Updated: The Washington Post broke with recent corporate media practice by daring to raise questions about who killed Martin Luther King Jr., as William F. Pepper and Andrew Kreig explain. (Updated with more on NPR’s coverage.)
By William F. Pepper and Andrew Kreig
For the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder, The Washington Post last week overcame its tainted history of softball coverage and published a hard-hitting account quoting the King family’s disbelief in the guilt of convicted killer James Earl Ray.
The bold, top-of-the-front-page treatment on April 2 of reporter Tom Jackman’s in-depth piece —“The Past Rediscovered: Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.?” — represents a major turning point in the treatment of the case for the past five decades by mainstream media. Print, broadcast and all too many film makers and academics have consistently soft-pedaled ballistic, eye-witness and other evidence that undermines the official story of King’s death.
This time, the Post and Jackman, an experienced reporter, undertook bold but long overdue initiative. One can only hope that it leads to similar coverage — rigorous and fair — for other history-changing events, including current ones that are inherently secret.
The Post’s MLK Success Formula
Jackman’s method was relatively simple. Reporters use it routinely on other stories that are not so politically sensitive as King’s death. In this instance, the reporter quoted family members and other experts and provided balance with other perspectives.
Thus, Jackman wrote near the top of his long column:
“In the five decades since Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead by an assassin at age 39, his children have worked tirelessly to preserve his legacy, sometimes with sharply different views on how best to do that. But they are unanimous on one key point: James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King.
James Earl Ray
“For the King family and others in the civil rights movement, the FBI’s obsession with King in the years leading up to his slaying in Memphis on April 4, 1968 — pervasive surveillance, a malicious disinformation campaign and open denunciations by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover — laid the groundwork for their belief that he was the target of a plot.”
That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Memphis Commercial Appeal investigative reporter Marc Perrusquia appears to be a kindred spirit to Jackman. Based on extensive reporting for his newspaper, Perrusquia documented a new book released last month A Spy In Canaan: How the FBI Used A Famous Photographer To Infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement. This is the story of Ernest Withers, who took iconic photos of King and other civil rights leaders during the 1950s and 1960s. The implications are disturbing, given the smear campaign against King especially before his death.
Tone Deaf NPR Falls Flat
Sadly, straightforward reporting can be uncommon in these kinds of sensitive cases, particularly if a news outlet decides to prioritize its previous reporting, or the goodwill of its law enforcement sources.
Thus, typical of MLK death anniversary coverage was the April 3 report on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered show by NPR’s Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson, previously a Washington Post reporter for a decade ending in 2010 covering justice issues. As part of a series “1968: How We Got Here,” her NPR segment’s title was “Conspiracy Theories About MLK’s Death Continue, But Investigators Say Case Is Closed.”
That title using “Conspiracy Theories” is a smear. It’s used by reporters and academics to discredit alternative researchers ever since the CIA secretly distributed to its operatives in April 1967 the now-declassified “CIA Dispatch 1035-960.” The 53-page CIA memo urged agency personnel to persuade their establishment contacts to use the term “conspiracy theorist” to undermine critics of the 1964 Warren Report on the JFK assassination, thereby helping to discredit New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s grand jury investigation of a fatal plot alleged to include CIA personnel scheming against the president.
Pepper with King in 1967
Even without knowing that history, many career-minded reporters and their news managers these days instinctively use the term to demonstrate that they are team-players too sophisticated to be taken in by the alternative media.
In this instance, the NPR team on the show hosted by Mary Louise Kelly quoted one of this article’s co-authors, William Pepper, but in ways that implicitly discredit his views.
One way that the NPR approach trivialized Pepper’s experience was by focusing heavily on his involvement with a mock trial of the defendant Ray in 1993 and not five decades of relevant experience, especially his research findings in the late 1990s.
A more neutral and informative perspective for readers might have been to note that Pepper had worked in the 1960s with King in expanding the civil rights leaders’ reform agenda. Later, the King family asked Pepper to reinvestigate the murder. Pepper’s street reporting among witnesses and suspects in the Deep South led to evidence that won the King family a civil jury verdict in 1999 that discredited the official story, and then to three Pepper books about the evidence, most recently “The Plot To Kill King” published in 2016.
Instead, the NPR reporter and her team placed more credence, as
evident by the biased headline for the segment, on former government investigators who had worked on the case years if not decades before the 1999 civil trial.
Johnson, when contacted for comment for this column, responded that reporters do not write headlines for stories and that her on-air account was expanded in a written blog post on April 4 that addressed some of the matters raised here. But she failed to respond either then or later to four specific questions we sent her about her approach.
Why didn’t you note, as Jackman did, that the King family doubts the official verdict and asked Pepper to reinvestigate?
Why didn’t you mention that they won an actual jury verdict in 1999 (in contrast to a 1993 TV poll based on six years of less evidence)?
Why use the headline and intro “conspiracy theories” when that was (we now know from declassified CIA records) a smear term that the CIA popularized in the press and academia in the 1960s to discredit researchers into the JFK assassination?
Are you aware that Robert Blakey [whom NPR quoted] replaced the original House Select Committee on Assassination top counsels, Richard Sprague and Robert Tanenbaum after they resigned in protest because they believed they did not have freedom to investigate murder leads?
The NPR report illustrated a longstanding pattern by news reporters of deferring to high officials and former officials. The problem has hurt reporting on many other civic issues, including the nation’s two other most prominent 1960s assassinations.
MLK as a ‘Black Life That Mattered’
Authorities have long pinned all blame for King’s murder on the ill-educated petty thief James Earl Ray, who was supposedly motivated by racism. The evidence Pepper uncovered shows that Ray’s movements were manipulated by a handler so that he would be at the scene when a professional team undertook the hit.
