Myra Bronstein

I'm by no means an expert on Diana. Was she an "essentially worthless Woman?" I cut and pasted some items from a paper by Sue Nieboer. Is Nieboer accurate? Quoting Sue Nieboer: In 1986, the fairytale began to turn into a nightmare as the royal couple began having marital problems. There were rumors of an affair between Prince Charles and his old girlfriend, Camille Parker Bowles. Diana suffered from an eating disorder and depression. Instead of giving in to the depression, Diana turned toward philanthropy to make her life meaningful. She used her fame and the media to her advantage, raising money for dozens of causes, including treatment and research for cancer, the homeless, leprosy, and the English National Ballot. She was especially "passionate about children and AIDS charities. 'The image of her holding hands with someone with HIV/AIDS.shattered the stigma, prejudice and fear that surrounded HIV/AIDS in the early days' says Andrew Parkis of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Diana became a powerful philanthropic force. On Aug 28, 1996, her divorce from Prince Charles was final. Her Royal Highness Princess Diana became Diana Princess of Wales. As an outcast of the Windsor dynasty, she began to concentrate on the six charities closest to her heart, Centerpoint, a London group that aids homeless youth, the Leprosy Mission, various cancer benefits, AIDS and the International Red Cross (on land mine issues). Freed from her royal ties, Diana was willing to take on a more political cause, to bring about a ban on global land mines and provide funds for those injured by them. And: Diana's philanthropic legacy has inspired many to give to charitable causes. At the time of her death, thousands of Americans responded to raise more than two million dollars in charitable gifts. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund (U.S.) was created as a way of continuing Diana's work in the United States. To date the fund has contributed $4 million to forty-two youth driven groups (The Diana, Princess U.S. 2003). Diana made philanthropic work glamorous again, especially among the rich and famous. Not only did she raise millions of dollars for many causes benefiting the sick and the poor, but she also gave of her time and herself. Many examples exist of Diana's personal visits to homeless shelters and leprosy wards, of her physically touching those with HIV/AIDS or sitting with children dying of cancer. She was known to take her sons, Princes William and Harry, with her to poverty-stricken areas of South London to meet homeless people camped in cardboard shelters. She ministered to the children and adult victims of unretrieved landmines. Thank you for diluting the nonesense and name-calling with facts Michael.

Wow, hard to know where to begin with this gem of a post Stephen. First, you're doubting she was murdered because she's... famous??? Well, I'm guessing you've heard of a man named John F. Kennedy. He was a president of the United States so he was "grossly famous." Many believe that he was murdered, and the CIA perps were so brazen that they committed the crime at high noon on a city street in front of hundreds of people. He's so famous in fact that almost 50 years later there's an education forum where people discuss the assassination. Perhaps you're aware of it. And he's hardly the only grossly famous person said to have been murdered by the CIA: there's US Senator Bobby Kennedy, John Kennedy Junior (the son of a slain US president no less). Doctor Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John Lennon. You've probably heard of them because they're all... grossly famous. Sadly that fact didn't protect them. In fact it's likely the reason they were targeted due to their influence and power, a by-product of fame. Now let's address your toxic assessment of Princess Diana. I'm pretty sure that she was, and possibly is, far more beloved than the flop-eared unemployed layabouts that used her and tossed her aside. She sure is with me. I found her to be very human (already we have a distinction from the "proper" royal family), and very caring (again...) and downright admirable. A high profile person willing to use her fame for good causes. Gosh. And each of her many causes were even better than Chuck's pet cause... architecture. Wow, hard to imagine a better cause than... architecture eh? But Lady Di managed to come up with a number of them: aids, land mines, none of them glamorous either. All of them affecting almost exclusively proles. "Not to be contaminated by the proles"?! Do you have any friggen memory? She was very publically making physical contact with aids patients at a time when there was outright hysteria over the transmission of aids. Yet she was willing to risk literally reaching out not only to "proles," but to proles who were deathly ill with a deadly mysterious communicative disease. I dunno who the hell you're trying to describe, but it ain't Diana. So while Chuck was toddling around sniffing about... architecture and openly boinking that rotweiler, Lady Di triumphed as an altruist, while also being a sensational mother--possibly the hardest job in the world even under ordinary circumstances, let alone while the father is making a monumental public ass of himself (he wishes he was a "tampex"???). Yet you claim she's "worthless." Even that she deserved to die. I really don't understand that kind of venom being spewed in her direction. It's out and out the most disgusting post I've ever read on any forum. And I have to wonder what issues lurk here. I loved an admired her then, and I do now. And she earned both because she was one of the few positive role models we have. Really a helluva post Stephen. Vicious, nonsensical, and inaccurate. You hit the trifecta!

