education Development Center is Larry Irving, the former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Irving is "widely credited with coining the term 'the digital divide’" and with being "a point person" in ensuring the successful passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Jim Kohlenberger, the Benton Foundation’s current senior fellow also "worked to help pass the Telecommunications Act of 1996". [14] This Act was strongly opposed by all progressive media groups.

Nonewithstanding these links to people who worked against progressive media groups in the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the Benton Foundation has, and continues to be, an important supporter of progressive media initiatives within the United States. In a recent interview, Charles Benton explained that the Benton Foundation began funding of communication projects in the early 1980s, a time they were not on the agenda of other foundations. In 1981, the Benton Foundation "decided to work in support of philanthropy, and particularly the Council on Foundations, to try to beat the drum and raise the cry about the importance of communications to both foundations and their grantees". Since these early days the Benton Foundation’s annual budget for media reform has increased considerably and they now give away around $1 million a year to help "educat[e] the media reform community – policymakers, funders, and activists—about the crucial debates that help shape our media future". [15] The following section of this article will discuss the backgrounds of some key Foundation staff and directors.

The Benton Foundation: People and Projects

The president of the Benton Foundation from October 2001 to August 2004, Andrea L. Taylor, is a co-founder of Davis Creek Capital, LLC, a private equity fund created to invest in Internet and new media businesses led by women and people of color. Taylor was also involved in setting up the Media Fund at the Ford Foundation in the late 1980s, where she worked for nearly a decade to distribute some $50 million to independent media projects. Taylor presently serves as a trustee of the Ms. Foundation for Women, is a former director of the Cleveland Foundation, and the Council on Foundations: the latter group is an umbrella association of more than 2,100 grant making foundations and corporations that describes itself as "the voice of philanthropy".

After her work at the Benton Foundation, Taylor became vice president of the aforementioned Education Development Center, where she helped create, and was the founding president of, their Center for Media and Community. The Benton Foundation supported the launch of this center with a three year $668,000 grant, which has been described as the "largest single commitment in the foundation’s history". Other funders of the Center for Media and Community at the Education Development Center include the Annie E. Casey Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In June 2006, Taylor became Director for U.S. Community Affairs at Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft chief executive officer (CEO) Bill Gates is also the founder of the largest liberal foundation in the world, the Gates Foundation, a foundation that distributed some $2 billion of grants in 2007 alone. [16] Since 2002, the Gates Foundation has also worked closely with the Benton Foundation, for example on their WebJunction project – a project which aims to facilitate public access to computing facilities in public libraries within the United States.

The current president of the Benton Foundation (since 2006) is Gloria Tristani, the former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member. Trisani presently also serves on the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee alongside Charles Benton, is a member of The Real News international founding committee, and sits on the Board of Directors of Children Now. Other Children Now directors with a media background include Geoffrey Cowan (former head of Voice of America, currently a director of the Public Diplomacy Council), Donald Kennedy (editor-in-chief of Science magazine, a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation), and Lenny Mendonca (a director of the New America Foundation).

The Benton Foundation’s administrative manager, Cecilia Garcia first joined the Foundation in 1997. She has also helped produce the CD-ROM version of "Chicano: History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement," a major PBS documentary that was produced by the National Latino Communication Center with the help of a $0.7 million grant from the Ford Foundation. [17] Recently Garcia took some time out from her duties at the Benton Foundation to serve as the executive director of Connect for Kids – a childrens’ advocacy group that is managed by the Ford Foundation-funded non-profit, Forum for Youth Investment. Two of the five directors of Connect for Kids’ have links to the Benton Foundation: Joseph Getch, former Chief Financial Officer for the Benton Foundation and member of the Council on Foundations' research committee, and Charles Benton’s wife, Marjorie Craig Benton, board chair of the Council on Foundations from 1994 to 1996. Marjorie Craig Benton also serves as a director of the Microsoft-linked non-profit group, Room to Read.