Not coincidentally, the misleading story about Ray carries a number of false historical implications.
For one, a theory of purely racially motivated killing unrealistically confines the murder and King’s focus to the Jim Crow-era of Deep South segregation and related civil rights abuse. That makes today’s younger audiences think of King and his message as largely out of date.
In fact, King’s legacy remains highly relevant to today. During the last years of his life, he focused on economic justice, anti-war activity and coalition building. By 1968, these goals were far more threatening to the power structure than civil rights.
Rather than repeat some of the many apt tributes to King’s legacy that honored his memory last week, let’s focus on a colossal irony:
King’s was a black life that truly “mattered.” And it mattered in significant part because the “Poor People’s Campaign” that he envisioned could unite whites and others in a mass movement far beyond the scope of the largely black-led civil rights marches in the Deep South that included some white supporters.
And yet many of those most focused currently on injustice issues have scant suspicion that the circumstances of the great prophet’s death, like that of the two Kennedys, are in dispute. But the facts are relatively knowable and understandable to those who disregard the “conspiracy” smear and dare to look at the scientific, witness and other evidence.
The pioneering scholar Peter Dale Scott developed, beginning in the 1970s, the alternative terms “Deep Politics” and “Deep State” to replace the biased smear term “conspiracy theory.” Scott popularized the term in a series of books that continue to the present.
No reasonable person would argue, of course, that every anti-government theory has merit. Good evidence exists. So does bad evidence, including misinformation, disinformation, and whacko nonsense that floats around partisan circles.
Democracy in Danger
King’s death provides lasting lessons for problems that we face now.
One difficulty is how to understand vital justice-related issue, many of which are inherently secret until final stages of the judicial process (and some of which remain secret even afterward).
That means we in the public must rely on institutions, dishonest, or otherwise flawed. But we can know from the study of historical materials whether these institutions are honestly addressing such momentous issues as the King murder. Those insights can provide a Rosetta Stone for current mysteries.
That’s why Tom Jackman’s treatment for the Post of the King case provides a basis for hope. Most in the mainstream media have refused to cover the truth about the murder.
With luck and continuing public scrutiny, this Washington Post initiative will hopefully extend to others in the mainstream media.
This article was originally published on Op-Ed News.
Dr. William F. Pepper is a human rights lawyer most known for his defense of James Earl Ray in the trial for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and of Sirhan Sirhan in the trial for the murder of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Pepper is the author of “The Plot To Kill King” (Skyhorse Publishing, 2016), the final volume of a trilogy.
Andrew Kreig is a Washington, DC-based investigative reporter, non-profit executive, attorney and author. He edits the non-partisan Justice Integrity Project, which has published separate “Readers Guides” to the MLK, RFK and JFK assassinations. He and his co-author will speak at the “Kennedys & King” conference from May 3-4 organized by the Wecht Institute on Forensic Science and Law at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh (Details: www.duq.edu/rfkmlk).
Okay all you haters out there get ready. I’m 69 years old. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing Nov 22 1963. I got drafted in may 1968, no Vietnam straight to Berlin Germany I went. Naive at 19 from Farm country USA I hardly knew what to make of the world. That all changed almost as soon as I got to Germany. I was a 2 year draftee and because the Army was busy with other things, I guess, I ended up being assigned to a”spook” group in Berlin. Civilian clothes the whole nine yards. Boy was I in for an education. I got hooked on the clandestine intrigue associated with all things concerned with intelligence. My innocence was gone.
I learned very early on things were not as they seemed. Not at all.
Members of or former members of (may who maintain close connections with those still working) the intelligence world knew about and may have been involved in the murder of JFK. Martin was murdered April 4, 1968 and I reported for induction around the 10th of May 1968. Even then you knew something was up but what. Then in June RFK is killed. What in the hell was going on?
I’m much wiser and very well informed on that particular section of history. All three of these men were murdered by individuals of similar cloth. Nobodies who just happened to defeat all security measures, this is especially interesting considering two of the killings occurred just five years after the murder of JFK.
Some one or group had an agenda. Today I think this fact is rather obvious regardless of all the screaming and squealing by the establishment that nothing of the sort happened. It happened. Okay! These three men were murdered by people of similar interests and political / religious beliefs.
We will hopefully learn someday that racists with in the intelligence establishment feared Dr King’s ability to connect to the common man be he black or white or some other loony reason. Maybe they thought killing King would muddy up the events surrounding the death of JFK.
But then came the murder of RFK. Why him? What could be gained by another death. I say if RFK had lived and become president we would not be having this conversation today.
#1 Nice Irish Catholic fella, cut of boyscout material if he got elected President he would have gotten to the bottom of his brothers murder, come hell or high water. The only way they would have stopped him was to kill him. And so they did. No way they could wait and see it he got elected president. CIA for one knew they could not pull off a second presidential assassination and get away with it.
#2 Ask anybody who would have know except supporters of the criminal apartheid extreme right wing government of Israel and you will learn that JFK had been in a pitched battle with the leader of Israel over there intentions to produce atomic weapons. JFK dead would be good for Israel. To Israel that is all that matters.
#3 In April of 1968 Richard Helms informed LBJ by phone that highly enriched U-235 (bomb grade) material had been discovered by CIA agent John Hadden in samples he collected near the Dimona weapons site in Israel. LBJ told Helms not to tell anyone including the current Sec of State. The AG was notified by FBI in May 1968, they were about to start a vigorous investigation into the matter.