Excellent article Ed. Thanks for sharing it. It's lookin' like Al Fayed was telling the truth all along. And I doubted him. Not anymore. I hope he continues to raise hell, esp after this latest info.

So many "lone nuts" have supposedly committed high profile murders in the US, it seems like they'd outnumber the general population. They'd have to be tripping over each other. The least "lone" people around.

Christopher, if you have the relative figures cited above, please provide them. I am very skeptical they spent even ten percent as much on Gates as they did Bin Laden. I, for one, wish they'd spent more energy going after Gates. It may have helped prevent the actions of Enron etc, and the subsequent theft of hundreds of billions of dollars from the American public by criminal businessman. If Microsoft isn't a monopoly then nothing is. They were about to be broken up, and should have been broken up, by the Clinton justice department until, viola, stolen election. Bill Gates' legacy is safe. No wonder Gates has the Bush entourage over to his joint East of Seattle every few months. People in Bellevue can't even turn around without tripping over the Heir Bush scuttling off to get his payoff from Heir Gates. Oh, and of course the taxpayers foot the bill each time he goes to Gates'--or anyplace--hat in hand. Predatory corporations are in fact a much bigger threat to this supposed democracy than mythical terra-ists. Especially given that 911 was an inside job done by the "gov't" for the benefit of large corporations. Clearly Clinton's priorities were in the right place. And there were 8 years of peace and prosperity as a result. The Blame-Clinton operatives always seem to forget that part.

It's infuriating when that happens Terry. Sometimes when I try to post something long I'll use my mouse to copy the text into the buffer until I make sure it posted. Also, I think the back button will recall the text if you do it right away, after the fact. Dunno if this is helpful. I would really like to get your viewpoint on the snopes and urban legend sites though. I've started to wonder if they're propaganda. I don't have specific reason to wonder (I'm not slandering them), I just wonder on general principle.

Yes, that's an interesting page Mark. Thanks. Not sure about certain details like the alleged Roman Missal, but overall it's good to see specifics, even if vague specifics (), on a possible Rockefeller role.

Damn, the same thing happened to Terry recently. That sucks.

Are you sure he didn't say "this guy conspires with me"?

Well said. Wiki is party line all the way. Still, they're very useful to me for quick intros on subjects. I can scan a topic there then start doing real reading elsewhere. But they are infuriating, esp if you're trying to get something changed. For example their page on Hugo Chavez is just a big ol' smear. Outrageous right wing crap. I spent some time jumping thru their hoops and making proposed changes and bickering with the editor of that page. Then the last time I went there to see if there were replies I couldn't find anything I'd written. (Though I don't rule out the possibility that I'm just a dumbass and didn't look well enough.) I don't know if it's intended to be propaganda, or if that's just the views of the puppets who post there, or if the process to get BS changed is just too cumbersome for people to stick with it. But it's not a website that should disturb the Cons.