Like their staff, Benton Foundation board members are well linked to political elites and the broader world of liberal philanthropy. Alongside Charles Benton, the other eight directors are: Adrianne Benton Furniss, former president and CEO of the Chicago-based publisher/distributor Home Vision Entertainment (acquired by Image Entertainment in 2005); Michael Smith (Benton Foundation Treasurer), former Australian Chairman of public relations firm Weber Shandwick, and CEO of his own firm, Inside PR; Elizabeth Daley, Founding Executive Director of the University of Southern California Annenberg Center for Communication from 1994 to 2005; Terry Goddard, former Mayor of Phoenix, and trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation from 1992 to 2001; [18] Lee Lynch, former CEO of the Carmichael-Lynch Advertising Agency, and spouse of Terry Saario (a former director of the Benton Foundation and former program officer at the Ford Foundation); Henry Rivera, former FCC commissioner, and a partner of the law firm Wiley Rein and Fielding (controversial for defending the use of fake news); Leonard J. Schrager, former president of the Chicago Bar Foundation and the Chicago Bar Association; and Woodward Wickham, former vice president of the MacArthur Foundation, and a director of OneWorld United States.

Wickham’s links to the latter group are worth reviewing as OneWorld United States was created in 2000, as a joint project between the Benton Foundation and OneWorld International. OneWorld International is a Ford Foundation supported group that describes itself as the "world’s favourite and fastest-growing civil society network online, supporting people’s media to help build a more just global society". OneWorld also has links to the Benton Foundation: Larry Kirkman, currently a director of OneWorld United States, and chair of OneWorld International was president of the Benton Foundation from 1989 to 2001.

Charles Benton’s media connections are also of relevance to the topic of this article: In addition to presiding over the day to day activities of the Benton Foundation, Charles Benton is also chairman of Public Media, Inc. (a film and video publisher and distributor) and served as a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters (known as 'the Gore Commission’). Charles Benton is also a member of the international founding committee of the recently launched alternative media network The Real News. The final section of this article will examine the philanthropic background of The Real News in some detail.

The Real News Network

Founded in 2007, The Real News describes itself as a "non-profit news and documentary network focused on providing independent and uncompromising journalism". The Real News website proudly claims that they are "member supported and do not accept advertising, government or corporate funding" (emphasis in the original). [19] The site adds, "the Real News will be financed by the economic power of thousands of viewers like you around the world. Just 250,000 people paying $10 a month will make it happen", and claims there is "NO government funding; NO corporate funding; NO advertising; NO STRINGS".

The Real News’ mission statement suggests that Real News promotes independent and investigative journalism and is a grassroots effort. It fails to mention, however, that the project was launched with millions of dollars provided by leading US American liberal foundations. There may well have been no strings attached to the seed money, but there is little doubt that the foundations chose to support their project – as opposed to any alternative ones – because the Real News formula suited the foundations’ own philanthropic interests. How much influence the liberal foundations had in determining the makeup of The Real News advisory boards and founding committees will remain unknown until the issue becomes the focus of an in-depth investigative report. An investigation that is unlikely to be forthcoming from The Real News itself.

That said, this article does not aim to cast doubt on the progressive nature of the journalistic output of The Real News. The quality of the content is indisputably high and offers a real alternative to mainstream media. This article does try to draw attention, however, to the fact that The Real News has relied heavily on liberal philanthropists. It also tries to raise the question as to what this reliance means for the future of genuine grassroots initiatives attempting to promote comparable progressive media projects. In order to open the discussion the following sections of this article will briefly chart the launch of The Real News network, and the backgrounds of the people who are associated with the project.

The Real News can be considered the flagship project of a non-profit group that is known as Independent World Television (IWT). From Toronto (Canada), and formed in 2003, IWT was co-founded by Paul Jay and Sharmini Peries. Paul Jay, who is presently the CEO and chair of The Real News is an award-winning documentary filmmaker who was formerly the creator and executive producer of Canadian Broadcasting Centre Newsworld’s debate program counterSpin. On the other hand, Sharmini Peries, who until recently served as the director of policy and development for IWT, is an executive director of the International Freedom of Expression eXchange and the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. These two groups are have close connections to the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy. [20] The National Endowment for Democracy plays a big role in promoting United States’ foreign interests – which most notably saw them support the 2002 coup that temporarily removed President Hugo Chavez from power. [21] Ironically, Peries presently serves as a foreign policy advisor to President Chavez.

