Jump to content
The Education Forum

John Simkin

Admin
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    15,705

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Posts posted by John Simkin

    Guy Banister

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted

    According to the search-facility (admittedly not very good) we have not had a thread on Guy Banister. He joined the FBI in 1934. Originally based in Indianapolis, he later moved to New York City where he was involved in the investigation of the American Communist Party. J. Edgar Hoover was impressed by Banister's work and in 1938 he was promoted to run the FBI unit in Butte, Montana. He also served in Oklahoma City, Minneapolis and Chicago before he retired from the FBI in 1954.

    Banister moved back to Louisiana and in January 1955 became Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department where he was given the task of investigating organized crime and corruption within the police force. It later emerged that he was also involved in looking at the role that left-wing political activists were playing in the struggle for black civil rights in New Orleans.

    Banister developed extreme right-wing views and worked as an investigator for the Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee. He also published the racist Louisiana Intelligence Digest. Banister had a deep hatred of the civil rights movement and believed that the policy of racial integration was part of a a plan formulated by Joseph Stalin to create racial conflict in America.

    Bannister claimed that members of the American Communist Party were involved in a plot to contaminate crops in the United States. He also told the Special Committee of the Arkansas State Legislature that left-wing activists were behind the race riots in Little Rock.

    Banister was suspended by the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) for an incident with a gun in a bar. His suspension ended in June 1954, but when he refused to be transferred to the NOPD's Planning Department, he was dismissed from the force. After leaving the police he established his own private detective agency, Guy Banister Associates.

    In 1963 Banister and David Ferrie began working for the lawyer G. Wray Gill and his client, Carlos Marcello. This involved attempts to block Marcello's deportation to Guatemala. Later Banister was linked to the plot to assassinate JFK. On 9th August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald distributed leaflets that supported Fidel Castro and his government in Cuba. On these leaflets was the address 544 Camp Street, New Orleans. This was also the office of Carlos Bringuier, an anti-Castro exile. Around the corner from 544 Camp Street, located in the same building, was 531 Lafayette Street, which housed the detective agency run by Banister. This raised suspicions that Oswald had been involved in a right-wing conspiracy to kill Kennedy.

    On the afternoon of 22nd November, 1963, Banister and Jack Martin went drinking together. On their return to Banister's office the two men got involved in a dispute about a missing file. Banister became so angry that he he drew his Magnum revolver and hit Martin with it several times. Martin was so badly injured that he had to be detained in the local Charily Hospital.

    Over the next few days Martin told friends that Banister and David Ferrie had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to Martin, Ferrie was the getaway man whose job it was to fly the assassin out of Texas. He also claimed that Ferrie knew Lee Harvey Oswald from their days in the New Orleans Civil Air Patrol and had given him lessons on how to use a rifle with a telescopic sight.

    On 25th November, Martin was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He told them that he thought Ferrie had hypnotized Oswald into assassinating Kennedy. The FBI considered Martin's evidence unreliable and decided not to investigate Banister and Ferrie.

    This information eventually reached Jim Garrison, the district attorney of New Orleans. He interviewed Martin about these accusations. Martin claimed that during the summer of 1963 Banister and David Ferrie were involved in something very sinister with a group of Cuban exiles.

    Jim Garrison now became convinced that a group of right-wing activists, including Banister, David Ferrie, Carlos Bringuier and Clay Shaw, were involved in a conspiracy with the CIA to kill JFK. Garrison claimed this was in retaliation for his attempts to obtain a peace settlement in both Cuba and Vietnam.

    Delphine Roberts worked for Banister and later became his mistress. Roberts told Anthony Summers that during the summer of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald worked for Banister. She said she was in the office when Banister suggested that Oswald should establish a local Fair Play for Cuba Committee. This story was supported by her daughter who met Oswald during this period.

    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbannister.htm

    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKrobertsD.htm

    History of black Britain?

    in Black History

    Posted

    As well as reading snippets about African and also jewish people living in England (the latter were brought here by William I, but later they were brutally expelled and robbed of their vast wealth by King Edward I in 1290, only being 'allowed' back to England by Oliver Cromwell) and/or visiting as envoys etc in history, I have heard it said that there has been small, non-white communities resident in England for centuries?

