OSWALD: GUILTY AS NEVER TRIED

FIGHTING “FREE TRADE” IN MIAMI

WEBLOGGING AROUND THE WORLD

In the land of television we have a phrase called “MEGO.” It stands for “My Eyes Glaze Over” and refers to TV viewers who, it is thought, will tune out when exposed to too much detailed information. In point of fact, TV producers are far more prone to this affliction.

Last night I had my own MEGO moment. The Zapruder zeitgeist was back. I watched JFK grab his throat and keel over one more time.

For me, it was deja vu all over again.

CHANNELING HISTORY

With the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination approaching tomorrow, you would expect some TV shows to do the nostalgia thing and mark the occasion. Many did — and overdid it. The History Channel, for one, has been “JFK-ing” it to death (pardon the pun) as if the President we all long for died for its ratings. The channel ran a documentary claiming President Lyndon B. Johnson helped plot the Kennedy assassination. Johnson’s family and former staff members dismissed it as an “absurd smear”.

The New York Times ignored the debate over his death all together, and instead speculates on what it might have been like had he lived.

THE ADVENT OF TV NEWS

If for no other reason than that the killing of JFK marked the advent of the age of modern TV, Washington’s Newseum interviewed 72 journalists who were eyewitnesses to the events in Dallas and Washington. They “collected more than 100 photographs, many of them little-seen, of the chaotic scenes surrounding these history-changing events.”

At the time, with Walter Cronkite tearing on the air and TV News going round-the-clock on a major national crisis, it was thought that the story was covered well. CBS’ Dan Rather, then based in Dallas, was at the time best known for his hair-swept hurricane coverage. His career got a boost that day that propelled him into the anchor’s chair — never mind that he was wrong on two major factual reports.

In fact, Big Journalism never fully and critically reported the story despite all its eyewitnesses. It has spent most of its time, first, in an audience-reassuring mode and, later, as a debunker of conspiracy theories that have persisted for four decades. In large part it was not credible then and is not credible now.

BIG MEDIA LOVES THE WARREN COMMISSION

Strange, isn’t it, that our whole media system buys the Warren Commission conclusion that, acting alone, that punk weirdo Lee Harvey Oswald did the dastardly deed? There have been forty years of Oswald-did-it news programming, and yet 70% of the people in poll after poll don’t buy it. So much for media credibility.

Last Night, ABC News jumped into the fray. Peter Jennings wore earth tones and came armed with the latest state-of-the-art graphic reconstructions. In a two-hour prime-time one-sided special, Jennings blasted conspiracy theories in general and Oliver Stone in particular. The program was self-confident, polemical, defensive and felt like a serving of castor oil “because it is good for you.”

In many ways this program seemed ten years in the making and should have been called “Gotcha Oliver.”

NO RESPONSE ALLOWED

Stone was, natch, not allowed to respond. His only appearance was scissored out of a similar docutract done MORE THAN TEN YEARS AGO by Nightline after JFK opened in the theaters. Ted Koppel tried his best back then to discredit Stone, but the movie went on to make millions. It was denounced as a “Hollywood happening,” but more people remember and admire it than will ever remember or admire this ABC-does-Dallas exercise.

Last night, to cash in on public interest and recycle its old footage one more time, ABC News brought out its in-house lone gunman to finish the job with blast after blast, firing more TV bullets than Lee ever did. Oswald reportedly only needed 8.6 seconds to do the job. ABC took 2 hours and spent a fortune in hype and promotion on its grassy knoll ambush.

On the one hand, we are told Stone’s work was worthless, and then a pricey piece of prime time is set aside just to go after him. History supposedly belongs only to its official storytellers. Dissenters like Stone must be destroyed.

JFK got it in Dealey Plaza. Stone was taken out next door to Lincoln Plaza.

NO CRITICS HEARD

Jennings fired from his graphics depository on West 66th Street. Whatever happened to fairness and balance? I guess once Fox appropriated the phrase, the other networks dropped the practice. No critic of the Warren Commission was interviewed except a newspaper reporter who admitted he is now convinced and argued that the rest of us should be as well.

Not to be outdone, FRONTLINE reprised its Lee-Harvey-Oswald-did-it film at the same time. At times as I switched between ABC and PBS, the two sounded and looked the same. At one point both programs were cloning the same shots of Mexico City, where Oswald sought to leave the country before the assassination. It was another case of “many channels, one view.”

You can just imagine how much the archive footage houses were making! I wonder if Stone was paid for the film clips they used to debunk him?

