JFK Conference: Lisa Pease Discussed the Real Harm of Corrupt Soft Power
As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University.
One of the important speakers there I was privileged to meet and hear is Lisa Pease, who discussed "The Covert Corruption of Culture: How Our Reaction to JFK's Assassination and Cover-Up Determines Our Future." A researcher, writer and editor, her presentation examined our information environment and what it means for our selves, our nation, and our planet.
Lisa Pease defined culture as what we experience on a shared basis. She described a talk with a colleague from China who told her about "Hard Power" and "Soft Power." A nation's military and police forces are examples of Hard Power. Soft Power is wielded through the mass media, entertainment industries, and the arts. The latter create culture. And culture shapes belief.
Ms. Pease said she likes to correct inaccuracies in the press and encourages us to do likewise. One egregious example is the treatment afforded the assassination of President Kennedy. Not only have the basic facts and questions around Dallas been misrepresented, information that indicates a conspiracy behind the assassination have been suppressed by the nation's news media. Despite the biased coverage and propaganda, a majority of Americans do not believe the Warren Commission case against Lee Harvey Oswald.
Professional propagandists shape the national information environment. To help We the People preserve democracy, she recommends everyone read "1984" by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair).
"That is the best book you all should read, because that is our future if we don't take back what's been done to us in the last, many years. 'Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.' And I'm adding who controls culture, controls the present, because culture shapes our beliefs. Every day, every minute, everything you hear is input, and our brains are just recording it all and making assumptions, rightly or wrongly. The goal of my talk here is to help you make, maybe, better decisions about which inputs to let reach you and maybe when to recognize you are being propagandized. There is a culture war going on, specifically about this issue."
Ms. Pease has worked in the news and entertainment industry. She originally hoped that the assassination of President Kennedy was the result of a lone madman. After starting to research the assassinations of President Kennedy -- and later that of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy -- she realized that the facts indicated conspiracy and that the perpetrators had not been brought to justice. She wanted to talk about her work on the national news media, but after being invited to appear on television, she would see her segments left off of broadcasts. A booking agent explained to her the true picture: "Unless you support the Warren Commission, you will not get on television."
I can personally attest to Ms. Pease's contention regarding biased coverage. In 1993, during the 30th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, I conducted a Content Analysis of New York Times coverage of the assassination anniversary as part of a college program. Using agreement by three coders, we examined the NYT coverage and found fully three-fourths of the paper's space that was devoted to Dallas went to one book, Gerald Posner's "Case Closed" which supported the Warren Commission's findings. Even though many important works were published around that year indicating conspiracy (including "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK" by Peter Dale Scott, "Destiny Betrayed" by James DiEugenio, and "The Last Investigation" by Gaeton Fonzi), they got near-zero coverage in the Paper of Record. In the 20 years since, much new has been learned. The Times, Washington Post and the few networks that produce most of the content Americans hear as news have stuck to the WC line.
"What's at stake are lives, literally lives, are at stake," Ms. Pease said. "By not reporting the truth about the assassination of President Kennedy, the media enabled the assassinations of others. Had the public known about the CIA's roles in coups and assassinations before Kennedy was killed, maybe we would have approached the Warren Report quite a bit differently. And, of course, by not prosecuting the agency for lying to the HSCA (House Select Committee on Assassinations), regardless, regardless -- i'm going to say it a third time -- regardless of whether the CIA was involved in the assassination, by not holding the CIA accountable for lying about anything to Congress is probably the worst mistake this country could make, because we cease to be a democracy when we give up oversight. We do not elect the people in the CIA. We do elect the people in Congress. And that is our only hold on this national security state. We need to hold our elected representatives accountable when they don't hold the national security state accountable. And that goes for all this stuff that's going on today with the NSA revelations. The former NSA director provably lied to Congress, it's right there on video; many of us have actually seen it. It's really important that man be held accountable, that agency be held accountable, because he's not just lying to congress, he's lying to all of us. That's not how democracy functions. These very types of lies that go unchallenged that led us to attack,
literally millions of innocent people in Iraq...These are people who have not done us any harm. Lies are killing people."