    Have you read "Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain: Black People in Britain Since 1504" by Peter Fryer?>

    Madeleine Brown

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted

    On the eve of Tax Day 1982, Ruth Hyde Paine sat down at a typewriter and started a quiet fight with the federal government.

    She struggled for the words.

    She stewed over the consequences.

    "This year, for the first time, I am withholding that portion of my income tax (40 percent), which I estimate goes toward military uses and war preparations," Paine wrote on April 14, 1982. "I have been wrestling with my conscience for a long time on this matter and finally felt I must resist taxation and tax expenditures when they are in conflict with my religious beliefs."

    Along with the letter, Paine sent $1,434 to the IRS. She directed the rest of the money she owed, $956, to a Massachusetts peace fund.

    "I was extremely nervous," Paine says. "I was staring down a lion. And I didn't really know what it could do."

    More than 130-million people will file a federal income tax return this year, according to the IRS. And virtually all of them - at least 97 percent - pay the taxes they owe on time.

    But while many filers scurry to complete their returns today to be free from the IRS's wrath, a small minority of antiwar activists have filed incomplete, inaccurate 1040s on purpose.

    Known as war tax resisters, these protesters withhold income taxes that they say will be spent on U.S. military operations.

    Resisters are not looking to shave a few dollars off their tax bill, Paine said. Instead, they redirect that portion of the money to a peace charity.

    And in turn, they face harsh consequences. Jail time, hefty fines and property seizures are all possibilities.

    Paine, 71, withheld about $4,000 from the federal government over the course of 10 years. In the end, the government got all of the money back, plus penalties and interest.

    But Paine said she couldn't willingly give money to make war.

    "I believe in taxation. I believe in government," said Paine, a Quaker and an antiwar activist whose watch keeps military time. "But I also believe in our right to religious freedom. And I believe in the fact that we value dissent as a patriotic thing."

    From 1982 to 1992, Paine wrote a letter to the IRS each spring explaining how much she was withholding, where the money was going, and why. Sometimes, Paine held back close to $1,000. On other occasions, the amount was symbolic.

    "I have been out walking, wondering what to say to you in this letter," Paine wrote one April, after diverting $62 to charity. "NUCLEAR WINTER. It is a specter that haunts us all. I must take some action to prevent such a disaster."

    Each year when Paine sent a letter, she forwarded copies to her representatives in Congress. She wanted legislators to give her another option, a way for taxpayers to keep their money out of defense coffers.

    They usually responded, offering sympathy but little else.

    "I admire the courage and the strength of your conviction," wrote then-Sen. Lawton Chiles in August 1983. "We both share the strongest aversion to war, and the strongest desire to avoid it at all costs. We differ in our means, but not in our common goal."

    No one knows how many federal income tax resisters like Paine exist. Gloria Sutton, a spokeswoman with the IRS, said the government does not keep statistics on the number of conscientious objectors. Even Ruth Benn, a tax resister who has written a how-to book on the matter, isn't sure how many there are like her.

    Benn, the coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, said up to 10,000 people nationwide might take part in some type of tax protest. That estimate, however, includes people who intentionally make less money to avoid paying any federal income tax.

    "It's hard for us to survey," said Benn, 51, who is based in Brooklyn, N.Y. "There are so many people out there that we think are resisting that we just don't know about."

    Paine knows only one other Tampa Bay area person who has withheld income taxes because of moral objections.

    Mary Ann C. Holtz, a St. Petersburg woman who has voiced her antiwar opinions in the editorial pages of the St. Petersburg Times, donated $75 worth of federal taxes last year to a nonprofit group in protest of military operations in Iraq.