The CIA instructed me to do it. (By the way, did any members send you information after you requested details of my being a CIA agent?). I often change titles in order that members have a better idea of what the thread is about. This will then be added to the index system so that new members can discover what is available. Your posting caused particular problems as it was posted in the wrong section. Of course, it has nothing to do with the JFK assassination unless it is linked to the role that the CIA play in the cover-up of assassinations. See the Conspiracies section for debates on Diana's death. Ah, I see. Thank you. Nope, didn't get a reply to my attempt to initiate a dialogue on said subject. I was crushed. Myra: Did you seriously think John was CIA? If so why would you want to be on a forum run by a CIA agent? (An obvious queston I believe). BTW I too believe Diana was murdered. Been following this case from the start. Dawn Actually, I hadn't thought about John being CIA. Then John himself posted the question (rather ironically I suppose) in his thread asking who on the forum was claiming he was CIA. In that thread he said some things that made me uncomfortable, so it planted a tiny seed. Then when he continued doing small things (we all do small things along similar lines) I decided to flat out call upon the supposed claimant (special lawyer jargon just for you) and hear them out. I did it overtly 'cause I'm not a covert kinda person. But as things evolve, more and more I think it's quite a ludicrous idea that John would be a spook. On one hand he should be aware that when he takes an issue public as he did, it could end up planting the idea in more people's heads. On the other hand I think his overall handling of it in an up-front way was wise. He certainly isn't being singled out in general though. He is just the only person to post a thread like that. No one should be above the suspicion that they could have an alternative agenda IMO, at least initially. And I'm still in the "initially" stage, given that I don't really know anyone here. As far as why a spook would run such a forum, I think that was addressed in John's thread and I posted my theories there. But to summarize, I think there are many reasons including: to identify researchers and keep tabs on them, to slyly intimidate them (mentioning the lengths the spooks go to discourage/damage researchers can be a helpful warning or a sly indirect threat), spreading disinformation (one of us could accept some info without double checking it and end up descrediting ourselves), and so on. Many reasons. Again, I think John offers too much excellent info to fall in that last category. I'm just addressing the theoretical question. Regarding Diana, how significant do you think this revelation about the NSA/CIA bugging her phones is?

The CIA instructed me to do it. (By the way, did any members send you information after you requested details of my being a CIA agent?). I often change titles in order that members have a better idea of what the thread is about. This will then be added to the index system so that new members can discover what is available. Your posting caused particular problems as it was posted in the wrong section. Of course, it has nothing to do with the JFK assassination unless it is linked to the role that the CIA play in the cover-up of assassinations. See the Conspiracies section for debates on Diana's death. Ah, I see. Thank you. Nope, didn't get a reply to my attempt to initiate a dialogue on said subject. I was crushed.

Why did my title get changed and my subtitle removed? I did not name this thread "The CIA and the death of Princess Diana."

This is an important developing story. Lord John Stevens, who is carrying out this inquiry on Princess Diana’s death, gave interviews to the UK media a few months ago, explaining that he had discovered some important new information on Diana’s death. He said that it had created a “new line of inquiry”. Then everything went quiet. The Stephens Report has yet to be published (expected in the next few days). The Diana inquest is due to start this week. Last week the BBC leaked selected aspects of the report to suggest there was no conspiracy to kill Diana. The main focus was on the fact that the driver Henri Paul was drunk at the time of the crash. This resulted in the BBC and most newspapers reporting that this proves that the death was not a conspiracy. This was the main theme of last night’s programme. See the producer’s blog here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006...piracies_1.html The whole purpose of this exercise is to distract from the really important aspects of Stephens Report. This is the connections between the security services and her death. Remember, Mohamed al-Fayed, father of Dodi, Diana’s boyfriend who also died in the crash, believes that the couple were murdered by British agents. He believes that these agents worked for MI6 and the deaths were sanctioned by the state. Personally, I don’t believe this is true and that she died in an accident. However, I suspect that Stephens has stumbled upon another linking conspiracy. For example, he has discovered that the CIA was bugging the conversations of Diana and Dodi. It is claimed this was without the knowledge of MI6. There is also the French intelligence angle. It is believed that the Stephens Report will disclose the fact that Henri Paul was in the pay of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, the French equivalent of MI5. Secret accounts containing more than £100,000 in 14 banks were found across France. On the night that he died Paul was found with £2,000 in cash on him. Evidence suggests he may have met his 'handler', a senior official in the security services, that evening. Henri Paul was portrayed in the press as a boozy no-hoper. Yet his autopsy betrayed none of the liver damage associated with heavy drinking. Then there is Paul’s girlfriend, a 25 year old Moroccan student. She told police that Paul hardly drank. Paul, like Lee Harvey Oswald, was working for the intelligence services, before his death. The inquiry, like the Warren Commission, turned him into a patsy. The truth of the matter is far from clear. The one advantage we have over the JFK assassination, is that unlike the Kennedy family, Mohamed al-Fayed is determined to get to the truth. He has the money to make that happen. For example, some aspects of the mass media, for example, the Daily Express, are willing to print details of his conspiracy theories. Thank you John. I've been eager for a Brit to weigh in on this. Is this the kind of story that people are talking about widely over there? How suspicious is the typical Joe... or Nigel about the circumstances of Di's death? The news management is pretty amusing as you've indicated. Presumably they knew the bugging of Lady Di's phone would be a bombshell, so they're busy assuring us there was no conspiracy. So if Paul was a patsy and there's all this weirdness with phone bugs, and there has been some cover-up, I'd be interested in your reasons for deciding her death was just an accident. I'm getting pretty convinced otherwise.