In 2005, Independent World Television received a $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation to conduct a "feasibility and planning study on an innovative idea to create a news and current affairs TV network funded primarily by viewers". Two other liberal foundations, the MacArthur Foundation and the Haas Foundation also contributed to this planning study. IWT set out to create what would become The Real News using the services of EchoDitto – a consulting group that has done much work on projects connected to the United States’ Democratic Party. A website was launched on June 15, 2005 (www.IWTnews.com) to build an online community of supporters and donors. The goal of this first phase of IWT’s project was to raise a $7 million start-up budget from individual donors and foundations. By January 2007 IWT had "raised $5 million from several foundations, charitable trusts, individuals and unions, including the Canadian Auto Workers Union, the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation". [22] Having achieved this level of philanthropic support, IWT was then able to create The Real News website, at first with a limited news service to help get the full journalism project off the ground.

In an interview in early 2007, IWT co-founder Paul Jay said that during their first year of operations The Real News only required a further $4 million in funding from the public, but thereafter, with a full service provided, estimates their annual budget will require around $30 million a year. Obtaining such high levels of funding from the public within such a short space of time will undoubtedly be difficult. Camilo Wilson, one of IWT’s Internet strategy consultants suggested that this goal is too optimistic, noting that IWT will probably have to depend on greater support from liberal foundations in order to reach its long-term goal. [23]

In the following, this article will introduce some of the individuals who have given their support to launching this new media network.

Founded in 2003, the founding committee of the Independent World Television/The Real News consisted of 84 individuals, including Paul Jay as chair. The committee includes well-known progressives such as British member of parliament Tony Benn (UK), host of the popular "Democracy Now!" program Amy Goodman (USA), media scholar Robert McChesney (USA), media critic Danny Schechter (USA), literary author Gore Vidal (USA), historian Howard Zinn (USA) and journalist/author Naomi Klein (Canada).

Incidentally, Klein has provided a rare critical overview of the Ford Foundations history. In her book, The Shock Doctrine, she observes that the Ford Foundation was the "leading source of funding for the dissemination of the Chicago School ideology throughout Latin America". She adds,

"[Ford-funded institutions played a] …central role in the overthrow of Chile’s democracy, and its former students… appl[ied] their US education in a context of shocking brutality. Making matters more complicated for the foundation, this was the second time in just a few years that its protégés had chosen a violent route to power, the first case being the Berkeley Mafia’s meteoric rise to power in Indonesia after Suharto’s bloody [1965-66] coup." [24]

The Benton Foundation is also well represented on the IWT founding committee, with Gloria Tristani, Charles Benton and Mark Lloyd (former general counsel to the Benton Foundation now a senior fellow at the George Soros-linked Center for American Progress).

However, the IWT’s founding committee also includes some people with less progressive backgrounds such as Salih Booker, current executive director of NED-funded group Global Rights, and former head of the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies Program, and former program officer for the Ford Foundation in Eastern and Southern Africa; Kenneth Roth, executive director of the NED-linked Human Rights Watch; Kim Spencer, President of Link TV, and co-founder of the NED-funded Internews; Shauna Sylvester, founder and executive director of the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS); and Jenny Toomey who until recently was the executive director of the Future of Music Coalition, and now serves as the program officer for Media and Cultural Policy at the Ford Foundation.

Indeed, even radical media critics, like Robert McChesney, work closely with these foundations, as his media reform group, Free Press, has also obtained Ford Foundation monies; while as early as March 1996, McChesney was a panel participant at the "Symposium of The Future of Public Service Media" – an event that was sponsored by both the Benton Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Given that Ford and Benton Foundations have extensive funding and personal ties in so many projects of progressive social change it is hardly surprising that most of the representatives of IWT’s founding committee also work for non-profit groups and projects that are funded by the Ford Foundation. However, this almost 'natural’ state of affairs should give us pause.

Conclusions

This article has focused on a small part of the philanthropic work undertaken by two foundations, the Ford Foundation and the Benton Foundation. Many other foundations are now engaged in ostensibly progressive media work: for example, in 2005 the Carnegie Corporation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation launched the Carnegie Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. It is no exaggeration to say such foundations wield enormous influence over which organizations grow and flourish, and which do not.