    Holtz declined to comment for this report, but her letter to the federal government said she did not want her money going toward agencies that inflict violence. Her April 6, 2003, letter was posted on the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee Web site, www.nwtrcc.org

    "With each escalation of violence and the predictable counterviolence, it becomes increasingly evident that no amount of military preparedness can truly make our country . . . secure," Holtz wrote regarding her 2002 Form 1040. "In fact, the only real way to (sustain) security is through the long and difficult process of peacemaking."

    In Paine's case, in the end the IRS levied her bank accounts to get the tax money. Just about a year after she withheld her first $956, for example, tax collectors removed $1,067 from her savings account. The extra money covered penalties and interest.

    The cycle repeated every year.

    "The tax laws are in place, and just because you don't agree with how tax money is spent is no excuse not to timely file and accurately pay your income tax," said Alycyn Culbertson, a St. Petersburg spokeswoman with the IRS's criminal investigation branch. "Just because an individual "doesn't mind paying taxes, but refuses to do so' is not an excuse. The tax law is the tax law."

    Today, Paine's dining room table in her southeast St. Petersburg home is more of a kiosk for protest than a place to eat, with pamphlets, fliers and books explaining tax resistance.

    One leaflet from a group called the War Resisters League includes a quote from Wally Nelson, a resistance pioneer of sorts, who spent 33 months in prison after refusing to serve during World War II. He "waged peace" until he died in 2002.

    "What would you do if someone came to your door with a cup in hand asking for a contribution . . . to help buy guns and kill a group of people they didn't like?" Nelson said.

    Benn, the resistance coordinator, puts Nelson's message into a more practical scenario.

    "If we had an actual war tax, if the Bush administration said to everybody that they had to buy this $10 stamp, what do you think would happen?" Benn said. "You would see huge resistance."

    http://www.sptimes.com/2004/04/15/Floridia...ar__a_few.shtml

    Nigel Turner: The Men Who Killed Kennedy

    in JFK Assassination Debate

    Posted

    Nigel Turner is the producer of the television series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. It was the final episode, The Guilty Men, looked at the possibility that Lyndon B. Johnson, Malcolm Wallace and Edward A. Clark were involved in the assassination of JFK. The programme used evidence from the book by Blood, Money and Power: How LBJ Killed JFK by Barr McClellan. It also used other sources such as the testimony of Madeleine Brown and Billie Sol Estes and the research of Walt Brown, Ed Tatro, Glen Sample, and Gregory Burnham. The family of LBJ immediately complained about the programme. Gerald Ford also added his concerns and the History Channel took the decision not to repeat the original broadcast. However, Gil Jesus has uploaded the whole programme on YouTube and I have added it to my pages on Nigel Turner and LBJ. If you type into Google "Lyndon Baines Johnson" my page is listed 4th on the first page of results. Hopefully, that means this video will get the maximum of publicity.

    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKturnerN.htm

    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAjohnsonLB.htm

    Winston Churchill and the death of Prince George, Duke of Kent

    in Political Conspiracies

    Posted

    Len Colby is a descendant of the notorious Oppenhiemer family. The same Oppenheimer family linked to the various European Monarchies including Britain. His father Frank Colby was employed as Science Director of RJR Reynolds tobacco company (a corporation also are linked directly to British tobacco interests), where his main job at RJR was to develop various fraudelent studies that could be used to deny the "addictive" and "lethal" effects of cigarettes. Before that his father was employed with Commercial Solvents a chemical company that supplied the British with material for bombs. Rumor has it that he prefered to work for IG Farben but Franklin Roosevelt ruined that plan by defeating the Nazi's.

    During the 1990's Lenny was manager to a wacked out MK Ultra "satanic" personality by the name of GG Allin. GG Allin and the "Murder Junkies" was the groups name. GG Allin was a filthy underground performer that liked to, among other things defecate on stage, perform naked, and generally spread his beastial outlook to NYC kids aged 17-22 years old. He was also known to favor Nazi attire along with a strong fixation for serial killers like Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, etc. Serial killer John Wayne Gacy was a huge GG Allin fan.

