What a Difference a Day Made

10:10 So, up this morning after another bout last night with this protracted low-grade flu that won’t go away.. two weeks and counting.. Three anniversaries to commemorate this morning…

•    50th anniversary of the start of Doctor Who.
•    54th (and 8 months) anniversary of my birthday.

And (although Google didn’t mention this one, guess they thought it would be too depressing):

•    The 50th Anniversary of the assassination of America’s Secular Saint, John F. Kennedy.

Cup of coffee, breaky, check my e-mail and websites like I always do first thing… And I found find this noxious drivel on The Corpse’s website (www.cbc.ca):

“The Fifth Estate

Conspiracy Files: JFK and 9/11

– Why do some people question the so-called ‘official version’ of history, despite the national consensus? Find out at 9 p.m./9:30 NT on CBC-TV.”

Michael…
Guess he got ’em straightened a little…

My new-found contempt for Canada’s Sacred Cow grows with every passing day. Last time I switched it off in disgust was with their bow-tied snaggle-toothed pompous pontificator Michael Enright solemnly intoning on a Sunday Morning, some unctuous homily against America’s gun culture and how much better all Canadians are then they, since our government in its wisdom has determined we’re all too unstable to be trusted with handguns and how grateful we are in consequence…

 

Meanwhile, What “National Consensus” ? Last time I checked, something like 80% of Americans (likely ditto for Canadians) believe there was a conspiracy of some sort in the death of Kennedy… across The Pond something like 80% of Europeans believe 9/11 was staged.. Where did I get these factoids? Books written by (I’m gravely informed by such as our Mr. Enright) irresponsible, uninformed and, yes, unstable people… Idle conversation over the years with various other people… all based on airy nothing, of course. And stuff on the Internet. Of Course.

But that is precisely my point.

Most of the people I’ve spoken to about the Kennedy Assassination, over the years, think the idea of Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone, is a crock of shit. Most of the people I’ve spoken to about 9/11, over the years, seem to think that 9/11, was staged.

My twin sister and brother-in-law were about the only  exceptions on that latter item — made considerable mockery of my naiveté as I recall —  but a downsized senior manager from the Insurance Industry at an employment workshop we both attended (how many years ago?) commented to me about that: “Well, what do you expect? They’re lawyers !”

Her other comment (more-or-less) which I’ve retained over the years was: “If the ethics of the people running an organization are of concern to you, for heaven’s sakes, get out of there!”

If only I could have…  “Thus doth a paycheque make cowards of us all” to paraphrase The Bard… But I digress…

So.. Some random factoids and comments on Kennedy’s Assassination, and of 9/11…

•    Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK, from a distance of something like 80 meters, through trees, at a moving target… and got him. 3-6 shots spat out in the time of something like 6 – 12 seconds. And he did this, using a bolt-action repeater.

•    Supposedly, the bolt on his rifle was defective.

•    The weapon itself, the “Mannlicher-Carcano”?  Was referred to by the Italian army as: “The humanitarian rifle”: Never killed anyone in combat because it consistently hit down and to the right of whomever you were aiming at.

•    Why did Lee use a mediocre repeating rifle from a mail-order company, when he could have bought a top-quality semi-automatic from dozens of weapons dealers in Dallas?

•    12 of the best marksmen of the US military, allegedly, could not duplicate Lee’s feat, in that time-frame, using his rifle, aiming at a stationary target w/o trees in the way.

•    Lee achieved the lowest standard of marksmanship in the Marines and had trouble doing that.

•    At the time of the assassination Lee was in the break room of the Text Book Depository having a coke.

•    Oh… and by the way… Did any of you know he was an asset of US Intelligence? That factoid alone should open a can of worms about the size of a oil-tanker.

Be that as it may, I haven’t even mentioned The Magic Bullet yet…

•    Went through JFK.. in a downwards trajectory.. suddenly turned about 80 degrees, angled itself up and went through Texas Governor John Connelly… then turned another 80 degrees and went through his shoulder… Something like that anyway…

•    Only to be found, in pristine condition, on Kennedy’s stretcher at the hospital.