Ms. Pease cited several examples of important information that the nation's press have ignored from Kennedy Administration that are relevant for the public to know. Official documents from the CIA itself prove conclusively that President Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, were unaware of CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro -- assassination plans that began in 1960 under President Eisenhower and DCI Allen Dulles. Yet, the news media continue to repeat the canard that Kennedy ordered the plan. I'm proud to say, we on DU have discussed the Truth -- what Democracy most needs to survive.
= new reply since forum marked as read
The assassination of President Kennedy is, in my view, modern America's major turning point. Whether the murder was the objective of a coup plot or the tragic action of a lone madman, the country today is a very different place than what it was going to become had President Kennedy lived.
To support my contention, please contrast what John Fitzgerald Kennedy spoke of in his inaugural, a future where humanity could work together in peace to fight "the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself" with George Herbert Walker Bush, who said our nation has "more will than wallet" and shouldn't even try (of course, later, he would find all the money needed to bail out the S&Ls his son Neil and their cronies had looted).
What's even more troubling, we went from a nation that believed every human life has equal value to an empire where money trumps peace. That's not just un-American. That's Nazi.
I disagree. To you and to all who tell me to, “Move on, it was just the brutal work of a lone nut,” I say, “That is exactly what J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles wanted us to believe.”
for real facts about the assassination of JFK, I recommend this site.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm
Nice picture. Oswald said he was down on the first floor eating lunch when the motorcade passed by. If that's supposed to be him, what's he doing up there? Why did he lie to police if that's him? Why didn't he say: "Hey, I was up in the doorway, surrounded by witnesses! Check it out, officers!"
But that's not him. That's Billy Lovelady.
Instead, Oswald lied about eating lunch with two other people. The one person he named was James Jarman. Jarman said that wasn't true.
ETA: By the way, this is yet another time I've shown you to be wrong.
Did they still use gunpowder in 1963?
I explored this subtle influence in my recent blog post:
JFK Was Assassinated By Space Aliens
Go ahead and laugh, the title is intended to be humorous. What I find personally amusing, as we approach the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, is what a concerted effort our Radical Establishment Media (REM) is engaged in trying to convince the public that the Warren Commission really did get it right. That Lee Harvey Oswald really did act alone and did not conspire in any way, shape or form with any other individuals in arranging the assassination of JFK. That Jack Ruby in turn murdered Lee Harvey Oswald simply out of personal grief for the Kennedy family and did not conspire in any way, shape or form with the Mafia, law enforcement or any other organization or individuals with an interest in silencing Oswald. In the past 10 years, this concerted effort has shown some results. A poll earlier this year conducted by Associated Press-GfK shows 59% of Americans think multiple people were involved in a conspiracy to kill JFK, whereas a 2003 Gallup poll found 75% of Americans felt there was a conspiracy.
Part of the reason for this drop over the last decade is meme management. In order for the public to be convinced the Warren Commission was right, it is important that the perception of competing theories spelling out conspiracy not only be made to appear incorrect, but absolutely ridiculous. Generally, the REM will use this by taking some aspect of the JFK assassination that the general public regards in connection with conspiracy, like the grassy knoll, and applying it to the latest controversy of the day where a conspiracy hypothesis can be disproved. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post did this recently, by correctly disputing the Benghazi hypothesis posited by Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy In Media and former CIA officer Clare Lopez that the Obama administration "flipped our policy" and was arming al-Qaeda. (Really, Clare? Like you were completely unaware of any 'black ops' by your former employer at odds with the stated "policy" of previous administrations?) But then Milbank gilds the lily by describing their "lunacy" as being "around the grassy knoll." The clear implication is that the belief that a shot hit Kennedy from the front, all visual indications in the Zapruder film aside, should be disregarded as hallucinatory, otherwise noted journalists like Milbank will roll their eyes and say, "I've got an appointment back on Earth."
This sentiment expressed above has become a verbal shorthand among the REM and self-appointed "debunkers" hell-bent on pigeon-holing good conspiracy theories and bad conspiracy hypotheses into the same goofy trashcan of public perception. It is their go-to moniker for disrespecting any and all conspiracy research: 'tin foil hat'. The origin of this adjective is from mentally ill/traumatized people who believe that wearing tin foil on their head in the shape of a hat will prevent the transmission of voices into their head. While there is some scientific validity for the effectiveness of reducing radio wave radiation this way, it is the stated reason by a few unfortunate souls that this will prevent harassment by paranormal beings that has lead to the use of the phrase 'tin foil' for cheap laughs at the expense of any conspiracy theory deemed delusional by those who claim to speak for all things rational. Thus, in their mind, Grassy Knoll=Aliens.
more...
http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2013/11/jfk-was-assassinated-by-space-aliens.html
Odd opinion, yours, for a DUer, let alone a Democrat.