Those of us who take it as granted that the United States is a plutocracy not a democracy, find in this state of affairs their belief confirmed that the richest have access to society’s financial and political resources, and that they can engage in large-scale social engineering to make sure civil society is shaped in a manner compatible with their own elite interests. However, even activists, researchers and theorists who believe the United States is (or at least should be) a country of pluralism and representative democracy should be concerned about the amount of money flowing from these liberal foundations and begin documenting its effects on the development of the American progressive mediascape.

The first step towards short-circuiting philanthropic colonization of independent media systems, and civil society more generally, is for progressive groups to collectively act to delegitimize 'charitable’ manipulations. Yet if this process only occurs within the most radical parts of civil society – i.e. by groups that are already largely excluded from foundation funding – then overall very little will change. Even if some less radical groups presently supported by liberal foundations cut their ties to liberal foundation funding, the outcomes will be limited. Though this would swell the ranks of those operating outside of the liberal foundation-civil society nexus, other groups and individuals who are unaware (or unconcerned by) the problems associated with liberal philanthropy will quickly move into their place. A critical part of any campaign to encourage disassociation from elite funders needs to see the undertaking a large-scale education campaign directed towards the multitude of employees presently working within the non-profit industrial complex. [25]

Furthermore, a broad coalition of progressive groups need to work to problematize the current structure of civil society, and encourage the creation of civil society groups that embody and promote democratic principles rather than those that adopt corporate organizational structures designed to maximize revenue streams. Contrary to some progressive commentators’ advice it is important to remember that the non-profit sector does not have to be run like the business sector: [26] The public already gives a vast amount of money to charity each year. The problem is how this money is distributed, by whom and to whom. Currently, unaccountable and elite-run foundations distribute the public’s money to a select group of organizations who write proposals to fit the funder’s philosophy and who put their personnel on their boards. Diverting just a small proportion of this substantial and growing flow of financial resources toward truly progressive media projects – that is those that embody democratic structures that are founded without support of liberal philanthropists or foundations – will enable concerned citizens and media activists to move more confidently toward building a society with democratic structures.

Michael Barker is a British citizen based in Australia. Most of his other articles can be found here.

Endnotes

[1] Brown, E. R. (1979), Rockefeller Medicine Men: Medicine and Capitalism in America. Berkeley: University of California Press; Gottlieb, R. (1993), Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington, D.C.: Island Press; Jenkins, C. J. & Eckert, C. M. (1986), 'Channeling Black Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement Organizations in the Development of the Black Movement,’ American Sociological Review, 51, pp. 812-829.

[2] Covington, S. (2005), 'Moving Public Policy to the Right: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations,’ in D. Faber & D. McCarthy (Eds.), Foundations for Social Change: Critical Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements (pp. 89-114). Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

[3] Barker, M. J. (2008), 'The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform? Creating Sustainable Funding Opportunities for Radical Media Reform,’ Global Media Journal, 1 (2), June 2, 2008.

[4] Arnove, R. F. (1980), Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall; Barker, M. J. (2008) The Liberal Foundations of Environmentalism: Revisiting the Rockefeller-Ford Connection,’ Capitalism Nature Socialism, 19 (2), pp.15-42.; Lundberg, F. (1975), The Rockefeller Syndrome. Secaucus, N.J.: L. Stuart; Roelofs, J. (2003), Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. Albany: State University of New York Press.

[5] Feldman, B. (2007), 'Report from the Field: Left Media and Left Think Tanks – Foundation-Managed Protest?’ Critical Sociology, 33:3, pp. 427-446.

[6] Horowitz, D. (1969a), ' The Foundations: Charity Begins at Home,’ Ramparts, 7 (11), pp.38-48.; (1969b), ' Billion Dollar Brains: How Wealth Puts Knowledge in its Pocket ,’ Ramparts, 7 (12), pp.36-44.; (1969c), ' Sinews of Empire,’ Ramparts, 8 (4), pp.32-42.

[7] Smith, A. (2007), 'Introduction: The Revolution Will Not Be Funded,’ in INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. (Eds.), The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (pp. 1-18). Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, p.4.