    Terry, for some time your posts have sounded like the ravings of someone who is severely disturbed. I have tried to engage in debate about your ignorance of the NHS but you seem unable to discuss these issues in a logical way. For example, your portrayal of NICE as some sort of euthanasia-type of organization is laughable. I have been called-on to delete these ravings but I have refused as I am against censorship and I assume that most readers of this forum are intelligent enough to understand what you say is nonsense. In fact, I think your ravings help to explain the craziness of the far-right in America.

    However, your attacks on Len’s father are despicable. Even if what you say is true, are you claiming that sons and daughters should be held responsible for the actions of their fathers and mothers? What is more, what has it to do with this debate on Winston Churchill? If is just another smear attack that has been favoured by the far-right in the USA ever since the emergence of Joseph McCarthy after the war.

    Tony Blair and BAE Systems

    in Political Conspiracies

    Posted

    BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest arms company, is at the centre of a major scandal and is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. Barry George, acted as BAE’s agent during the government sale of two British frigates to Romania. Apparently, BAE paid Barry George over £7m in commission for this deal.

    The deal was arranged in 2003 by William Bach, the government’s arms sales minister. Ironically, Tony Blair has been lecturing Romania on tackling corruption before being accepted into the EU. Obviously, he does not think they are sophisticated enough in their corruption. Maybe he will have to give them advice on this.

    BAE Systems have a long record of corruption. Last year, it was alleged in Chile that BAE had paid more than £1m to intermediaries linked to ex-president Pinochet in return for arms deals.

    In 1996 a secret £7m payment from BAE to the foreign minister from BAE to the foreign minister of Qatar was discovered in a Jersey account after an arms deal to the state.

    In 2003 a whistleblower alleged that a £60m slush fund was being used by BAE to provide presents to the head of procurement for the Saudi air force.

    Is it possible that BAE have been involved in providing money to Tony Blair? Maybe that is the real source of Lord Sainsbury’s loans.

    Who is making money from this obscene arms trade? The main beneficiary is BAE Systems. In his book Blair’s Wars, John Kampfner records that “from his first day in office Blair was eager not to antagonise British arms companies, and BAE Systems in particular, which developed extremely close relationships with senior figures in Downing Street.” A Downing Street aide told Kampfner that whenever the head of BAE encountered a problem, “he’d be straight on the phone to No 10 and it would be sorted”.

    BAE Systems latest problem concerns the Serious Fraud Office’s three year investigations into allegations that illegal commissions into allegations that illegal commissions may have been paid to Saudi royals by BAE Systems. The SOF is also looking at arms deals between BAE and General Augusto Pinochet.

    Both these deals date back to Margaret Thatcher’s time in government (her son was also involved in these deals). This helps to explain why Thatcher was so keen on helping Pinochet stay in office and from being tried in court for crimes against humanity.

    What has this to do with Tony Blair? Maybe he is keen for these arms dealers to pay off the Labour Party debts (£17 million needs to be paid back during the next 12 months).

    BAE is apparently claiming that the Saudis are threatening to pull-out of a £6 billion contract to provide 72 Eurofighter Typhoons and give it to the French if Blair does not call off the SFO.

    There is also another interesting point. Today the Guardian revealed that secret payments of millions of pounds from BEA has been found in Swiss accounts linked to Wafic Said, a billionaire arms broker for the Saudi Royal family. Apparently, Said is a close friend of Peter Mandleson. Now, there is a man that Blair finds difficult to refuse a favour.

    Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said the Serious Fraud Office was "discontinuing" its investigation into Britain's biggest defence company, BAE Systems. its corruption inquiry into a £6bn fighter planes deal with Saudi Arabia. The reason given was one of "national security".

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6180945.stm

    Last week Lord Goldsmith said he had no intention of interfering with the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the BAE-Saudi Arabia contract. In has now become clear that the reason Goldsmith changed his mind was because he came under pressure from Tony Blair to drop the case. Blair admitted this today in a television interview. He justified the decision on the grounds of national security. Allegedly the Saudi government had threatened Blair that they would withdraw help on the war on terror if the investigation continued. (It is also claimed that the Saudis have threatened Bush that if he withdraws troops from Iraq they will provide help to the Sunni Muslims.)