ADVERTISING JFK ON AN ANTI-JFK SHOW

To add an even more bizarre twist, just after ABC teased up its next point -by-point case for the prosecution against Stone’s JFK then went to the commercial break, the first ad was a Warner Brothers promotion of its new DVD package of the JFK Director’s Cut, which includes my own 90-minute documentary BEYOND JFK: The Question of Conspiracy based on the issues Stone raises. ABC may have been telling, but Hollywood is always selling.

Not only did it appear that there was some creative borrowing of our footage, but the title of ABC’s propaganda offering aped our own. It was called “BEYOND CONSPIRACY.” Ha Ha. Get it? (I hope to have a chance to raise some of these questions when I turn up, of all places, on “FOX and Friends” this Saturday morning.)

At one point ABC reprised the suggestion that the Warren Commission was not told that the US had been covertly gunning for Cuba’s Fidel Castro. It suggested that Castro may have been behind it all, but then reported his denial two years later. (Our film shows an interview with Castro that explains that denial.) ABC did not note that former CIA Chief Allan Dulles was on the Commission — the CIA being heavily involved, needless to say — nor did it mention that Gerald Ford was briefing the FBI covertly on Commission deliberations. Reports of US attacks on Cuba were available to everyone at the time.

In this slick example of ABC-speak, as many details can be challenged as there are details in it.

WHY NO 9/11 INVESTIGATION?

Odd, isn’t it, that as the 9/11 Commission is compromising with the White House, the full investigative “muscle” of ABC News and FRONTLINE is debunking a 40-year-old killing and not investigating the many unanswered questions that persist about that mass murder? (Actually ABC farmed its film out to a former producer.) Prediction: The Nets will wait for Michael Moore’s film on 9/11 and then go after that.

In his conclusion last night, Peter Jennings offered some philosophy dressed up as reality. He clucked that the problem is that we-the-people wanted Oswald to be worthy of Kennedy, so to remedy the imbalance between the man he called a “waif” and the great JFK, we-the-people had to invest Oswald with something bigger, something worthy of a Kennedy, like a conspiracy. Sorry, folks; Jennings said that’s not the way it was. In short, we-the-people just don’t get it. What’s wrong with us?

Hey, Peter, hold up. People who continue to raise questions about what happened in Dallas do not do so to vindicate Oswald or revere Kennedy. They do so because they don’t trust their own government to tell the truth. And they have plenty of good reasons for that distrust, some of which you reprised from the safety of the past.

I hate to be the one to tell you, Peter, but the people do not trust most of the big media either, and I say that as an ABC News alumnus. And again, for good reason. TV shows like the one that ran last night are part of the reason, as it arrogantly puts the people and critics down in order to uphold the higher wisdom of the most-laughed-at Commission in history.

Stone was also criticized on ABC by none other than industry shill Jack Valenti (a former LBJ aide) for the high crime of intercutting real and dramatized footage. And this after the “coverage” of the Iraq War has been denounced as “militainment”! Have we no shame?

WHO DONE IT VS WHY DONE IT

ABC frames the issue as a “who done it”; Stone, as a “why done it?” ABC looks at individuals; Stone, at institutions and interests. ABC wants to tell us what to think. Stone is more interested in how we think and that we think at all. He is a dramatist. He doesn’t claim to have the truth. Jennings is a journalist and claims he does.

Most of the world still believes there are truths deeper than this type of journalism. Yet ABC poses as all-knowing and bars critics from having a say.

DOES THE SYSTEM WORK?

Robert MacNeil, anchor of the former MacNeil?Lehrer News Hour, was the only reporter to get off the press bus after shots were heard and go to the Grassy Knoll. He put it to me for BEYOND JFK:

There is a predisposition still on the part of the mainstream media to believe it all works, the system works. And it is only the crazies on the fringes who keep saying no, it doesn’t work, no it doesn’t work, there’s a conspiracy at work. And the two are converging all the time because the evidence is bringing them together.

The louder that ABC (and Frontline) proclaim they know it all, the less we believe them.

Now that’s a good subject for a documentary, wouldn’t you agree? It is a theme I am exploring in my next one on the media “coverage” of Iraq.

Would ABC run that? Don’t hold your breath. (See a reader’s comment below for more on this dispute.) It goes BEYOND MEDIA!

MIAMI’S BAD MOON RISING

And now let’s leave the disputed past and lurch into our turbulent present. It has been a week that Free Trade Area of the Americas summit was largely downplayed by network news, although I saw a snippet this morning on CNN. . . .IndyMedia.org reports that the Summit came to “a premature close last night, after ministers from 34 countries apparently accepted a watered-down proposal for creating a hemispheric economic community.” Thousands marched and clashed with police.