[8] Domhoff, G. W. (1970), The Higher Circles: The Governing Class in America. New York: Random House; Mills, C. W. (1956), The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press.

[9] Benton Foundation (2008), 'Frequently Asked Questions,’ Benton Foundation.

[10] Barker, M. J. (2008), 'Social Engineering, Progressive Media, and the Benton Foundation,’ A refereed paper presented to the Australian & New Zealand Communication Association International Conference, 2008: Power and Place, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, July 9-11, 2008.

[11] EDC (2008), 'Flagship Projects in EDC's History,’ Education Development Center.

[12] For a broad critique of USAID, see Weissman, S. (1974), The Trojan Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid. San Francisco: Ramparts Press.

[13] Kelly, P. J. (2004), 'A Conversation with Charles and Marjorie Benton,’ Foundation News and Commentary, March/April 2004.

[14] Benton Foundation (2008), 'Who We Are,’ Benton Foundation.

[15] Benton Foundation (2005), '2005 Annual Report ,’ Benton Foundation. Available at http://www.benton.org/benton_files/ar05_spreads.pdf Accessed on 28 April 2008.

[16] Barker, M. J. (2008), 'Bill Gates as Social Engineer: Introducing the World’s Largest Liberal Philanthropist,’ A refereed paper presented to the Australasian Political Science Association conference, University of Queensland, July 6-9, 2008.

[17] For a critique see Barker, M. J. (2008) The Liberal Foundations of Media Reform?

[18] The National Trust for Historic Preservation is currently headed by Ford Foundation trustee, Richard Moe.

[19] Citations obtained from The Real News website in May 2008.

[20] Barker, M. J. (2008) '"Independent" Journalism Organizations and a Polyarchal Public Sphere,’ Center for Research on Globalization. ??

[21] Barker, M. J. (2006). 'Taking the Risk out of Civil Society: HarnessingSocial Movements and Regulating Revolutions,’ Refereed paper presented tothe Australasian Political Studies Association Conference, University of Newcastle 25-27 September 2006.

[22] Dindar, S. (2007), 'Heard the Independent News?’ Ryerson Review of Journalism.

[23] Dindar, S. (2007), 'Heard the Independent News?’ Ryerson Review of Journalism.

[24] Klein, N. (2007), The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Random House, pp.145-6.

[25] INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. (2007), The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press.

[26] C.f. Shuman, M. H. & Fuller, M. (2005), 'The Revolution Will Not Be Grant Funded,’ Shelterforce, The Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building, Issue 143

The Times of Vietnam, Monday, 2 September 1963, pp.1&6

CIA Financing Planned Coup D’Etat

Planned for Aug. 28; Falls Flat, Stillborn

Saigon (TVN) – The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was financing a planned coup d’etat scheduled for last Wednesday, reliable foreign sources said yesterday.

For some weeks as the Xa Loi anti-government campaign grew, the rumours of coup d’etats became more frequent and abundant. It was well known that the Communists were exploiting the Xa Loi campaign in an effort to topple the Vietnamese Government, and there were constant rumours that C.I.A. was also supporting it.

Now as the story comes out, it is revealed that C.I.A. agents in the political section of the U.S. Embassy, the Public Safety Division of U.S.O.M. and the G2 section of M.A.A.G., with the assistance of well-paid military attaches from three other embassies, had prepared a detailed plan for the overthrow of the Vietnamese Government. The C.I.A. plan, it is said, had the blessing of high officials in the “distressed” State Department.

It is also said Vietnamese authorities seem to be well aware of C.I.A. efforts to help build the political agitation of the “Buddhist Affair” to a point of popular confusion and hysteria which would be fertile ground for the planned coup d’etat of the unofficially official American organization.

Beginning in January of this year, it is reported American secret agency “experts” who successfully engineered the coup d’etats in Turkey, Guatemala, Korea, and failed in Iran and Cuba, began arriving in Vietnam, taking up duties mostly in the U.S. Embassy, U.S.O.M., M.A.A.G., and various official and unofficial installations here...