    In other words, the prime minister has broken an important aspect of the British Constitution. That is: “the rule of law requires that the executive does not intervene in the operation of the course of justice”.

    The Tories of course have kept very quiet about this decision made by Blair. In fact, last night, on C4 news, the government would not supply anybody to defend this decision. Instead, the task was given to a backbench Tory MP. The reason for this is that he was a junior minister when the original deal was done. The Tories are therefore very keen to bring an end to the investigation.

    SFO investigators have discovered that BAE Systems has a £1 billion slush fund. The issue is not about bribes being paid to members of the Saudi royal family. It is about this money finding its way back to politicians. We now know how New Labour is going to solve its problems of its £17m debt. It will be paid off by BAE Systems and the Saudis. Not directly of course but via someone like Lord Sainsbury.

    As you can see from above I have taken an interest in the relationship between Tony Blair and BAE Systems for some time. Blair was able to block the prosecution of BAE when he was prime minister. Will Gordon Brown follow his example? It has been leaked to the BBC that the Serious Fraud Office has approached Patricia Scotland, Baroness of Asthal, the Attorney General about prosecuting BAE over bribery allegations over arms contracts with Tanzania, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Romania. (Blair blocked the investigation into the Saudi-BAE deal.)

    The Tanzanian military radar system deal is especially interesting. Tanzania had to borrow £28 million in order to have a system it did not need. Clare Short, then development minister, tried to stop it going ahead by holding up an export licence but Blair forced her to back-down. The SFO has discovered that a third of the radar’s price was diverted into a Swiss bank account controlled by Sailesh Vithlani. He has of course disappeared. It would be interesting to discover Vithlani’s relationship to Blair.

    Will the Baroness of Asthal block the investigation in the same way as Lord Goldsmith did? She was given her title by Tony Blair who put her in his government as 1999. Gordon Brown made her attorney general as part of his deal with Blair when he became prime minister.

    However, the Baroness is not in a very good position at the moment as she should have resigned last week after she was found guilty employing an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper, contrary to the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, which she herself as a Home Office Minister had been responsible for steering through the House of Lords. Another way of looking at it is that she will stay in power just long enough to block the current BAE Systems investigation. Personally, I don’t think even the New Labour government will try this one.

    The Corruption of New Labour: Britain’s Watergate?

    in Political Conspiracies

    Posted

    BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest arms company, is at the centre of a major scandal and is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. Barry George, acted as BAE’s agent during the government sale of two British frigates to Romania. Apparently, BAE paid Barry George over £7m in commission for this deal.

    The deal was arranged in 2003 by William Bach, the government’s arms sales minister. Ironically, Tony Blair has been lecturing Romania on tackling corruption before being accepted into the EU. Obviously, he does not think they are sophisticated enough in their corruption. Maybe he will have to give them advice on this.

    BAE Systems have a long record of corruption. Last year, it was alleged in Chile that BAE had paid more than £1m to intermediaries linked to ex-president Pinochet in return for arms deals.

    In 1996 a secret £7m payment from BAE to the foreign minister from BAE to the foreign minister of Qatar was discovered in a Jersey account after an arms deal to the state.

    In 2003 a whistleblower alleged that a £60m slush fund was being used by BAE to provide presents to the head of procurement for the Saudi air force.

    Is it possible that BAE have been involved in providing money to Tony Blair? Maybe that is the real source of Lord Sainsbury’s loans.

    Who is making money from this obscene arms trade? The main beneficiary is BAE Systems. In his book Blair’s Wars, John Kampfner records that “from his first day in office Blair was eager not to antagonise British arms companies, and BAE Systems in particular, which developed extremely close relationships with senior figures in Downing Street.” A Downing Street aide told Kampfner that whenever the head of BAE encountered a problem, “he’d be straight on the phone to No 10 and it would be sorted”.

    BAE Systems latest problem concerns the Serious Fraud Office’s three year investigations into allegations that illegal commissions into allegations that illegal commissions may have been paid to Saudi royals by BAE Systems. The SOF is also looking at arms deals between BAE and General Augusto Pinochet.