What that meant is that those who questioned Zalmon Shipiro’s diversion of Special Nuclear Material from his factory were right. He had been diverting HEU-235 material. We have to remember that JFK and RFK were both after Israel for their weapons program and they both knew Shapirio was being watched very closely. Or they should have been notified by those responsible.
June 6, 1968 RFK is murdered and again under very strange circumstances. If RFK had gotten elected and he surely would have, that is why he was killed, he would not have rested until he had the truth about what happened to JFK and MLK. That is Who RFK was.
I have been a paid observer most of my adult life and I think I got this pegged. Now all I need is for DOJ, CIA, FBI & Congress to get together, release all the Dogdamned files and investigate this garbage that has been reported as fact and is anything but fact. Something that should have happened in the first place but did not mainly because CIA made sure it didn’t. Why did they do that? Why is it the intelligence community closed ranks against a president they were paid to support?
The machinations that CIA and certain individuals put them selves through to not release records is the smoking gun. They have blood on their hands and they know it. “You cannot wake the man who pretends to be asleep!” – John Perry Barlow date unknown
Let us together keep these cases in the NEWS. These cases are related. Sources and methods be damned.
One last thing to think about. What could possibly be worse for the security of the country than the current occupant of the White House? Do I hear fiddle music? I think I smell smoke too. All this and nero is in the white house.
Not Quite Remembering Rapps Mill
As Rockbridge Historical Society spokesman Eric Wilson, handed over the microphone to Gene Sullivan last Sunday at the Effinger Firehouse outside Lexington, I looked forward to the presentation on local community life in the South Buffalo region during the mid-1800s. Showing memorabilia from Dr. Jim Parson’s scrapbook of the barns, mills, cannery and church cemetery, Mr. Sullivan noted many of the farmers such as Mathias Rapp and his wife, Mary Saville. He detailed some of the folks lives and their experiences during the Civil War and how a few eventually found their way back to the tiny graveyard. The predominantly all white audience at the gathering chuckled at the news that Abraham Lincoln had received no votes in the 1860 presidential election, because his name had not even been entered on the ballot roster. Mr. Sullivan spoke of the rich harvest during those times and the hardship that was endured because most of the men were off fighting for the cause. What he did not mention was any discussion of the lives of the local slaves or the fact that the harvest bounty could not be fully collected because many had run away from their masters after the conflict was engaged. One picture in particular stood out from his slideshow. That photo depicted a white man with a long gray beard genially holding the hands of a small black slave child. No further reference was made to the child or the fact that the blacks buried at Rapps village were granted no tombstone markings and were not interred amongst the whites. The appearance of the young vassal made it clear what was missing from the lecture. Anonymous, nameless and lost in time, the little boy stood painfully out as the lone reminder of what transpired here not so long ago. More than 4,000 black men, women, and children died at the hands of white mobs between 1877 and 1950. Can you name any of them? These alarming omissions are particularly disturbing in light of the April 4th observance of Martin Luther King’s 50th assassination anniversary—shot down by a white man with a gun. Although somewhat informative, this type of revisionist history does not do honor to the Virginia we all live in today.
Lee Shepherd
Folks, BTW, as always thank you all for the lively contribution. The Consortium comments forum remains one of my fave ‘watering holes!’ Oh one more thing. The name is Maybury, not “Madbury”. This is not to suggest I don’t have my moments in this regard nor that some folks would disagree with such an assessment of your humble scribe’s psychological cum mental SOM (a story for another time), but I thought I should correct for the record. These ‘rumours’ have a way of spreading! Best to all, GM.
Keep up the great work, Mr. MaYbury. Thank you.
Wasn’t Ralph Abernathy outed as an FBI stool a few years back?? Abernathy was the 2nd in command in the CRM w/MLK. Jeff’s comment above pretty much nailed it. As for James E. Ray, he does comes off dumber than a toaster. If others were indeed implicated, before being captured, Ray would’ve been killed b/c he “knew too much”. Why imprison Ray & risk him eventually “spilling the beans”. There’s a big difference between Ray & Oswald. We all know what happened to the latter.
Thank you, Greg Madbury! Skyhorse publishes many great books. I have read William Pepper’s first two, now want to get his third as well as the Nelson book. Much appreciated insights from you here.
G’Day Jessika, I suppose I could say “It’s my pleasure!”….but somehow given the circumstances that ‘inspired’ my comments, it doesn’t seem quite the right word. Thx anyway. GM
Folks, Here is the link to Phil Nelson’s book,
Who REALLY Killed Martin Luther King Jr.? The Case Against Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, By Phillip F. Nelson
http://skyhorsepublishing.com/titles/13721-9781510731066-who-really-killed-martin-luther-king-jr
G’Day Consortium Folks,
After working closely with Phillip Nelson in advance of his soon to be released book on the assassination of Martin Luther King (see details below), I spent quite a bit of time in penning an article on this event, largely drawing on Nelson’s tome as my inspiration, who himself has done same with William Pepper and others. (This piece – The ‘Crucifixion’ of the Black Messiah — was published on my blog; see link below).
As a big fan of context and perspective in such matters, in response to the above piece I felt compelled to throw my hat into the ring in the service thereof. Firstly, below is a pertinent extract from my own piece. It includes what I originally had to say about the Washington Post article by Tom Jackman, the one that prompted the above piece by Dr William Pepper and Andrew Kreig.
Extract: ‘As with almost any significant event in U.S. history and the key players therein, the mainstream media – including many purported progressive, ‘liberal’ types – have proven themselves tireless gatekeepers inoculating their constituencies against that virulent infection called ‘truth’ for fear such a ‘pandemic’ will overwhelm the immune system of the republic. This is of course not just in the case of King’s assassination, but just about any key episode in that history where accounts differing from the official narrative are at best patronisingly reported, or relegated to the realm of conspiracy theory.