Eh, I don't even know what to say: Sat Dec 9, 10:02 PM ET LONDON (AFP) - US intelligence listened to Princess Diana's telephone calls without British approval on the night she died in a Paris car accident, The Observer has said, citing findings of a long-awaited report. The surveillance arm of the US government admitted to Lord John Stevens, who led an independent probe that confirms the crash was an accident, that it had listened to her conversations while she stayed at the Ritz Hotel, it said. It failed to notify MI6, Britain's overseas intelligence agency, the weekly said, adding the issue will raise new questions about trans-Atlantic agreements on intelligence sharing. Stevens was apparently assured that the 39 classified documents concerning her final conversations did not contain material that might help explain her death, The Observer said. No explanation for the alleged eavesdropping was given. Norman Baker, a member of parliament for the opposition Liberal Democrat party, was concerned about the news report when questioned by The Independent on Sunday. "There have been rumours that Princess Diana was being bugged by the Americans, so I am not entirely surprised," he told the weekly. "But it is a major constitutional issue. The question is whether the Americans were doing it themselves or the British government had outsourced it to the Americans to achieve deniability." Diana, 36, her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, 42, and their chauffeur Henri Paul, 41, were killed in a car crash in a Paris underpass in the early hours of August 31, 1997. Bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones survived. The upshot of Lord Stevens' report, due to be published Thursday, is that the crash occurred because Paul was driving too fast while under the influence of alcohol, The Observer said, refuting theories of a murder plot. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061210/wl_af...us_061210030243 "ECHELON is a name used to describe a highly secretive world-wide signals intelligence and analysis network run by the UKUSA Community (otherwise described as the "Anglo-Saxon alliance") that has been reported by a number of sources including, in 2001, a committee of the European Parliament (EP report[1]). According to some sources ECHELON can capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and other data streams nearly anywhere in the world and includes computer automated analysis and sorting of intercepts [2]. The EP committee, however, concluded that "the analysis carried out in the report has revealed that the technical capabilities of the system are probably not nearly as extensive as some sections of the media had assumed." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Yes, I am familiar with the "abort team" story. Good luck on your quixotic quest to get answers there good buddy.

I think that not only are these two events related, but also the events you chronicled in your topic The Flakey Power Grid, and that they all are linked to the arrival in Dallas of a team—of unknown number and assignment—that had been briefed by the CIA and flown into Dallas by Tosh Plumlee. This supposedly was an "abort team," having been given some kind of still unclear information about a possible attempt on the President's life that they somehow were to prevent. The legion of holes in the story as it exists makes it look like fishnet, and I already have posed questions for Mr. Plumlee about his avowed prior intelligence connections to Lee Harvey Oswald in a topic I started, Would Tosh Plumlee Please Pick Up the White Courtesy Phone? So far, he's not picking up. Meanwhile, this topic had already grabbed my attention when I saw that Gary Mack had hastened to get into the record, through Steve Thomas, that Margie Barnes was a secretary, not a dispatcher. When I responded that despite her job title, her job description was of great interest, lo and behold I was contacted by Gary Mack, calling the description Mark Valenti had given into question. So here, again, is how Mark described her job: In response to my having pointed that out, here is what I got from Gary Mack in two separate messages to me. In the first he said: You might consider asking Mark exactly where his characterization of Barnes' job comes from. My understanding is that only the dispatchers on duty could monitor the police radio. The secretaries' work, while important to daily operations, was hardly "crucial," as Mark termed it. Some clarification is in order, don't you agree? —Gary Mack Well, I believe it's no secret what an agreeable sort of chap I am, so I did agree. And so I asked Gary Mack for clarification of exactly where his characterization of Barnes's job came from. And he replied, in pertinent part: My information came initially from Bowles, the department supervisor, who said the secretaries weren't involved in the daily broadcasts. They did filing and typing, nothing more. That information matched what other JFK researchers such as Larry Harris had found. Only the dispatchers on duty heard and responded to the broadcasts. —Gary Mack Hmmm. This almost seems to be a tight-rope walk (by whom I don't know, if it is) across the relevant part of the job description originally provided by Mark, which doesn't say she "monitored the police radio" or that she was "involved in the daily broadcasts" or that she "heard and responded to the broadcasts." What it says is that she "received emergency calls and issued information directly to the dispatch officer in the downtown division headquarters." But my agreeability being equaled only by my fairmindedness, it only seems right to ask Mark Valenti now where he came by the job description he posted for Ms. Barnes. Pending the arrival of that, I have since wondered of the possibility of a planned emergency call that had to be made to police on 22 November 1963 by someone whose voice Ms. Barnes might be too familiar with. When I have time I plan to scour the records and make a list of any known calls of such nature that day, but if anyone happens to know or think of calls that might qualify, please post them here. Ashton Iffy info from Gary Mack?! Gosh...