    Both these deals date back to Margaret Thatcher’s time in government (her son was also involved in these deals). This helps to explain why Thatcher was so keen on helping Pinochet stay in office and from being tried in court for crimes against humanity.

    What has this to do with Tony Blair? Maybe he is keen for these arms dealers to pay off the Labour Party debts (£17 million needs to be paid back during the next 12 months).

    BAE is apparently claiming that the Saudis are threatening to pull-out of a £6 billion contract to provide 72 Eurofighter Typhoons and give it to the French if Blair does not call off the SFO.

    There is also another interesting point. Today the Guardian revealed that secret payments of millions of pounds from BEA has been found in Swiss accounts linked to Wafic Said, a billionaire arms broker for the Saudi Royal family. Apparently, Said is a close friend of Peter Mandleson. Now, there is a man that Blair finds difficult to refuse a favour.

    Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said the Serious Fraud Office was "discontinuing" its investigation into Britain's biggest defence company, BAE Systems. its corruption inquiry into a £6bn fighter planes deal with Saudi Arabia. The reason given was one of "national security".

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6180945.stm

    Last week Lord Goldsmith said he had no intention of interfering with the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the BAE-Saudi Arabia contract. In has now become clear that the reason Goldsmith changed his mind was because he came under pressure from Tony Blair to drop the case. Blair admitted this today in a television interview. He justified the decision on the grounds of national security. Allegedly the Saudi government had threatened Blair that they would withdraw help on the war on terror if the investigation continued. (It is also claimed that the Saudis have threatened Bush that if he withdraws troops from Iraq they will provide help to the Sunni Muslims.)

    In other words, the prime minister has broken an important aspect of the British Constitution. That is: “the rule of law requires that the executive does not intervene in the operation of the course of justice”.

    The Tories of course have kept very quiet about this decision made by Blair. In fact, last night, on C4 news, the government would not supply anybody to defend this decision. Instead, the task was given to a backbench Tory MP. The reason for this is that he was a junior minister when the original deal was done. The Tories are therefore very keen to bring an end to the investigation.

    SFO investigators have discovered that BAE Systems has a £1 billion slush fund. The issue is not about bribes being paid to members of the Saudi royal family. It is about this money finding its way back to politicians. We now know how New Labour is going to solve its problems of its £17m debt. It will be paid off by BAE Systems and the Saudis. Not directly of course but via someone like Lord Sainsbury.

    As you can see from above I have taken an interest in the relationship between Tony Blair and BAE Systems for some time. Blair was able to block the prosecution of BAE when he was prime minister. Will Gordon Brown follow his example? It has been leaked to the BBC that the Serious Fraud Office has approached Patricia Scotland, Baroness of Asthal, the Attorney General about prosecuting BAE over bribery allegations over arms contracts with Tanzania, the Czech Republic, South Africa and Romania. (Blair blocked the investigation into the Saudi-BAE deal.)

    The Tanzanian military radar system deal is especially interesting. Tanzania had to borrow £28 million in order to have a system it did not need. Clare Short, then development minister, tried to stop it going ahead by holding up an export licence but Blair forced her to back-down. The SFO has discovered that a third of the radar’s price was diverted into a Swiss bank account controlled by Sailesh Vithlani. He has of course disappeared. It would be interesting to discover Vithlani’s relationship to Blair.

    Will the Baroness of Asthal block the investigation in the same way as Lord Goldsmith did? She was given her title by Tony Blair who put her in his government as 1999. Gordon Brown made her attorney general as part of his deal with Blair when he became prime minister.

    However, the Baroness is not in a very good position at the moment as she should have resigned last week after she was found guilty employing an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper, contrary to the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, which she herself as a Home Office Minister had been responsible for steering through the House of Lords. Another way of looking at it is that she will stay in power just long enough to block the current BAE Systems investigation. Personally, I don’t think even the New Labour government will try this one.

×
×
  • Create New...