Indeed in his must view interview last year with James Corbett, William Pepper alluded to this reality. Preserving the secrets of the republic is as much, if not indeed more so, about protecting the reputations of individuals as it is about defending the ever so fragile integrity of ‘hallowed’ institutions, the Fourth Estate being one of these, along with the FBI, the Department of Justice (DoJ), the Congress, and of course the presidency itself, to name just a few that are especially relevant, nay vulnerable, in this instance.
In a recent Washington Post piece by one Tom Jackman, the title from the off gives us a hint of what to expect in this regard: “Who killed Martin Luther King Jr.? His family believes James Earl Ray was framed.” The perfunctory concession embodied in the title — that King’s family “believes” Ray was innocent – and the ensuing narrative ends up being somewhat removed from actually presenting any authentic detail that supports that belief, or offering anything that might invite readers to explore the matter further.
One also suspects that if it was any one other than the King family itself making these assertions, they’d have been ignored at best, or at worst, dismissed as conspiracy theorists. Jackman — in an apparent attempt to inject some balance and objectivity — cites David Garrow of all people, a ‘Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of MLK’. As Jackman tells it, Garrow viewed the King family in the same vein as those folks who ‘need to believe that the assassination of a King or a Kennedy must be the work of mightier forces’ rather than the victims “of small-fry, lifetime losers”‘, as if to suggest the victims of the assassinations in question were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As Jackman himself seems keen to emphasise (in the process seemingly holding up the Pulitzer winner as the go-to man on all things King), [Garrow] is all but dismissive of such folks’ thinking: In Garrow’s palpably condescending opinion, ‘People need to see something of a balance between effect and cause’, he observes….[That] ‘if something has a huge evil effect, it should be the result of a huge evil cause.’ For those of us who’ve examined the whole “conspiracy theory” construct, this is a familiar trope, one that is trotted out with monotonous – and not always helpful — frequency.’
Yet here is just one example of Phillip Nelson’s attention to detail in dismissing the likes of Garrow and other writers and authors of the King narrative, with Garrow himself a long way from being amongst the most egregious or negligent of those who’ve perpetuated and therefore solidified the official narrative. Whilst acknowledging Garrow’s ‘partial revelations’ of Hoover’s ‘malfeasance and assorted criminal acts’ in his and the FBI’s campaign against King, Nelson states that these revelations ceased after the assassination.
“‘He [Garrow] did not address the closing episode of King’s life; there is little reflection evident as to the forces that came to bear on King’s murder in Memphis within Garrow’s book, despite the intensive examination of them up until that point…. yet Garrow portrayed himself as the expert in later interviews on the subject. In not connecting anything he had examined up to 1968 with what happened next, he created a major disconnect.’” End Extract.
Secondly, I had written the above before I’d seen the Pepper/Kreig piece, itself originally published on Op Ed News a few days after my own. This gave me some pause in respect of my above observation (a measure of ‘writer’s remorse’ perhaps?), if only because it had Pepper’s name on it, and that maybe I had been a tad too harsh on Jackman. As a result, in the interests of fairness and balance, I felt obliged to add the following addendum to my own originally published piece. Here it is here for posterity.
My Addendum: ‘Although I’ll broadly stand by my observations in respect of the WashPost article, since the original published version of [my] piece, I’ve been persuaded (and herein duly acknowledge) that Jackman himself at least was successful in getting such a piece published in the Post at all, and that this was no mean achievement in and of itself. For his part, even Pepper himself acknowledges this “achievement” in a recent Op Ed News article (co-written by Andrew Kreig) called “The Washington Post’s ‘Breakthrough’ on the MLK Murder”. It’s even possible Jackman may have wanted to go further with his story, as there was as we now know plenty of room to do this. This being the case, there remains for me a lingering suspicion his editors at the WashPost — a newspaper that has done as much as any MSM marque to perpetuate the myths and lies surrounding King’s murder and those of his alleged killer — kept a tight rein on any ambitions he might’ve had in this respect.
For the Post itself, the Jackman penned article may represent something of the media equivalent of a ‘limited hangout‘. Again, the inverted commas attending the word “breakthrough” in the title would indicate Pepper and his co-author might’ve felt much the same way. We cannot know this of course. For the moment all we can do is give Jackman the benefit of any doubt in this respect. I for one though am disinclined to extend the same courtesy to the WashPost. Their track record allows for very little wriggle room herein. They’ve had fifty years to reflect on their own sins of omission and commission in respect of the cover-up in the King assassination, and the recent article by Jackman might be seen by many folks as being far too little, and far too late!’ End Addendum.
And finally, if that isn’t enough for folks, the following is what Phil Nelson (whose book incidentally has been given the unequivocal thumbs up by Pepper) said to me in a private email in response to the Washington Post article.
‘I think the reason Jackman’s article went as far as it did (even in a “limited” way at that) was that he had no real choice since the King family’s position has remained rather straightforward for at least the last 25 years, arguably even longer, at least the known doubts and suspicions–though not the glimmers of truth–were more like the entire 50 years. His use of Garrow’s opinion was undoubtedly put there to leaven the King’s POV and make sure that his words stood as the more accepted PC and “conventional wisdom.” Same with the statement from Barry Kowalski, about how their “thorough” investigation in 2000, “same as the four previous” was meant to do the same. The fact that this statement is patently inane, if not literally insane, has been proven “in spades” within my book, will hopefully one day become as widely known as that myth.