Not to mention Lee Harvey Oswald’s death…

•    He was being transferred from the police station where he was held.. I seem to recall it’s on film somewhere… two guards on either side.. three more in the back… no-one in front..

•    And Jack Ruby walks up to him — this is happening in the basement of a police station mind you — pulls out a revolver, and shoots him. Several times.

Questions are…

•    What exactly, was a known, and senior, member of Organized Crime in Dallas, doing in the basement of a police station, during a highly sensitive prisoner transfer…

•    … Unescorted … ?

•    … With a gun … ?

•    And if he was out to murder Lee… why do it like that? Seems to me best he could hope to get out of it would be spend the rest of his life in prison.

But who cares, really? It’s 50 years ago and it’s not as if anyone can do anything about it… I care, and so should you… This stuff is perception and thus literally, reality changing.

Be all that as it may, could this kind of stuff be why people think they’re being lied to? Could this be why they think there could be some kind of conspiracy involved in the death of John F. Kennedy?

Could be.

Like I said: Off the top of my head, after having read many years ago and among other things High Treason: The Assassination of JFK & the Case for Conspiracy… and stuff on the Internet… Make all the fun of my inaccurate and vague recollections you like. But: Get a copy. Read it. Trust me: It will change you. You’ll never watch a newscast on TV or read a newspaper the same way, ever again.

Or have a look at this:

http://www.ahealedplanet.net/cover-up.htm

Here’s a quote from that website for you:

“The evidence for a conspiracy surrounding the JFK assassination is simply overwhelming, and studying debunking work such as Gerald Posner’s Case Closed makes the case for conspiracy even stronger… When the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigated the JFK assassination, one piece of evidence caused them to decide that a conspiracy killed JFK … but they had no idea who did it.  Case closed.”

Uh-hunh.

*   *   *

As for 9/11…

•    In the days leading up to 9/11, there were stories floating around of short-selling of both United and American Airlines stock; that George W. Bush was one of those stockholders.  (http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/BushEnronandBinLaden.html)

•    There’s similar nasty insinuations about his Dad and events of Nov. 22, 1963; I suppose I should have already mentioned that.

•    Whatever… Back to the topic… September 9, 2001 witnessed four simultaneous — and unprecedented — hijackings that day — and yet the US Air Force scrambled not a single fighter.

•    The US spends (officially mind you) something like $70,000,000,000 – $80,000,000,000 annually on its intelligence agencies… all 16 of them… Al Queda allegedly began its existence as an asset of the CIA (but somehow escaped their control)… And yet they had no idea 9/11 was going to happen.

•    Meanwhile the hijackers overcame passengers and crew armed with nothing more than box-cutters… are all of us in The West, really as ball-less as that?

•    In the history of steel-framed buildings, only three have ever collapsed as a result of fire. They did so within hours of each other; they were World Trade Centers 1, 2 and 7. World Trade Center 7 was not hit by an airplane and had only small fires in it when it collapsed.

•    All three collapsed in a manner precisely consistent with controlled demolition.

•    Not one.. but TWO passports belonging to the hijackers, fluttered through the inferno and the collapse of those buildings, to be found, literally fresh as the day they were printed, on top of the rubble. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/19/september11.iraq)

•   How about that story about Osama Bin Laden at a US Military Hospital in Dubai, getting Dialysis? (http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/11/black-911-a-walk-on-the-dark-side/2/). Yeah a lot of people say this is horsepuckey.. But apparently Le Figaro has never retracted the story.

•  While I’m on the topic of Osama… apparently the Bin Laden family is one of the richest in the Middle East, and they and the Bush family have been business partners for decades. And while this factoid proves nothing, it ought to be good for at least one “WTF?” moment. Got that one from Michael Moore. So it must be true.