Jefferson Morley. Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA (University of Kansas Press, 2008), p.66

The challenge, said covert operations chief Frank Wisner, was to overcome Arbenz’s “substantial popular support.” The United States had to “undermine the loyalty of the army high command and most of the army” to his government. It would require a cutoff of military assistance to the government; promises of aid to anyone who overthrew Arbenz; critical public statements from Washington; and, most important, the insertion of psychological warfare specialists into Guatemala to shape the perceptions of the Guatemala public and political elite in advance of the decisive blow.

We begin to see the skeleton of the standard CIA coup model: The next step is to attempt the allocation of roles, based on the CIA's endeavours overseas, before, during and post-Dallas.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,640196299,00.html

New anchors can't compare with Cronkite

By Chris Hicks, Deseret Morning News

Published: July 21, 2006

The lead story on this page today about Walter Cronkite brought back a flood of memories to me.

Cronkite was the big brother, the father figure, the witness reporter who, during my younger days, told us about some of the biggest news events of the late 20th century.

He had been anchoring the "CBS Evening News" for more than a year, and I had watched him many times, but he didn't really enter my consciousness until that day in November 1963 that no baby boomer will ever forget.

I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in class, when the crackly intercom interrupted the teachers in the middle of their lessons to announce that President Kennedy had been shot.

School was dismissed and I walked home, thinking about how my parents had talked about Kennedy a lot, about how he was a Catholic just like us, and all the good things they saw in him for the future of our country.

Some of those things would be deflated in subsequent years, but right now, Kennedy was a fallen saint, and in our house — as with most of the country — there would be mourning. And much of it would take place around the TV set.

When I got home, I found my mother watching television — most unusual in the middle of the day. She was also teary-eyed, even more unusual any time of day.

On that small black-and-white screen was an unending newscast about the assassination of our 35th president. And over the next several days it became a communal event; people all over the country were glued to their TVs, watching in disbelief as the Zapruder film was shown over and over, and then seeing all those connecting events: President Johnson being sworn in, Ruby shooting Oswald, the pageantry of the funeral. . . .

And there in the midst of it all was Walter Cronkite, telling us about each event as it unfolded. He was distinguished, assertive, somewhat paternal, and occasionally with a choke in his throat that told us it was OK to be sad, even to cry if we felt like it. And we did.

It's become a cliche to say you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot.

But I also remember where I was when Robert Kennedy was shot. And when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. And during all those reports about the Vietnam War and Watergate.

And Cronkite was there, too.

He's been off the nightly news for 2 1/2 decades now, but he's still been around, doing stories, hosting documentaries, writing memoirs — and even showing up with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir one year!

He's the favorite uncle who lives out of town but drops in to visit.

And I'll be watching when PBS's "American Masters" airs a profile of Cronkite on Ch. 7 next week. How could I miss it? It'll be like watching home movies.

Some of this has to do with his tenure as the ultimate news figurehead. And some has to do with the way TV news has changed.

There's so much happy talk, melodramatic background music and cheesy celebrity "news" that it's hard to take it seriously.

Cronkite could occasionally lose his objectivity — but would he interview Britney Spears for a prime-time newsmagazine or dress in drag for a Halloween show or engage in inane chitchat with a 20-year-old giggly anchor who looks like a runway model?

Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America." And he may be the last of a dying breed.

I emailed Chris Hicks and asked him where in the US he lived in November 1963. LA, came the reply. No connection, surely, then, with Mark Lane's experience of viewing the first version of the Z film in New York?

One possibility. In June 1963, Times Mirror sold its LA television station, KTTV, to the Metromedia group: The latter also owned WNEW-TV in New York.

A suitably sized sample of recollections of the kind offered by Chris Hicks would, of course, form the basis for establishing whether or not memories of seeing the Z film in 1963 come in geographical clusters; and, if they did, mapping the clusters against, for example, Metromedia-owned stations across the country.

Paul

I haven't read this entire thread, but I came across a few documents that might have something to do with bootleg Zapruders or another film of the assassination out there.

This report concerns the owner/bartender of the Golden Twenties Tavern in Dallas, whose patron, Jim Conners, claimed to have seen a film of the assassination, including the head shot, on a television at IBM on the afternoon of 11/22/63.