ALL of those investigations relied on the original myths commissioned by the FBI, begun even before the assassination, through the succession of novelists who created them: William Bradford Huie, Gerold Frank and George McMillan (and through the ensuing decades by Lamar Waldron, Gerald Posner, Hampton Sides etc.). Look at the HSCA Final and various MLK volumes and count the times they cited Huie’s original pack of lies and compare that to the number of citations to the much more truthful account of Harold Weisberg, written the same year (1970). (Though I haven’t made an actual count, I’m betting that it would be somewhere in the hundreds, through all the MLK volumes for Huie). ‘
Phil Nelson, via email, 8 April, 2018.’
William Pepper Interview (James Corbett)
https://www.corbettreport.com/william-pepper-reveals-the-plot-to-kill-king/
The ‘Crucifixion’ of the Black Messiah, by Greg Maybury
http://poxamerikana.com/2018/04/04/the-crucifixion-of-the-black-messiah/
Who REALLY Killed Martin Luther King Jr.? The Case Against Lyndon B. Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, By Phillip F. Nelson (Pub. Date.: 17 April, 2018)
Best to all,
Greg Maybury
Editor/Publisher,
poxamerikana.com
Martin Luther King was a good man, too good to keep around. I don’t believe that James Earl Ray killed MLK, that Sirhan Sirhan killed Bobby Kennedy, or that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK. You could see it in the face of Oswald. He wasn’t defiant, as someone who really hated Kennedy would have been. He was a scared little man who knew he was being railroaded by some very powerful forces.
Good on the King family and William Pepper for following the truth. Your books are on my “To Read” list. Thank you.
Dare we hope that the MSM will finally admit that the RFK and JFK Assassinations were both committed by the the Deep State. The autopsy of Bobby proves that he was shot at point blank range of 1.5 inches behind his right ear. All medical evidence proves that JFK was killed by two shots from the front. Consult Doug Horne, David Mantik and Charles Crenshaw on YouTube. Peter Dale Scott’s books are excellent.
The California Appeals Court should have a hearing based upon new evidence and grant Sirhan Sirhan a new trial while he is still alive. Write the court…
“The Polka Dot File” on the Robert F. Kennedy Killing -The Paris Peace Talks Connection- Fernando Faura
“The Polka Dot File is a gem of a read in thr field of RFK Assassination research.” James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable
I saw Tucker ladt night, great recap of that, b-e! Will be interesting to watch him tonight. Gorbachev was quoted on a couple of websites as being disappointed that Trump and Putin aren’t acting as diplomats such as in his day with Reagan, but at 87 years of age he just doesn’t understand the circumstances today are far different since Bush-Cheney started the world on “The Eve of Destruction” and he also doesn’t know enough about Israel’s influence on thr US.
Jessika – Tucker is getting braver and more knowledgeable every day. I don’t think Gorbachev realizes just how much Putin has been bending over backwards in order to cooperate. We’d all be nuked right now if he had a shallow ego and took offense. Geez, can’t Gorbachev see that Russia is being surrounded, that they’re being blamed for everything under the sun with absolutely no evidence, and yet Russia is still willing to have negotiations? And I think that Trump and Putin ARE in sync as far as what’s going on. It’s just that Trump can’t open his mouth and say it.
As the authors of the above article mentioned, if you disagree with the narrative, you are either labelled a “conspiracy theorist” or a “Putin lover” (or whoever the devil of the day is) or patted on the head and told you really don’t understand, that you’d better leave it in the hands of the good psychopaths roaming the D.C. landscape. Of course, they never want to divulge any evidence that would prove whether something actually did occur. You’re just supposed to believe them.
We can see this in Tucker’s exchange with Senator Wicker:
“Senator Roger Wicker: I’m very interested in the questions you’re asking about whether this is some sort of a hoax, or whether this poison gas attack really didn’t happen, was done by someone else.
Tucker Carlson: Well, I’m not suggesting that.
Senator Roger Wicker: That’s a question that Mr. Putin is asking. He has a right to ask it, and so do you. I find myself on the other side of that issue.
Tucker Carlson: I’m not sure I understand the implication of adding Putin to that equation.
Senator Roger Wicker: I’m just saying it’s a question that he’s asking.
Tucker Carlson: Slow down, Senator. That’s not relevant to why I asked the question, and I hope you’re not trying to impugn my motive by tying me to Putin, as so many on the Left do. Let me ask again: we were told a year ago that the Sarin gas attack in Syria was committed by regime forces, by Assad’s regime. We learned two months ago that we don’t really know that, that we were lied to about that. I would think as a U.S. Senator you would have an interest in getting to the truth because the truth matters, doesn’t it?
Senator Roger Wicker: I think it’s perfectly fine for someone in a position like you to ask that question.
Tucker Carlson: Why aren’t you asking the question?”
And so it goes.
Tucker Carlson said that before the U.S. goes to war in Syria, they ought to pass a brand new Constitutional amendment. He said, “Let’s call it the Lindsey Graham amendment, and here’s what it would say: Congress shall topple no government until it finishes rebuilding the last government it toppled. Furthermore, talk show generals shall be required to personally visit the battlefield of every war they advocate for.”
Right on point with his use of the word “toppled”. And, yes, if any war is declared, all generals should know that they and their sons and daughters need to be sent to the front lines ahead of anybody else. Then watch how the generals start choking on their words.
Great idea. Given Israel’s prime role in fomenting America’s wars, I’d suggest another new law, perhaps called “The JFK Election Safeguard Act”. It would require AIPAC to register as an agent of a foreign government, and achieve JFK’s goal of eliminating Israeli money from US elections.
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com/p/war-profiteers-and-jfk-assassination.html
Yes, yes and yes. And while we’re at it, how about we send nuclear inspectors into Israel. Every other country seems to have to comply, except Israel.