Lookey, another Larry Flynt link. And the link link: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=8771

.....although....I wouldn't rule out totally the sudden 'death' of FDR not having been foul play......by those forces we often speak about. But Stalin said Churchill poisoned FDR, per Prouty. http://www.prouty.org/coment11.html >http://www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/ Good link! Thank you. (Uh oh, I have tiny font syndrome again.)

That's a great article. Far more detailed than any I've seen before. And a Bush website I hadn't seen. Thanks John.

I doubt if this was the case. At this time he was busy doing deals with Nazi Germany. He would only have posed a threat to FDR if he began talking about cutting off trade with Nazi Germany. Interestingly, the man who made sure that did not happen was John Foster Dulles. In May 1933, the Harriman International Company, became the head of a syndicate of 150 firms and individuals to conduct all exports from Hitler's Germany to the United States. The agreement had been negotiated by Dulles and Hitler's economic minister, Hjalmar Schacht. Ok, good enough. I'll drop the hunt for a link between the failed '33 coup and Prescott. Thanks John.

Excellent. Thank you John! Myra, a few years back, a best seller, Lies My Teacher Told Me addressed the questions in your first post. It was written by James Loewen, a college history professor who was disgusted by the amount of misinformation contained in the high school texts. He goes through, point by point, from Columbus to Lincoln to Wilson to Helen Keller to Vietnam, and shows how American high school history texts are largely propaganda, designed to convince the people that, while the U.S. has occasionally stumbled, we are bound for glory and the "shining city on the hill" Reagan fantasized about. He shows how the texts avoid Columbus' religious zeal and slave-taking, Wilson's racism, and Helen Keller's communism. He also shows how, for the past 100 years, the text books have down-played Lincoln's anti-slavery stance, and the south's pro-slavery commitment, as pre-texts for the civil war. He says this was done to appease southern states, pre-dominantly Texas, that have extremely conservative review boards and will prevent schools from carrying books which make the south look like the bad guy in the war. TFB. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest. Thank you Pat. That book sounds ideal. I've ordered it at the library.

Excellent. Thank you John!

Ah, thank you for the Fitzerald recommendation Nathaniel. The book I've ordered on Huey Long is "Huey Long" by T. Harry Williams. It seems to have a good reputation and a good number of excellent, non-suspicious, reviews on Amazon.

Ok, so in general I'm looking for information on how textbooks (aka propaganda) are selected for public school curriculum in the US. Does anyone have any tips? Books, articles, inspirations... Specifically: I'm finding lots of books on what official history books don't teach us. I'm finding a couple of books on controversy over textbook selection in US public education. I'm finding zilch on how textbooks and novels are selected, fed into the propaganda pipeline and forced on hapless students. More specifically: I'm reading about Huey Long and realizing that he was one of the most remarkable populist pols in US history. He took on Standard Oil big time. And of course he was murdered. I think he's quite significant in US history and a target of major ongoing propaganda, as was/is President Kennedy of course. I also wonder if the famous book "All the King's Men" was flat out propaganda against Huey Long. I'm not claiming it is, 'cause I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I'm just wondering. But it sure seems to trash Long, in fictional guise of course. I'm totally unable to find any suggestion that "All the King's Men" or Robert Penn Warren were part of the smear Long biz. But just try taking an American Literature class in the US without having "All the King's Men" crammed down your throat. How did that book become a cornerstone of American Lit classes? So, uh, anyone have any input or suggestions on any of the above?