FBI 124-10276-10035

Thanks, Bill, that was very helpful. What I'm particularly keen to find is examples from 1975 of interviews with, and comments from, those who believed they'd seen the film well before: I dimly recall reading (or was it hearing?) such material years ago, but I'm damned if I can remember the source(s). It would be very instructive, of course, if those disparaging such recollections turned out to be connected with the false memory syndrome movement and its, er, financiers!

Paul

Here’s the kind of thing I had in mind:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn41...28/ai_n16644653

Time fogged my memory of Kennedy film

Chris Hicks, Deseret Morning News, Jul 28, 2006

Several alert readers sent e-mails regarding last week's column about Walter Cronkite, to point out that I was mistaken about having seen the Zapruder film on television within days of the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963.

Footage of the presidential motorcade was repeatedly shown during that dark period, but the Zapruder film -- the only footage to actually capture the assassination -- wasn't shown to the general public for another decade. (Although Life magazine purchased exclusive rights within days of the assassination and published film frames in print from a week later.)

One of those e-mails came from Steve North, now a senior producer at NBC: "The Zapruder film was never shown on TV until 1975, when Geraldo Rivera was given a bootleg copy and he aired it on his ABC late-night show, 'Good Night America.' I remember that moment well, as I watched at home, when the audience gasped at the violence they were witnessing.

"A couple of months later, I graduated from college and got my first full-time job in broadcasting ... which happened to be working for Geraldo. He asked me to put together a follow-up program to that first Kennedy show."

My thanks to Steve and to others who wrote in.

Like many people my age, I've now seen the film so many times since that first public showing in 1975 that I guess I let my memory of it morph with the events surrounding the 1963 assassination.

As humorist Peter De Vries said, nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,640196299,00.html

New anchors can't compare with Cronkite

By Chris Hicks, Deseret Morning News

Published: July 21, 2006

The lead story on this page today about Walter Cronkite brought back a flood of memories to me.

Cronkite was the big brother, the father figure, the witness reporter who, during my younger days, told us about some of the biggest news events of the late 20th century.

He had been anchoring the "CBS Evening News" for more than a year, and I had watched him many times, but he didn't really enter my consciousness until that day in November 1963 that no baby boomer will ever forget.

I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in class, when the crackly intercom interrupted the teachers in the middle of their lessons to announce that President Kennedy had been shot.

School was dismissed and I walked home, thinking about how my parents had talked about Kennedy a lot, about how he was a Catholic just like us, and all the good things they saw in him for the future of our country.

Some of those things would be deflated in subsequent years, but right now, Kennedy was a fallen saint, and in our house — as with most of the country — there would be mourning. And much of it would take place around the TV set.

When I got home, I found my mother watching television — most unusual in the middle of the day. She was also teary-eyed, even more unusual any time of day.

On that small black-and-white screen was an unending newscast about the assassination of our 35th president. And over the next several days it became a communal event; people all over the country were glued to their TVs, watching in disbelief as the Zapruder film was shown over and over, and then seeing all those connecting events: President Johnson being sworn in, Ruby shooting Oswald, the pageantry of the funeral. . . .

And there in the midst of it all was Walter Cronkite, telling us about each event as it unfolded. He was distinguished, assertive, somewhat paternal, and occasionally with a choke in his throat that told us it was OK to be sad, even to cry if we felt like it. And we did.

It's become a cliche to say you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot.

But I also remember where I was when Robert Kennedy was shot. And when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. And during all those reports about the Vietnam War and Watergate.

And Cronkite was there, too.

He's been off the nightly news for 2 1/2 decades now, but he's still been around, doing stories, hosting documentaries, writing memoirs — and even showing up with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir one year!

He's the favorite uncle who lives out of town but drops in to visit.

And I'll be watching when PBS's "American Masters" airs a profile of Cronkite on Ch. 7 next week. How could I miss it? It'll be like watching home movies.

Some of this has to do with his tenure as the ultimate news figurehead. And some has to do with the way TV news has changed.

There's so much happy talk, melodramatic background music and cheesy celebrity "news" that it's hard to take it seriously.

Cronkite could occasionally lose his objectivity — but would he interview Britney Spears for a prime-time newsmagazine or dress in drag for a Halloween show or engage in inane chitchat with a 20-year-old giggly anchor who looks like a runway model?

Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America." And he may be the last of a dying breed.