There were also protests against Channel 7 TV News. One activist writes,

We’ve already won. The City of Miami, Department of Homeland Security, and an array of private dicks and corporate media boosters have successfully accomplished what the movement aims to achieve at each anti-capitalist convergence — the total shutdown of the host city.

WHY NO ONE WON

Simon Romero partially explains the politics of what happened at the summit in today’s New York Times:

? in several ways, the conclusion of the negotiations laid bare the difficulty United States negotiators had in making concessions sought by Brazil and Argentina on agricultural tariffs and subsidies. Such changes would have put President Bush in a difficult situation in critical electoral states like Florida, which has large sugar and citrus industries, and in several states on the Plains and in Georgia, where beef production is important.

In fact, the United States and Brazil reached a deal in the days before this week’s talks that removed difficult agricultural issues from the negotiating agenda, in addition to topics like intellectual property protection and government contracts, effectively shifting these areas to conflict-resolution negotiations in the W.T.O.

( www.nytimes.com/2003/11/21/business/worldbusiness/21free.html )

LUVYA DUBYA

In London, marches against George Bush exceeded most media expectations. The Daily Mirror noted, “Organizers of the march, ending in a rally at Trafalgar Square, said the number was a record for any weekday protest in Britain. “This phenomenal response shows the depth of feeling of the British public towards this visit,” said a spokesman for the Stop The War Coalition. A huge papier mache statue of Bush was hauled down by protestors in Trafalgar Square.”

As for the size of the demo, our pal Bill Bowles reports from the British capital:

Well, according to who you listen to, there were either 70,000 (the police), 100-110,000 (the media) or 200,000 (the demo). When Bush visits Sedgefield today . . . and Blah’s Parliamentary seat, it’ll cost ?1 million for the security and in a town of only 100,000 people, that’ll be ?8 per head out of the taxes, no sneeze in a depressed former mining community.

London’s Metropolitan Police have had a continuous “rolling” authorization of the anti-terror law every day since February 2001.

(www.williambowles.info/)

THE AIR WAR TO COME

While Bush departs from the Palace, his handlers are planning the next air war on TV. He plans to use terror as one of his key campaign issues. The New York Times reports that his first TV ad “portrays Bush as fighting terrorism while his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping?. It shows Mr. Bush, during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued threats to the nation: ‘Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power,’ he says after the screen flashes the words, ‘Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists.’”

PERLE: IRAQ WAR WAS ILLEGAL

We now learn that a key Administration adviser admits that there was no legal basis for the Iraq War. The Guardian reported yesterday in story that was scarcely picked up,

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: “I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.”

( www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1089042,00.html )

KISS THE CONSTITUTION GOOD BYE

And what’s the Next Thing? If it is a WMD attack, a prominent US military man says our Constitution will be the first to go. Newsmax reports,

Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.

Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men’s lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.

( www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/11/20/185048.shtml )

RIVERBEND VIVISECTS THE WAR

Two hotels and the Oil Ministry in Central Baghdad were hit by rock attacks — mounted from a donkey cart. This may be in retaliation against the US “Operation Iron Hammer” which is bombing parts of the country. Here’s part of a comment from our favorite Iraqi blogger, Riverbend:

They’ve been bombing houses in Tikrit and other areas! Unbelievable_ I’m so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?! What do the Americans think Tikrit is?! Some sort of city of monsters or beasts? The people there are simple people. Most of them make a living off of their land and their livestock- the rest are teachers, professors and merchants- they have lives and families_ Tikrit is nothing more than a bunch of low buildings and a palace that was as inaccessible to the Tikritis as it was to everyone else!

People in Al Awja suffered as much as anyone, if not more- they weren’t all related to Saddam and even those who were, suffered under his direct relatives. Granted, his bodyguards and others close to him were from Tikrit, but they aren’t currently in Tikrit- the majority have struck up deals with the CPA and are bargaining for their safety and the safety of their families with information. The people currently in Tikrit are just ordinary people whose homes and children are as precious to them as American homes and children are precious to Americans! This is contemptible and everyone thinks so- Sunnis and Shi’a alike are shaking their heads incredulously.

(tinyurl.com/w01f)

IT IS OK TO DESTROY IRAQI HOMES IF YOU SPIN IT RIGHT

What’s the US military response? Jeff Wilkinson of Knight Ridder reports: “The decision to destroy at least a dozen homes belonging to family members of guerrilla suspects in and around Tikrit was ‘within the rules of war’ and was approved by the commander of the 4th Infantry Division and probably by the overall commander for U.S. forces in Iraq, a spokesman for the division said Tuesday.”