By the way, love the site you linked to. I got lost in it one night and could barely get out. Very interesting. I’ll have to revisit it again. Thanks.
Here is the link for the above Tucker Carlson video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCA6nd6Gyxw
Since my comment is in moderation (I don’t know why), I’ll post it again without the link:
Not all people in the mass media are bought. Last night Tucker Carlson had a great opening commentary re going to war with Syria. Of course, he has to tread a fine line, but he came as close to what we say here on a daily basis as anybody could get. It was wonderful to hear ONE member of the media doing their jobs and asking hard questions.
He then had on Senator Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi, and again, treading a fine line, kept asking the Senator what evidence he had that Assad was the one responsible for the chemical weapons attack last Saturday. Senator Roger Wicker then laughed and said that Tucker Carlson was asking the same questions as Putin is asking, implying that Carlson was on the side of Russia. The Senator said we had to protect Israel. Just another bought-and-paid-for, ass clown politician!
Then right after that he had on Theo Padnos, the journalist who was held hostage by Al Nusra for two years. He explained that there’s no way anyone can determine who did the chemical weapons attack in Syria because none of the inspectors can get close enough to the site to investigate it. He said if any journalists or inspectors go in that area, they’re liable to get their heads chopped off. So how is it we are so sure that Assad did it?
Have a listen. Carlson launches right in at the very beginning of the video. What he says is not being said on the other MSM sites. Great job, Tucker!
“The Senator said we had to protect Israel.”
Israel is America’s most deadly enemy because it has disguised itself as an ally. http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
Wow, that poxamericana.com article by Greg Madbury was great, Bob! Thank you, I’m glad to know that website. Great writing, perfect description of MSM as “praetorian guards of the empire’s liars”. Hoover and LBJ, a toxic mix…
Robert Parry really liked Greg, and Greg will carry on the heritage. As for me, I love the man!
Yes, I just started reading that Greg Madbury article, and didn’t get one minute into it when I read this:
“Dick Cavett: ‘A lot of people…were astounded at how you got [alleged assassin of Martin Luther King, James Earl] Ray to change the plea [from “not guilty” to “guilty”].’
Percy Foreman [Ray’s lawyer and LBJ crony]: ‘I didn’t get him to change the plea. [Laughing] I simply told him that I thought he would be executed if he didn’t.’”
Telling someone that you think they’ll be executed without pleading guilty isn’t getting him to change his plea? Of course it is.
Looking forward to reading the article. Thanks, Bob Van Noy.
Not all people in the mass media are bought. Last night Tucker Carlson had a great opening commentary re going to war with Syria. Of course, he has to tread a fine line, but he came as close to what we say here on a daily basis as anybody could get. It was wonderful to hear ONE member of the media doing their jobs and asking hard questions.
He then had on Senator Roger Wicker, Republican from Mississippi, and again, treading a fine line, kept asking the Senator what evidence he had that Assad was the one responsible for the chemical weapons attack last Saturday. Senator Roger Wicker then laughed and said that Tucker Carlson was asking the same questions as Putin is asking, implying that Carlson was on the side of Russia. The Senator said we had to protect Israel. Just another bought-and-paid-for, ass clown politician!
Then right after that he had on Theo Padnos, the journalist who was held hostage by Al Nusra for two years. He explained that there’s no way anyone can determine who did the chemical weapons attack in Syria because none of the inspectors can get close enough to the site to investigate it. He said if any journalists or inspectors go in that area, they’re liable to get their heads chopped off. So how is it we are so sure that Assad did it?
Have a listen. Carlson launches right in at the very beginning of the video. What he says is not being said on the other MSM sites. Great job, Tucker!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCA6nd6Gyxw
Tucker Carlson said that before the U.S. goes to war in Syria, they ought to pass a brand new Constitutional amendment. He said, “Let’s call it the Lindsey Graham amendment, and here’s what it would say: Congress shall topple no government until it finishes rebuilding the last government it toppled. Furthermore, talk show generals shall be required to personally visit the battlefield of every war they advocate for.”
Right on point with his use of the word “toppled”. And, yes, if any war is declared, all generals should know that they and their sons and daughters need to be sent to the front lines ahead of anybody else. Then watch how the generals start choking on their words.
I’m a big old lefty and I love Tucker Carlson. (Note: I am NOT a liberal. Ick!) Been a fan since he owned Adam Schiff in that great interview in Dec 2016–a shifty-eyed weasel if there ever was one–and then did the same to the contemptible, equally stupid and craven neocon Max Boot.
Carlson is the best interviewer in MSM TV-scape. Smart and fearless–and quite funny as well.
That said, he is a complete nut on the US-Mexican border.
Tucker was on a roll! On Fox News, no less.
The biggest dangers to our so-called democracy are the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI. This isn’t to say that a spy agency, another spy agency, and a national police force are, ipso facto evil. But the ones mentioned are. They have forfeited their ability to expect the trust of the society largely by virtue of violating the rules/laws that they are supposed to be constrained by. The CIA is an intelligence agency whose actual role is to gather information on other countries in the world. It is not supposed to operate in the United States. They are supposed to operate only outside the US. Yet they have operated inside the US. Furthermore, it is the Central Intelligence Agency. In fact, it has morphed into the Central Hit Squad Agency to assassinate foreign leaders who the US finds inconvenient and/or annoying. It has also morphed into the Central Department of Dirty Tricks Agency. This part of the agency disseminates fake information to mislead the country (Gulf of Tonkin “incident” and our friend Curveball with his Saddam’s WMDs are examples) and foment coups and other forms of “meddling” to use Obama’s phrase. The NSA as a premier cryptographic agency is fine but an agency that demands back doors into everybody’s software and which hoovers up American’s information and communications in clear violation of the Constitution and the law governing it’s intercepts is not. And what can you say about the FBI? Two words: secret police. Infiltrating protest groups and other legitimate assemblies of American citizens is the behavior of a police state, not a law enforcement group. Recruiting potential “terrorists”, training them in some form of terror attack, providing them with fake versions of the real explosives and incendiary devices, and then busting them when they try to execute the FBI designed terror attack has a name besides despicable, I’m sure, I just don’t know what it is. The FBI has been around longer so they have a much longer list of illegal wiretaps, surveillance, and other misuses of government power.