•    Meanwhile how is it, that the putative airplane that struck the Pentagon — mysteriously left no wreckage worth mentioning — took out the western side of the building,  where the accounting offices were placed — a much more difficult target to hit than the eastern side, where the offices of Donald Rumsfeld and The Joint Chiefs of Staff — much more obvious targets — were located… ? http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/11/black-911-a-walk-on-the-dark-side/

Odd, that…

•   Oh, and I almost forgot: 7 of the alleged hijackers allegedly turned up alive and kicking after 9/11… http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/hijackers.html

*   *   *

You can Google any of the sloppy factoids I’ve mentioned, and more, and find them, or something pretty close. How true are any of them? Good question. Wish I knew. But when you consider Werner Von Braun, the man who gave us the V-2 rocket, could hold the rank of “Sturmbannführer” (IOW “Major”) in the SS,  then without so much as a hiccup go on to head the design team of the Saturn V rocket that put America (not Germany) on the moon, anything’s possible.

That story about Werner is true, BTW…

Werner in later, happier days. Note the absence of a V-2, the granddaddy of the Saturn V, in the parade behind him…

I’m pretty sure that’s Werner in the black, in the back… not buddy in front shaking hands with Heinrich…

*   *   *

Incidentally I don’t consider myself a “Conspiracy Theorist”… more of a “Conspiracy Hobbyist.” I merely collect them, sort of like Hannibal Lecter, who liked to collect reports of churches collapsing when the congregation was inside worshiping…

What I do know, with a fair degree of certainty, based on about 40 years worth of experience and an awful lot of thought and reflection over those years, is how systematically, how savagely, we are all deliberately misled and lied to, by authority.

Any authority.

Excuse me, I’ve a saxophone needing my urgent attention.

*   *   *

Addendum. Saturday, November 23, 8:21 PST.

Listened to a bit of “As it Happens” on The Corpse last night. They were having a wee reminiscence with Robert MacNeil; he was famous once-upon-a-time as the MacNeil of PBS’s “MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour” … but in 1963 he’d just gotten his entry in the Big Times with NBC, covering the Kennedy’s visit to Dallas.

The following are his concluding comments with Carol Off:

Robert: Some of the “Conspiracy Theories” turn on the supposition that there was a shot from the overhead pass up there.  The other thing I wonder, which is more important than whether I met Oswald, is why did I run around the people who were lying on the grass, covering their kids with their bodies? Why didn’t I stop for a second and say “What did you see?” — Because later, a few minutes later, they gave reporters incredible eye-witness accounts, of having just seen the top of the President’s head blown off, a few feet away from them… You do things automatically in situations like that.

Carol: But you had a feeling, at that time, and 50 years later, there’s a majority of Americans, who have a feeling, that there was not just one gunman that day…

Robert: Yes I know.. I know…

…Well, I have seen no evidence, that I find persuasive, and credible that fundamentally disputes the Warren Commission’s finding, that Oswald acted alone. I know millions of people believe otherwise, and my colleague and friend Jim Lehrer who was there that day as well, working for the afternoon newspaper… he was assigned,  by his newspaper, to cover the Kennedy Investigation for months afterwards, and he says, that he hasn’t seen any evidence that convinces him, and he said “All of us reporters were there, we wanted a Pulitzer Prize, and you weren’t going to Pulitzer Prize for finding out there was no conspiracy.”

And Jim also says: “I covered Washington for a long time now and I know, that if there was a conspiracy of three people, one of them,  would talk.”

Carol: “Robin, it’s an extraordinary story. I really appreciate you telling it to us.”

Robert: “Thank you very much, Carol.”

Carol: ‘bye-‘bye

An “extraordinary story”, indeed.

But there you have it: The Received Infallible Truth from on High as Enunciated by Our Betters, and if you believe otherwise, or attempt to think for yourself, you are irresponsible, stupid, gullible and quite likely crazy. Evil too, I imagine. And my opinion of the CBC is now sealed.

Breathtaking.

Absolutely breathtaking.

What did I do with that silly saxophone?