A few important things to know about the assassination of President Kennedy:
President John F. Kennedy was proud to be a Liberal Democrat who worked every day he was in office to keep the peace and to make life better for all Americans. As President, Kennedy worked to make ours a stronger nation and this a better world.
Many in the country opposed him for his Liberal perspective on civil rights. Kennedy ordered the integration of more than college campuses, he ordered the FBI and Secret Service to hire African American agents.
Others opposed his Liberal policies towards other nations and regions. Kennedy favored economic development of the Third World, rather than the past approach of siding with a particular nation's strongman or oligarch to more economically steal the natural resources. In Africa, his policies were to help people learn to feed themselves, read to their kids, and take care of the sick and elderly. That policy, Kennedy believed, would make the United States longer and better allies. Most, if not all, of his successors returned to the traditional policy of stealing all that a nation had to offer.
JFK also made enemies with the most frightening elements of the psychology that is the United States. The monied elite that owns the contracts and politicians that put the pork on the table for their sponsors are no strangers to violence. They make their biggest money off of the most horrible thing there is.
So, for his less than three years as President, John F. Kennedy faced the War Party, the military-industrial-governmental complex that did all it could to make the Cold War Hot.
Still, the War Party tried to have war over the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy said, "No."
The War Party tried to have war over the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy said, "No."
The War Party tried to have war in Vietnam and southeast Asia. Then, as well, Kennedy said, "No."
Of course, all along -- even when they pushed for nuclear war with the Soviet Union -- President Kennedy said, "No."
The War Party presented Kennedy with Operation NORTHWOODS, a plan that suggested the US Government kill Americans and make it look like Cuba did it as a pretext for war with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Kennedy said, "No." And he fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who submitted it.
Then came November 22, 1963 and Dallas.
After President Kennedy was dead, the War Party made out like Lee Harvey Oswald did it. And the FBI, CIA and Warren Commission (as revealed through Dulles' "Mighty Wurlitzer"
left a trail of "fixed" evidence to make it out Oswald was working for Cuba and its master, the Soviet Union.
Yet, that is merely a falsehood perpetuated by the nation's political elite and mass media. For according to the records of the United States Government, Oswald worked for the United States.
and get lost.
Who wouldn't want more?
A country that tolerates this:
and this:
without the overt use of U.S. military force. Often, such operations are tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of U.S. operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coups d'état, and other activities usually conducted as operations by the CIA. The U.S. has also accomplished regime change by direct military action, such as following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq in 2003.
2.1 Communist states 1944–89
2.2 Syria 1949
2.3 Iran 1953
2.4 Guatemala 1954
2.5 Tibet 1955–70s
2.6 Indonesia 1958
2.7 Cuba 1959
2.8 Democratic Republic of the Congo 1960–65
2.9 Iraq 1960–63
2.10 Dominican Republic 1961
2.11 South Vietnam 1963
2.12 Brazil 1964
2.13 Ghana 1966
2.14 Chile 1970–73
2.15 Argentina 1976
2.16 Afghanistan 1979–89
2.17 Turkey 1980
2.18 Poland 1980–81
2.19 Nicaragua 1981–90
-2.19. 1 Destablization through CIA Assets
-2.19. 2 Arming the Contras
2.20 Cambodia 1980–95
2.21 Angola 1980s
2.22 Philippines 1986
3 Since the end of the Cold War
3.1 Iraq 1992–96
3.2 Afghanistan 2001
3.3 Venezuela 2002
3.4 Iraq 2002–03
3.5 Haiti 2004
3.6 Gaza Strip 2006–present
3.7 Somalia 2006–07
3.8 Iran 2005–present
3.9 Libya 2011
3.10 Syria 2012–present
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_U.S._regime_change_actions
Can't really call themselves a "Constitutional Republic".
Seems there's the same split on every board- those who want more info and those who do not. And lots of those who do not also want to prevent others from learning more. Then there are those that don't give a crap about much of anything.
Authoritarian vs. Freedom. The new/old fight.