These are the guys that cost us our democracy, not 13 trolls a-tweeting in St. Petersburg or even Cambridge Analyica who did actually “meddle” in our election. You may know them as the deep state.
The laws, and their criminal enforcers, the police and government hit squads are the real enemies of the people. If only they would wake up and realize that the real oppressors are among us. We are a slave population, which has been taught to not notice their enslavement. Land of the free, my ass!
Yes, the secret agencies are out of control by the people, but their directors are appointed by the oligarchy that controls our mass media, elections, and utterly corrupt judiciary, who have indeed “cost us our democracy”.
WaPo may have run this story to distract from the Israeli massacre/CW false-flag/air attack on their neighbors.
Sam F. Exactly. And they don’t care how many people know or complain about it.
(I see another person on this page irritated about the “moderation”. The culprit is the out-of-control Spam-o-meter at CN Central. Fixing it should be their top priority).
Jeff, you are correct as far as you go. But the CIA, FBI, and NSA are mere tools. Follow the money to find their owners. e.g. http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
You are, of course, correct to point to the follow the money trail. I just don’t think that we’ll get enough of the 99% to take up pitchforks and torches….
I also definitely noticed that Pepper’s long research and books were completely ignored by last week’s media discussions even with reference to any look at revision of King’s assassination by only Ray. So to me, it seemed media would only go so far but would not cross a line of giving people detailed info that William Pepper’s books would provide. Is that because they get their “marching orders”? And as for NPR, i quit listening to them when they became the echo chamber about “butcher” Assad along with BBC, that virulent Lise Doucette! I’ll read my news instead of getting it from Babble-On, thank you.
Jessika there was a significant article at Journal NEO, which interestingly, suffered a denial of service attack. The article by Greg Maybury, was an extended piece like the one at OffGuardian. That article is elegant and the links are great, see it at. http://poxamerikana.com
Good for the Washington Post.
But I’d read the Pepper book and seen interviews with him.
Guessing this article by Pepper is the new CN editor’s doing, but there was that article about a week ago about MLK and a conspiracy to kill him that completely ignored Pepper. I’m certainly not the only party that noticed at the time.
I haven’t read any of Pepper’s books on the subject, but they’re “on the list”. I, like Zachary, am wondering why a propaganda rag like the WaPo would publish this article. Is it some vain attempt to lend themselves some credibility and get more people to think they are more than a Bezos’ owned CIA mouthpiece? If so, it is a dangerous ploy. Once people question one “official narrative”, what’s to keep them from questioning others, including today’s psy-ops regarding the Skripal poisoning, the Syrian gas attack, RussiaGate, and all the rest? Surely the WaPo will continue to toe the line on these.
Skip Scott if you see the interview with Mr. Pepper at the Corbett Report he answers that question as, I think something has changed. note: I didn’t quote that, because that is how I remember his response and I might be wrong.
Bob-
Thanks, I just checked out the interview. He very lightly touches on the change at the WaPo, and seems to imply some internal struggle in the paper, and that maybe Bezos is tugging on his leash a bit. I hope he’s right, but Bezos taking a $600m contract with the CIA makes me doubt it.
I was also troubled by Pepper’s claim that Russia has no problem resorting to assassinations, and that we use them only as a last resort. I have yet to see any assassination in Russia that was proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be state sponsored. I wonder if Pepper knows something I don’t, or if he has bought into the MSM narrative on that one.
Check with Economic Hitman Perkins on the role of “jackals” to take care of uncooperative heads of state by the US Gov. They admittedly tried over three hundred times to nail Castro.
I agree. I would caution anyone not to rely on the Washington Post, NYT, NPR, PBS or any of the other “respectable, liberal” media outlets for real, truthtelling journalism.
Yes, WaPo may have run this story to distract from the Israeli massacre/CW false-flag/air attack.
Israel does have a lot of crimes to cover up. e.g.
“Israeli sniper films shooting of unarmed Palestinian through rifle scope– and celebrates”
http://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/shooting-palestinian-celebrates/
Another new book “Erasing The Liberty” The battle to keep alive the memory of Israel’s massacre on the USS Liberty…
Again use bookfinders.com
Occasional truth-telling is good strategy. The mainstream media has to get it right sometimes – there has to be some way for the thinking folks to let off steam, get together with one another and discuss and reverently collect these truth-telling moments, fume and comfort each other. It hasn’t mattered one whit (yet) that we know the truth about JFK, RFK, MLK, Lennon, etc etc etc etc. If the mainstream doesn’t tell the folks at home not only the truth but point and say *this* is important, the truth can comfortably sit there like a lonely old man on a park bench. And if we start passionately *collecting* such truth tidbits, even from entirely mainstream sources, well then we’re conspiracy theorists!