There is a new media offensive in Iraq alongside the military one. AP reports, “As American troops step up their attacks on Iraqi resistance, U.S. occupation officials also are launching a media offensive under pressure from the White House to do a better job promoting the military campaign against insurgents.”

ISRAEL TO US: DON’T TELL US WHAT TO DO

Increasingly, US tactics in Iraq resemble Israeli tactics in the West Bank. The latest word from that conflict is Israeli defiance, according to Reuters:

Israel responded defiantly on Thursday to unusually sharp criticism by President Bush of a barrier it is building through Palestinian areas in the West Bank.
. . . .
Israeli Vice Premier Ehud Olmert said the barrier, a measure Israel contends is necessary to stop suicide bombers and which the Palestinians condemn as a land grab, would remain an option.

“Israel will always have the right to take unilateral steps for separation from the Palestinians through a fence or other means,'’ Olmert told Israel Radio.

(tinyurl.com/w06r)

FORGIVE ME

I can’t bring myself to write today about Michael Jackson or the Martha Stewart trial. If these subjects interest you, watch US TV. Michael seems to have dominated the news. Disgraced investment banker Henry Blodgett has some amusing insights into Martha’s muddle on Slate

YOUR LETTERS

OSWALD AND OSAMA

Dominick Mastroserio writes in for the first time. Sorry I have to compress:

It took almost twelve years to concoct the legend of Osama and Al Quaeda, twenty to orchestrate the legend of Sadaam and we still don’t get it. The Oswald legend worked marvelously as a false flag for the coup d’etat of 1963… so why not use it again and again and again and again. After all, if it works, don’t fix it. Just play a variation on the theme.

Why it’s not obvious that whatever alleged remaining evidence about 9/11 [there is is] secreted under the umbrella of national security in order to give the perpetrators time to arrange and/or expunge its incriminating original forms so that it dovetails with the legends about alleged terrorist groups is beyond my comprehension. Especially among you of the independent media whose usually keen critical scrutiny should have immediately led you to this realization. The benefactors of the coup d’etat of November, 2000 should be the most likely suspects for the orchestration and execution of 9/11. ?

GENERAL SAYS DECEIVE WE MUST

I continue to track the deception that the government uses so successfully, often with media cooperation.

A reader writes, “I am not sure where this story came from, but it offers a candid admission by a former top US General who says the government has the right to mislead journalists.”

The comments were made at a Washington conference by retired Army Gen. George Joulwan: “Is deception planning wrong? No. I’ve used it in every war I’ve been in, from Vietnam to Bosnia to a half a dozen others.”

Perhaps sensing journalists on the six-member expert panel shifting uncomfortably in their chairs, Joulwan’s voice rose as he insisted, “Deception planning is part of what we must do.”

TELL ME LIES DOES NOT LIE

If this subject fascinates you as it does me, may I suggest a new book edited by the impressive media critic David Miller and published by Pluto Press in London. It is called “Tell Me Lies; Tell Me Lies: Propaganda & Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq ”

The publisher describes it this way: “Written by some of the world’s leading journalists and commentators, Tell Me Lies is a scathing indictment of the role of the mainstream media in legitimising government actions and undermining dissent. Critics, activists and journalists from both sides of the Atlantic explore alternatives such as the internet and al-Jazeera and provide analysis and guidance on resisting the media war.” (Americans and Canadians may visit tinyurl.com/w0g3. Those in the UK may use tinyurl.com/w0gf.)

I also want to plug a new documentary on WAL-MART that is in the news a lot these days. Steve Alves, an award-winning independent filmmaker, has released a film about the small-town David who felled the Goliath corporation. But his documentary, “Talking to the Wall: The Story of an American Bargain,” is about much more than shopping.

Check out www.talkingtothewall.com.

DISSECTOR WORLD TOUR

Now it is time for me to check out. I will be leaving the country for a few weeks on what sounds like the DISSECTOR’s WORLD TOUR. I will offer more details next Monday but I am off on a trip, first to South Africa to help document an all-star anti-AIDS concert organized by Nelson Mandela. From there, it is off to Berlin to speak at an educator’s conference on December 2. Next stop: Bali in Indonesia for the impressive United in Diversity Forum. From there, back to Geneva for the World Electronic Media Forum and World Information Summit.

Happily, the Mediachannel is getting more global attention than ever and I intend to file reports along the way. My partner Rory O’Conner, a better writer than I but also more of a skeptic on some things, will be writing when he can in my absence. Hope to survive the jet lag and have some fun. (Fun — not a word I’ve thought of much. What a good idea!) My colleague Anna Pizarro (anna@Globalvision.org) will be womanning the home front.

You can still write to me at dissector@MediaChannel.org.