When a criminal conspiracy is perpetrated by the highest levels of government and the “justice” system, it is very difficult to penetrate the wall of lies they erect around their crimes. Given that they are mainly concerned with fooling a public that has already been conditioned from childhood to trust and obey authority, however, they inevitably become sloppy and careless in fabricating their lies – so that a careful investigator can uncover their plots. Nevertheless, getting the hoodwinked public to waken from their propaganda induced trance of unknowing is an almost impossible task.
Well stated. One thing the oligarchy did not foresee is the internet with websites like Consortium News. Their complete control of the mainstream media allowed them to withhold mountains of evidence from the public. Now that evidence is available, and gradually making its way into the general awareness. It seems to me a good introduction for skeptical people newly interested in that buried evidence is at http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
I think JWalters, that the new really damaging information coming out right now is because the latest investigators, building on the life-time and life threatening research of pioneers like Mr. Pepper started to shine a bright light on the disinformation specialists and discovered that their work could not be substantiated and thus fell apart. A brilliant insight…
@Bob Van Noy – Where can I get the Merton book? (In case you did not see my query above.)
Mike I use bookfinder.com regularly.
Thanks Bob. Got it ordered. It always seemed a strange accident with Merton. And he was on a roll at that time, moving more and more into a universal spirituality beyond all sectarianism. Strange time for God to call him Home?
Indeed mike k, he had a significant following and was an excellent scholar, if had come out opposed to the War, he might have made an important difference.
I’d say without a doubt.
For those in the above thread: when we are finally able to tally those who died, famous and totally innocent, the number alone will be stunning…
An Act Of State, The Execution Of Martin Luther King
https://www.c-span.org/video/?160769-1/an-act-state-execution-martin-luther-king
Great video Mild-ly – Facetious, I hadn’t seen that. Thank you.
Mild-y:
Okay, but that’s a William Pepper book covering much of his work through the 1990s.
It overlaps significantly with his book “The Plot to Kill King”.
The parts of this I don’t understand are how the King family can be so certain and why they’d nail down their position on “innocent Ray”. I found the wiki for James Earl Ray to be really, really shallow, but there was the rifle, the witnesses, and the fingerprints. Not to mention the confession. Unless a tale of waterboarding is introduced, I’m going to accept the confession until there is some powerful evidence and motives produced for anything besides Ray wanting to avoid execution. The involvement of the Washington Post amazes me, and I can’t even guess what the motive of that rag would be in this case, but I doubt if it’s a good one. Distract from Syria? From RussiaGate? From the Skripals? From Gaza?
If I were to assign any blame to Big Government, I’d suspect the agencies involved suppressed any and all evidence related to powerful people who might have been involved with (possibly) recruiting and paying Ray. Those people would be under their thumb(s) for the remainder of their lives.
If the Powers That Be had wanted King dead, they had a great many techniques available to them besides a rifle shot in broad daylight.
So put me down in the “critic” section on this story.
There was no confession. The rifle was dropped on the street ten minutes before the shooting. The witness who claimed to see Ray in the boarding house was so drunk he could not stand on his feet. Fingerprints? The transcript of the 1999 civil trial led by Pepper appears on the King family website, with the testimony of 70 witnesses.
Highly recommend reading Pepper’s The Plot to Kill King. It won’t settle everything about the assassination, and it is profoundly upsetting in many ways, but it does put to rest the question of whether Ray was the assassin.
Zachary, it seems to me this article wasn’t intended to lay out the evidence on the assassination, but to discuss the actions of the news media regarding the case. For a great presentation of the evidence see
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1272-william-pepper-reveals-who-really-killed-mlk/
Research Hoover’s Division Five hit squad and his racist hatred for blacks.
You need to do your own research and get away from the lies of the government/media complex! In Rays case as in every other case where a “lone gunmen” allegedly assassinated someone, the “evidence” provided by the government is like a prosecutors brief with NO cross examination for the American public to digest! The government always counts on MOST Americans to just accept what it declares without doing any critical leg work! That’s reality! If you can’t read REAL documented stories about what happened in Memphis, you are no better than a robot taking orders.
Thank you ,Thank you, Thank you! And this is published right here at the best Real Journalism Site on the web. A very personal and public appreciation to You William Pepper. You are at the very top of what I believe a true American Patriot should be. It has been my privilege to read your progress through this case for many years, through thick and thin. I literally can’t say enough. To see this honesty in the face of vast injustice is something that I had nearly given up on. Congratulations to you and Andrew Kreig.
Now it’s on to Bobby…
I just received “The Martyrdom Of Thomas Merton” An Investigation, was he another Assassination Of The Dreadful Year 1968?
Who is the publisher of this book? Amazon is reluctant to sell it. Wonder why?
mike k, the publisher is McCabe Publishing, Hyattsville, Maryland.
https://www.amazon.com/Martyrdom-Thomas-Merton-Investigation/dp/1548077380
Bob, I wholeheartedly agree. And for those who haven’t seen it, there is a spectacular interview with William Pepper on his book, “The Plot to Kill King: The Truth Behind the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr” He covers the assassination and coverup, including media control, and their relation to events today and through history.
https://www.corbettreport.com/interview-1272-william-pepper-reveals-who-really-killed-mlk/
The most plausible motive for King’s assassination was indeed his potential to rally people against the Vietnam war. His case fits perfectly into a pattern of major criminal acts that are covered up by a thoroughly controlled mainstream media. Overwhelming evidence for this pattern, including the so-called “War on Terror”, the 9/11 attack, the JFK assassination, and the bank behind them, is succinctly presented in “War Profiteer Story”
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
With the incessant attacks on the criminal oligarchy in the alternative media, cracks are starting to appear in the mainstream media. Perhaps Jeff Bezos has decided he doesn’t want to be part of the next round of Nuremberg trials.